Why is Locate Object not a cantrip?

[jleonardwv]

"Where did I leave that magic wand?" *Casts LO*. "Oh, yes, it's downstairs."

That's a second level spell? Who would honestly waste a spell slot on that?

[NNescio]

"Where did I leave that magic wand?" *Casts LO*. "Oh, yes, it's downstairs."

That's a second level spell? Who would honestly waste a spell slot on that?

I guess it is intended to find plot McGuffins (searching for a specific object in a house/lair/dungeon) or treasure (general search for jewelry/gems/plat or electrum coins/potions). Some plot McGuffins (like perhaps a Lich's phylactery) may also be in a unique enough category to be located by a general object search.

The spell becomes more useful with a Bag of Holding (or in combination with Rope Trick, but it becomes spell slot prohibitive then) because you can exclude certain items carried by the party by stuffing them into an extraplanar place. This lets you locate divine spellcasters (search for holy symbols), arcane spellcasters (arcane foci), an enemy Wizard's spellbook (assuming you're in his quarters/stronghold), coins (locates humanoids or treasure hoards) etc. You can also get crafty and specify a "lead container" if you have reason to suspect that the object you're looking for is hidden in one.

It can also be used to track down creatures if you know what object they're carrying, like say, a trinket or a unique coin you handed (or reverse pickpocketed) to them earlier. Or maybe they stole something from you. 1000 ft makes it kinda short for this purpose though.

Making LO a spammable cantrip makes it too powerful as it allows the party to find nearly any object they are trying to look for (unless the DM fiats lead sheets everywhere), and creatures as well with some clever (or sheer brute-force) guessing of what they would be expected to carry. Spammable information-granting Divinations (note most of the Ritual ones have some sort of cost or drawback or unreliability) also tends to be a headache to adjudicate (in the case of LO, the DM has the figure out what kind of objects are around and where they are) and can slow down the game excessively.

[Maxilian]

"Where did I leave that magic wand?" *Casts LO*. "Oh, yes, it's downstairs."

That's a second level spell? Who would honestly waste a spell slot on that?

If you use it for that, then yes, its kind of a waste, i normally use to find someone on a city or something like that. (What did they had on last time i saw them? or did they took any kind of item? or do they storage X thing in some specific type of crate (maybe with a mark or something)?) and so on.

[SharkForce]

1,000 feet in every direction simultaneously that allows you to look through buildings and such is huge.

look at it this way: imagine you're in an apartment building surrounded by apartment buildings on every side. this spell lets you search all 9 of those apartment buildings in the first few seconds of casting it for an object. and quite probably a lot of space even beyond that. now start moving around, and you're searching a 2000 foot wide zone instantly as you move.

give it a range of 10 feet and maybe it's a cantrip. 1,000 foot range? no way is that a cantrip. yes, it is situational. but when that situation occurs, it is extremely powerful. it massively increases the area that you can search for something in a given amount of time. you would probably need thousands of searchers to accomplish similar results to this spell.

[LudicSavant]

There are a few things one should understand in order to understand Locate Object's full value.

1) If you know basic geometry (or just happen to be decent at spatial reasoning), it gives you the precise location of the object (because it gives all the information necessary for precise triangulation)
2) It covers an area of effect that's larger than the world's largest castles, let alone any dungeon you're likely to go into. And that's before you count the additional area covered by moving while its duration is up. You can search a truly massive area for things.
3) You can search for a general type of object, rather than a specific object.
4) It ignores invisibility, stealth, walls, illusions, the works. If you can predict a general type of thing someone would be carrying, you can track their position and vector out to very long range, even if they're a group of stealthy Assassins or something. An excellent tool for scouting and detection that has rather limited counters. For a very simple example, searching for a policeman's badge or uniform would mean that you always know the location of the nearest policeman (so long as one is within 1000 feet).
5) Finding objects can occasionally be very important, such as if your spellbook is stolen, your phylactery is lost, or your party is separated in a maze. This spell is a complete game-changer for those situations.
6) Nothing stops you from searching for lead. You just can't sense things behind the lead. In other words, even if someone is taking specific precautions to stop you from finding the fire, you may be able to find the smoke.

