Handling Divination

[NecessaryWeevil]

Plots often involve the search for crucial information (Where is the McGuffin? What is the bad guy planning? What is the bad guy's weakness? Who is the werewolf?).
Divination is a tool, possessed by Clerics among others, to discover that information. It's neat and flavourful and has a bit of RP potential.
Successful divination potentially shortcircuits plots and renders other party members obsolete.
Denying any useful info to divination renders several Cleric spells a waste of time, spell slots and material components.

I'm not a DM, but my DM has flagged the potential problems as I've started trying to employ them.
Do you any suggestions for resolving or working with these tensions?
Thanks!

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Sometimes gods give answers in strange ways or request something in exchange maybe?

There may also be restrictions on what good gods can do because of treaties sith evil gods?

[LudicSavant]

Plots often involve the search for crucial information (Where is the McGuffin? What is the bad guy planning? What is the bad guy's weakness? Who is the werewolf?).
Divination is a tool, possessed by Clerics among others, to discover that information. It's neat and flavourful and has a bit of RP potential.
Successful divination potentially shortcircuits plots and renders other party members obsolete.
Denying any useful info to divination renders several Cleric spells a waste of time, spell slots and material components.

I'm not a DM, but my DM has flagged the potential problems as I've started trying to employ them.
Do you any suggestions for resolving or working with these tensions?
Thanks!

Divinations often have limitations and countermeasures associated with them. For example, "what's the bad guy planning?" Not even the gods will know if that bad guy's casting Mind Blank. Likewise, a MacGuffin could be in a place warded from divination, in a lead box, etc.

As for the small town werewolf, he's probably getting found out unless he's taking extra measures of some kind. But if someone wants to get away with a crime, then that person should take into account the available forensic methods (e.g. magic) when committing their crime.

[Christew]

Plots often involve the search for crucial information (Where is the McGuffin? What is the bad guy planning? What is the bad guy's weakness? Who is the werewolf?).
Divination is a tool, possessed by Clerics among others, to discover that information. It's neat and flavourful and has a bit of RP potential.
Successful divination potentially shortcircuits plots and renders other party members obsolete.
Denying any useful info to divination renders several Cleric spells a waste of time, spell slots and material components.

I'm not a DM, but my DM has flagged the potential problems as I've started trying to employ them.
Do you any suggestions for resolving or working with these tensions?
Thanks!
I've personally never really found them much issue. The limitations provided by the spells themselves are pretty good at keeping them in check (at least until high tier play). Even the fifth level divinations aren't foolproof (lack of omniscience, short answers, etc). "Useful" is a sliding scale, you can provide info that is distinct enough to eliminate possibilities while being vague enough to leave room for further mundane investigation. I think of divinations as a great opportunity to plant seeds, not void mysteries.

Depends on the spell being used, but some broad examples:
Where is the McGuffin?
The Castle Perilous (a location the party has never heard of -- they now have a starting point, but still have work to do)
What is the bad guy planning?
To disrupt peace negotiations between two nations (Knowing the broad plan doesn't mean they don't have a lot of steps to go about addressing it)
What is the bad guy's weakness?
Disloyalty (Not a win button, but a seed to perhaps try some diplomacy with the BBEG's lieutenants)
Who is the werewolf?
A failed bard (unless the party has sufficiently investigated the proper NPC background -- they now have a starting point, but still have work to do)

Ultimately though, a campaign in a responsive universe shouldn't be troubled by even the most powerful divination. Knowing where the MacGuffin is now doesn't mean it can't move before you get there. Even if the MacGuffin is relatively static, the adventure simply shifts from discovering to obtaining -- still plenty of opportunity for fun and for all roles to shine on the way.

[Unoriginal]

Plots often involve the search for crucial information (Where is the McGuffin? What is the bad guy planning? What is the bad guy's weakness? Who is the werewolf?).
Divination is a tool, possessed by Clerics among others, to discover that information. It's neat and flavourful and has a bit of RP potential.
Successful divination potentially shortcircuits plots and renders other party members obsolete.
Denying any useful info to divination renders several Cleric spells a waste of time, spell slots and material components.

