need help with permanent detect magic

[irdeggman]

What's the difference between studying and not-studying in-game? Or rather, if you're going to be doing your "studying" while concentrating anyway, what mechanical advantages are there to *not* studying? Where are you picking up your mechanical distinction? If "studying" has a game-mechanical effect, then "not studying" should also have a game mechanical effect. If there's no benefit to merely maintaining detect magic over using it to "study an area", why would anyone ever use the "merely maintaining" and as a collary, what then is the point of requiring your Wizard player to declare that he's studying the area in front of him as he moves forward down the hallway?

What?

If studying is a prerequsite then non-studying has a "penalty" as in you can't do it.

If you aren't studying the area you are using detect magic on the spell does not work. That is in the spell description, so if you choose to ignore that then I see no reason to continue this circular argument.

 

[Jack Simth]

What?

If studying is a prerequsite then non-studying has a "penalty" as in you can't do it.

If you aren't studying the area you are using detect magic on the spell does not work. That is in the spell description, so if you choose to ignore that then I see no reason to continue this circular argument.

Perhaps I'm not communicating clearly. Earlier, you said:

Merely walking and looking "normally" is not the same as "studying".

It is much the same as the difference between a reflexive spot check and an active spot check.

I repeat detect magic does not function as if it were an additional type of "vision" it requires an active studying of the emanations to "detect and analyze them".

And

I never said you couldn't do it while walking, a lot of actions are part of others. I said that you must specify that you are studying the area or object.
Note that by your "definition" since study has no game definition then merely looking in a direction counts for what a rogue can do with a diable device or how to disbelief an illusion, ignoring the fact that the text under phantasms specifically calls out both viewing and studying as two different things.

If you can "study" an area while concentrating on the spell and moving, and all penalties associated with Concentrating to maintain the spell are exactly identical to the ones associated with Concentrating on the spell while studying an area, and the spell itself checks an area, what's the point of requiring the player to specify they're "studying the area in front of them" as they're advancing, as opposed to simply asking which direction they're pointing the spell? You've been repeatedly making a distinction between "studying" and "looking in a direction" - and treating the word "study" as something other than flavor text.

For an exageration to illustrate a point, do you require your players to specify that they open their eyes in the morning? After all, the game does make a distinction between having your eyes open and having your eyes closed under Gaze Attacks. It's exactly the same type of requirement, just to a different degree of severity, as requiring a player who's using Detect Magic to explicitly say he's "studying the area" rather than letting him specify it with "looking with Detect Magic", "pointing the Detect Magic area ahead of the party", "concentrating on Detect Magic ahead of the party to watch for magical traps" "concentrating on detect magic ahead of me" or some other plain-language equivalent. What's the why of the distinction? What does it add to the game?

 

[irdeggman]

Perhaps I'm not communicating clearly. Earlier, you said:

And

If you can "study" an area while concentrating on the spell and moving, and all penalties associated with Concentrating to maintain the spell are exactly identical to the ones associated with Concentrating on the spell while studying an area, and the spell itself checks an area, what's the point of requiring the player to specify they're "studying the area in front of them" as they're advancing, as opposed to simply asking which direction they're pointing the spell? You've been repeatedly making a distinction between "studying" and "looking in a direction" - and treating the word "study" as something other than flavor text.

For an exageration to illustrate a point, do you require your players to specify that they open their eyes in the morning? After all, the game does make a distinction between having your eyes open and having your eyes closed under Gaze Attacks. It's exactly the same type of requirement, just to a different degree of severity, as requiring a player who's using Detect Magic to explicitly say he's "studying the area" rather than letting him specify it with "looking with Detect Magic", "pointing the Detect Magic area ahead of the party", "concentrating on Detect Magic ahead of the party to watch for magical traps" "concentrating on detect magic ahead of me" or some other plain-language equivalent. What's the why of the distinction? What does it add to the game?

I also never said that he couldn't specify he was "looking at it with Detect Magic", I really don't knwo where you are finding the strings of thoughts that I didn't say.

I have no problems with players telling me they are studying an area or looking for magic or trying to ascertain magical emanations via detect amgic, anything that conveys the idea of what they are doing.

Now if they do not specify they are looing in a specific direction to gain information then this is what will happen (I have seen this happen too many times to count). The player wants the benefits of detect magic from the area in front of them but also wants to have the idea that his PC is likewise looking above to ensure nothing is going to fall on them. If you do not require some sort of specification as to what the PC is doing then the player will inevitably choose to have it be the most beneficial at the time, switching what his PC's intentions are from minute to minute (real time not game time) to suit his whim.


Part of the spell is "studying" but when using the persistant version then the PC must basically say that he is "studying" or "looking" at a specific direction for the "required" duration.

