Are scry durations too short?

[theNater]

You collar a henchman and discover that the bad guys(tm) are having a top secret meeting in a top secret location in one hours time, where the chief bad guy will explain his super secret plan to his inner circle in a presentation that lasts for a little under an hour. And no, henchmen are not invited or even told the location of the top secret meeting.

Guess you'd better be lucky with that 30 second scry!

Or, y'know, cast Consult Oracle and ask "What is the chief bad guy's super secret plan?" You'll get the overview in a brief phrase, and still have a question or two left to fill in important details.

Note that Consult Oracle will function, as at least one creature knows the chief bad guy's super secret plan, and cannot be blocked by scry protection measures. This is not a situation for a scry of any length.(Edit: I realized after submitting that I overstated the last sentence. An hour-long scry will get the job done, but is not the only, or even necessarily the best, way to get the desired results.)

Of course, you could also scry on the meeting and gain the ability to identify the chief bad guy and his entire inner circle on sight, assuming that you don't already know all of them.

 

[MarkB]

Or, y'know, cast Consult Oracle and ask "What is the chief bad guy's super secret plan?" You'll get the overview in a brief phrase, and still have a question or two left to fill in important details.

Note that Consult Oracle will function, as at least one creature knows the chief bad guy's super secret plan, and cannot be blocked by scry protection measures. This is not a situation for a scry of any length.

So, the big villain's plan requires an hour-long presentation, and you're going to rely upon an extraplanar being to summarise it in 3-5 words or short phrases?

I know evil masterminds have a tendency to be needlessly verbose, but nevertheless, I suspect you may miss a few details.

 

[theNater]

So, the big villain's plan requires an hour-long presentation, and you're going to rely upon an extraplanar being to summarise it in 3-5 words or short phrases?

I know evil masterminds have a tendency to be needlessly verbose, but nevertheless, I suspect you may miss a few details.

Probably not significantly more than you'd miss if the DM summarizes, rather than putting on the entire hour-long presentation.

Meetings of this nature often include a lot of double-checking that everyone precisely knows their duties, and the heroes don't need to know the exact battle plan of the squad that will be attacking the city as a diversion. That's a good five-minute discussion that boils down nicely to "there will be a diversionary attack at noon".

 

[Saeviomagy]

Probably not significantly more than you'd miss if the DM summarizes, rather than putting on the entire hour-long presentation.

Meetings of this nature often include a lot of double-checking that everyone precisely knows their duties, and the heroes don't need to know the exact battle plan of the squad that will be attacking the city as a diversion. That's a good five-minute discussion that boils down nicely to "there will be a diversionary attack at noon".

Wow. Your bad guys have simple plans.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Of course the guy has managed to pull off a perfect assassination of the king, is sticking around while maintaining a single identity, and fails to take the possibility of a scry into account.

If we're talking about a situation with the same level of robustness and likelyhood as your own scenario, then any situation where the DM decides "you need an hour long scry to do this".

Which beggars the question - why have scry in the game at all?

So that a PC can wave their hand over some smoke and see who they need to kill next. As with so much of D&D, it's all about target acquisition.

 

[MarkB]

Probably not significantly more than you'd miss if the DM summarizes, rather than putting on the entire hour-long presentation.

Meetings of this nature often include a lot of double-checking that everyone precisely knows their duties, and the heroes don't need to know the exact battle plan of the squad that will be attacking the city as a diversion. That's a good five-minute discussion that boils down nicely to "there will be a diversionary attack at noon".

Wow. Your bad guys have simple plans.

I'll echo Saeviomagy's reply. For an hour-long planning session I'm thinking of something that lays out the enemy's goals over weeks or months, their means of achieving each of them, their relationships with friends, allies, minions, superiors, etc., and also a more detailed look at their most immediate plans - which, in themselves, would be difficult to summarise in a few sentences. Half that stuff you won't get at all from Consult Oracle because you won't ask the right questions, and the rest will take dozens of castings to glean even the broad strokes.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I'll echo Saeviomagy's reply. For an hour-long planning session I'm thinking of something that lays out the enemy's goals over weeks or months, their means of achieving each of them, their relationships with friends, allies, minions, superiors, etc., and also a more detailed look at their most immediate plans - which, in themselves, would be difficult to summarise in a few sentences. Half that stuff you won't get at all from Consult Oracle because you won't ask the right questions, and the rest will take dozens of castings to glean even the broad strokes.

Well, you aren't going to get it from Scrying either. Sneak someone inside (either hidden under the table or disguised as one of the bad guys) or grab one of the bad guys present at the meeting at a later time and make him tell you what's up. Scrying will help with the latter, actually, because you can get a glimpse of who's attending the meeting and pick one to grab and interrogate.

 

[MarkB]

Well, you aren't going to get it from Scrying either.

That is rather the point of this whole thread.

 

[theNater]

Wow. Your bad guys have simple plans.

Yes, by design, as simple plans are less prone to disruption, whether through bad luck or meddling heroes.

I'll echo Saeviomagy's reply. For an hour-long planning session I'm thinking of something that lays out the enemy's goals over weeks or months, their means of achieving each of them, their relationships with friends, allies, minions, superiors, etc., and also a more detailed look at their most immediate plans - which, in themselves, would be difficult to summarise in a few sentences. Half that stuff you won't get at all from Consult Oracle because you won't ask the right questions, and the rest will take dozens of castings to glean even the broad strokes.

I'm a fairly uncomplicated thinker. The heaviest plan I can come up with in short order is:
Objective: Overthrow the king and take his place.
Overthrow method: Encourage noble house A to assassinate king.
Encouragement method: Cause king to enact laws unfavorable to noble house A.
Replace method: Ingratiate self with peasants.
Ingratiation method: Host regular feasts free to all.

That's a plan that could easily take an hour for discussion(what laws, how do we stop noble house A from getting political allies, where does the food come from, what is the timing on all of these measures, etc.). It sums up in 5 bullet points, which is two castings for a competent 18th level ritual caster.

Can you provide a specific plan, either in bullet points as above or in essay format, which is sufficiently sophisticated that the parts the PCs need cannot be summarized down to 6 brief phrases? I say 6 because that's what a ritual caster choosing between View Object and Consult Oracle can expect to get for about the same expenditure as View Object.

 

[TheFindus]

I like the fact that Scry has a shorter duration now.
The first reason being that I do not like spells doing all those parts that should - at least in my opinion - be discovered in at least a major part of an adventure.

Scry, in its funcion right now, can give an answer to a specific question, such as "Where does the evil count go every day at noon?" You can see this location and plan accordingly.

But my major point, from a PCs perspective, is that I don not want my opponents to be able to spy on me for a long period of time. PCs are more often subject to hostile spells, attacks, etc. anyway. And clever enemies will use spells to spy on PCs. Why not limit that?