"A corpse is a corpse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a corpse, of course, But I can talk to a corpse, of course, 'Cause, I've got speak with dead!"

I once used prestidigitation to change the color of the air between a captured enemy and a jar, closed the jar, and then told the man I’d stolen his soul and I’d only give it back if he told us what we wanted to know. It worked well!

3:28 - Charm Person (1st level) - honorable mention: Charm Monster (4th level) 6:36 - Zone of Truth (2nd level) 8:21 - Detect Thoughts (2nd level) 10:58 - Suggestion (2nd level) - honorable mention: Dominate Person (5th level) 14:04 - Disguise Self (1st level) - honorable mention: Modify Memory (5th level)

So here was my play, which I thought was pretty clever and worked out well: a) Detect thoughts b) Tell them we already got a comrade to crack so now we know what all their greatest fears were. (their mind goes directly to their own fear) c) minor illusion to dangle that thing above their head (in our case it was a skeleton that was afraid of being crushed to death so an anvil illusion worked pretty well). d) ask nicely

Not a spell, but an often overlooked method of interrogations: Alcohol. Lots and lots of Alcohol.

If the interrogation fails, you can always take a piece of hair and let the prisoner escape unintentionally... Then cast scry after it goes back to its base of operations..

Disguise self is also available to Warlocks through a use of Invocation "Mask of many faces".

Your comment about lower level goons not knowing the plan reminds me of the line from the movie Total Recall, Richter: But, I thought... Vilos Cohaagen: [interrupting] Who told you to THINK? I don't give you enough information to THINK! You do as your told. THAT'S WHAT YOU DO!

Enhance Ability is a massive upgrade to Charm Person. You give yourself or an ally advantage on all charisma checks for an hour. You don't need to worry about charm immunity and saving throws, and it is completely undetectable. You can cast it on the party face before going into any social setting. It is only second level and is available to clerics, sorcerers, bards and druids.

Detect Thoughts as a Great Old One Warlock feels so good to roleplay out. You can probe into someone's mind while you speak to them telepathically.

I only need two spells, disintegrate and revive, but lots of them.

I once used Ceremony (I was a Paladin) to trick a high ranking religious individual that I was about to dedicate her to the service of a god she considered to be blasphemous. It took a lot of Deception, some thematic thaumaturgy and prestidigitation from my fellow party members for ambiance and effect, as well as plenty of ranting from our party Cleric to sell it but right before the hour was up she cracked. The best part is that the Ceremony would have never worked since she wasn't willing.

I’m about to start in a campaign where I play a spy bard and was just about to start picking my spells. This was clutch timing!

Modify Memory could also be used to make the target think that an equal exchange of information has taken place or that you successfully deceived/persuaded them

Not in D&D, but still on the subject of interrogation : In our Mage the Ascension campaign, our group managed to get hold of a high ranking prisonner that is kinda immune to Mind Magick, but who has some information we need. We do have some time though. So one girl came with this idea : we'll just gonna let him rot in his cell, and she's gonna use Life Magick to block his endorphine and dopamine secretion in his system, making him effectively depressed kinda permanently, and then, she'll come by each day to give him food and be friendly with him, and when she does, she's gonna use Life Magick again to give him a little boost of those hormones and then block them again as she leaves... Basically, this guy is only gonna be able to feel somewhat happy when she's there... Which leads to her becoming a friend, and then him giving her what we need... I feel really bad for the guy, but that's ingenious af =D

Had a party capture 3 hobgoblin skirmishers. Took away hobgoblin 1 for interrogation. He didn't break. Party member uses disguise self to look like a half dead tortured version of said hobgoblin. Returned him to the cell with the other two. He wouldn't say anything to the other two, just huddled on the far side of the cell from them sobbing in the corner. He coughed out a few ballberrings and kicked them away with clear fear in his body language. They then take hobgoblin 2 in for questioning. Party force feeds him a bag of ballberrings. Had the death domain cleric explain death would not be coming this night and cast hear metal on a berring left out. Didn't ask him a damned thing and returned him unharmed to the cell. Pulled out 3 after 2 induced vomiting to get out the herrings. Tortured the help out of 3 and the party let it slip 2 squealed in seconds (acting like they were betting on who would break). Sent back 2 and retrieved 1. Let 3 and 2 argue in their cell. The questions 3 asked 2 told us everything they thought was important to hide. The answers didn't mean as much as knowing the right questions to use speak with dead on.

