why divination?

[Frostthehero]

Everyone talks about divination being uber powerful. why? I am unable to see how.

[eggynack]

Knowledge is power, and divination is knowledge. If a full caster knows exactly what they're going to face in a given day, then that's a thing that can inform the spells they prepare, and how they act, which is a thing that often leads to a much higher chance of victory. Divinations also often let you take a hammer to non-combat problems, learning with ease what would otherwise take a lot of snooping about.

[AmberVael]

Everyone talks about divination being uber powerful. why? I am unable to see how.

I dunno either. Cast a divination spell and find out. :smalltongue:

[Frostthehero]

Knowledge is power, and divination is knowledge. If a full caster knows exactly what they're going to face in a given day, then that's a thing that can inform the spells they prepare, and how they act, which is a thing that often leads to a much higher chance of victory. Divinations also often let you take a hammer to non-combat problems, learning with ease what would otherwise take a lot of snooping about.

what spell would allow me to know that, and how do I get around the fact that my DM loves to shut down divination?

[eggynack]

what spell would allow me to know that, and how do I get around the fact that my DM loves to shut down divination?
Contact other plane and scrying are two of the classics. On the latter count, it really depends on how the DM is shutting you down. If he's just not letting you use divination to learn stuff, then that's pretty much just a direct nerf, and it's highly likely that divination actually won't be useful. If he just likes putting up defenses around his bad guys, then contact other plane is pretty good at dealing with that issue.

[Frostthehero]

Contact other plane and scrying are two of the classics. On the latter count, it really depends on how the DM is shutting you down. If he's just not letting you use divination to learn stuff, then that's pretty much just a direct nerf, and it's highly likely that divination actually won't be useful. If he just likes putting up defenses around his bad guys, then contact other plane is pretty good at dealing with that issue.

thank you very much. He effectively takes divination off the table, except in certain situations. issue resolved.

[Chronos]

If he just plain takes divination off the table, that's evidence for its power, not against it.

[Flickerdart]

There is an ambush of ogres at the end of the hallway. You cast arcane eye, peek around the corner, and rearrange the marching order to be in the back. The rest of the party is slaughtered, serving as your meat shields so you alone can vanquish the foe.

Divination ain't nothin' to mess with, son.

[DeAnno]

Even purely tactical Divinations like True Strike, Alter Fortune and Foresight are among the most powerful spells in the game.

[ArqArturo]

Because knowing what the BBEG knows that you know what he knows, but he doesn't know that you know that he knows what you know more than he knows, is worth knowing.

[Hazrond]

Because knowing what the BBEG knows that you know what he knows, but he doesn't know that you know that he knows what you know more than he knows, is worth knowing.

Are you TRYING to break people's brains? :smallconfused:

[ArqArturo]

Are you TRYING to break people's brains? :smallconfused:

Master Manipulator is effectively a Divination spell for diplomancers, despite being a feat :p.

[Dr. Cliché]

Contact other plane and scrying are two of the classics.

When you use scrying, who do you use as a target for the spell?

[eggynack]

When you use scrying, who do you use as a target for the spell?
It presumably depends on who I seek to scry on, and what information I have about them prior to casting.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I don't like scrying. Not just for the non-spamable save, or the expensive focus, or the spells that specifically defend against it. Even when it succeeds, if the target's just sitting around in a nondescript area you're basically getting no good intel.

I agree that the 20 question spells (COP and Commune) are awesome though, if a bit cumbersome.

[Karnith]

Even purely tactical Divinations like True Strike, Alter Fortune and Foresight are among the most powerful spells in the game.
Additionally, effects like See Invisible and True Seeing are almost mandatory past low levels.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I don't like scrying. Not just for the non-spamable save, or the expensive focus, or the spells that specifically defend against it. Even when it succeeds, if the target's just sitting around in a nondescript area you're basically getting no good intel.


Anyone who sits around doing nothing probably isn't worth scrying on in the first place. It's not as versatile as some other divinations but it certainly has its uses.

[ArqArturo]

Anyone who sits around doing nothing probably isn't worth scrying on in the first place. It's not as versatile as some other divinations but it certainly has its uses.

Unless that person that "sits around doing nothing" is probably an illusion.

[nedz]

Identify and the various Detect spells are some of the most cast spells in the game.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Anyone who sits around doing nothing probably isn't worth scrying on in the first place. It's not as versatile as some other divinations but it certainly has its uses.It's hard to think of uses that couldn't be solved by Clairvoyance or Spymaster's Coin.