I'm not a DM, but my DM has flagged the potential problems as I've started trying to employ them.
Do you any suggestions for resolving or working with these tensions?
Thanks!

Well, let's get down the list:

1) Is there any spell which can solve X situation with 1 casting:

To my knowledge, there is no spell that can answer questions such as "Where is the McGuffin?", "What is the bad guy planning?", "What is the bad guy's weakness?" or "Who is the werewolf?" just like that.

Legend Lore only works for things that are legendary. If the McGuffin, bad guy, or werewolf are not of legendary importance then the spell simply not work, and if they *are* of legendary importance, then you only learn, well, legends about them. Even if they're accurate, stories and tales about X are not always useful or about current events (ex: if the McGuffin was lost 1000 years ago and is famous for it, then Legend Lore may give you the equivalent of 'Isildur had the One Ring when the ambush which killed him happened, after which no one know what happened to it for sure", and "what is the bad guy planning?" can get you the equivalent of "Bowser is known to want to marry Princess Peach, even against her will, and has come up with various schemes to enforce that, most of them involving kidnapping her, but I find hard to argue that Legend Lore could give you "the vampire will attack during the festival to kill the king and his direct family in order to trigger a succession crisis, which would let them find and destroy the Sacred Grove while everyone else is busy deciding who is in charge"). You could learn a bad guy's legendary weakness, the where the stories say a McGuffin is or the like, but in which case it's likely not information your DM doesn't want you to know.

Commune can only answers questions which can be answered by "yes" or "no". The divine entity contacted might give you a sentence to go with "yes" or "no", but only if "yes" or "no" would be misleading or contrary to their interest, it should still be a question answerable by "yes" or "no" (ex: asking Asmodeus if the Celestial Ixi really killed King Tornwall could get you a "yes", asking Helm, who counts Ixi among his ally, the same question could get you "yes, self defense", "yes, but they didn't know it was the king" or similar). In any case, they would be unable to answer any of the questions asked above.

The appropriately yet confusingly named spell Divination can only answer a question about "a specific goal, event, or activity" happening within 7 days, and the answer is "a short phrase, a cryptic rhyme, or an omen." So you wouldn't be able to answer "Where is the McGuffin?", "What is the bad guy's weakness?" or "Who is the werewolf?" at all, and while "What is the bad guy planning?" could be said to be a goal, event or activity, it isn't specific, so the spell wouldn't work either.

Augury cannot answer those questions either.

1b) what level are the spells that can solve X situation with 1 casting ?

As said in 1), only Legend Lore could answer some of those questions, only if the target is legendary, and it will only tells you information that is about the legend of the person/item. And that's a 5th level spell.

2) Can X situation be solved by repeated casting one of the spells?

Some time, and sort of? You could get the name of the werewolf by repeatedly asking "is X the werewolf?" with Commune, for example.

3) Can X situation be solved by different applications of one of the spells?

A different wording may get you an answer, but due to the difference in wording you likely wouldn't directly get the info you search for either.


So, all in all, it is quite unlikely that the D&D divination spells can or will "shortcircuit plots and renders other party members obsolete."

[stoutstien]

Divination is just one of of those things DMs have to deal with as the party advances. It's one of the reasons games stop along side other player options that start stressing the current state of the game the DM is comfortable with. For the most part the when category of information gathering spells are left up to DM fiat so after a few screw up it's becomes easier to deal with them. Locate object/creature are probably the standouts but as pointed out above there are some built in counters that can be deployed.

[Unoriginal]

Divination is just one of of those things DMs have to deal with as the party advances. It's one of the reasons games stop along side other player options that start stressing the current state of the game the DM is comfortable with. For the most part the when category of information gathering spells are left up to DM fiat so after a few screw up it's becomes easier to deal with them. Locate object/creature are probably the standouts but as pointed out above there are some built in counters that can be deployed.

Even without any counter, Divination spells are extremely limited in what they give and what they can affect.

[stoutstien]

Even without any counter, Divination spells are extremely limited in what they give and what they can affect.

This is true. I should have said counters and built in limits. Both are there but it takes some system mastery on the DMs part to be familiar with them if you want to maintain a certain level of world logic. Sort of like exploration gates that fail because you forget about stuff like water breathing or teleportation.