Playing an 11th level Warlock and didn't have any of these spells. I did however have Major Illusion, Dream and Eyebite. We had captured a spy from a deeply religious country and needed information but didn't really know much about what was happening. So I sent the target a hostile dream consisting of the stereotypical visage of his god holding its holy symbol. I sent a message something like, "I am displeased with you, I will send my emissary.". The following morning I used Major illusion to make a portal open, change the terrain a little in the prison cell and then had the emissary come through. I then cast eyebite, let the emissary wait a minute and started the questioning. My trained deception was great for this as I could ask open ended questions and got tonnes of info. :)

One incredibile combination i found is using Speak with Dead and then cast Zone of Truth. The targer of Speak with Dead has to answer but can lie, while a target with Zone of truth can't lie but can decide not to speak. So if you have problems with a target you can just finish him and use this. Its a bit heavy on the spell slot, but if you want answers there is no better combo.

This is how I interrogate. I walk in and say nothing. I pull 5 chopped up bodies out of my bag of holding. If he still has not talked I cast danse macabre. I now have 5 zombies standing before the victim. I then command the zombies to eat him. Limbs first of course.

My favorite interrogation I've done is when my character, a bard, took out his earnings, which where just bent nails, and put them in the ear lobes of the enemy. Then I used heat metal

Getting answers is easy... Getting the truth [dramatic pause] is what my profession is all about. - some badass inquisitor

Just had a thought watching this, building on team effort, cast hex and choose charisma for the ability check with dissadvantage. Helps with insight rolls contesting the deceptions. Then throw in an enhance ability of owls wisdom and that's one hell of a role off

You could also pull some nasty tricks with Dream, now that I think about it.

Soul Cage is pretty damn solid as a high level interrogation tool when you can spare the details. Perhaps not the most savory tactic, but it guarantees true and complete (if brief) answers to up to six questions, and there's no permanent damage to the soul- if you're the sort to worry about that kind of thing. There is that whole issue of needing to kill them, but that's pretty likely anyhow if we're being honest.

'Cardinal Fang! Get the comfy chair!'

While cantrips are sometimes harder to come by than spells, the Friends cantrip is almost identical to Charm Person for the purposes of interrogation, and since cantrips can be gotten on non-spellcasters in a variety of ways, you can use it even if you're more of a fighter or barbarian.

Should the party have more than one prisoner they can use the "prisoners dilemma" to exert more pressure. Don't be shy in lying that prisoner #1 has already started to tell all and only by spilling secrets /now/ will prisoner #2 be spared.

"I'd like to cast Waterboarding at 3rd level."

Possible Ideas: Zone of Truth, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Disguise Self, Charm Person, Geas, Phantasmal Force, Glibness, Heat Metal, Witchbolt, Flame Sphere, hmmm...

I feel like a paladin casting Hold Person, plus a wizard using Vampiric Touch/Enervation, plus a cleric to bring them back could be pretty useful

Played a paladin with Zone of truth and Command. Cast Zone of truth waited till the tied up prisoner failed save, then had a party member ask a question before casting Command with a one word order: "Answer".

How about: Zone of truth + Command (answer). They're in the zone of truth, and MUST answer. It's open to the "harms way" counter argument, but I'd say this is an over interpretation of the rules. The "Harms way" caveat is there to avoid making enemies suicide in one way or the other.

I'm really always looking forward to a new Five Spells! Good work with these!

I like Speak with Dead. Pretty reliable way to ask 5 questions and get truthful answers, though watch out for a DM willing to twist your words.

I never noticed the "Penny for your thoughts" detail in Detect Thoughts - I love it!

As a fiend warlock I've found as my groups go to interrogator the spell command and the word cooperate is always my go to for answers

It is something minor but I noticed it right away. Technically, your suggestion can be up to two sentences. Great videos. Thanks.

Thank you so much for this vid! I have been dealing with writers block related to this topic and you guys gave me a new perspective.

