Roleplaying Divination gripe [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Captn_Flounder

2017-10-08, 02:19 AM

DMVerdandi

2017-10-08, 05:26 AM

Even though I really like the divination school on a theoretical, practical, and thematic level; I also like the idea of banning certain schools of magic in DnD to create different settings.

If you ban divination wholesale, but keep all of the rest of the schools, it makes a far more mysterious type of setting, where knowledge checks are REALLY REALLY important now, information has to be bought, sold, or taken, and no one knows what is around the next corner. Spies become just that much more important as well.

Likewise, if you ban say, teleportation spells, travel becomes more important.
Abjuration, and everything is way more dangerous.
Enchantment, and suddenly diplomacy and intimidation are a necessity to stop conflict.

That isn't to say ban ALL schools, and have one of those dinky "low magic,hyuk" campaigns. LAME.
But, you can throw the bathwater out while keeping the baby, and have something new to focus on, and an interesting facet to magic in DnD.
It's Just a whole different game, if there is no conjuration, and magic really only allows for energies to be wielded, instead of matter, and time/space cannot be overcome, and when you die, you DIE. Unless you become undead. And that is Different

It makes you think a bit more, without taking away the wicked amounts of adaptability and powers of the other schools. A wizard is still a wizard if you take one or two schools away, it's just that they interact in a wholly different way with the universe.

SirNibbles

2017-10-08, 09:58 AM

As Zanos said, the spell text encourages you to be vague, ominous, and cryptic. Most have a built-in chance for failure (Divination succeeds 70% +1% per caster level IIRC. That means it fails around one in five times at medium levels).

Boy, did my PCs have cake on their face when they got sent to the wrong dungeon on the other side of the country and fought through the wrong Necromancer's minions, including getting their Sorceror trapped in a room with a Greater Shadow and Druid got done in by a Necklace of Strangulation. They only had 4 people total so that's HUGE.

Didn't realize until the Necromancer yelled, "You have intruded on the lair of the great Marveloso!" The leader of the terror organization they were after was named Marvolo and had a much weaker defenses at his current, temporary hide out. They just excused themselves and left in embarrassment. The bad guy made them leave their comrade's corpses for parts.

They thought they rolled SO good, whatever the equivalent of a Nat 20 on a percentile is. Which should have gave it away, because a big theme of my campaigns is "You don't win, sometimes you just lose a little slower."

They failed their quest and lost the faith of the City-State/Nation they were assisting because of a clerical error. Get it? Clerical error? But a main city and trade hub got flooded in lava... But they ran with it and it lead to probably the most organic and memorable d&d subplots I've ever had the honor to run.

But it just goes to show, if your party becomes too over-reliant on the spells, and don't do follow it up with any actual detective work. They ended up doing a lot more mundane information gathering, using Divination to double check their findings.

Also gave me leeway to run them through some things they were in no shape to handle since this was in no way a level appropriate adventure for my party, which are some of my favorite type of adventures to run.

And don't forget your BBEG can divinate too! Seeing where the party will be and setting traps they won't be able to avoid. Or scry the party to learn their weaknesses. My current BBEG has an entire sect of Clerics pretty much dedicated to carrying scry on the Party for the majority of the day. Using that knowledge to control their movements. Pretty much using them as a giant xp farm, giving them a bunch of little, calculated victories he can afford to lose without giving up much and giving them the false bravado to think they can stand toe to toe with the Devoureror of Worlds.

It's hard to be vague and cryptic with certain lines of spells which are pretty black and white: Detect, Discern, Know, Locate, etc.

__

Also I take immediate umbrage with anyone who doesn't understand the difference to having all the answers to questions you knew to ask and omniscience.

One of these things is achievable within minutes to hours depending on just how much you know you don't know about a situation, and the other is literally beyond the scope of human expressible concepts, and causes automatic philosophical debates about what the hell that would even look like from the outside much less the inside.

Clearly there's a misunderstanding of definitions somewhere if you'd get so offended about something I clearly noted as a trivial complaint, but let's put that aside.

Having the answer to any question you know to ask is functionally the same as omniscience. "But what if you don't know which question to ask?", you may say. If you don't know the question, it's clearly not an issue for you at the moment.

It's like the wish that you always have enough money in your pocket to pay for what you need. You don't have infinite money until you actually know what you're going to buy, but you still have infinite money. You don't know the meaning of every word, but you carry around a dictionary. That's what divination is like.

The fact that I can bypass an enemy's skills, regardless of how powerful those skills are, without using any of my own, using a low level spell/SLA to learn some hidden abstract truth about them (like alignment) just doesn't sit right with me.

Captn_Flounder

2017-10-08, 01:14 PM

Mindblank on the villain/'s loot. Will really make the Party believe him when their own Detect/Zone of Truth/whatever deceives them.

Thin sheets of lead hide from just about everything. All these villains would know this, based on being higher level individuals in this magical world. Like how terrorists know the government has Spy Satellites.

Make villains neutral, doing what they do for more selfish reasons, instead of for the joys of baby murder. Maybe they are killing then turning people to zombies because its a life free of pain and heartbreak and he is just INSANE, not evil. Maybe an Eco-terrorist is terrorizing the villagers so they will leave the area because it is sacred to his druidic clan and their leaders won't listen to reason. Make the three dimensional with more motivation than "I like the way burning orphanages smell."

