Are scry durations too short?

[theNater]

I've seen it said that they are, but I haven't seen a detailed explanation of why.

Is it the amount of information gained? If so, what information can be gained from an hour-long scry that cannot be gained from a 3-round scry and an appropriate divination ritual?

Is it the time-per-money issue? If so, what amount of money is reasonable for scrys of the length outlined in the PHB?

Is it something else? If so, what?

 

[Mengu]

They are not designed as live feed spy cameras or fiberoptics, they are designed more as pictures with a telephoto lens that you bought from an informat, or maybe as satellite pictures, or as snapshot clairvoyant images of a seer.

As DM, I would try to cram as much detail about the person/place as can be observed into the duration. Say you are attacking a gnoll keep, and forced them to retreat into an inner sanctum. By scrying via Wizard's Sight, you can discern their numbers, location, defenses, etc., before you attack. Quite useful information, I'd say well worth the 270 gp.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've seen it said that they are, but I haven't seen a detailed explanation of why.

Is it the amount of information gained? If so, what information can be gained from an hour-long scry that cannot be gained from a 3-round scry and an appropriate divination ritual?

Is it the time-per-money issue? If so, what amount of money is reasonable for scrys of the length outlined in the PHB?

Is it something else? If so, what?

I think it's an over reaction to how overpowered Scry was in 3.x. With such a long duration, you could overhear a villain's plans for the day (Villain: "So, you will attack the heroes here, here and get a report from their baggage handler, etc"; PCs: "Oh, we have a spy!") -- this could probably be fixed by a better DM than myself, but I don't like "expert DM only" spells, at least those that don't have good adivce.

Also, it broke teleport (or maybe it was the other way around) due to scry-buff-porting. Not that the latter is a big issue in 4e.

The durations are probably too short, but without some really good advice on how to keep Scry a reasonable ritual, I don't think WotC would dare to make them longer. I think they should have just left the ritual out of the rules until they could write some really good advice on them.

 

[Stalker0]

I've seen it said that they are, but I haven't seen a detailed explanation of why.

Basically for the amount of money and time to cast them, it is pointless to use them for actual scrying, ie, watching someone. It takes an hour to cast, and it lasts for up to 5 rounds. That's 30 seconds, and frankly a person can wash their hands for longer than 30 seconds. Unless the dm wants to blantantly metagame, the chance of overhearing key pieces of info in that 30 second window is just too small.

I recognize why WOTC was worried about scrying, it can be very powerful. But I would rather they have made it harder to scry on someone, and made it easier to protect against, but still give some meat to scrying.

 

[theNater]

Basically for the amount of money and time to cast them, it is pointless to use them for actual scrying, ie, watching someone.

So, too much time and money. How much time and money is reasonable for 1-5 rounds of scrying?

It takes an hour to cast, and it lasts for up to 5 rounds. That's 30 seconds, and frankly a person can wash their hands for longer than 30 seconds.

Why is the hour casting time unreasonable? Would a 20 minute cast time be better? Why or why not?

Unless the dm wants to blantantly metagame, the chance of overhearing key pieces of info in that 30 second window is just too small.

What key pieces of information can we expect the caster to overhear that can't be acquired from Consult Oracle? Note that at least one creature knows everything the scry target has said, so the oracles know it as well.

 

[Runestar]

So, too much time and money. How much time and money is reasonable for 1-5 rounds of scrying?

None at all, IMO, or maybe a small token sum, considering that the 4e version is so unwieldy that it is very hard to gain any real benefit out of it.

Why is the hour casting time unreasonable? Would a 20 minute cast time be better? Why or why not?

Because that makes it almost impossible to time your scry properly, unless you have perfect information and know that the person involved is going to be doing X at precisely time Y. Let's say you want to scry on the enemy orc camp to discern where they will be attacking next. But you only have a rough time. You know they will be meeting at say, 4PM. But no idea when exactly they will be discussing the details. Is it 16:15:14, 16:30:25, 17:00:17 or even 18:45:45? So that 30s window could be simply watching the orc chieftian stroking that imaginary beard on his chin and going "hmm...", without revealing any useful information. And then it is another hour to scry again, by which time, the meeting will have well been over.

I don't mind a long casting time, but the duration should be much longer (or at least, have an option to extend it at the cost of additional resources or something).