While I liked the spells listed here as great sources of getting information out of someone, there was one thing that kinda stuck out to me. You guys mentioned that players "tortured" NPCs to get information out of them. In D&D games that I've played, I've never had anyone in my party that was of good alignment torture someone. Having said that, I did have one DM who saw that a player was going that route, and asked, "What's your alignment?" When the reply came back as Lawful Neutral, they said, "Ok, continue." I think it's worth letting players know before they go that far that they should consider their alignment, and if they do it anyways, that would shift it downwards towards being evil. Having said all that, I did have a Aasimar Paladin of Conquest who used to be Lawful Evil. Even after an alignment shift to Lawful Neutral, I used their special aura along with fear tactics to cause psychic damage while demanding answers without ever physically touching the target. After all, how can they claim that they were tortured without physical injuries? In that case, Channel Divinity: Conquering Presence, the spell Fear, and Necrotic Shroud became ways I got information out of someone using intimidation. And when I was pressed for time, such tactics made me think of how Batman usually made criminals talk just to get to where he needed to be to stop whomever said criminal worked for.

The party got mad at me that I wouldn't let them execute the goblins after the interrogation. IRL I was an Army Interrogator for ten years. We played a lot of role playing games.

Inflict wounds, blight, bestow curse, soul cage, revivify.

So, this is an evil one that I came up with and used in a session downtime. My gnome was being interrogated for info, and gave the interrogators vague and clever answers. Then the cleric came in and cast Zone of Truth. The interrogators asked the same questions again, with the threat that every time an answer didn't match, my gnome would get beaten and hurt. The evilness of this is two-fold. First, it makes a character know when and how they're about to get hit and builds that fear and dread because they know what they lied about. Second, the more clever the character was during the first part of the interrogation before Zone of Truth was used, the worse it's going to go for them during the second part *and they'll know it the second they realize what's happening.* I wrote this in a downtime blurb and it made everyone else at the table determined to never let their characters be taken prisoner when I'm running the game :)

Awesome and insightful DnD tips video, Dungeon Dudes! Especially the real world mention! This segment opens doors into creative possibilities with getting to the truth! Kudos! A Keeper!

I have never played a deception type of character, i was always a DPS kind of class and thinker or a tank type, but this sort of thing really makes me want to play those sorts of characters

Thank you for the great ideas!!!

Had a really niche use of Disguise Self not too long ago. Bit of Backstory. The current campaign I'm in is abour 4 sessions in (and we JUST hit lvl 3) and one of the party members is a vampire (we knew this relatively early on as Metagame knowledge). The warlock I am playing had a backstory as Intel-Specialist of sorts for a mercenary guild and relatively quickly picked up on the idea smth is wrong, especially since the vampire started acting strange around a PC he didn't get along with previously. So in order to try and get more Information out, my warlock disguised as the vampire to try and lure that other PC into giving out more information. Shame it didn't work out the way I had planned it, but it's definitely a fun spell

In one of our first sessions of this campaign, we used Prestidigitation to imitate the sound of screaming in the next room while the... ahem... interviewees were waiting their turn to be "tortured." Fear of the unknown, anticipation, and a good cop/bad cop routine between the sorcerer and the warlock worked wonders. Of course, now I have Suggestion, so that'll help.

Feels great to have these spells neatly listed and explained. Even though most everyone should know by now,glad you 2 still made the 📹😁😎🎉

this was a great one, guys. thanks.

Cool ideas & great video! I'll have to remember these ideas for the future.

Im running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist currently and these thoughts will come in handy for sure throughout the entire campaign.

I feel like phantasmal force could be used to a somewhat similar effect as disguise self? Idk, it’s not a very common spell as far as I’ve seen, but I’ve used it quite a bit with my Dao Genie patron Warlock

My researcher in a Curse of Strahd campaign has often used magic to assist in interrogation. Detect Thoughts is a great spell, but hands down my favorite interrogation tactic has been Tasha's Hideous Laughter. Ultimately harmless, but an easy way to make the target feel powerless and like I have complete control over them. Couple with the fact that I can read their thoughts, and it has made even a hardened spy utterly break down.

My party combines Disguise Self and Speak With the Dead. You only get five questions, so we decide what we’re going to ask in advance, but we literally get to “shoot first and ask questions later.”

So far a choice between "travel ration" or "agonising blast" has been pretty effective for us in our current campaign. But admittedly the BBEG is a currently (we suspect he's middle management) a liche of the "I have your children hostage, work for me or else" variety, so his mortal servants tend to spill the beans first chance them get. A rather literal "cake or death" choice. :-P

Great ideas!

I needed this. I have a major NPC that is a bard/informant for the mafia in our campaign. This will help a lot!

