Casting Scry on yourself

[Jon_Dahl]

This is just something I want to share.

The PCs in my campaign have tried to track down a thief who is a powerful wizard. They have a lock of his hair and his description, but they don't know his name. They decided to hire someone to cast Scry, which proved to be very difficult since I have a low-magic world. They finally found one, negotiated with him and it was decided that he could cast the spell. After the negotions the party barbarian pointed out the wizard looked exactly like the guy that they were looking for. The PCs decided to pay the wizard to cast the spell, but they wanted to be there when he cast it. The wizard wanted to know everything about the target, but the PCs just gave him the lock of hair, which was enough for him (No knowledge +10 and lock of hair -10 = 0 Will save modifier).

So he cast the spell while the PCs were behind him, and suddenly his own face appeared in the mirror. He cancelled the spell before anything more appeared on the mirror and said that the target had some sort of a powerful protection spell that turned the spell on him, making him only see himself. He said that he was scared to use his spells against such a powerful wizard, so he wanted double pay or return the gold. The PCs took the gold back and decided to abandon the mission... for now.

[nedz]

So how good was the Guy's Bluff roll ? :smallbiggrin:

[Jon_Dahl]

So how good was the Guy's Bluff roll ? :smallbiggrin:

24. I didn't know what sort of bluff modifiers I should've put there, because it's perfectly possible to have that sort magical defence, if you research new spells.

[Psyren]

I don't know if you have any houserules around this, but as written the NPC handled this in just about the worst way possible.

1) RAW, Scrying only lets you (the caster) see the subject. Nothing in the spell says other folks can look over your shoulder at the interface and see anything. Thus he had no need to cancel the spell or otherwise tip his hand that something was amiss - he could have simply peered into his mirror for awhile (staring at the back of his own head or the room or whatever) before declaring he doesn't see anything because of a buffer of some kind.
2) Scrying isn't actually dismissible (no "D" in the duration line.) But even if it was...
3) ...dismissing it would require him saying the verbal component backwards, which would definitely tip the PCs off that he was manually cutting it short and therefore potentially had something to hide.
4) The only thing the PCs might have noticed would be the scrying sensor appearing in the same room they were in. Even if they did notice that though, it would be even worse to notice it, and then notice that it vanished the instant this guy canceled his spell.

[Jon_Dahl]

I don't know if you have any houserules around this, but as written the NPC handled this in just about the worst way possible.

1) RAW, Scrying only lets you (the caster) see the subject. Nothing in the spell says other folks can look over your shoulder at the interface and see anything. Thus he had no need to cancel the spell or otherwise tip his hand that something was amiss - he could have simply peered into his mirror for awhile (staring at the back of his own head or the room or whatever) before declaring he doesn't see anything because of a buffer of some kind.
2) Scrying isn't actually dismissible (no "D" in the duration line.) But even if it was...
3) ...dismissing it would require him saying the verbal component backwards, which would definitely tip the PCs off that he was manually cutting it short and therefore potentially had something to hide.
4) The only thing the PCs might have noticed would be the scrying sensor appearing in the same room they were in. Even if they did notice that though, it would be even worse to notice it, and then notice that it vanished the instant this guy canceled his spell.

Yeah, I kind of winged it. It didn't go by the rules, I admit that. There were no house rules in place. I just wanted to let them see his face (advantage to the PCs) and let the caster let the image fade away (not dismiss it, but just turn the screen off, to his advantage). Dramatic effect, in order to get the story moving.

[nedz]

Well he could have just pointed the sensor away.

I would have probably played the Bluff roll of 24 as him being able to not give that information away - subject to sense motives. The party will just get the reveal later - YMMV.

[Jon_Dahl]

When it comes to handling magic, I'm not the best DM around, although I always listen to my players if they note that things aren't going by the book. I handle drama pretty well, so I'm ok with my DMing style. It would be nice to have players that would not allow me to do screw around with spells (which I don't do on purpose), but that might affect the dramatic effect poorly (or sometimes enhance them, who knows).

[Psyren]

My intent wasn't to criticize so I apologize if that's how it came across. For dramatic effect, I agree that being able to hurriedly shut off the scry like you're alt-tabbing from a webcomic when your boss walks behind you is likely to be more impactful even if the rules don't technically allow it (though of course, they don't need to in this case since only the caster can see anything.) I was merely providing feedback since my assumption was that you wanted some discussion around what happened, hence making a thread for it :smallsmile:

[Âmesang]

Well, you could return scrying (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#miscellaneous)… but it requires a DC 50 caster level check. :smalltongue:

[Jon_Dahl]

My intent wasn't to criticize so I apologize if that's how it came across. For dramatic effect, I agree that being able to hurriedly shut off the scry like you're alt-tabbing from a webcomic when your boss walks behind you is likely to be more impactful even if the rules don't technically allow it (though of course, they don't need to in this case since only the caster can see anything.) I was merely providing feedback since my assumption was that you wanted some discussion around what happened, hence making a thread for it :smallsmile:

You are right and I appreciate your constructive criticism. I really do. I will consider the points that you have pointed out the next time I'll run into scrying in my games. It doesn't happen that often so I didn't get it right.

The criticism that you made is exactly the sort of stuff I want to hear in order to improve my games, even though I'm happy that I ran things in the way that I did. The players didn't protest that the rules were being broken, so... What the heck? :)

[nedz]

I wasn't really criticising - I get that you were doing the drama thing, which is cool - it was just a play-style point really, and there's no right or wrong with that stuff.

[ATHATH]

Actually, this anecdote brings up a question: shouldn't the Wizard have gotten the bonus for being familiar with the target, even though he didn't know that he was familiar with it?

[Jack_Simth]

24. I didn't know what sort of bluff modifiers I should've put there, because it's perfectly possible to have that sort magical defence, if you research new spells.
There's also existing effects that might make it happen - Spell Turning, perhaps.

However: Bluff is usually less about the specific lie and more about the liar. Yes, there's modifiers for when someone wants to believe it's true, and for when the lie is absurd - neither of which really apply, here. So what you're looking at is BBEG's ability to lie (charisma + bluff ranks, generally) + a die roll vs. the party's ability to discern truth (Wisdom + Sense Motive ranks, generally) + a die roll.

Then, of course, there's the check to notice the scrying sensor and such that Psyren pointed out.

However: If you gave them a reasonable roll to figure out what's up, that's likely fair enough for most players.

[Psyren]

There's also existing effects that might make it happen - Spell Turning, perhaps.

Actually, Scrying doesn't target the subject, so this won't interfere or interact with it. That could certainly be a lie this NPC tries to tell to throw the PCs off the scent if they're not magic-savvy though.



However: Bluff is usually less about the specific lie and more about the liar. Yes, there's modifiers for when someone wants to believe it's true, and for when the lie is absurd - neither of which really apply, here. So what you're looking at is BBEG's ability to lie (charisma + bluff ranks, generally) + a die roll vs. the party's ability to discern truth (Wisdom + Sense Motive ranks, generally) + a die roll.

Remember also that Sense Motive doesn't actually tell you the truth; rather, it just lets you know when someone is lying. So Sense Motive would tell them he actually did see something, but not what that was or why he'd attempt to falsify it.

[Droopy McCool]

After the negotions the party barbarian pointed out the wizard looked exactly like the guy that they were looking for.

You must have described him really well for the barbarian player to notice this. But then how did he mention this w/o everyone saying "Holy **** you ARE the guy!"? While I am a fan of improvisational magical effects for the sake of drama (as a DM), this whole situation would have (as a player) made me say the above.

McCool