Alignment being an objective, observable fact is dumb. Especially in a world where violence and killing are expected of even the most "Good" of adventurers. Try running a campaign without alignment and sèe how that works.

Can't locate an item you've never seen, even if you have divine it.

Locating a missing person? His captors are smart enough to shut him in a small, nondescript room to stop scrying. Or block it magically. Or they set up Misdirection to send those adventurers elsewhere. Or a Contingency that alerts them to scrying so they use their own teleport to move their captive and base of operations so the Party walks into a recently evacuated hideout.

Don't have to invalidate their Divinations everytime, but you have enough tools so they shouldn't trust them implicitly.

Ban all teir 1 and 2 classes and DM a very low magic world or cap your players at level 8 if you can't find creative solutions to magic.

ryu

2017-10-08, 01:47 PM

It's hard to be vague and cryptic with certain lines of spells which are pretty black and white: Detect, Discern, Know, Locate, etc.

__

Clearly there's a misunderstanding of definitions somewhere if you'd get so offended about something I clearly noted as a trivial complaint, but let's put that aside.

Having the answer to any question you know to ask is functionally the same as omniscience. "But what if you don't know which question to ask?", you may say. If you don't know the question, it's clearly not an issue for you at the moment.

It's like the wish that you always have enough money in your pocket to pay for what you need. You don't have infinite money until you actually know what you're going to buy, but you still have infinite money. You don't know the meaning of every word, but you carry around a dictionary. That's what divination is like.

The fact that I can bypass an enemy's skills, regardless of how powerful those skills are, without using any of my own, using a low level spell/SLA to learn some hidden abstract truth about them (like alignment) just doesn't sit right with me.

Are you.... Are you joking? The most dangerous thing in the entirety of D&D is the enemy you didn't see coming to plan around. Stuff like that is the entire reason competent casters have failsafes, escape plans, failsafes, death contingency plans, failsafes, failsafes, and failsafes. Almost literally every time a character dies or a party doesn't win its fight involves them losing that basic initiative that is their lifeblood. Paranoia is what makes you not die in D&D.

Psyren

2017-10-08, 02:39 PM

It's hard to be vague and cryptic with certain lines of spells which are pretty black and white: Detect, Discern, Know, Locate, etc.

I'm with Zanos on this one - if you actually read the spells in question, you won't have nearly the problem you think you will. For example, the Detect spells are often defeated quite easily even via mundane means like lead-sheeting, and most villains should know that and plan accordingly.

icefractal

2017-10-08, 06:23 PM

While I think the high-end Divinations can indeed limit things too much (Hypercognition, for instance, destroys any considerations of secrecy or information strategy if taken RAW), I more often have the opposite problem - GMs making all divinations useless by giving answers so vague as to be completely useless, only giving out information you already knew or could have trivially found out anyway, or just plain no-selling the attempt.

IMO, if you're going to do that, immediately refund any spells slots or other resources used. Better yet, warn players up front so they won't make characters that use them.

Jormengand

2017-10-08, 06:31 PM

Divination is quite good, but then so is plain simple Knowledge if taken literally (Oh really, knowledge, it's a DC 30 check to answer the toughest questions about anything that's covered by one of the knowledge skills which don't concern a creature's abilities, is it? Then please, tell me and my +29 bonus the exact layout of this dungeon). A lot of them are exceptionally powerful, yes. Remember, though, that the enemy has them too, as well as abilities like the Slayer's divination immunity or the far more ubiquitous mind blank which can ruin a diviner's day.

SirNibbles

2017-10-08, 06:59 PM

I'm with Zanos on this one - if you actually read the spells in question, you won't have nearly the problem you think you will. For example, the Detect spells are often defeated quite easily even via mundane means like lead-sheeting, and most villains should know that and plan accordingly.

So every minor evil villain needs to always be wearing a lead sheet to avoid detection, even with +20 Disguise and Bluff? I guess he can never go out in public.

The mob doesn't need to have you whack someone to make sure you're not an undercover cop. They can just do Detect Law/Good and figure it out that way.

Unless you're constantly hiding yourself away, you're vulnerable to Detect Alignment spells.

How about Discern Lies? It doesn't matter if the enemy has +80 Bluff. He can't fool you if he fails his Will Save.

Discern Bloodline, another level 1 spell, instantly tells you the race (with inherited templates) of your target. Disguised, Wild Shaped, it doesn't matter. Your cover is blown by a single Will save.

__

I don't know where everyone is getting this idea that all Evil people live in isolated fortresses so they can avoid detection with a myriad of warding spells and fortifications. They walk the same streets as everyone else. They buy their potatoes at the same market. They smile and wave to you as they think about how many puppies they've kicked in the past week. And, most of all, they're not all high level spellcasters. They don't all have spells that make them immune to Divinations.

Fizban

2017-10-08, 07:41 PM

Having the answer to any question you know to ask is functionally the same as omniscience. "But what if you don't know which question to ask?", you may say. If you don't know the question, it's clearly not an issue for you at the moment.
You're walking through a dungeon and an unexpected enemy pops out. Your spells are not calibrated to fight this enemy. This enemy is not waiting 10 minutes for you to cast Divination, or Contact Other Plane, or Commune, and even if they did you wouldn't be able to change your prepared spells based on this information. They already have you dimensionally locked. You die.

So every minor evil villain needs to always be wearing a lead sheet to avoid detection, even with +20 Disguise and Bluff? I guess he can never go out in public.

