Divinations and Preparing Spells for the day

[Arael666]

Hey there playground.

I always see you guys saying that divinations can/should be used to know in advance wich spell you should prepared for the day, but I never understood that completely. You see, I always thought the succes in this would be way too much DM dependant, if thinks a player should not know those things, no matter how many spells you waste, you'll never get the info you want. Am I wrong?

So, I ask, Could you guys name a few divination spells that you cast to know what should be prepared in advance? Also, what questions do you usually make when casting those?

[Diarmuid]

Hey there playground.

I always see you guys saying that divinations can/should be used to know in advance wich spell you should prepared for the day, but I never understood that completely. You see, I always thought the succes in this would be way too much DM dependant, if thinks a player should not know those things, no matter how many spells you waste, you'll never get the info you want. Am I wrong?

So, I ask, Could you guys name a few divination spells that you cast to know what should be prepared in advance? Also, what questions do you usually make when casting those?

I bolded the part I think is the key to your logic. If a DM is simply going to DM Fiat that certain things will never work simply because it would be inconvenient for his plot, then the entire player/dm relationship is flawed at its core. Now, if when developing your plot, you account for what the bad guy could concievably expect or potentially predict and take measures within his power to thwart them...that's different.

Many people have played with DM's who think the way you do and likely do what you have lined out and dont bother with Divinations. Many people can still have a happy, enjoyable gaming experience in that scenario. But what people here are usually discussing is a idealistic approach that would theoretically work in a world where a greater power isnt deciding "no, that wont work because plot".

[Arael666]

I'm sorry, it seems I was misunderstood. I said that as an explanation to why I never bothered to use divinations with that intention before, I'm still curious as to how the playground does it and whats questions you guys usually ask, cause I intend to do that in my next campaign.

I checked the contact other plane spell but aside from "will I need resist elements today?" questions, I'm kinda lost at what to ask.

[Urpriest]

While people like to talk up things like Contact Other Plane and Divination, in practice divinations are more useful for reconnaissance than for asking the DM what's going to happen. If you know that the Cave of Doom is full of undead, you can avoid spells that undead are immune to and focus on things to which undead are especially vulnerable. Scrying-type spells can help with this, as can things like Legend Lore.

[Arael666]

While people like to talk up things like Contact Other Plane and Divination, in practice divinations are more useful for reconnaissance than for asking the DM what's going to happen. If you know that the Cave of Doom is full of undead, you can avoid spells that undead are immune to and focus on things to which undead are especially vulnerable. Scrying-type spells can help with this, as can things like Legend Lore.

This is pretty much how I ever used it. I really can't remember the last wizard I played that did not have Spontaneous Divination acf because of this.

[icefractal]

I think an issue that often arises, when attempting divinations, is that the GM doesn't actually know the future. In-game, you might be asking Pelor, but in reality you are asking a normal person with normal prediction capabilities and no precognition.

So if you ask "Exactly what should we be prepared for today?", sans any other info, and I'm GMing? I have no idea. I would probably just say to not spend the spell, because I don't have the ability to answer that. If you stated your plans first, then asked, then maybe - I could give you some info, based on what I've prepared about the enemy capabilities. But TBH, I don't prepare things infinitely far in advance, and sometimes several sessions worth of events can happen in a single in-game day. So there might be enemies with abilities I don't yet know about, because I haven't finished statting them up yet. And even aside from that, unless you rigidly follow the plan you told the GM, without going outside the box at all, then there's going to be a point of divergence where the divination results become less useful because they're about different situations than what you're currently facing.

TL;DR - how helpful precognitive divinations are depends not only on how useful the GM wants to make them, but also by how useful the GM is able to make them. I've gotten more mileage out of non-future divinations like Scrying.

[Psyren]

I think divinations should be useful without solving the entire game for you. The player should be rewarded for strategic thinking but this needs to be tempered by reason; after all, a divination is only as good as the question being asked. In addition, the plAyer shouldn't necessarily have hours of extra time casting a bunch of divination before bed or upon waking - the bad guy is not going to fritter around while they try to scrape together perfect intel on every challenge ahead.