warlock scrying (invocation)

[Stycotl]

made specifically for my Ttapavoiia (Truenamer PrC), but figured i would post it separately to the board, since it is just a warlock invocation.

Gaze of the Old Ones (Scrying)
Lesser Invocation (4th level)
Standard Act
Somatic and Focus
Instantaneous
As the scrying spell, but the warlock must concentrate throughout the casting, there is no maximum duration, and he can speak to the subject as with the message spell at any time, with no chance of failure. The warlock must utilize some method of folk divination (blood, chicken bones, mirror, palm reading, etc) in order to use this invocation.

[insecure]

I think that there should be some cost, since it's a spell-like abillity, so you can just use a whole day to scry the BBEG and all of his minions, and *POOF*, there goes the plot.

[Stycotl]

cool. i'll look into this. scrying as heavier houserule components in my games, which i forgot to take into account. lemme see if i can come up with something both balanced and thematically correct.

aaron out.

[Stycotl]

so what if i make him dazed for a few rounds after the scry? sound fair? or, maybe i could make this a an invoc that gives some insight bonus equal to his charisma modifier to some kind of roll (initiative or something), and that 1/day/3 levels, he can use the spell scry?

which one of those do people like most? which one seems more balanced? i'm kinda liking the second idea now. 24 hours of a higher initiative, and during those 24 hours (no matter how many times the invocation is invoked, you can use the spell a few times.

[icke]

Maybe take a look at these two options:

- Assign a casting time to the invocation, similar to the original Scrying spell. If the warlock has to concentrate for one hour each time he wants to see a few minutes( 1min per caster level?) of someone else's life it won't get abused so much.

- Let the warlock make Concentration checks every minute, or every ten minutes, with increasing DC. That provides a natural limit to the scrying time. Numbers-wise : Concentration vs. DC 15+2*time increment

The first option would be more along the lines of regular D&D rules while the secon one is luck-dependent(giving a better chance to characters with high Concentration skill and/or Constitution).

The message inside the scrying makes the whole thing very versatile and therefore powerful, maybe you should treat that separately or increase the invocation level to 5.
If you take the Concentration-based version, you could have the character make another Concentration check(DC=20+2*current time increment) to deliver the message.

Just a thought...

[Stycotl]

cool ideas. i think i will edit this and have the new version up later today.