Omen of Peril - does anyone actually use it?

[Biggus]

If used by a 1st-level caster, it has a 29% chance of giving you a false vision. This is high enough that it seems to me you're probably better not using it at all.

It does get more reliable as you go up levels, eventually reaching 90% chance of a true vision at 20th level. But by this point, you've got much better divinations available.

I know it's only a 1st-level spell, but there are plenty of 1st-level spells which do useful things: this one seems like it's almost more a liability than an asset. I'm considering changing it so the chance of a false vision is considerably lower, with a "nothing/inconclusive" condition inbetween, but I'd be interested in hearing other people's opinions of it first.

[Thunder999]

Well you're probably not casting it at level 1, your spells are far too precious to waste on this then, the effects are also largely useless, it doesn't give any hint as to what the danger is or when it will occur so avoiding that grave danger isn't particularly easily and you can't really just stay in town and do nothing because this is a game about the people to go do interesting things despite the danger, not those who hide indoors and wait for someone else to handle it.

[Biggus]

Well, the uses for it as far as I can see are:

1) we're getting low on resources, should we continue with the adventure for a bit longer today or do we need to stop and rest?

2) should I use my medium-duration buffs now or save them for later?

But even at middle levels, a 20%-ish chance of a false answer seems too high to risk following its result. I was thinking of changing it so the false vision chance is only in the 1-10% range, with a 10-20% chance of no answer, which preserves an element of risk but makes it not a complete waste of time IMO.

[Asmotherion]

It's a fun RP spell and great for rp reasons.

[Ramza00]

Cleric 5/Divine Oracle 3 so an 8th level caster.

Divine Oracle 3 gives Divination Enhancement which for Omen of Peril, Augury, and Divination allows you to roll twice for the effect.
Divine Oracle 1 gives you the Oracle Domain which also boosts your CL by 2 for Divination.

Thus at 8th level you cast Divinations at CL 10, and thus the chance of failure for this build at level 8 is 80% success, if failed reroll again with 80% success aka (.2*.2=0.04) a 96% success rate. 1 in a 25 Failure Rate at level 08. Eventually down to a 1 in 100 failure rate.

The only cost are
A) 1st level spell slots but pearls of power are cheap especially if you craft them yourselves
B) 1 Round aka 6 seconds to set up the omen.
C) 25 GP Focus, but the Focus is not a material component so there is no material lost.

In return you know whether next hour is safe or not.

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In return to knowing whether the next hour is safe or not is a good time to release and cast any 10 min / level buffs you and your party has. At 8th level those 10 min / level buffs will last for 80 mins aka the duration of the danger in the next 60 mins.

Besides that? Well then the spell is effectively is Door A safe or Door B safe or both of them unsafe? Divination (4th level cleric, 3rd level Oracle Spell) is so much more useful but it takes 10 minutes to activate and there are very little ways to speed this up in 3.5. Now in Pathfinder there are lots of class abilities that starting roughly 8th level gives you a divination once per day in a 6 second period but the problem is they only do so once a day.

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In sum the spells kind of scale but kind of do not with the right prestige class. A prestige class that is useful for any cleric for normal cleric in 3.5 gains no new abilities. Augury and Divination are just so much better, but the problem with them is they cost 25 gp each casting.

[Biggus]

It's a fun RP spell and great for rp reasons.

Could you expand on that a bit?


Cleric 5/Divine Oracle 3 so an 8th level caster.

Divine Oracle 3 gives Divination Enhancement which for Omen of Peril, Augury, and Divination allows you to roll twice for the effect.
Divine Oracle 1 gives you the Oracle Domain which also boosts your CL by 2 for Divination.

Thus at 8th level you cast Divinations at CL 10, and thus the chance of failure for this build at level 8 is 80% success, if failed reroll again with 80% success aka (.2*.2=0.04) a 96% success rate. 1 in a 25 Failure Rate at level 08. Eventually down to a 1 in 100 failure rate.

The only cost are
A) 1st level spell slots but pearls of power are cheap especially if you craft them yourselves
B) 1 Round aka 6 seconds to set up the omen.
C) 25 GP Focus, but the Focus is not a material component so there is no material lost.

In return you know whether next hour is safe or not.


I'm not so bothered about the fact that it can be optimised if you take one specific prestige class, but the thing about Pearls of Power is a good point. By middle levels 1000GP is a fairly trivial cost and casting it twice gives an acceptably high chance of being right if you get the same answer both times.

[Asmotherion]

Could you expand on that a bit?



I'm not so bothered about the fact that it can be optimised if you take one specific prestige class, but the thing about Pearls of Power is a good point. By middle levels 1000GP is a fairly trivial cost and casting it twice gives an acceptably high chance of being right if you get the same answer both times.

In an RP heavy campain that revolves more around mystery rather than encounters, it's a nice way to get a hint or lead by the DM.

Also a nice way to mess with the players and possibly introduce a major outsider villain latter on if it fails.

[Dimers]

I do use omen of peril, in games where I know and trust the GM. The chance of failure becomes a positive thing when the GM will use it to enrich a story and not to punish the PCs for one bad hidden roll. But I avoid it as a selection for an early spell known, due to lack of slots. I prefer it as a custom magic item, really -- "oracle bones" or something of that sort.