Divination and you.

[Ranting Fool]

Random question for all you out there in the Playground. How is Divination magic handled/used in your games?

Mine is very RAW for players, if they have X spell then they can use it. But then they've never had very high level access to divination magic. Best they've had is Commune (level 5)

But I've had a lot of NPC's who have rather vague powers. Partly spells the PC's can ask them to cast (hire an NPC divination wizard to help find out about the BBEG or some such) and partly vague powers with a lot of DM handwaving "There is a great danger to the east! PC's please go off and see what it is, all I know is that there will be X danger to face before you know the truth" so NPC seers used as plot devices as a reason to send PC's off to random places.

And once I had a favoured soul gnome who, well... thought he was the Son of a God.... not sure which. He was gnomish but then with Gods and Dragons shagging everything these days it doesn't really narrow it down. And he often had rather heated arguments with unseen angels/demons... though he could have just been totally Mad (The PC's never did find out so I never had to decide :smallbiggrin:)

I often make a note to tell the PC's that anything to do with what "might" happen in realtion to an NPC is always vague as "The future isn't set in stone" since I like to give them free will :smalltongue:

So what do you do? Good uses? Bad uses? ignore the whole lot?

[Hawkings]

I've always kept away from divination in my games because I don't understand it.

One of my DMs used it to such an extent that anyone with divination was nigh godlike in knowing things about the PCs. Come to think of it two of my previous DMs explained NPC meta knowledge through divination spells, but I've yet to find any that descriptions seemed very useful beyond easy spying on people and being an over all creeper.

[vrigar]

I think divination is best used to throw the group back on track. When they are completely lost (for some reason an orc paladin didn't make the impression you were aiming for) and their best ideas amount to waiting in the tavern for something to happen you can suggest a little divination and make the rhyme rather obvious.
If they get tired of thinking and start abusing it make the rhymes more obscure and after a while change the group.
This relates to Augury style divination and not the obviously useful Detect Magic style divination.

[Slipperychicken]

I don't use future-prediction magic in most of the games I play in, because I know the DM didn't prepare the setting enough for it to work. However, I would use it with an organized DM.

Same goes for the other Divinations. It only helps if the DM prepared useful things for you to see (beyond campaign essentials, I mean) and is willing to reward preparation. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. I've been considering spamming Divinations to get my DM to start preparing this information in advance.


Sadly, this means I have yet to cast Corpse Candle (SpC, Sorc/Wiz 3) in a game. I love that spell. It reveals everything. I want to have it up all day every day (one of few ways to deal with nonmagical Hiding). Maybe a continuous item or seven...

[Telok]

Sadly my players won't even use divinations.

After Detect Magic and Identify they ignore the whole thing until it's time to start scry & die tactics. Unfortunately once they start down that road they never bother to invest in anti-scrying anything. So the first time the enemy uses scry & die the party gets stomped. Two campaigns ended that way.

Currently I've given them a daily use Augury effect. Not only will they not use it, but they would sell it if they could (it's attached to the sorcerer's familiar). Plus there have been four Augury scrolls in loot so far, except that three were used by the monsters and the last was in a shaman's room that they didn't search.

When they start messing with people who can cast higher than 3rd level spells I'll drop a few more hints.

[Mnemnosyne]

Divinations are funky in that properly used they should give you foreknowledge of events, but we the players (including the DM) don't have knowledge of those events to give. The only way the divination can work is if the DM seriously railroads the players.

After considering the problem and asking similar questions myself, I think my solution tends to be, if I can't answer a divination accurately, I give the best guess I can. Then, I essentially note down a 'divination token' for the party, noting what they asked, how I answered, and what they did because of that answer. If I later turn out to have answered wrong, they can then alter their actions to match what the real answer should have been.

For example, if someone is using divinations to prepare the right spells, and I had no idea they'd take a completely unexpected detour and run into an army of undead when they had memorized primarily enchantment spells, I'd let them switch out all those enchantment spells, as if the divinations had informed them they would be likely to fight undead.

