Divination Tools in D&D 3.5

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey everybody. I need know is there any divination tools in D&D 3.5? You see my character is a good female drow cleric who use a tarot deck (78 cards) and rune stones. I know the deck of many things is sort of a tarot deck. Well actually it's more of an oracle deck or a playing card deck. I just need to know is there any divination tools available in D&D 3.5?

[Troacctid]

Sure, there are a ton of items with divination-related effects. Is there something specific you're looking for?

[Bartmanhomer]

Sure, there are a ton of items with divination-related effects. Is there something specific you're looking for?

Sure. Like I mention before my character who's a female drow cleric use a tarot deck and rune stones during her adventure.

[Fizban]

Unless it's a magic item or you're casting a spell then all you have is a non-magical deck of cards which doesn't do anything. It's perfectly acceptable to have a 25gp tarot deck as the focus for your Augury spell.

[Bartmanhomer]

Unless it's a magic item or you're casting a spell then all you have is a non-magical deck of cards which doesn't do anything. It's perfectly acceptable to have a 25gp tarot deck as the focus for your Augury spell.

What about the rune stone or runes?

[Zaq]

What about the rune stone or runes?

What do you want them to do?

I mean, in the real world (where, y'know, magic isn't a thing), those are just rocks with some fancy marks or carvings on them. So if you just want to have rune stones around, then just buy (or make, or just assert that you have) such a thing, since it's unlikely to be expensive or problematic to acquire.

If you just want the fluff of having a character use that sort of thing, then by all means, write that into your fluff. Say that you always mess around with these stones when casting your divination spells, or something. Maybe see if you can get away with using them as a focus component for some kind of spell, or treat them as a material component, or something. Fluff is fluff, and it is what you make of it.

Now, if you want them to do something specific, then that's another story. Do you want them to invoke some kind of magical effect? Maybe strengthen a different kind of magic effect? Give some kind of bonus to a skill? Any real mechanical effect like that may or may not be possible, depending on what specifically you're after and what sorts of resources you have available.

But "rune stones" don't inherently do anything, and if you're okay with them not really doing much of anything, then just say that you have them. If you want them to do something, then that's going to depend on what you want them to do.

So . . . what do you want these rune stones to do?

[Bartmanhomer]

What do you want them to do?

I mean, in the real world (where, y'know, magic isn't a thing), those are just rocks with some fancy marks or carvings on them. So if you just want to have rune stones around, then just buy (or make, or just assert that you have) such a thing, since it's unlikely to be expensive or problematic to acquire.

If you just want the fluff of having a character use that sort of thing, then by all means, write that into your fluff. Say that you always mess around with these stones when casting your divination spells, or something. Maybe see if you can get away with using them as a focus component for some kind of spell, or treat them as a material component, or something. Fluff is fluff, and it is what you make of it.

Now, if you want them to do something specific, then that's another story. Do you want them to invoke some kind of magical effect? Maybe strengthen a different kind of magic effect? Give some kind of bonus to a skill? Any real mechanical effect like that may or may not be possible, depending on what specifically you're after and what sorts of resources you have available.

But "rune stones" don't inherently do anything, and if you're okay with them not really doing much of anything, then just say that you have them. If you want them to do something, then that's going to depend on what you want them to do.

So . . . what do you want these rune stones to do?
Well I suppose I could use the rune stone to strengthen my cleric ability or invoke them as healing spells. Well I'm sure I could think of something. :smile:

[gorfnab]

Is porting stuff over from Pathfinder an option?

Feats:
Fortune Teller (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/fortune-teller)
Harrowed (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/harrowed)

Prestige Class:
Harrower (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/e-h/harrower)

Items:
Fortune Teller's Deck of Cards (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/goods-and-services/toys-games-puzzles#TOC-Cards)
Harrow Cards (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/goods-and-services/toys-games-puzzles#TOC-Cards)

[Darrin]

Eight Diagram Coins (2160 GP, Oriental Adventures). These are tossed to create trigrams that you can interpret via the I Ching. In game terms, the minor version lets you cast augury 1/day, while the more expensive major version (10800 GP) casts divination 1/day.

Scrying Shard (1350 GP, MIC). There's an unresolvable argument over whether this item allows a character of any class to cast scrying at will. RAW says yes, but that's probably not what the designers intended. Even if the DM insists you have to be able to cast scrying yourself, *WAY* cheaper than a crystal ball (42K, DMG).

