Seek Thoughts Spell: A card reader or a metal detector?

[Legato Endless]

In a recent Pathfinder game, a brief disagreement broke out between myself and the DM over the interpretion of a spell. The party had entered a town attempting to trail a group of black riders. During the investigation, I cast the spell on an unfriendly innkeeper. He failed the will saved and I asked to know if he had any idea where they gone. The DM informed me that he did indeed think about the black riders and where they had gone...but gave me no information.

Apparently because Seek Thoughts doesn't allow one to sift through surface thoughts, it thereror tells me only if someone knows something and pings when they think about it. My assumption was the spell is essentially telepathic divination, and I get an answer if they know it and think about it, but can not freely fish for anything else. My DM's interpretation was that it alerts you when that person is thinking about the subject question, and you know they know somethingx but you don't actually get anything out of it on its own.

This seems fairly...crappy and so narrow as to not very useful for clandestine answers or much else besides an elaborate arcane replacement for a decent insight check. Am I mistaken? And if so, does the spell have more use than I'm seeing?

[NoACWarrior]

I'd equate the spell to a truth serum, much like how zone of truth works. When you get into divination effects its a pretty slippery slope in what is being thought currently what not, and the DM has direct control over that.

If you want to effectively use the divination effect you'd probably need a whole lot more time and a bit more interrogation... or coercion (if your character is female you could charm the inn keeper, if your character has intimidate you could intimidate out of him).

Remember spells don't always solve a situation, and in PF spells aren't nearly as powerful as they are in 3.5, so you will have situations like this pop up where you need to be a bit more selective and RP things out.

[Spore]

If you ask someone about something they'd want to lie about, it would pop up on surface thoughts. So if you'd ask him something about the matter and had the concentration on the spell, you would know.

[Person_Man]

On the RAW front, I think you may have been unfairly limited.

But having said that, when I DM I generally ask players to avoid mind reading, scrying, and other similarly powerful divinations. I don't ban them - if you're just using it to make your dungeon crawl quicker and/or easier I don't care. But if I want any kind of plot line that involves a mystery, deception, disguises, ambushes, reoccurring villains, interrogations, diplomacy, criminal justice in general, etc, mind reading can basically destroy it.

Consider how you would feel as a player if you were trying to escape from a group of enemies, and the DM used mind reading or a divination to track you down. Does that make the plot more fun or interesting? Or does it feel like a cheat?