I basically do things in a similar manner for my NPC's. Decide what divinations they cast, and for each one, I give them a sort of 'retroactive change' token that they can use to prepare something based on the answer to a divination.

I never throw in powers that the PC's can't understand if they choose to. I might fiat up some stuff, but if the PC's investigate it, I make sure it's explained. Even if that explanation is simply 'he researched a custom spell' and then if the players want it, they have to somehow convince the NPC to let them copy it.

[Ranting Fool]

A lot of the time if PC's get to use spells such as Commune (Lets you ask, yes/no/maybe questions 1 per level) I make them either give me a list of questions they want to ask at the end of a sesson (or a few of them, so at least I know the subject) so that I can have answers for them when next we play.


I don't use future-prediction magic in most of the games I play in, because I know the DM didn't prepare the setting enough for it to work. However, I would use it with an organized DM.

Which is why I ask for lists :smallbiggrin: also if they want to do it mid sesson then I'll get them to make a list and we have a lunch/dinner brake while I make sure I have all the answers needed.

This only really works because the PC's themselves don't have the spells and have to get someone else to cast it for them. If they DID have the spells and spammed them a lot I'd have to know a lot more.

Though a lot of games PC's just thing Divination is crap and wizards pick that school to dump when the focus almost every time :smalltongue: and there hasn't been a high level cleric in ages, just favoured souls.

[Kelb_Panthera]

As a DM I always take the strictest possible reading of the spell text for future-reading spells.

I have a pretty good idea of what will happen in my campaign world in the nearish future, and I'm pretty good at reading people so my players don't surprise me as much as they would like.

I find it's easier to predict what will happen when the PC's don't know what they're going to do. If they don't know, and they have free will, then whatever force they're asking doesn't know what they'll do either. It therefore gives them answers under the assumption that they do nothing. Deciding what to do may invalidate the accuracy of their divinations. It usually ends up being a split between some of it remaining accurate, while some of it doesn't.

Pretty much the only creatures in my games that can reliably predict the future are wierds and gods, neither of whom are known for giving forthright answers.

[Slipperychicken]

Though a lot of games PC's just thing Divination is crap and wizards pick that school to dump when the focus almost every time :smalltongue: and there hasn't been a high level cleric in ages, just favoured souls.

Well, you can't prohibit Divination in the first place. It's an excellent school, as long as your DM knows what you're trying to figure out and isn't a complete tool about it. Identify is all but mandatory when you follow RAW for knowing about magic items (which is why I like the Loremaster PrC. Free Identifies for everyone!).

You can get a ton of mileage out of Detect Thoughts alone. When the subject of torture Enhanced Interrogation Techniques gives an answer and it sounds legit, you ask him to submit to Detect Thoughts to confirm. If he says no or resists, keep torturing interrogating until he does. If When he says yes, confirmation is easy as pie.

[Gamer Girl]

Random question for all you out there in the Playground. How is Divination magic handled/used in your games?


My players use divination a lot, but I always keep it vague. You simply don't get a direct answer to a divination asked question. It's often vague, misleading, cryptic and hard to understand. So generally, the use divination as a rough guide for things.

In my game you can't ask game rule stuff, so that nullifies that type of cheating right off the bat.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oops, almost forgot something important. The most effective counter-divination tool, after powerful abjurations, is misinformation. Many a divination can be tricked into giving innacurate information. This goes for certain other information gathering magic, such as enchantments directed at a minion, or speak with dead used on the same.

I'll edit in some examples when I'm not so close to going to bed.

[The Frank One]

The party I am in relied heavily on divination magic one time. In the Shadowdale weave-tearing adventure module we became irritated at how nerfed our magic had been since we walked into Shadowdale and through a combination of divination, commune, and find the path we walked into the ritual chamber and smashed everyone there.

The DM seemed less than happy about how easily we bypassed all the tricks in the lich's lair and as a group we decided not to rely too heavily on divination to avoid being targeted too much ourselves.