Talis Deck (2 GP, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting). 78-card deck, similar to a tarot deck. Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue might go into more detail, but I don't have access to that book.

There are fortune-telling rules in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. This can be done with an ordinary deck of cards, a tarot deck, or a three-dragon ante deck. I'm not entirely sure if the rules make sense outside of Ravenloft, but on the other hand... hinting to the other PCs that undead villains might be plotting their demise sounds like it could be fun.

[Fizban]

What about the rune stone or runes?
A set of runestones is even closer to the "set of marked sticks, bones, or similar tokens" that Augury requires (a tarot deck technically isn't but any reasonable DM would allow it). You can have a set of both and use whichever you feel like, as long as they're both worth 25gp each.

Augury is 2nd level and also costs 25gp for it's material component every time you cast it, which might be annoying. Spell Compendium has Omen of Peril, a 1st level version of the spell which is less powerful but only requires the focus. If you want to have your character doing lots of predictions you can cast Omen of Peril a lot, but because it's not guaranteed to work you will inevitably end up in a situation where the Omen was wrong and hilarity or death may ensue.

If you want to improve your predictive ability, take the Divine Oracle prestige class from Complete Divine: it's 3rd level ability makes your Omen of Peril/Augury/Divination style spells insanely accurate by rolling the failure chance twice and only counting it if both rolls fail. The net accuracy rises from 80% to 96% when you first get the ability and only goes up from there.

Scrying Shard (1350 GP, MIC). There's an unresolvable argument over whether this item allows a character of any class to cast scrying at will. RAW says yes, but that's probably not what the designers intended. Even if the DM insists you have to be able to cast scrying yourself, *WAY* cheaper than a crystal ball (42K, DMG).
If by RAW you mean ignoring 80% of the description and any amount of context, twisting the sentence to focus on the words "can cast" exclusively, then sure, why not. :smallsigh:

[Darrin]

If by RAW you mean ignoring 80% of the description and any amount of context, twisting the sentence to focus on the words "can cast" exclusively, then sure, why not. :smallsigh:

The entire item description in the MIC is 15 words long:

"A character of any class can cast scrying using a scrying shard as a focus."

Even if we use the original wording from the Eberron Campaign Setting, it's still only 33 words long:

"A large Eberron shard attuned to the scrying spell can serve as a portable focus for that spell. A character of any class can cast scrying using a scrying shard as a focus."

I'm not sure how including or excluding 80% of that results in anything that doesn't literally say my BDF can cast scrying if he wants to.

[Fizban]

If you can honestly read that without seeing the mind-numbingly obvious intent, and continue to take your interpretation after I'm sure someone else has already explained how context and language works, then I don't expect I'm going to have any effect. But hey.

In case anyone is confused, the Scrying Shard is used as a focus for the Scrying spell. If you know anything about the Scrying spell (maybe go look it up), you will know that it requires a different focus depending on what class you are. Thus the segment "any class" is obviously referring to it being usable as a Scrying focus by any class. It is a convenient Scrying focus usable by any class, in place of the less convenient focii normally required.

If you cut out the end of the sentence so it read, "A character of any class can cast scrying using a scrying shard," then it might mean what you think it means, but that is not the full sentence. The last words, "as a focus," are what tell you it's talking about replacing a spell component, though the fact that it said "cast" instead of "use" should have already clued you in since magic items don't let you "cast" spells. If it had an activation action like literally every other magic item that allows you to use a spell, then you might have a case for poor writing using the word "cast" instead of "use," but it does not have an activation action. Because it is not an active item, it is a passive substitute focus, like the description says.

The only way to read the scrying shard as you want it to be is by blatantly ignoring the language used in the description and pretending it uses a completely non-standard way of phrasing it in a book that was all about standardized formats. It's not RAW, it's maintaining willful ignorance because it gets you something better than what is actually written. So a pretty standard example of "RAW."

[Bartmanhomer]

OK in a tarot deck there are 78 cards. Both upright and upside-down meanings. If my character want to use a tarot deck. I could use a 1d78 dice and use a 1d2 dice for the position whenever if the tarot cards are upright or upside-down. I could use the traditional tarot card meaning when I roleplay. Just a thought.

[Name1]

A Runecaster could enchant Gray Ioun Stones with Runes. Basically, they float around you, and when you look at them, you can use the Divination inscribed in them.