Tools of A Surveillance State

[Palanan]

Let’s say there’s a repressive nation-state that wants to keep magical tabs on its citizens—what they say, what they write, what they do.

Scrying seems like the go-to, but this nation-state doesn’t want throngs of even lower-level wizards in its security apparatus, out of concerns that they might form a cabal of their own. Rather, the nation-state would prefer some sort of item that could be produced in decent numbers and used by trained (but not magically educated) loyal watchdogs.

What spell or spells would be suited for these items, and how would that look in practice? And what sort of costs would be involved?

[Doctor Despair]

Let’s say there’s a repressive nation-state that wants to keep magical tabs on its citizens—what they say, what they write, what they do.

Scrying seems like the go-to, but this nation-state doesn’t want throngs of even lower-level wizards in its security apparatus, out of concerns that they might form a cabal of their own. Rather, the nation-state would prefer some sort of item that could be produced in decent numbers and used by trained (but not magically educated) loyal watchdogs.

What spell or spells would be suited for these items, and how would that look in practice? And what sort of costs would be involved?

Train a bunch of bards to take Precocious Apprentice at level 1. They can use one level 2 divination spell most of the time, but otherwise don't even have access to level 1 spells. They have Sense Motive and Listen as class skills, so they can use mundane means to spy on people too.

Alternatively, train a bunch of Binders to take Improved Binding at level 1. They can bind with Malphas to spy on people with doves all over the place. Keep them locked up in a room so that only food/water/waste/birds can fit in or out, but not a person. This is riskier because Binders have way more options than bards, so if they don't want level 1 wizards running around, they probably don't want Binders.

Alternatively, start mass-producing Eternal Wands. Those can cast any level 1, 2, or 3 spell 2x per day. I can't recall if you need a caster level to use them, but you don't need to UMD.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Doctor Despair
Alternatively, start mass-producing Eternal Wands. Those can cast any level 1, 2, or 3 spell 2x per day. I can't recall if you need a caster level to use them, but you don't need to UMD.

Thanks for the suggestion, but this doesn't seem like it would work well for surveillance. Each wand will only give you 10 minutes per day, which isn’t much—and according to the ECS, each wand would cost 10,900 gp, which won’t be cost-effective in this situation.

[Doctor Despair]

Thanks for the suggestion, but this doesn't seem like it would work well for surveillance. Each wand will only give you 10 minutes per day, which isn’t much—and according to the ECS, each wand would cost 10,900 gp, which won’t be cost-effective in this situation.

Chain of Eyes on an eternal wand can be pretty effective. Lasts 1 hour/level.

You can use another creature's vision instead of your own. While this spell gives you no control over the subject, each time it comes into physical contact with another living being, you can choose to transfer your sensor to the new creature. During your turn in a round, you can use a free action to switch from seeing through the current creature's eyes to seeing normally or back again.

Each transfer attempt allows the new target a saving throw and spell resistance. If a target resists, the spell ends.

[Fizban]

No spell with a finite number of targets will ever do anything but "fishing," hoping for a catch. If you want to monitor everyone, you need to invent mass data harvesting spells.

Or use Divination, because Divination is always the answer. Unless the answer is Commune.

Especially if you're actually looking at the price involved. You could have a realistic number of agents armed with the best direct espsionage spells for their budget, forming an agency that looks for the right people to spy on and then does so.

Or you could just Divination and Commune spam.

Or mind reading. Medallion of Thoughts, 12,000gp, ban the sale or use of lead for anything except certain state industries, and spam to your heart's content.

[Maat Mons]

For published items, there's Crystal Ball ot Pool of Scrying. The pool is 1/4th the cost, but non-portable. They both still require an hour to use, just like the spell.

For custom items, I'd use Greater Scrying as the base. That gets activation down to a standard action. The existing scrying items don't stick very close to the formulas, but maybe try scaling them up proportionally.

If you can go really custom, try creating a new spell that merges Scry Location and Greater Scrying. Scry Location is 2 levels higher than Scrying (or 3 levels higher for Druids), but there's no save because it targets an area, not a creature. Greater Scrying is 3 levels higher than Scrying (or 2 levels higher for Cleric), but is 600 times faster to cast. So that would suggest our hypothetical Greater Scry Location spell should be 9th-level for Clerics, and also 9th-level for Sorcerers and Wizards, but unavailable to anyone else.

If you're using Scrying from an item, the save DC is 16. And if your secret police haven't personally met the targets, they get a +5 on the save. So your average Commoner with a +0 Will save will succeed half the time.



More practically, one of the D&D supplements had a leech or something that could attach itself to people. It sapped their will and rendered mind-control effects permanent. Can't remember where it's from or what it's called though. So, obviously, you use Curse to make all of your subjects permanently bald, then have them wear giant leeches on their heads like horrible mohawks. Anyone caught without their leech is taken away for reconditioning. But that doesn't happen often, because one of the mind control effects everyone is conditioned with is to never remove the head-leeches.