The mob doesn't need to have you whack someone to make sure you're not an undercover cop. They can just do Detect Law/Good and figure it out that way.

Unless you're constantly hiding yourself away, you're vulnerable to Detect Alignment spells.
So the mob just murders anyone they deal with who isn't evil? That's a great way to bring even more attention to yourself without actually stopping anyone from infiltrating your organization. The mob itself is a Lawful organization, else they wouldn't be The Mob.

The Book of Exalted Deeds makes it quite clear, even if it wasn't already obvious, that killing people just because they detect as Evil makes you a murderer, so the reverse doesn't happen either.

How about Discern Lies? It doesn't matter if the enemy has +80 Bluff. He can't fool you if he fails his Will Save.
If you can't figure out how to pull off a scheme without lying, you don't have +80 bluff. And if you have +80 bluff, it is almost certainly as a result of both expensive magic items and the Glibness spell, so you don't actually care about Discern Lies.

Discern Bloodline, another level 1 spell, instantly tells you the race (with inherited templates) of your target. Disguised, Wild Shaped, it doesn't matter. Your cover is blown by a single Will save.
Yay?

I think you've taken the specific idea of some master of disguise stealing someone's identity, Hitman style, but somehow also being completely unequipped to do so, ignorant any of the standard well-known magical abilities he'd have to defeat, or indeed even basic manipulation or infiltration techniques. So, a PC starting with a high skill bonus who doesn't actually know how the game works.

I don't know where everyone is getting this idea that all Evil people live in isolated fortresses so they can avoid detection with a myriad of warding spells and fortifications. They walk the same streets as everyone else. They buy their potatoes at the same market. They smile and wave to you as they think about how many puppies they've kicked in the past week.
So you know that no organization can actually use Detect Alignment in the fashion you have described.

And, most of all, they're not all high level spellcasters. They don't all have spells that make them immune to Divinations.
Good thing all the countermeasures are mundane, low level, or easily purchaseable magic then, if they're not just something you learn working with criminals in a magical world. Seriously, your complaint is that level 1 thugs can't play master of disguise against paranoid magicians with unspecified resources. What a surprise.

P.F.

2017-10-08, 08:25 PM

So every minor evil villain needs to always be wearing a lead sheet to avoid detection, even with +20 Disguise and Bluff? I guess he can never go out in public.

The mob doesn't need to have you whack someone to make sure you're not an undercover cop. They can just do Detect Law/Good and figure it out that

No, only evil clerics, anti-paladins etc need to always be wearing a lead sheet. Or cast undetectable alignment, and have no particular aligned aura, just like any other evil-aligned non-cleric minor villain.

Detect alignment spells don't tell you a person's alignment, they reveal the presence and relative strength of alignment auras, which only emanate from certain specific people and items.

This goes back to that whole, "read the spell descriptions" thing.

Deophaun

2017-10-08, 08:58 PM

Having the answer to any question you know to ask is functionally the same as omniscience. "But what if you don't know which question to ask?", you may say. If you don't know the question, it's clearly not an issue for you at the moment.
So close. So close.

The answer is that if you don't know what questions you should ask, then obviously the question you need to ask is "What questions should I ask?" As long as you have that first step, you have practical omniscience.

Otherwise, there does come a point where you would realize too late the question that you should have asked, but really had no other way of knowing that it was a possibility until it showed up at your front door while you were unprepared.

Malimar

2017-10-08, 10:00 PM

No, only evil clerics, anti-paladins etc need to always be wearing a lead sheet. Or cast undetectable alignment, and have no particular aligned aura, just like any other evil-aligned non-cleric minor villain.

Detect alignment spells don't tell you a person's alignment, they reveal the presence and relative strength of alignment auras, which only emanate from certain specific people and items.

This goes back to that whole, "read the spell descriptions" thing.
In 3.5, if you read the spell descriptions, it transpires that all evil creatures of 10 HD or less have at least a Faint evil aura. So detect evil does in fact always tells you if a creature is evil.

You may be thinking of PF's rules, where a creature of 4 or fewer HD has no alignment auras (unless they're Undead, Outsider, Cleric, or Paladin). Still, even by this rule, in a sufficiently high-level setting, the results can be functionally the same as in 3.5.

Psyren

2017-10-08, 11:29 PM

So every minor evil villain needs to always be wearing a lead sheet to avoid detection, even with +20 Disguise and Bluff? I guess he can never go out in public.

No, but he should probably be looking into getting Nondetection, or Undetectable Alignment, if he is going to walk his evil ass near paladins and whatnot. Otherwise his career will be rather short.

How about Discern Lies? It doesn't matter if the enemy has +80 Bluff. He can't fool you if he fails his Will Save.

It's quite easy to mislead people while speaking nothing but truth. Are you familiar with the Wheel of Time novels?

Discern Bloodline, another level 1 spell, instantly tells you the race (with inherited templates) of your target. Disguised, Wild Shaped, it doesn't matter. Your cover is blown by a single Will save.

I actually agree with you on this one, that spell should be able to be blocked. But I play PF, which doesn't have that spell, and its existence doesn't validate your other points.

I don't know where everyone is getting this idea that all Evil people live in isolated fortresses so they can avoid detection with a myriad of warding spells and fortifications.

