Looking for spells that reveal enemy power/stats

[Gruftzwerg]

What spells are there that give you insight to the power of your target/enemy (HD, feats, spells, whatsoever)?

Any official 3.5 contend is valid (excluding PF, including Dragon).
Doesnt't matter from which class the spell is.

[Biggus]

Know Vulnerabilities, Know Greatest Enemy and Know Opponent (all SpC) can each help with that in different ways.

[noob]

If your opponent is not unique shapechange gives you insight about its abilities.
Then there is detect thoughts which can stun you if the opponent is too smart relatively to you which while technically it gives you information is not exactly desirable.
You could use ice assasin or simulacrum then ask questions to the duplicate but that is extreme cheese.

[Doctor Despair]

Know Vulnerabilities, Know Greatest Enemy and Know Opponent (all SpC) can each help with that in different ways.

In addition to those:

Power Sight (MotW) is a Druid 1 spell that reveals how many HD a creature has

Sense Motive has a mode to tell how much stronger an opponent is than you. Can't remember the book it's in though. CW?

Vatic Gaze reveals the strength of their spellcasting ability. Mind Sight reveals their int score, which can correlate to strength if it is super high.

[loky1109]

Combat Awareness feat (PHB II) let you know hp of adjacent creatures.


Sense Motive has a mode to tell how much stronger an opponent is than you. Can't remember the book it's in though. CW?
I think S&F.

[Gruftzwerg]

Know Vulnerabilities, Know Greatest Enemy and Know Opponent (all SpC) can each help with that in different ways.
very good suggestions, excellent. Thx


If your opponent is not unique shapechange gives you insight about its abilities.
Then there is detect thoughts which can stun you if the opponent is too smart relatively to you which while technically it gives you information is not exactly desirable.
You could use ice assasin or simulacrum then ask questions to the duplicate but that is extreme cheese.
Nice idea, but sadly not what I'm looking for for this specific build.



In addition to those:

Power Sight (MotW) is a Druid 1 spell that reveals how many HD a creature has

Sense Motive has a mode to tell how much stronger an opponent is than you. Can't remember the book it's in though. CW?

Vatic Gaze reveals the strength of their spellcasting ability. Mind Sight reveals their int score, which can correlate to strength if it is super high.

Thx for the suggestions.

I'm aware of Sense Motive and that is already included into the build. Feats are OKish, but I'm primary looking for spells atm.

edit:

Combat Awareness feat (PHB II) let you know hp of adjacent creatures.
thx I'll look into it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Anything that grants bonuses to skills in general, or anything that grants one to Appraise in specific. (IIRC) The BoVD LoM has rules on appraising creatures for use as slaves, which grants such info on them. Check the amended Appraise rules for more details.

Prooobably not helpful in a fight, but if you can study them beforehand...

[Doctor Despair]

Anything that grants bonuses to skills in general, or anything that grants one to Appraise in specific. The BoVD has rules on appraising creatures for use as slaves, which grants such info on them. Check the BoVD for more details.

Prooobably not helpful in a fight, but if you can study them beforehand...

It's actually kind of a hilarious thought (or, more aptly, darkly terrifying; you must laugh or you cry, I suppose) for such an LE character to be so self-deluded/have such potent delusions of grandeur that they evaluate all their opponents as potential slaves before combat.

[Gruftzwerg]

Anything that grants bonuses to skills in general, or anything that grants one to Appraise in specific. (IIRC) The BoVD has rules on appraising creatures for use as slaves, which grants such info on them. Check the amended Appraise rules for more details.

Prooobably not helpful in a fight, but if you can study them beforehand...

Sounds interesting enough. But can't seem to find em.. Can you point me to the page? Or is it maybe in another book?

[AvatarVecna]

If skill bonus stuff is valid, anything that boosts skills in general or knowledge in specific: I took a quick Ctrl+F through BoVD and couldn't find those appraise rules, but "use knowledge skills to learn stat blocks" is core material. Additional advantage is that knowledge checks default to "no action".

