Do you use Augury and Divination?

[Jon_Dahl]

These two spells are relatively low-level, easy to use and completely overlooked in all of my games. I'd like to read how they have panned out in your games.

There are other interesting divination spells, such as Legend Lore and Commune, but they are not so intriguing as Augury and Divination (IMO)

[Brookshw]

It's been a while since someone used one in a game but they're okay, useful ways of getting background info, hints etc.

[JBarca]

Divination, at least, can do quite a bit more than find out background info.

All it takes is careful wording.

"In which direction should we travel in order to complete our goal of 'x?'"
"Under whose command were the golems that attacked us in the night?"
"Where, specifically, is the MacGuffin?"
"What spells, specifically, should I prepare tomorrow morning in order to be most useful to the party during any encounters likely, given our planned course of action, as follows: x"
"Against what defenses should I be prepared to fight?"

Etc.
You really can't be taken off guard if you use enough of them.

There is a major downside, though. It can slow gameplay down to a crawl. The last session I ran, over 4 hours were devoted to wording and asking Divinations. The characters are around level 15, and they are being the typical paranoid players. They hid out and cast Divination over and over all day.
So nothing progressed whatsoever all day, but they're prepared for next session. Hopefully.

[SiuiS]

"What spells, specifically, should I prepare tomorrow morning in order to be most useful to the party during any encounters likely, given our planned course of action, as follows: x"

Etc.
You really can't be taken off guard if you use enough of them.

> cast this divination
> prep the spells
> totally trashed by a random encounter


There is a major downside, though. It can slow gameplay down to a crawl. The last session I ran, over 4 hours were devoted to wording and asking Divinations. The characters are around level 15, and they are being the typical paranoid players. They hid out and cast Divination over and over all day.
So nothing progressed whatsoever all day, but they're prepared for next session. Hopefully.

Aye. Sometimes this isn't feasible, but once the party gets rollig enough to start making divination items...

I had someone drop augury into a wondrous item, and they cast runes rather frequently. It ended up being more flavor than tactical positioning, though. Very little cleverness went into their use. I was sad.

I've also had a DM assume everyone was cis tangly using TO, and so would give information out as needed to advance his plot. That game fell apart when a Vorpal monster somehow decapitated the crit-immune shapeshifter without a head, though. DM wasn't up to the task of playing like tippy.