Please stop strawmanning, nobody said this.

illyahr

2017-10-10, 12:16 PM

Let's not forget that the same clause that includes being blocked by a sheet of lead, a lot of divinations are blocked by a few feet of stone. Anything underground is, therefore, undetectable unless you are already at the location.

Elder_Basilisk

2017-10-10, 12:46 PM

Seriously, divinations don't get really effective until find the path and discern location. And even then, by the time you can discern location mind blank is eminently available to important adversaries.

Divination? Don't get me wrong, it's a good spell but it only has a good chance of working at all and the kind of cryptic answer thing is much better suited to general questions like, "should we go after this member of the assassin's guild we just found or is it a waste of time?" If you expect to do a bunch of divinations to figure all the traps in a dungeon, you're going to run into failure and misinterpretation.

Detect alignment? It's a clue but it's not a game solver. If your bad guys are all evil and only your bad guys are evil and they never take steps to protect themselves, it could be detect bad guy but nobody has to run their campaign that way. The evil cleric of erythnul serial killer almost certainly uses undetectable alignment every morning (really, it's on her list and unlike nondetection and misdirection it doesn't have a caster level check or save to avoid it, if she isn't using it, she's too dumb for the hidden serial killer game) so the paladin using detect evil as "solve the mystery" is going to find the fraudster snake oil salesmen, the traveling bard who beats his girlfriend and children, and the town guard who took the job because it lets him bully people but not the serial killer. And if he's too aggressive, he might just find the great wyrm red dragon who was passing through town in disguise for something completely unrelated. Don't smite off more than you can chew.

Things like discern bloodline are useful if you want to discern a bloodline but won't help against a human villain in a human town. Discern lies is often counterproductive. If they pass the will save they can lie and you assume they're telling the truth. Of course good condition men can deceive without lying too which is another way that discern lies can be counterproductive.

Other spells can be fooled by simple precautions which would normally be standard operating procedure--would anyone buy a secure chest that is not lead lined, for example?

And all of that assumes that people are ok with you simply casting spells in their presence. Most will not be unless you have some kind of official authority. It's like pulling a gun in real life. If you are the police and have a good reason or if it is in your home it may work out but if you're a random guy on the street, people are going to act like you're about to shoot someone. After all, the random adventurer casting a spell could be casting a charm or a curse. To them a harmless divination looks the same as a fireball or a mindrape. Most characters can't tell the difference between that and a discern bloodline so walking into a bar and casting a spell is another way of saying, "I roll initiative."

MesiDoomstalker

2017-10-10, 02:16 PM

I want to know how your hypothetical spellcaster knows to cast Discern Bloodline on the polymorphed/disguised/illusion-covered villain? Would they not have to have a suspicion they are not as they appear? Such as passing the will save (for illusions), passing the skill check (for Disguise checks) or some how premonition that they'll need to scan the target with magic detection (Detect Magic and its upgrades)? Yes Discern Bloodline shows you what they really are but only if you know to use it.

ryu

2017-10-10, 03:10 PM

Deophaun

2017-10-10, 03:23 PM

I want to know how your hypothetical spellcaster knows to cast Discern Bloodline on the polymorphed/disguised/illusion-covered villain?
Who does that when you can just cast sacred item on your glove and shake hands? I call it the Paladin's joy buzzer.

Zanos

2017-10-10, 05:24 PM

Yes Discern Bloodline shows you what they really are but only if you know to use it.
And more importantly, that you actually prepared it. If a spontaneous caster took it as one of his spells known I'm probably to busy laughing at him to care.

I'm just going to throw out an example here. Detect Evil gets a lot of guff. Unless you're a paladin this spell has some serious limitations:
60ft cone. Not bad, but important.
Takes 3 rounds to locate something, so useless for pinpointing people in a crowd.
Concentration, up to 10 min per level. Duration isn't bad but having to constantly concentrate on it is going to cramp your style for any particularly long time.
Casting it is super obvious to anyone with spellcraft.
Is nonspecific.

Going to expand on the last one. Lets say I cast detect evil and pick up nothing. This could mean that:
The target is Good. He may or not be plotting against me.
The target is Neutral. He may or may not be plotting against me.
The target is Evil. He doesn't read because he is wearing a ring of mind shielding, or used a potion/scroll of undetectable, alignment, or is himself a cleric.

Or I pick up something:
The target is Evil. He is plotting against me.
The target is Evil. he is not plotting against me.

Wait, what? Evil and not trying to kill me? That's pretty weird, huh? Not really. Humans tend toward no alignment, so in open trade cities like Waterdeep or Baldur's Gate around 1/3rd of the population will be Evil. Just because someone is Evil doesn't make them the villain. King's adviser is Evil so you kill him, problem solved? Nope, turns out he just levies heavy taxes on some of the downtrodden peasants for personal gain, but had nothing to do with the plot to overthrow the King.

Not to mention that a 50th level Evil wizard, a 9 HD skeleton, a 5 HD Evil Cleric, and a 5 HD outsider all read as "strong" on detect evil.

atemu1234

2017-10-10, 06:11 PM

TBH a lot of divination spells are pretty powerful if the opponents aren't prepared for them, but by mid-to-high level, avoiding those things is actually pretty easy.

I recommend making your enemies Vecna-blooded if it really bugs you that much.

Also, the really niche ones aren't really worth worrying about, because players will probably not be preparing or casting them all too often, giving you an 8 hr buffer for how long they need to prepare it.

ryu

2017-10-10, 07:18 PM

I mean... Spontaneous divination turns all arguments about a divination being too niche to prepare into jokes. JOKES I SAY! JOKES!!!

