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How to run a criminal organization in a City with 8th level spells?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dessert Nomad" data-source="post: 7522421" data-attributes="member: 6976536"><p>Speak with dead is useful for getting information from deceased witnesses, but is worthless for getting information from members of the organization as "the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy". The organization can't just kill witnesses to silence them, but it's not that hard to get rid of a body, animate the body, or break the jaw off of a corpse - and whichever method they use can become a calling card for the organization. </p><p></p><p>Scrying is a spell that only lasts 10 minutes, so you're very limited in keeping someone under surveilance with it. Just setting up a custom of spending a random amount of time hanging out before starting a secret meeting would make it hard to catch the secret exchange of information. It can be defeated with an amulet of proof against detection and location, which is an uncommon item that should cost around 500gp. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me in regular-level magic games that the top guys in a clandestine organization would all have these, like the way high level fighters usually have a magic weapon. Exactly how common they are obviously depends on your world, and they might be illegal to possess in your city - though that wouldn't stop someone from having one hidden, and only wearing it when they're about to talk about secret topics. Also while it's not really in the standard rules, I would assume that areas warded against scrying are possible and not that uncommon in the world. It's not like every house is going to have a 'no crystal balls closet, but I'd expect nobles to have somewhere in their private sanctum warded against it scrying. </p><p></p><p>There's still a decent amount of information that one can gather from scrying against these precautions. You can see that a low level thug is talking to someone who's got on an amulet, you just can't see the wearer. You can observe that someone you think is suspicious went to this noble's private sanctum, even if you can' see what went on there. And of course you can send a physical spy into a warded room to hear what's going on or physically follow a guy with an amulet. But it does mean that scrying isn't an 'auto win' for the enforcers of order, it's a lot closer to being able to secretly put a wire on someone for a short time that can have its signal blocked. </p><p></p><p>Zone of Truth is less useful than people give it credit for, someone can always truthfully say "I refuse to answer that" or "I don't want to tell you that". And if the higher ups don't let the low level guys know much, then they don't have much to be unable to lie about. "The man in the mask told me to carry this closed box to the warehouse and give it to whoever said 'salad shooters'" doesn't tell you what was in the box or who got it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dessert Nomad, post: 7522421, member: 6976536"] Speak with dead is useful for getting information from deceased witnesses, but is worthless for getting information from members of the organization as "the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy". The organization can't just kill witnesses to silence them, but it's not that hard to get rid of a body, animate the body, or break the jaw off of a corpse - and whichever method they use can become a calling card for the organization. Scrying is a spell that only lasts 10 minutes, so you're very limited in keeping someone under surveilance with it. Just setting up a custom of spending a random amount of time hanging out before starting a secret meeting would make it hard to catch the secret exchange of information. It can be defeated with an amulet of proof against detection and location, which is an uncommon item that should cost around 500gp. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me in regular-level magic games that the top guys in a clandestine organization would all have these, like the way high level fighters usually have a magic weapon. Exactly how common they are obviously depends on your world, and they might be illegal to possess in your city - though that wouldn't stop someone from having one hidden, and only wearing it when they're about to talk about secret topics. Also while it's not really in the standard rules, I would assume that areas warded against scrying are possible and not that uncommon in the world. It's not like every house is going to have a 'no crystal balls closet, but I'd expect nobles to have somewhere in their private sanctum warded against it scrying. There's still a decent amount of information that one can gather from scrying against these precautions. You can see that a low level thug is talking to someone who's got on an amulet, you just can't see the wearer. You can observe that someone you think is suspicious went to this noble's private sanctum, even if you can' see what went on there. And of course you can send a physical spy into a warded room to hear what's going on or physically follow a guy with an amulet. But it does mean that scrying isn't an 'auto win' for the enforcers of order, it's a lot closer to being able to secretly put a wire on someone for a short time that can have its signal blocked. Zone of Truth is less useful than people give it credit for, someone can always truthfully say "I refuse to answer that" or "I don't want to tell you that". And if the higher ups don't let the low level guys know much, then they don't have much to be unable to lie about. "The man in the mask told me to carry this closed box to the warehouse and give it to whoever said 'salad shooters'" doesn't tell you what was in the box or who got it. [/QUOTE]
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