Ghaele Help

[ladditude]

My party was just attacked by a Ghaele (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ghaele.htm)and I'm not sure why...

We walked into a room approximately 25x25. There was a 15x15 gray orb sitting in the room. We checked and couldn't figure out a way to move it or activate it. My cleric cast Detect Magic and we found out that it was magical, and it was good magic. Then I cast Divination and asked "Would it be good to ram and break the orb?" He hesitantly said, "Yes."

So we did that with our portable ram, and got a 36 on the strength check. Then we all took 33 points of force damage. Then we saw something that looked like a Ghaele (Knowledge: Planes check), but with very long red-hair and glowing red-hair. It then cast Prismatic something and we all took 40 points of acid damage.

Then I cast hold person and failed because of SR 28. Then it cast greater teleportation.

Right now we are all level 10, with a cleric, generalist fighter, spiked chain/standstill fighter and an Initiate of the Bow. So, any ideas what we unleashed and why it attacked?

[Zincorium]

So, any ideas what we unleashed and why it attacked?

Because Divination has a percentage chance to be incorrect? And the DM's roll was in that small percentage?

If the answer was legitimate, then it's just very poor DMing (if you're going to be wrong either way, be consistent), but since there's a legitimate chance that you were acting on bad info from the spell, within RAW, I'm not going to throw that bit of mud.

You probably did something evil with the best of intentions.

[sonofzeal]

......dude, you discover a magical artifact of great value and unknown power, and the first question you ask is "should we break it"? The fact that you did it via a spell that specifically allows for "magic yielding false information" is just icing on the cake.

But yeah, your DM probably rolled it, got the "failure" result, and the rest as they say is history.

[Worira]

No, divination can't do that.


Divination
Level: Clr 4, Knowledge 4
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous

Similar to augury but more powerful, a divination spell can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within one week. The advice can be as simple as a short phrase, or it might take the form of a cryptic rhyme or omen. If your party doesn’t act on the information, the conditions may change so that the information is no longer useful. The base chance for a correct divination is 70% + 1% per caster level, to a maximum of 90%. If the dice roll fails, you know the spell failed, unless specific magic yielding false information is at work.

As with augury, multiple divinations about the same topic by the same caster use the same dice result as the first divination spell and yield the same answer each time.

So, unless there's some "specific magic" at play, a divination misfire isn't to blame.

[Zincorium]

Okay, didn't catch that caveat. The DM may have missed it too (and on something like that you should point it out and ask so you can be sure).

Secondary explanation of inconsistent DMing then becomes reasonable.

Tertiary explanation? What you did was good, but the Ghaele wasn't aware of that, and perhaps thought you were the same people that trapped it in an orb.

[ladditude]

Yeah, I forgot to mention that. There is no way to get misinformation from that spell, as you would know if it didn't work. Which I reminded the DM of several times.

And we spent an hour IRL trying to figure out what to do with it, but we couldn't move it or dispel it or anything. Plus, we tapped it and it was hollow. So, we figured something was inside.

And we tried to talk to it, but it ignored us.

[ladditude]

And the Ghaele has an ability to become a big orb, but not a 15x15 orb...

[Idea Man]

On the off-chance the DM knew what he was doing, going with a one word answer was a bad idea for him. The divination spell bestows a short phrase or omen (woe be it upon you if your DM wants to make rhymes :smalltongue: ) upon the caster in reference to the question posed. While "Yes" is a short phrase, for a 4th lvl spell, I'd expect a little bit more.

Now, just because an eladrin attacked you doesn't mean it was a bad thing, in the big picture. Of course, you didn't know what good would come of breaking the orb, just that it would be good. The question now is, why was a ghaele in a magic orb, why did it attack us, and where the heck did it go?!

By the way, just my personal nitpick, hold person doesn't work on outsiders.