Psyren

2017-10-10, 08:44 PM

I mean... Spontaneous divination turns all arguments about a divination being too niche to prepare into jokes. JOKES I SAY! JOKES!!!

And even without that, there's the simple expedient of leaving slots open during the day in case a quick phone call to your Guy is needed. You can even use things like Pearls of Power to be sure that doing so won't cut into your daily allotment too much.

Dr_Dinosaur

2017-10-10, 09:25 PM

atemu1234

2017-10-10, 10:44 PM

My problem with Divination is that the only way to keep it from completely ruining any and all mystery or surprise is to either randomly (% failure) or deliberately (just be vague!) screw the player out of a spell slot. They're either unfun because they're too good or unfun because they're useless.

The rules say in the spell description that they often fail or are vague. If they player had a problem with that, it's not like it's not spelled out. Besides, the vagueries of prophecy can be quite... entertaining*.
*All credit for the use of purple text to denote lawful evil behavior belongs solely to Red Fel, and the use herein is an homage, and is therein protected.

rel

2017-10-11, 03:07 AM

I actually think a lot of the question answering divination spells, especially divination itself are too vague. I prefer spells to give concrete reliable results like commune.
Easy to use, easy to adjudicate.

Fizban

2017-10-11, 04:33 AM

Or I pick up something:
The target is Evil. He is plotting against me.
The target is Evil. he is not plotting against me.
And don't forget:

The target is Evil- because he's been accidentally contaminated. He may or may not be plotting against me.
The target is Evil- because he's been intentionally set up. He may or may not be plotting against me.
The target is Evil- because he's being possessed. He may or may not be plotting against me.

I believe the first comes up in BoVD, but taint can also do it, or carrying an evil item. Items and possibly some spells can do the second, and while I haven't looked it up I expect that's the result you'd get for someone under possession.

ayvango

2017-10-11, 06:23 AM

As Zanos said, the spell text encourages you to be vague, ominous, and cryptic. Most have a built-in chance for failure (Divination succeeds 70% +1% per caster level IIRC. That means it fails around one in five times at medium levels).
You always can ask the same thing multiple times and use statistics. If the question is really important, it's something worth to do. So you can easily afford 99.99% accurate information. And if something fails, than it just a bad fate. You can receive several critical hits in a row as well.

Which made extremely easy answering the millennium problems comparing to how much effort the present humanity puts in it. Breaking unbreakable ciphers never was so easy as when you have an oracle that could answer any question (even if it could speak only yes/no - we know well how to encode information in binary form).

And don't forget your BBEG can divinate too!

That is the most interesting part. If divination could tell future, than simultaneous divination carried by bad guys and good ones are inherently inconsistent and breaks mechanics and common sense. It should be avoided as any other meddling with time. But in all other aspects divination and counterdivination is enticing game of hide and seek. It is perfectly plausible and mimics modern technology struggle of detection and escaping it. Stealth technology to avoid radiolocation and specific devices that could penetrate its.

The bad thing that you should be a caster to play such games. And if you not - you are always at losing position. And so we get yet another proof that you only wizards could enjoy d&d game fully. And actually they could not too. Because for wizards the game sonsists entirely of running precautions and performing sudden obliterating strike. You should care about divination and counter divination, magical triggers and chain of triggers that works both for offence and defence side. But all d&d content, rules, classes, monsters focuses on close quarters strike and has no support for running intelligence wars. You could put away all d&d books and plaing wizard games of placing triggers, hiding and revealing them would not change a single bit.

Ungoded

2017-10-11, 06:33 AM

You always can ask the same thing multiple times and use statistics. If the question is really important, it's something worth to do. So you can easily afford 99.99% accurate information. And if something fails, than it just a bad fate. You can receive several critical hits in a row as well.

From the SRD: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/divination.htm)

Similar to augury but more powerful, a divination spell can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within one week. The advice can be as simple as a short phrase, or it might take the form of a cryptic rhyme or omen. If your party doesn’t act on the information, the conditions may change so that the information is no longer useful. The base chance for a correct divination is 70% + 1% per caster level, to a maximum of 90%. If the dice roll fails, you know the spell failed, unless specific magic yielding false information is at work.

As with augury, multiple divinations about the same topic by the same caster use the same dice result as the first divination spell and yield the same answer each time.

No need for multiple castings. You know if it worked or not, and if not, additional castings won't help.

ayvango

2017-10-11, 06:52 AM

You could have multiple casters. You could use different sources.

Eldariel

2017-10-11, 07:07 AM

It's just a paradigm shift. Instead of stories being about solving a question, stories are about what to do thereafter and indeed finding the right question to ask. Bastion of the Broken Souls for instance integrates divinations to the whole (that is to say, the game can afford to give you much less to work with and not hold the PCs by hand thanks to the spells) though there's one divine secret that prevents certain questions being answered also limiting divinations in certain contexts. Still great, useful and indeed integral though.

Playing on the limits of divine knowledge adds some logical limits to the spells without rendering them useless. Same with the concept of time; in a 5D environment with the probability coordinates gaining some information from a deity can lead to a different event coordinate altering the foreseen future thus making the information acquired about future events inevitably unreliable if not outright false.

Psyren

2017-10-11, 07:11 AM

You could have multiple casters. You could use different sources.