[Doctor Despair]

I mean, if permanent mind control is what you want, Necrotic Tumor is right there

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Fizban
No spell with a finite number of targets will ever do anything but "fishing," hoping for a catch.

In this situation, the watchdogs conduct their surveillance in three broad categories:

1. Observations of citizens chosen at random.

2. Observation of suspected traitors, as identified by informers.

3. Observation of known targets during state investigations.


Originally Posted by Fizban
You could have a realistic number of agents armed with the best direct espsionage spells for their budget, forming an agency that looks for the right people to spy on and then does so.

Which direct espionage spells would you consider the best?


Originally Posted by Maat Mons
If you can go really custom, try creating a new spell that merges Scry Location and Greater Scrying. Scry Location is 2 levels higher than Scrying (or 3 levels higher for Druids), but there's no save because it targets an area, not a creature. Greater Scrying is 3 levels higher than Scrying (or 2 levels higher for Cleric), but is 600 times faster to cast. So that would suggest our hypothetical Greater Scry Location spell should be 9th-level for Clerics, and also 9th-level for Sorcerers and Wizards, but unavailable to anyone else.

Excellent idea, but casters at that level aren’t present in this scenario.

I do like the idea of the spell, though. Care to brew it up?


Originally Posted by Maat Mons
If you're using Scrying from an item, the save DC is 16. And if your secret police haven't personally met the targets, they get a +5 on the save. So your average Commoner with a +0 Will save will succeed half the time.

What would be the best way to raise that DC?

[Fizban]

Which direct espionage spells would you consider the best?
Well again, Divination and Commune. The only way to stop them is another equally or more powerful deity blocking your own. Legend Lore only works on high level targets, but doesn't even have a deity excuse to block it. Hindsight (SpC, Bard 6/Sor/Wiz 9, 1,000gp per cast) can only prevented if you can stop them ever getting to the place where things happened, and is only diluted over time- giving "detailed information" on the order of days, and "all the participants and highlights" on the order of weeks- and since "exact wording" is lost at weeks, there's an implication that you get the exact words at days.

Then Detect Thoughts and Probe Thoughts, or Brain Spider and Inquisition (a Cleric spell because, uh, Lolth and spiders and stuff? and a Sanctified spell).

Tracking has Locate Creature, Locate Object, Dragoneye Rune, Circle Dance, but that's just tracking.

Chain of Eyes has been mentioned already. Listening Coin is the long-duration audio monitor. Spymaster's Coin from Complete Scoundrel is the bad version, but if SpC then the former two are already there. I've also noticed a hidden use in Whispering Sand- it's meant to let you communicate, but since you can target anyone without knowing where they are, with no save, and you hear what they say, it's also an unstoppable spying spell: the target need only happen to be near 1 lb or more of sand or ash. Like a fireplace. And this brings up the old Helping Hand, where you can follow the hand to someone whether they like it or not.

Big obscure tech is Gem Tracer from Dragons of Faerun: it's 7th level and only works for the caster, but the caster can sense the direction of and scry on the bearer of the item at-will. Though since Scrying is 1 hour cast to min/level duration, that's not as good as it sounds. As noted, if you want a scrying effect, you want a custom Wondrous Architecture of Greater Scrying.

And of course, Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants, and Stone Tell, so you can't even trust the grass or stone beneath your feet.

I presume you're not up for spamming full 9th level spells, else you'd just Programmed Amnesia/the other one.


That's not just the best spells, but most of the spells. And many of them are unsubtle and high level. Bashing the problem with a custom at-will high level spell item is hardly interesting most of the time. Detect Thoughts, Speak With Animals, Chain of Eyes, and Listening Coin are more than enough to cause a ruckus. Of course, Detect Magic (or Arcane Sight) will also just flat reveal any magical bugging spells, compulsion, or active detection. And Detect Magic is itself a 0th level, the cheapest effect to produce, and lacks published countermeasures so hard that I essentially present it as the main solution for ensuring the validity of a Wish-based "election" system.

[Bonzai]

For a more evil solution you can have 1 wizard with the Mother Cyst feat. This will let you not only scry on an individual whom you implant a cyst in, but gives the added bonus of letting you punish them, out right dominate them, or turn them into unwitting suicide bombers.

I created a cult leader who abused this feat. Used right, it can be terrifying as seemingly random and innocent people explode or turn against the party out of the blue.

[The Random NPC]

Personally, I like creating a massive network of telepathically bonded constructs. Bonus points if you make them look like doors or other innocuous items. As an added benefit, you have a police force just waiting about literally everywhere. Just imagine being arrested by your own clothes.

[Jack_Simth]

Let’s say there’s a repressive nation-state that wants to keep magical tabs on its citizens—what they say, what they write, what they do.

Scrying seems like the go-to, but this nation-state doesn’t want throngs of even lower-level wizards in its security apparatus, out of concerns that they might form a cabal of their own. Rather, the nation-state would prefer some sort of item that could be produced in decent numbers and used by trained (but not magically educated) loyal watchdogs.