My favorite tactic is to use *Prestidigitation* to create some fancy magical effect, poke them between the eyes, and then convince them that if they lie... their head will explode. Obviously this wont work with a more intelligent or magic savvy opponent but it has worked for me many times when dealing with minions.

This is great and real eye opener/Perspective change

My favourite interaction with Zone of Truth is Cloud of Daggers (the one that spawns daggers that do 4d4 piercing damage per round for as long as they remain within the cloud). If the creature stays in the space, they take damage and if they stay they take damage. You can then pressure the NPC to speak since Zone of Truth does not compel them to speak, but being repeatedly stabbed might.

My favoured Interrogation method is Delayed Blast Fireball. You have exactly one minute to tell us what we want to know, or else you take 22d6 fire damage.

Loved it. Specially the rescue with Disguise Self. That's the kind of thing that would make me proud of my players!

An idea only now just popped into my head: Information gathering spells. IE spying, espionage, that sort of thing

I used some well timed guidance spells and carefully crafted script before we started and I think we were able to pull it off.

Thanks for the guide, Dudes, perhaps it will come in handy one day :>

If you have a bard and an artificer(lvl 11) you can use bardic inspiration + guidance + flash of genius on a persuasion roll that has expertise. That's a combined roll+18+1d4+1d8. That's an average of roll + 25. That's assuming 20's in charisma and intelligence in the needed characters. We used that on a extremely hard roll we had, that our DM put a DC=40. We also used advantage. We rolled 16, for a total of 41. Impossible things can be accomplished

These look handy :) Im sure gonna use some of them!

Recently played in a campaign where I played a Knowledge Domain Cleric. I was an interigator that liked his job a little too much and this video was quite the useful resource. My favorite moment was when I kept one of the enemies alive after a fight to question. The DM was playing the enemy very resistant to my questions and kept resisting my spells, so I used my Channel Divinity to become proficient in some nearby blacksmith tools and used those to torture the info out of him (I was lawful evil).

Another option would be "Heat Metal". Put something metalic on the thing you want to question for example hand cuffs and use as necessary. I also thought about using prestidigitation and raising the cuffs by 1 degree every 6 seconds and continue until they start being truthfull.

i once played a tempest cleric and would alternate between zapping the prisoner to death and spare the dying. With some "I''m going to deny you access to the afterlife" sprinkled in between.

-inflict wounds -heat metal -revive -shocking grasp -zone of truth

I have a player who uses presdigitation to make food super spicy then feed it to the person they need info from.

I could see using detect thoughts, disguise self (or even better, changeling), and some kind of torture spell to disguise yourself as the person you're interrogating and making them think they're going mad and pry that way.

My favorite is to damage them and heal them. That’s my brute way. Force so much pain and not allow them the sweet release of being unalived. But that’s also the last stage after doing all you can to get unaltered info so they don’t just say stuff to make it stop

In 2e you could haste anyone, no text about being willing or even a saving throw (although understandably the dm could definitely make a house rule to add saving throws to an unwilling creature), and age them a year. I think that would be a pretty fun idea to use against a captured player.

How about waterboarding with healing potion?

You could use suggestion to tell them to return straight to the home base, commander, thing you are trying to find etc. and follow them there. Escaping and returning to home is probably a pretty good idea to them. Keep your spider familiar on their shoulder or your bird flying overhead to relay directions to you. I love being a wizard.

My PC, our party face, interrogated a captive in a campaign we're playing shortly after one of their allies killed a fellow party member. They didn't say a word and mocked us, who were already sore from the recent events. I didn't have detect thoughts or suggestion which was exactly why I'm getting both of those spells in my following levels so it's a growing point for my PC lol

Prestidigitation on some vodka to taste like water and wait untill they are drunk. That can really lower the DC of the intimidation/persuasion checks

Disguise Self is my favorite option. One single spell instead of the other 4 that could not work. I am doing a bard with the Actor feat, so I can mimic anyone's sound, have adv checks on performance and deception, and I intend to buy a Hat of Disguise so I don't waste any spell slots and I can use it as many times a day I want.

Lay on hands is pretty good too. Not a spell, but constantly reviving someone by 1 hit point with the hands that will continue to choke the life from their body is terrifying.

Heeeeey I love your list ideas. Can we got a top 5 combat mobility/tank/evasion spells?