The only way to work around this is to have say, 100 wizards eaching casting the scrying ritual 30s after one another so that you can quickly hop from one pool to the next and have a relatively uninterrupted 50 minutes of scrying pleasure. But yeah, the costs will be phenomenal...

What key pieces of information can we expect the caster to overhear that can't be acquired from Consult Oracle? Note that at least one creature knows everything the scry target has said, so the oracles know it as well.

Questions that can't be answered with just 1 word or a short phrase, for instance.

 

[theNater]

None at all, IMO, or maybe a small token sum, considering that the 4e version is so unwieldy that it is very hard to gain any real benefit out of it.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

Because that makes it almost impossible to time your scry properly, unless you have perfect information and know that the person involved is going to be doing X at precisely time Y. Let's say you want to scry on the enemy orc camp to discern where they will be attacking next. But you only have a rough time. You know they will be meeting at say, 4PM. But no idea when exactly they will be discussing the details. Is it 16:15:14, 16:30:25, 17:00:17 or even 18:45:45? So that 30s window could be simply watching the orc chieftian stroking that imaginary beard on his chin and going "hmm...", without revealing any useful information. And then it is another hour to scry again, by which time, the meeting will have well been over.

I don't mind a long casting time, but the duration should be much longer (or at least, have an option to extend it at the cost of additional resources or something).

The only way to work around this is to have say, 100 wizards eaching casting the scrying ritual 30s after one another so that you can quickly hop from one pool to the next and have a relatively uninterrupted 50 minutes of scrying pleasure. But yeah, the costs will be phenomenal...

So I take it a 20-minute cast time would not be better, as it doesn't make precisely timed scrying easier.

Questions that can't be answered with just 1 word or a short phrase, for instance.

Can you give an example? From your previously suggested scry target, the name of the village the orcs have planned to attack is almost certain to be one word or a short phrase. Consult Oracle can answer that at any time after the meeting has concluded.

 

[Runestar]

So I take it a 20-minute cast time would not be better, as it doesn't make precisely timed scrying easier.

I wouldn't mind a scry ritual with a 1-hour casting time if it could let me scry for say, an hour at least. At least, the chances of me getting some useful information is higher. Else, you are just as likely to catch the target during his toilet break as he is to reveal some vital information, and even if you are lucky, 30s may be insufficient to get all the information you require.

Assuming you are scrying in the comfort of your own abode (with no imminent threats to distract you), the casting time shouldn't really matter, but it should not be too proibitively long either.

Can you give an example? From your previously suggested scry target, the name of the village the orcs have planned to attack is almost certain to be one word or a short phrase. Consult Oracle can answer that at any time after the meeting has concluded.

Typical examples might be questions about why something happened, which may require long, detailed explanations so the PCs can get the full picture, and this may not be something which can be readily summarized into a few words without skipping a lot of details.

For example, you may know that the orcs plan to invade a certain village. What you may not know is why they want to do so (assuming this involves a more complicated plot than the old "plunder the land for the gold and slaves" bit). Maybe the village is built over the entrance to a tomb which houses some powerful ancient elder evil that the orcs plan on releasing. Had you been able to scry longer, you might have been able to catch on to the orc leaders discuss that part and maybe fantasize about one day ruling over the "lesser races".

If you didn't know of it, you wouldn't think of asking that question to the oracle.

Of course, the DM is likely to find some way of inserting this little bit of information into the campaign somehow. And some may not want the players to be able to unravel the entire plot with a few spells, so my concerns may or may not be relevant.

 

[Aloïsius]

And some may not want the players to be able to unravel the entire plot with a few spells

Yup :
scry, detect thought, teleport, commune, detect evil : those were the 5 knight of the apocalypse in 3e, as in "realy, you wasted three hour elaborate a complex plot ? Powned !". I don't like insta end of story spells.

 

[IanArgent]

As was said upthread - scry gives you spy shots, not audio bugs. If you have determined when the conclave of evil is meeting, you scry on it in the middle, to see who's at it, and get an impression of who wants to backstab whom (body language, etc). I would, IMC, allow someone to "stack" sensor-time by running the ritual back-to-back - IE, run the ritual for 3 hrs, get 3x duration, etc.