I've seen Locate Object used to rather extraordinary effect in a variety of situations by skilled players. It's just one of those spells, like many illusions and divinations, that requires a bit of thought to be put to its best uses.

[MintyNinja]

Locate Object is one of the most used spells in my play group.

The ability to locate chests, portable holes, bags of holding, or most any other magical items makes it a greedy character's bread and butter. And forget having a Macguffin in your campaign if your players have this spell, it's just too easy. I've had to house rule that the guard towers have lead lining in their rooftops to prevent players from locating lead lining to find out where hidden things are.

[Saeviomage]

Who would waste a precious cantrip slot on that?

Cantrips are both more valuable (you only know a limited set) and less valuable (you can cast them as many times per day as you want) than 1st level spells.

Since you're probably not going to want to cast this spell all day every day, it would be a poor use of a known cantrip. It would also make the game a dreadful bore, because the party would just stand outside a dungeon while the caster mapped out the entire dungeon by listing every object he could think of.

[Slipperychicken]

Because you go from combing an entire dungeon for the macguffin to knowing exactly where the macguffin is.

[Potato_Priest]

You can cast it to search for a person's clothing, armor, or weapons, making finding them a cinch.

[McNinja]

Because you go from combing an entire dungeon for the macguffin to knowing exactly where the macguffin is.

This. Exceeeept....

You could also easily make a much weaker version as a cantrip. If you know this spell, you could also learn a cantrip that does the same thing, but tells you where the object is within 10 feet of you instead of 1000 feet.

[Haldir]

Could make it close range, and only an object you are familiar with. To my knowledge, there is a deficit of decent divination cantrips.

[jleonardwv]

Okay, I see that as written it can be pretty powerful, especially given the duration and that it can find any _kind_ of object, not just specific ones.

Maybe a cantrip version would be distance limited and only specific objects with a short duration.

Seems like a lot of useful divination spells could be added such as something like: Read object, Read room where you get a glimpse of the past.

[Potato_Priest]

Here's a good post on locate object from an old "Trap Spells" thread.


Not only can Locate Object drastically cut down the time searching for a very specific needle in a haystack (which can occasionally be gamechanging on its own), it can also just detect the presence of a more general type of thing coming within range of you ("Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind, such as a certain kind of apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon"). So, for example, you can detect the nearest stormtrooper uniform within 1000 feet, no questions asked. You even know its exact location, speed, and direction of movement.

Stealth rolls and illusions and walls aren't going to stop you from knowing that X kind of object is within 1000 feet of you. I've seen this used to good effect to foil assassins, trailing targets undetectably for investigations (you can even plant the tracking object yourself), evade search parties or guard patrols, set up brutal ambushes (complete with a fully pre-buffed party and rigged-up terrain), and the like.

In one particular case, there was a campaign with two rival adventuring parties (at the time, they were level 6). One of the adventuring parties was highly optimized to get surprise, win initiative, and wipe the floor with basically anything in a round. Builds included things like "Deep Stalker Revised Ranger 3 / Assassin Rogue 3," (which often did over 100 damage before an enemy could act, had advantage on stealth and initiative, and couldn't be picked out by darkvision... at level 6).

The deadly alpha strike party set an ambush, and got TPKed by the rival PCs. Why? Because the rival PCs used Locate Object for something they knew everyone in the rival party had: A holy symbol of the deity they all worshiped. The ambush was completely foiled, and the users of Locate Object set up the entire field to their benefit before springing their trap, complete with stacked buffs from potions and the like. There was no question in anyone's minds that if it had not been for Locate Object, the other party would have been TPKed instead. There was also a fair deal of psychological impact to know that the emblem of their god was what caused their downfall.