I've had one moment where we tried to beat answers out of an enemy and it didn't work so we knocked him out and dumped him in the woods, no weapons with my forge domain clerics light hammer and I cast locate object on the hammer while he used it to fight his way back to the enemy base we were trying to find and we literally just followed him from 800 feet back

Ah yes, the good ole Geneva Checklist… I do remember using my Aberrant Mind Sorcerer’s Subtle spell to use detect thoughts on a cultist after we infiltrated the cult. The DM did not see that coming.

I hate Detect Thoughts, not for the reason most people think. 90% of the time they will spend half the session interrogating the guard who knows NOTHING! And never on the guy who will give them what they need to know.

I found a simple Mold Earth cantrip pretty effective for interrogation. I just buried the captive alive for half a minute and after that he gladly answered all my questions...

For the more nefarious of us, Dream can be a very nice spell in this case. Proventing sleep and probing them during the time they are the most vulnerable. Scary stuff.

My best interrogation，up to now, is that I once hold the orc chief upside down just above a 700 ft cliff, with the lair of an ancient dragon(and two dragons,the ancient one and one of our party member which is the daughter of the dragon)down there, the guy instantly gave up.

My players used a combination of Zone of Truth and Command. The cleric cast Zone of Truth, but the doppleganger being interrogated kept evading the questions, so the warlock cast Command and just said "Confess!". I thought it was really creative, so I had him confess, even though I still might have been able to make him "confess" something else instead. :)

My first character was a great old one warlock that liked to try and deceive people that he was on their side using his telepathy. Pretending to be a secret agent on their side or a sympathetic would be ally that has his own plans to thwart the other PCs

Wow that disguise self story is amazing

Love the idea as they are core to info gathering. My thoughts (take them as you like cause not just interrogation but info gathering) Fey pact Warlock - I know not a spell but Fry Presence lets you charm (/frighten)with out the (as written) charm person downside of hostility afterwards. (Some dm day it is just a feeling and others may decide it is a visible effect - cheek with your dm). By the way if you have the helpless minion there and you frighten them and a person with higher social skills plays “good cop” you may also get some positive effects (dm approval and resolution of course) Charm with some dm issue - if you are a Sorcerer with high Social skills (or expertise ) you can Charm with Subtle spell ask your dm is that will remove the downside for friends cantrip and Charm Person. Zone of truth is at a point of your choosing so you can make sure the target has to tell the truth while the person talking can lie. It is a common rl cop technique and with magic works 👍 great. My last point is if a person is expertise in social skills then I say always think twice about allowing skills to not get info. Historically Nazi officers found the best way to get info WAS talking more the actual physical attacks or truth drugs. US officers found the same vs trained officers in the Cold War. Just a thought even if this is a fantasy world. Keep up the good work

All you really need to get advantage is for the barbarian and the bard to team up as good cop bad cop and some really good RP.

Running Tyrany of Dragons right now, and we just took out the green wyrmapeaker at 11th level. Honestly, the best way we found to interrogate people is to not let them know you are the enemy. We found a book detailing the common greetings of the cult of the dragon, and acquired some robes from those we killed. So now whenever we want to talk to someone, we just nonchalantly walk in with our cult garb, give the hand sign, and say "hi, we are the messengers from severin." If who we need information from is out at the time, we play some dice games with the other cultists and none seem the wiser. Works. Every. Time.

Our group captured 2 cultists right after the battle in Greenest in HotDQ. Both were uncooperative & my Gunslinger pulled out his gun and blew away 1 of them. Intimidation ✔ w/ advantage, 2nd guy instantly started talking. Violence never fails on lackeys!

Of course, if you don’t have spells, all you need is a chair or table (a good sized pole or tree would work too), rope, leatherworkers tools, poisoners kit (with supplies to make various things such as a truth serum), and good intimidation and persuasion checks. Other tool kits optional.

i used to play trickster cleric who casted zone of truth in taverns and inn before going to sleep. good times

These go a lot better with some assistance, as one of my players showed me last year... Before she used her Charm Person she had the bard cast Bane and the warlock cast Hex with the chosen stat being Wisdom. Suddenly the target has a penalty of 1d4 to their roll AND disadvantage on the roll, making resisting other spells far less likely.

What do you think of mind sliver on the prisonner before casting suggestion , charm person, detect tought,etc?

A paladin combination I’ve found worked well is zone of truth plus using command to make them “answer”. If you have one key piece of information (such as who committed the murder in my game) that can be very effective