There's a lot of little bits of info a knowledge check could give you, and each 5 points over the base DC is another piece of info for you. If you've got an arbitrary bonus, you learn their whole stat block with a glance no matter how obscure they are as a build.

[AvatarVecna]

Sounds interesting enough. But can't seem to find em.. Can you point me to the page? Or is it maybe in another book?

I found a reference guide for the Appraise skill by daremetoidareyo (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?561288). It looks like the skills are in Lords Of Madness (pg 101).

[Gruftzwerg]

Thx alot AvatarVecna

[Doctor Despair]

Wrt learning stat blocks, Urban Savant is pretty good for that, but obviously those class features aren't spells. My "Know It All" build in my sig might be of interest there.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I found a reference guide for the Appraise skill by daremetoidareyo (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?561288). It looks like the skills are in Lords Of Madness (pg 101).Ah. Thanks. Yeah, it's been awhile since I've seen, heard of, or talked about that particular subset of rules, and LoM isn't exactly a much-talked-about supplement.

But now we know, and Knowing is Half the Battle™!

[Jervis]

If your opponent is not unique shapechange gives you insight about its abilities.
Then there is detect thoughts which can stun you if the opponent is too smart relatively to you which while technically it gives you information is not exactly desirable.
You could use ice assasin or simulacrum then ask questions to the duplicate but that is extreme cheese.

That’s kind of like vivisecting a frog to find out how to kill it, at that point you probably don’t need to know how strong it is.

[FauxKnee]

Vatic Gaze reveals the strength of their spellcasting ability.


Feats are OKish, but I'm primary looking for spells atm.

The core spells arcane sight and arcane sight, greater provide this same functionality in spell form rather than feat form. You may also find analyze dweomer useful, since it can reveal the exact contents of a buffstack (arcane sight only reveals the school and spellcraft only allows you to identify active spells when the effects are noticeable.)

[Milodiah]

I'm just throwing everything I find in here, including some lesser known ones I dug up.



Discern Bloodline, Races of Destiny, 1st level spell that tells you about a creature's race which would logically include the mechanical aspects of said race.
Vision of Fear, Dragon Magazine 333, tells you a creatures greatest fears.
Discern Shapechanger, Complete Arcane, penetrates disguises and identifies shapeshifters.
If you want an off the wall but also valid answer, you could use something like Suggestion, Geas, Dominate Person, or other mind affecting spells to literally ASK THE BAD GUY what their weaknesses are and stuff, and they have to tell you because magic. Of course, depending on the GM they may or may not be able to tell you details "I am a ninth level rogue with the following feats", because that's some rather silly ooc/ic ****. But they certainly know things like the fact that their regeneration is halted by cold iron weaponry. And its certainly not ooc knowledge for a wizard to know what spells he's got prepped.
Deathwatch is of course your HP tracker.
Status is that and more, but only for allies.
Blessed Sight, Book of Exalted Deeds, lets you spot evil auras without worrying about Detect spells.
Know Vulnerabilities, Magic of Faerun, does what you'd expect, vulnerabilities and resistances.
Naturewatch, Complete Divine, limited deathwatch as a druid 0-level.
Don't forget spells that will boost your rolls on the Knowledge skills, like Divine Insight.

[darkdragoon]

Know Protections (Magic of Faerun)

[Zanos]

(arcane sight only reveals the school and spellcraft only allows you to identify active spells when the effects are noticeable.)
You can use spellcraft if you can see or detect the effects of a spell. I don't think most reasonable DMs would say that an effect literally called detect magic doesn't count as detecting the effect.

[Gruftzwerg]

I wanted to thank everybody once again for your kind help.

Also, I have found this neat gem in dragon #308:

Identify with Flame (Sorc/Wiz 4 / Cleric 4)
Identifies designated creature types or classes by a flame over their heads.


I think we can now read most of the enemies relevant stats. Thx again <3

[Feantar]

Not very useful, and I'm late to the party, but Arcane Sensitivity from Shining South is a 1st level wizard spell with range of touch, that allows you to know if a creature can cast arcane spells, and if so their max spell level.