Most groups don't have that many. If you mean NPCs, the GM controls access to those, so if they don't want you using brute force prognostication it's trivial to stop.

Necroticplague

2017-10-11, 07:13 AM

In 3.5, if you read the spell descriptions, it transpires that all evil creatures of 10 HD or less have at least a Faint evil aura. So detect evil does in fact always tells you if a creature is evil.

No, it tells you that they have an Evil aura. This could be because they're evil. This could be because they have a magic item that emits an evil aura, which was made using Liquid Pain or souls or corrupted (unknowingly to them). It could be because they have a [evil] buff spell on them. It could be a lingering aura they have from being near a Great and Powerful Malevolence recently.

That is, of course, ignoring that since 'evil' is a broad scale, being detected as Evil doesn't really mean much.

EDIT: crap, other people already made these exact points.

ayvango

2017-10-11, 09:25 AM

Most groups don't have that many.
Create wand of divination (I know it is expensive but you can buy outstanding results with it). Use some spell or magic item to bust UMD checks. Summon elemental, make it wear the magic item, get him wand to cast spell.

It is the first thing that come to my mind. There may exist more canny methods.

Mehangel

2017-10-11, 09:34 AM

Create wand of divination (I know it is expensive but you can buy outstanding results with it). Use some spell or magic item to bust UMD checks. Summon elemental, make it wear the magic item, get him wand to cast spell.

It is the first thing that come to my mind. There may exist more canny methods.

Personally, I wouldn't allow the passing around of a magic item like a wand to work (as I would consider the source to be the same). I would however allow scrolls crafted by priests of different religions to work (as I would consider the user effectively asking a different god each time).

Psyren

2017-10-11, 09:41 AM

Create wand of divination (I know it is expensive but you can buy outstanding results with it). Use some spell or magic item to bust UMD checks. Summon elemental, make it wear the magic item, get him wand to cast spell.

It is the first thing that come to my mind. There may exist more canny methods.

I would say the wand itself qualifies as "same caster," regardless of who activates it. You can use it for multiple topics, but not pass the wand around the room to get different answers on the same question.

Necroticplague

2017-10-11, 09:50 AM

Also, how cheesable 'same topic' is depends very heavily how one interprets what a topic is. DM depending, it's possible that using different questions about different topics pertaining to the same information might be possible. One of the reasons I generally prefer to avoid question-based divinations and figments: a bit too prone to different DM interpretations getting in the way.

ayvango

2017-10-11, 10:58 AM

I would say the wand itself qualifies as "same caster," regardless of who activates it. You can use it for multiple topics, but not pass the wand around the room to get different answers on the same question.
So, you believe that either wand itself or its maker is the caster? So a good character who needs to cast evil spell and wants to keep his alignment, could solve the problem with wands, since the wand's creator is counted as caster.

How would you rule warlock that could create wands with UMD? He misses both spell to cast and god to worship and still could create wands.

Deophaun

2017-10-11, 11:08 AM

So, you believe that either wand itself or its maker is the caster? So a good character who needs to cast evil spell and wants to keep his alignment, could solve the problem with wands, since the wand's creator is counted as caster.
Would also mean there is no benefit to "personal" range spells in wands as the wand would be the target, not the person using it.

Psyren

2017-10-11, 11:45 AM

So, you believe that either wand itself or its maker is the caster? So a good character who needs to cast evil spell and wants to keep his alignment, could solve the problem with wands, since the wand's creator is counted as caster.

How would you rule warlock that could create wands with UMD? He misses both spell to cast and god to worship and still could create wands.

Rather than dive into this mudpit with you, I'll just say this - if you have a GM that lets you pass around a Divination wand to bleed a single topic dry 50 different ways, by all means go for it. Just don't bring it anywhere near my table.

Feantar

2017-10-11, 11:51 AM

So close. So close.

The answer is that if you don't know what questions you should ask, then obviously the question you need to ask is "What questions should I ask?" As long as you have that first step, you have practical omniscience.

Otherwise, there does come a point where you would realize too late the question that you should have asked, but really had no other way of knowing that it was a possibility until it showed up at your front door while you were unprepared.

What divination gives you a full answer, instead of a yes/no, weal/woe etc? Most I've seen are either on the "good idea/bad idea" or the yes/no variety. The second type even insists that the question needs to be stated in a manner as to be answered by a yes/no response.

Zanos

2017-10-11, 12:04 PM

And don't forget:

The target is Evil- because he's been accidentally contaminated. He may or may not be plotting against me.
The target is Evil- because he's been intentionally set up. He may or may not be plotting against me.
The target is Evil- because he's being possessed. He may or may not be plotting against me.

I believe the first comes up in BoVD, but taint can also do it, or carrying an evil item. Items and possibly some spells can do the second, and while I haven't looked it up I expect that's the result you'd get for someone under possession.
Yep. Detect Evil detects Evil (http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/816/803/afb.jpg). It does not detect enemies. It can give you clues, but it doesn't solve the plot.

What divination gives you a full answer, instead of a yes/no, weal/woe etc? Most I've seen are either on the "good idea/bad idea" or the yes/no variety. The second type even insists that the question needs to be stated in a manner as to be answered by a yes/no response.
Only very high level divinations provide comprehensive information with one cast. Stuff like vision, discern location, and meta faculty.