What spell or spells would be suited for these items, and how would that look in practice? And what sort of costs would be involved?
Frostburn has the Simulacrum Elixer (page 111-112). It's a 21k 1-shot item that makes a simulacrum of a subject (which lasts until destroyed, and is loyal to the person who used the elixer). It's not useful for replacing someone.... but there's a lot of critters with less than 26 hit dice that have useful abilities.

Get three Hags (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hag.htm) together, and they have Vision (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/vision.htm) as an at-will.
A Solar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/vision.htm) has Commune (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commune.htm) and Speak with Dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/speakWithDead.htm) as at-wills.
A Zelekhut (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/inevitable.htm#zelekhut) gets Clairaudience / Clairvoyance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clairaudienceClairvoyance.htm) and Locate Creature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/locateCreature.htm) as at-wills.

And so on. The real gem for divinations is of course the Elemental Weird (Monster Manual II page 90), which gets a BIG list of at-wills, with greatly reduced casting time.

This of course, also has inherent quest hooks, from either side:
On the "State" side: Using the elixer requires a piece of the creature to be copied. Which means quests for such critters.
On the "Rebel" side: The simulacrums last until destroyed. And they're expensive. Which means the state using these methods to stay stable has some "keystones" that rebels would want to target.

[Segev]

I mean, if permanent mind control is what you want, Necrotic Tumor is right there

Notably, necrotic scrying is a 2nd-level spell, which can target anybody with a Necrotic Cyst. You can have roving skulking cysts that infect everyone with necrotic cysts, and then anybody you want to can be targeted with necrotic scrying, and those who you need more control over can be hit with necrotic tumor (either permanently enslaving them, or making them subject to a suggestion they can't save against if they make the save vs. the spell.).

Edit to add: A command-activated at-will item of a 2nd level spell costs a market price of 10,800 gp. Very inexpensive for a powerful State actor to have on hand. Make a Necrotic Scrying Mirror or something that can be ordered to scry on anybody with a necrotic cyst.

[Crake]

As a postfacto measure, mindrape gives access to all your target's memories, so you'll know what they were doing, when, and why, as long as that memory is still intact. Wish can restore their memories if you suspect memory tampering.

As a preemptive measure however, the issue becomes deciphering an information stream so massive. To deal with that, you would essentially need an unwaveringly loyal actor for each citizen acting as a personal agent keeping tabs on them.

A construct of some sort would likely be the best bet, perhaps an intelligent item one that can imbue a person with a necrotic cyst and then spam scry on that person all day. You could reduce the cost of the item to 1/4 by having it be built into the architecture of a building, as part of some kind of massive array of intelligent items, and have all newborns brought to said place to be given a "watcher". You could also put the burden of paying for said item onto any people wishing to have a child, or make it a debt on the child being born as something they need to pay off, so the cost isn't on the state to craft said items.

Rough cost estimate for said item per citizen would be: 9000gp for 17/10/10 mental abilities, darkvision for scrying, and telepathy for alerting authorities when necessary, 3 lesser powers, and one greater power, +5000gp for 10 ranks in spot, and +5000gp for 10 ranks in listen to listen through the sensor, +300gp for a single use of necrotic cyst (can be recharged by adding said ability through magic item crafting), and +11,000gp for necrotic scrying at will (using the same pricing for the greater power of status at will, same spell level). Added up, that is 30,300gp market value, but making it into an immovable wondrous architecture piece, you can reduce that to 7,575gp, or 3787.5gp to craft, and 303xp, not out of the question for a family to supply if they want to have a child, putting their house on mortgage and taking out a loan for example.

With that, you now have every citizen in the land with a necrotic cyst, being permanently scried by their own personal watcher, and any time anything happens, said watcher is able to telepathy out an alarm with their mark's last known location, where a teleporting loyalist police squad can apprehend them for evading surveillance.

[Bugbear]

For an idea, the Surveillance State can use animals and vermin to spy on people. Animals, and more so vermin are EVERYWHERE. Just think of every dog, cat, rat, horse or bird as a spy. And then think of vermin spies like spiders, flies, ants, and worms.

So speak with animals/vermin, control animals/vermin, plus change shape into them makes great for spies.

Plus you can also go the undead route. A undead animal or vermin makes a great spy.

Pathfinder has a nice item: Pelt of the Beast. Speak with animals 1/day. If the wearer can already use speak with animals as a spell-like ability, she may do so at will. So a gnome could use that item to speak at animals at will, for example.

Pathfinder also has the Social Traits >Beastkin that allows at will speak with animals for one animal.

[Calthropstu]

An artifact that can replay a persons memory.

Artifact: Truth Seeker.

This black +2 adamantine longsword has the ability to replay the memories of anyone whose blood is currently on the weapon. The memory is played thtough a crystal on the hilt and includes both sound and video. The blade displays events that the target currdntly thinks important, so it is often used during interrogation and torture.

Since there is no limits on artifacts, you can pretty much do anything with them.