Scrying / Multiple Material Planes

[schreier]

Scrying says "You can see and hear some creature, which may be at any distance. If the subject succeeds on a Will save, the scrying attempt simply fails. The difficulty of the save depends on how well you know the subject and what sort of physical connection (if any) you have to that creature. Furthermore, if the subject is on another plane, it gets a +5 bonus on its Will save."

It is still unclear to me the best way to have multiple Material Planes interacting (Eberron / Faerun / Krynn / etc). Would you treat it as another plane, or not an option?

[Fero]

I think that I would not allow it by default. By way of explanation, most of the campaign settings have their own planar cosmology. The assumption appears to be that Plane Shift, scrying etc. function within a cosmology.

The Manual of the Planes suggests that the Shadow Plane may connect different cosmologies but that travel between cosmologies is otherwise very difficult. As such, if I allowed multiple cosmologies at all, I would probably require travel through the Plane of Shadow or something similar. This is roughly analogous to how one can only travel to the Far Realm through specialized means.

[schreier]

That was my guess as well ... I think that portals could work potentially, as that's basically what we have between the world serpent and sigil, but regular travel doesn't seem to work. Thus, scrying probably wouldn't either.

[ShurikVch]

I think that I would not allow it by default. By way of explanation, most of the campaign settings have their own planar cosmology. The assumption appears to be that Plane Shift, scrying etc. function within a cosmology.

The Manual of the Planes suggests that the Shadow Plane may connect different cosmologies but that travel between cosmologies is otherwise very difficult. As such, if I allowed multiple cosmologies at all, I would probably require travel through the Plane of Shadow or something similar. This is roughly analogous to how one can only travel to the Far Realm through specialized means.
Actually, most of old classical settings are all located in the same multiverse (otherwise, how Driders appeared on Krynn)?
However, the same can't be said about Eberron and other newer settings...

[Fero]

Actually, most of old classical settings are all located in the same multiverse (otherwise, how Driders appeared on Krynn)?
However, the same can't be said about Eberron and other newer settings...

Is there a list of what settings go with what cosmology? I remember that a lot of the 2e settings where in the same cosmology but am not sure to what extent that applies to the 3e settings. Of course, I am note even sure what settings 3e ever officially recognized.

I understand that Faerun, Ebarraon, and OA are all separate. I suspect Dragonlance is also separate as it has its own planar cosmology. I have no idea for Ravenloft or Kalamar.

To through a Wrench in all of this, the Well of Many Worlds likely breaks all of these worlds and allows for strange and interesting new worlds. . . That is a great idea for a campaign.

[Tzardok]

In 2e, all settings existed in the Great Wheel. Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Birthright... all just worlds in crystal spheres on the Prime Material Plane. The only exceptions were Ravenloft (in the Demiplane of Dread, a demiplane on the Ethereal Plane) and Spelljammer and Planescape, the crossover settings that dealt with travelling between the crystal spheres themselves/the rest of the cosmology (that's what Sigil was created for, after all). Other "cosmologies" were just local planar weirdness (like the stuff that cuts off Dark Sun from the rest of the cosmology) or the locals having faulty ideas about how the cosmology works (Dragonlance for example, where the gods prevent plane-travelling magic from working, and so the locals have only the barest idea of how it all works).

When 3rd edition came around, it was decided that the settings should be seperated more strongly, with each setting getting its own cosmology. That's why they made the Great Tree for Forgotten Realms. But because they couldn't or wouldn't retcon all contact between settings that existed before, they made the Plane of Shadow to connect the new cosmologies.

Only two settings were officially caried over from 2e to 3.x: Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. Some were licensed out (Ravenloft or Dragonlance, for example), but they count as 3rd party. Besides those, 3.x created two new settings (Ghostwalk and Eberron), and accepted two other settings that originally existed for other games into canon (Rokugan, orginally from the Legend of Five Rings game, and Kalamar).
Of those settings, Ghostwalk and Kalamar don't really spend a lot of time talking about the cosmology and can be included in the 2e paradigm without problems. Eberron was created from the beginning to be incompatible, and Rokugan had its own pretty distinct cosmology that carried over.
I personally prefer to keep the 2e paradigm and wedge Eberron and Rokugan into it. Like Dark Sun, their "cosmologies" are to me just local planar anomalies that keep the inhabitants from interacting with the Great Wheel.

Edit: To return to the original question of the thread: If we treat Toril and Oerth as parts of different cosmologies, Scry should not be able to cross from one world to another. Maybe a high level/epic variant could be created that can, but Scry not (maybe one that utilizes Shadowmagic).
If we go with a cosmology with multiple material planes (like the Doppel cosmology, one of the examples in the MotP), scrying one from the other would just give the penalty for different planes.
In the 2e paradigm, Toril and Krynn would be two worlds on the same plane, and theoretically you should be able to scry from one to another without penalty. But on the other hand it is a well-known phenomenon that crystal spheres interfer with aiming teleportation, making teleporting from sphere to sphere a dangerous and uncertain task. One could assume that this also goes for scrying. I'm not sure about this; I'd need to find the right sourcebook.

[Fero]

Tzardok, that is a beautiful explanation.

[Tzardok]

Oh, you. I'm blushing as red as my avatar here. :smallredface:

If you are further interested in planar stuff and how that all works, may I suggest afroakuma's Planar and Other Oddities Questions thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?616081-afroakuma-s-Planar-And-Other-Oddities-Questions-Thread-VIII)? He's the greatest expert on that stuff here on the forum. For example, he helped me actually fit in Rokugan into the 2e paradigm:


Can the cosmology of Rokugan, as described in Fortunes and Winds, be reconciled with the Great Wheel? Or must Rokugan be relegated to an alternate cosmology?


Have never read the book, but from a cursory summary...

• Jigoku would be a layer, or multiple layers, of the Abyss.
• Gaki-Do would be a realm or region of Cathrys, second layer of Carceri.
• Sakkaku would be a realm or region of Limbo.
• Meido would be a local region of the Astral Plane.
• Yomi would be a realm or region of Abellio, first layer of Arcadia.
• Tengoku would be a realm or region of Mercuria (possibly sliding to Lunia during the night and back again), second (and first) layer(s) of Celestia.
• Chikushudo would be a realm or region of Krigala (likely either stationary or shifting to Brux and Karasuthra appropriately), first (or all) layer(s) of the Beastlands.
• Toshigoku would be a realm or region of Thuldanin, second layer of Acheron.
• Yume-Do is the Region of Dreams.


Part of the problem I had with the cosmology is that it apparantly has no transitive planes, with different contact points (based on "proximity" which again is based on conceptual connections and the will of the inhabitants) where one can open portals as the main way of getting from one spirit realm to another. This interpretation would require a lot of irregular planar contacts (Yomi and Jigoku for example have lots of connection points as they represent to sides of the same coin: absolute honor vs. aboslute vileness and dishonor).

Still, I think I can work with that. Thanks for your answer.


Not really all that hard, we've seen plenty of realms with connections between two planes (Hecate's two realms, for example) and even have a documented case of a direct portal from the Abyss to Celestia. For spiritual realms connected to the same local Astral and Ethereal phenomena, and here it's more a particularity of the sphere than anything else, it's not at all unreasonable that they have more substantial connections by and large. It's not like they are actually physically proximate; more metaphysically so. The sphere would simply be a lot more Astrally active than most are. Could be the reason why their realm of the dead is actually within the Astral rather than being fully housed on an Outer Plane.

He probably also knows wether you can scry from sphere to sphere. Maybe we should ask him?