[Kaeso]

I'm going to play the devils advocate here, but isn't a lot of divinations praise derived from the idea that it allows you to look at the DMs note in a figure of speech? What divination tells you is highly dependent on what the DM wants you to know. In a way, divination is like the track skill: a DM railroading device disguised as a spell/class feature.

[ryu]

I'm going to play the devils advocate here, but isn't a lot of divinations praise derived from the idea that it allows you to look at the DMs note in a figure of speech? What divination tells you is highly dependent on what the DM wants you to know. In a way, divination is like the track skill: a DM railroading device disguised as a spell/class feature.

Depends. Did the DM in question actually design a world or some loose conglomeration of rooms with various named, story important people at arbitrary intervals? Depending on setting replace rooms with encounters, but it amounts to the same thing. The answer to that question will tell you a lot about how to use divination. In the former it's a relevant resource for gathering information, making strategic decisions, learning the movements and capabilities of the group's chosen enemy, and making a plan to kill them. Well all that and a bit of tangential utility goodness. In the latter it's pretty much just either the make the plan to kill enemies part, or nerfed into uselessness with hilariously contrived gusto.

[Arbane]

How do you use Contact Other Plane without a significant risk of getting your brain nuked?

[ryu]

How do you use Contact Other Plane without a significant risk of getting your brain nuked?

Competent check optimization and taking ten. It's not even hard to get no chance of failure really.

[Ivanhoe]

Divination for wizards on its own is not a very powerful school - but contains spells that wizards often use.
This is the reason why specialising in divination is so nice; you abandon only one school and get an extra spell per day of a school whose spells you will likely use in the course of the day, anyway.

[VoxRationis]

A problem from the DM's perspective with scrying is that suddenly you have to have a reasonable idea of what your villains are doing all day and where they would be doing that. Frankly, the odds that the chief villain of the campaign is going to be discussing his major plans at the exact moment you scry on him, for example, are really low, unless they do nothing else.
From the player's perspective, there's the problem that you need a name and want a connection to the target, so you can't target a low-level mook, but it allows a Will save.

[Slipperychicken]

Divinations which inform your future actions usually depend on your GM being prepared and having a sense of fair play. If he doesn't want it to work, it won't.

Also, True Strike is a great divination spell.


There is an ambush of ogres at the end of the hallway. You cast arcane eye, peek around the corner, and rearrange the marching order to be in the back. The rest of the party is slaughtered, serving as your meat shields so you alone can vanquish the foe.


You could do the same thing with a 10gp mirror.

[Spore]

Competent check optimization and taking ten. It's not even hard to get no chance of failure really.

Rolling on the spell isn't a skill check so you can't take 10 by RAW.

[Dread_Head]

Rolling on the spell isn't a skill check so you can't take 10 by RAW.

You can take 10 on ability checks, see here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm#checksWithoutRolls).


Ability Checks and Caster Level Checks
The normal take 10 and take 20 rules apply for ability checks.

[Spore]

Cool. Now my PF Oracle doesn't have to remove himself from the game for a few weeks after using a spell.

[sleepyphoenixx]

How do you use Contact Other Plane without a significant risk of getting your brain nuked?

As a level 9 wizard you should already have a +5 from 20 Int. Add Fox's Cunning (+2), Ray of Hope or Good Hope (+2) and Surge of Fortune (+2) and you already have a guaranteed success up to DC 12. As your level increases so does you Int, so a high level wizard can use CoP without risk fairly easily as long as he gets some spells from party members.

I wouldn't allow taking 10 since i count the act of contacting a such an entity as stressful, but your DM may rule differently. In that case even the greater deity DC 16 check is fairly trivial since you don't usuallly use the spell in combat.

[Sith_Happens]

Competent check optimization and taking ten. It's not even hard to get no chance of failure really.

"Check optimization?" You just need a 22 INT and you're done.

[ryu]

"Check optimization?" You just need a 22 INT and you're done.

I said competent. Not good. Not great. Not amazing. Just competent. Even in the lowest magic of settings any player worth his salt should be able to do this without much work.

[Flickerdart]

You could do the same thing with a 10gp mirror.
You could - if you had a scout who could sneak up to the corner without being detected, and then had some way of making sure the ogres don't notice the mirror that suddenly popped out from behind the corner they're intently focused on because of the aforementioned ambush, and then could make it back to the team without being detected, while the team is just sort of hanging out in a place that could be patrolled at any moment waiting for him to creep around at half-speed.