New favorite contingency spell

[Aaedimus]

Nondetection

We've been working against Manshoon, and so help me goodness, the guy keeps trying to scry and spy on us.
Contingency-Nondetection is hands down a brilliant way to counter that.

"OOP, my contingency spell went off! Let me take a second to cast Private Sanctum"
"OOP, my contingency went off... can you tell him to mind his own business before we proceed please?"

[JackPhoenix]

That's not really useful unless you're alone, though. If he can't scry on you, he'll simply scry on someone else in your group. And you wouldn't be able to tell when it triggers, as Nondetection doesn't have any obvious tells.

[Aaedimus]

I mean, I would recognize when my own spell activated, so yeah, it would be a good indicator that it's happening, and your reason why it wouldn't work can just be fixed by using the appropriate wording for the trigger:

"If anyone in the group is being spied on, activate non-detection"
Maybe I would be the only one to be immediately safe from detection, however that gives the caster the ability to tel everyone to stop what they're doing and cast something like private sanctum, etc (or for us to retreat to the place I cast private sanctum yesterday).

In the end, scrying/spying is about gaining info, and this helps minimize the info he can gather.

[PhantomSoul]

I mean, I would recognize when my own spell activated, so yeah, it would be a good indicator that it's happening, and your reason why it wouldn't work can just be fixed by using the appropriate wording for the trigger:

I can't check the spells right now -- does either one actually have a perceptible effect? No concentration so that can't tip you off. You plausibly would have no idea just like the target of other spells may not!



"If anyone in the group is being spied on, activate non-detection"
Maybe I would be the only one to be immediately safe from detection, however that gives the caster the ability to tel everyone to stop what they're doing and cast something like private sanctum, etc (or for us to retreat to the place I cast private sanctum yesterday).

In the end, scrying/spying is about gaining info, and this helps minimize the info he can gather.

I won't touch this part, just because valid triggers vary to some extent by table (so "ask your DM" often feels relevant, but here it's a report not a question!)