You can binary search with yes/no questions with stuff like Contact Other Plane and Commune, but that's going to take quite a lot of time to edge out specific information, especially since you aren't allowed to ask questions about previous questions, and the deity structures the answers to further its own objectives(AKA, the DM has some license to screw about with it.)

Deophaun

2017-10-11, 12:10 PM

What divination gives you a full answer, instead of a yes/no, weal/woe etc?
That would be a good question if the statement at issue was "having access to all divination spells is functionally the same as omniscience." But, since the statement was "having the answer to any question you know to ask," well, your question is completely irrelevant, isn't it?

Kaiwen

2017-11-11, 10:49 AM

What divination gives you a full answer, instead of a yes/no, weal/woe etc? Most I've seen are either on the "good idea/bad idea" or the yes/no variety. The second type even insists that the question needs to be stated in a manner as to be answered by a yes/no response.

You can Contact Other Plane and get any number of questions answered with one word. So here's what you do.

Create a lexicon, where every word maps to a number.

0=AA
1=AAH
2=AAHED
.
.
.

Do this for all the words in Common, and then all the words, in Elven, Dwarven, Druidic, etc.
You need to have at least 3^n words, where n is the number of questions you want to ask.

Have all the questions answered as yes, no, or I don't know. Let 0=No, 1=Yes, and 2=I don't know.
Append all of the answers, in order, to get some number 0021022111 or whatever it is.
Convert that from ternary into decimal, and look up that number on the lexical map you made earlier to get a word. There you go. Now, when you receive that word, you look it up on the map, get the decimal number, convert it to ternary, and now every digit of that number is the answer to a different question.

Now remember, the entities you contact can lie, or just make stuff up. For a 'standard' optimised level 20 int-caster, you should have an int of between 35 and 40, for a bonus of 12-15. You should be able to consistently contact Outer Plane Lesser Deities, at the very least. So, the chance that you get a lie, 'don't know', or random answer is 40%, where lies and random answers are only 25%. Cast twice, and if the answers agree, there's only a 16% chance it's wrong. If they don't agree, cast two more times. It's very likely that at least one answer doesn't agree between the two casts, so just ask everything again, and take the most popular answer between all three casts. Basically, every time you ask, the chance that your conclusion is wrong decreases significantly. Keep casting, and statistically, you'll be right.

edit: If someone wants to, please check my math. Statistics was never my strong suit, and I've not touched a pen for this.

Boggartbae

2017-11-11, 11:27 AM

Would also mean there is no benefit to "personal" range spells in wands as the wand would be the target, not the person using it.

You guys do know that DM's aren't computers, and they don't have to rule the same way each time for everything? They can treat wands of divination differently than wands of enlarge person.

I will say though, on the divination question, that the way Pathfinder handles cantrips is really annoying. Having all 0-level spells be at will makes things like detect magic into gamebreakinig effects at low levels. Granted, misdirection, non-detection, and indiscernible alignment are all available early as well, but against enemies/loot that don't have those defenses, at will divinations can get really annoying.

Also, never allow the spell discern health

Deophaun

2017-11-11, 12:53 PM

You guys do know that DM's aren't computers, and they don't have to rule the same way each time for everything?
You do know that Players aren't psychic, and they cannot read the DM's mind to know how the rule will play out this time?

Psyren

2017-11-11, 02:13 PM

You guys do know that DM's aren't computers, and they don't have to rule the same way each time for everything? They can treat wands of divination differently than wands of enlarge person.

Divination is in fact supposed to be treated differently, because there is a "same topic" clause.

I will say though, on the divination question, that the way Pathfinder handles cantrips is really annoying. Having all 0-level spells be at will makes things like detect magic into gamebreakinig effects at low levels. Granted, misdirection, non-detection, and indiscernible alignment are all available early as well, but against enemies/loot that don't have those defenses, at will divinations can get really annoying.

Also, never allow the spell discern health

Getting detect magic at-will in 3.5 is trivial. There's absolutely nothing wrong with players spamming it, especially since they're burning 3 rounds every time they look at something. (PF doesn't even have the monocle.)

Discern Health looks like it's 3rd-party anyway, so it can be disregarded. The first-party version would be Analyze Aura.

Feantar

2017-11-11, 03:53 PM

Now remember, the entities you contact can lie, or just make stuff up. For a 'standard' optimised level 20 int-caster, you should have an int of between 35 and 40, for a bonus of 12-15. You should be able to consistently contact Outer Plane Lesser Deities, at the very least. So, the chance that you get a lie, 'don't know', or random answer is 40%, where lies and random answers are only 25%. Cast twice, and if the answers agree, there's only a 16% chance it's wrong. If they don't agree, cast two more times. It's very likely that at least one answer doesn't agree between the two casts, so just ask everything again, and take the most popular answer between all three casts. Basically, every time you ask, the chance that your conclusion is wrong decreases significantly. Keep casting, and statistically, you'll be right.

edit: If someone wants to, please check my math. Statistics was never my strong suit, and I've not touched a pen for this.

I love this, but I think the rule about multiple divinations about the same subject using the same roll applies here too, no?

Boggartbae

2017-11-11, 07:24 PM

You do know that Players aren't psychic, and they cannot read the DM's mind to know how the rule will play out this time?

I've broken my share of games. Sometimes I do it on purpose, and sometimes it's an accident, but I'm now in the habit of talking to my DM about most things, especially those that happen in game around the table.