[McNinja]

Here's a good post on locate object from an old "Trap Spells" thread.That wouldn't have worked unless the rival party had seen the enemy holy symbol. Locate Object says
"Describe or name an object that is familiar to you. You sense the direction to the object's location, as long as that object is within 1,000 feet of you. If the object is in motion, you know the direction of its movement.

The spell can locate a specific object known to you, as long as you have seen it up close--within 30 feet--at least once. Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind, such as a certain kind of apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon."

The enemy holy symbol isn't familiar, yours is. It's not a specific object known to you that you've seen up close, unless the two parties had fought before and they were waving their holy symbols around up close. And if you used the last part "nearest object of a particular kind" then the spell would have detected one of the holy symbols the group had, not the enemy group.

You can definitely search for it, but if you look for a needle in a haystack, you'll be pointed to the haystack. Your hand won't play hot/cold with you until you're touching it, you'll know whether it's north or south, left or right, close or far. It's about as accurate as a modern GPS, which is within a few meters. Even if the party had seen the enemy hold symbol before, they wouldn't know the precise location, just that it's in front of them. Sure, that ruins some of the surprise, but if they haven't physically seen a character yet the hidden character can still attack. Furthermore, if EVERY rival character had a holy symbol, the caster of locate object would only know where ONE of them was. This is assuming, of course, that the party wasn't dumb enough to all stand within 10 feet of each other. If the party members were all hidden, there's no way the entire party lost Advantage (for making an attack against a target that can't see you) unless they all failed to pass stealth checks.

[SharkForce]

That wouldn't have worked unless the rival party had seen the enemy holy symbol. Locate Object says
"Describe or name an object that is familiar to you. You sense the direction to the object's location, as long as that object is within 1,000 feet of you. If the object is in motion, you know the direction of its movement.

The spell can locate a specific object known to you, as long as you have seen it up close--within 30 feet--at least once. Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind, such as a certain kind of apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon."

The enemy holy symbol isn't familiar, yours is. It's not a specific object known to you that you've seen up close, unless the two parties had fought before and they were waving their holy symbols around up close. And if you used the last part "nearest object of a particular kind" then the spell would have detected one of the holy symbols the group had, not the enemy group.

You can definitely search for it, but if you look for a needle in a haystack, you'll be pointed to the haystack. Your hand won't play hot/cold with you until you're touching it, you'll know whether it's north or south, left or right, close or far. It's about as accurate as a modern GPS, which is within a few meters. Even if the party had seen the enemy hold symbol before, they wouldn't know the precise location, just that it's in front of them. Sure, that ruins some of the surprise, but if they haven't physically seen a character yet the hidden character can still attack. Furthermore, if EVERY rival character had a holy symbol, the caster of locate object would only know where ONE of them was. This is assuming, of course, that the party wasn't dumb enough to all stand within 10 feet of each other. If the party members were all hidden, there's no way the entire party lost Advantage (for making an attack against a target that can't see you) unless they all failed to pass stealth checks.

"holy symbol of [deity name here]" is still a general class of objects.

now, that isn't going to work out *super* well for you if you're looking for enemies that worship bane and you're in a town full of people that worship bane. but it should work reasonably well if you're in a town where tymora, tyr, and waukeen are the main deities worshipped and baneites are rare or even unheard of.

[LudicSavant]

And if you used the last part "nearest object of a particular kind" then the spell would have detected one of the holy symbols the group had, not the enemy group.

One faith might favor a silver cross, another might favor a twisted mirror, one might favor an 8-pointed sun, one might favor a crimson teardrop, and so on and so forth.

So, if I search for a twisted mirror (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19878412&postcount=2), I'm only going to come up with one deity's holy symbol, not everyone's holy symbols.


Even if the party had seen the enemy hold symbol before, they wouldn't know the precise location, just that it's in front of them.

Don't forget about triangulation. Knowing the direction is sufficient information to triangulate the precise location.

[Coidzor]

The problem isn't that it's not a cantrip, the problem is that it's not a ritual.

[LudicSavant]

I'd guess that it's not a ritual for the same reason that Clairvoyance isn't one. See the posts by Saeviomage and NNescio.