How to relay scouting

[sir_argo]

My group doesn't do very much scouting. We tend to have the rogue about 60' ahead of the party and I honestly can't remember the last time we ever had surprise on a foe. In our current campaign, I'm playing a WotS monk and it appears I'm being tapped to do more scouting duties. I'm down with that. I think that with the teleportation feature, I can spy the enemies, *pop* back to the party and maybe we can actually gain surprise. Well, I starting thinking that I might be able to just stay in my forward position and relay what I see back to the party by using Minor Illusion. I would create the illusion 30' behind me, hopefully in a spot that is behind full cover from the enemies. The illusion should be visible to the party, who is another 30' farther back from that. My initial idea was to create a small diorama of what my monk sees, so that the party would have a very clear image of what's ahead. I could also create the illusion of a painting depicting the same scene.

So I have a bunch of questions...

How do you relay scouting information back to the party?

Do you meta-game it and not worry about how the information gets back to the party?

What other ways can you relay the information back to the party?
(The obvious is Rary's Telepathic Bond, but that's somebody's spell slot--I'd prefer something free)

[wilhelmdubdub]

message cantrip

[No brains]

Since you're a way of shadows monk, you could use Minor Illusion to convey info. It can make a sound that seems like part of the environment that the party knows is a signal. It can be the old bird call, it can be a rat squeaking, or it can be the wind whistling.

The message cantrip is excellent for scouting. It doesn't need LoS and even has a flexible LoE. The caster just needs to point in the direction of whoever they want to talk to.

Another idea is a weird use of Animal Messenger where you use it like a message boomerang. Have your partner A cast the spell as a ritual (to save that spell slot) with whatever message for partner B. You restrain the animal in a cage or whatever. Then you scout ahead and take the animal, a pen and some paper with you. When you see something, write it down, attach it to your animal, and free it back to the party. It will deliver its message to partner B along with your note.

[JackPhoenix]

(The obvious is Rary's Telepathic Bond, but that's somebody's spell slot--I'd prefer something free)

RTB is free, kind of: it's a ritual spell, if you can spare 10 minutes, you can save the slot.