Divination is in fact supposed to be treated differently, because there is a "same topic" clause.

Getting detect magic at-will in 3.5 is trivial. There's absolutely nothing wrong with players spamming it, especially since they're burning 3 rounds every time they look at something. (PF doesn't even have the monocle.)

Discern Health looks like it's 3rd-party anyway, so it can be disregarded. The first-party version would be Analyze Aura.

I back you up, and you throw RAW in my face? what is this? :smalltongue:

I didn't optimize before I played PF, so having at will detect magic as a class feature was the first time I ever bothered to use the spell, so it's probably just because it was more sudden for me.

And yeah discern health is 3rd party, but we tried it out once and it ruined all immersion immediately.

Psyren

2017-11-11, 08:04 PM

I love this, but I think the rule about multiple divinations about the same subject using the same roll applies here too, no?

COP doesn't, but there's another clause that lets them simply block you that the GM can invoke if you spend all your time executing queries instead of adventuring.

I didn't optimize before I played PF, so having at will detect magic as a class feature was the first time I ever bothered to use the spell, so it's probably just because it was more sudden for me.

All it tells them is the number of auras involved and the school of magic for each. I just don't see why that's a problem.

Sure they might be wary when you tell them the amulet has "STRONG NECROMANCY!" But the reality is that every school of magic can be both helpful and harmful.

Using the spell to trapfind carries many hazards of its own. Lots of magic traps are symbols for instance, and staring at those for even 1 round can be quite bad for your health, never mind 3.

And yeah discern health is 3rd party, but we tried it out once and it ruined all immersion immediately.

Great! Lesson learned.

Personally I think HP measuring effects should never provide a number. Results like "gravely wounded" or "vigorous" should be used instead. But the other conditions the spell reports (e.g. cursed, diseased, poisoned etc.) are completely fine for divinations to relay, albeit perhaps not at 0th and 1st level.

Kaiwen

2017-11-12, 03:35 PM

I love this, but I think the rule about multiple divinations about the same subject using the same roll applies here too, no?

That text is specifically for the divination SPELL (augury, too), not the SCHOOL. It's a bit like fire, the Fire damage type, the Fire template, and the Fire descriptor.

Getting detect magic at-will in 3.5 is trivial.

Wait, how do you do that? Can you permanency detect magic?

Psyren

2017-11-12, 03:47 PM

Wait, how do you do that? Can you permanency detect magic?

Yes, or you can dip warlock, and there's items...

Necroticplague

2017-11-12, 04:09 PM

Yes, or you can dip warlock, and there's items...

There's Dragonfire Adept for Magic Insight.

Eladrinblade

2017-11-12, 04:13 PM

You know, playgrounder Ernir made a whole replacement PHB PDF (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?194002-3-5-A-Translation-of-Vancian-Spellcasting-to-Psionic-Mechanics) where he switched the game to a spell point system like psionics, and generally fixed all of it, IMO.

Some of the things he did was combine similar spells, changed every class to spells known/spontaneous, and limited the best spells to certain casters. For instance, the best enchantment spells can only be cast by enchanters, and so on. Clerics can only cast from their domains, which are now better and he gets 5 over the course of 20 levels. Sorcerers can choose a specialist spell with every 3rd known spell.

I suggest everybody check it out, because it's truly amazing.

Fizban

2017-11-12, 11:12 PM

Yes, or you can dip warlock, and there's items...
You can dip 2 full levels of Warlock, which is not a trival cost at "low-levels." There is no official at-will item of Detect Magic, only items that make it easier to identify items. You can buy a wand, which is plenty cheap, but it's still at significant cost at even 2nd level and it's not actually at-will. The Vatic Gaze feat requires 9th level, at which point you could cast or buy Permanency.

You know, playgrounder Ernir made a whole replacement PHB PDF (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?194002-3-5-A-Translation-of-Vancian-Spellcasting-to-Psionic-Mechanics) where he switched the game to a spell point system like psionics, and generally fixed all of it, IMO..
He also did things like make Fireball into an equivalent to the Energy Ball power, while also reducing it to 2nd level, and messed with basically every spellcasting base class. Plenty of leg-work put in but far from a fix if you ask me.

Psyren

2017-11-13, 01:24 AM

You can dip 2 full levels of Warlock, which is not a trival cost at "low-levels."

Where did I say anything about low levels? :smallconfused:

Fizban

2017-11-13, 01:51 AM

Where did I say anything about low levels? :smallconfused:
You responded to this (added bold):

I will say though, on the divination question, that the way Pathfinder handles cantrips is really annoying. Having all 0-level spells be at will makes things like detect magic into gamebreakinig effects at low levels.
With this:

Getting detect magic at-will in 3.5 is trivial. There's absolutely nothing wrong with players spamming it, especially since they're burning 3 rounds every time they look at something. (PF doesn't even have the monocle.)

Boggartbae specified low-levels, you said it was trivial in response without removing that stipulation. Though I would not agree that 2 class levels, Permanency, or a feat are trivial costs until high levels regardless.

You also later refer to lots of magic traps being Symbols and thus dangerous under Detect Magic, but again Symbols are not low-level traps- the lowest level symbols are non-damaging and have CR 5 (based on the magic trap CR= level rule, dumb as it is). Explosive Runes and Sepia Snake Sigil would be lower but also specifically require you to read them, not just look, and can be effectively detected from much further than the expected reading range.