Now if you wish to allow free use of the directional spell that requires "study" to ascertain information and "concentration" to maintain then please feel free to do so. But do not deny that you have rewritten (or ignored) the text that is written in the PHB (and similarly used in other examples).

I do think that "study" does not necessarily fall into an action type, but rather it can be done as part of another action. Like Hide is always a part of another action.

 

[Jack Simth]

I also never said that he couldn't specify he was "looking at it with Detect Magic", I really don't knwo where you are finding the strings of thoughts that I didn't say.

I have no problems with players telling me they are studying an area or looking for magic or trying to ascertain magical emanations via detect amgic, anything that conveys the idea of what they are doing.

That's not what you wrote earlier. You made a distinction between looking and studying with "Merely walking and looking 'normally' is not the same as 'studying'" (and you emphasized that several times in different ways - but you were *always* using "studying" and always making it a distinction from "looking") and you wrote "I said that you must specify that you are studying the area or object". You made quite the case that "studying" was a very specific term, and that it was decidedly distinguished from "looking". Now you say looking is fine? I'm sorry for reading things as you typed them, rather than as you intended.

Now if they do not specify they are looing in a specific direction to gain information then this is what will happen (I have seen this happen too many times to count). The player wants the benefits of detect magic from the area in front of them but also wants to have the idea that his PC is likewise looking above to ensure nothing is going to fall on them. If you do not require some sort of specification as to what the PC is doing then the player will inevitably choose to have it be the most beneficial at the time, switching what his PC's intentions are from minute to minute (real time not game time) to suit his whim.

Detect Magic operates in a cone. It's 3d. Looking forward as you travel also gives you the floor, ceiling, and walls as well, especially in a tunnel. About all you lack is directly behind you (which, if you're doing this constantly, you've already scanned). Detect Magic even has some amount of object penetration. With a Permanent or Persistent Detect Magic, unless you're counting rounds for one reason or another (e.g., you're in combat, or you're trying very hard to get away from something), it might as well be 360. When you're not in a hallways, it gets repetitive, though (check ahead - any magic? Check behind - any magic? Check left - any magic? Check right - any magic? Check up - any magic? Check down - any magic? No? Okay, we proceed forward sixty feet...). But that leads to something very much like AGC's Illusion wars (also, do note that this particular method leads to an average travel rate of 10 feet per round, even when re-checking things, which is still faster than the party rogue goes when he's searching for traps for every five-foot square; the only time it goes slower than that is when the method detects magic, so the Wizard stops to examine things more closely - which is analogous to the Rogue stopping to disable a trap).

Part of the spell is "studying" but when using the persistant version then the PC must basically say that he is "studying" or "looking" at a specific direction for the "required" duration.

Now if you wish to allow free use of the directional spell that requires "study" to ascertain information and "concentration" to maintain then please feel free to do so. But do not deny that you have rewritten (or ignored) the text that is written in the PHB (and similarly used in other examples).

Outside of combat-rounds, when the action cost doesn't matter? Sure; it saves verbal paperwork, and has no effective impact on the mechanics (at least, not when using a Persistent or Permanent version) beyond rate of travel (about 10 feet per round, on average)

I do think that "study" does not necessarily fall into an action type, but rather it can be done as part of another action. Like Hide is always a part of another action.

Compare to when this started, when you said "I beleive [sic] you are reading the spell incorrectly." in reply to my "It's a Concentration-duration (max 1 min/level) effect, and it's a cantrip. With a caster level-1 wand, concentrating while you walk". That was where you heavily implying the spell requires a full stop.

Likewise, compare to when you said:

I disagree.

Merely walking and looking "normally" is not the same as "studying".

in response to my "If I have a 60-foot range, and travel 30-feet over the course of 1 round, measured from my starting point, I have been studying the range from 30 to 60 feet continuously for that 1 round - which is enough to determine whether or not magic is present in that range, and thus whether or not it's worth stopping for closer examination."

What you're saying now does not appear to sync up with what you were saying then.

 

[irdeggman]

Detect Magic operates in a cone. It's 3d. Looking forward as you travel also gives you the floor, ceiling, and walls as well, especially in a tunnel. About all you lack is directly behind you (which, if you're doing this constantly, you've already scanned). Detect Magic even has some amount of object penetration. With a Permanent or Persistent Detect Magic, unless you're counting rounds for one reason or another (e.g., you're in combat, or you're trying very hard to get away from something), it might as well be 360. When you're not in a hallways, it gets repetitive, though (check ahead - any magic? Check behind - any magic? Check left - any magic? Check right - any magic? Check up - any magic? Check down - any magic? No? Okay, we proceed forward sixty feet...). But that leads to something very much like AGC's Illusion wars (also, do note that this particular method leads to an average travel rate of 10 feet per round, even when re-checking things, which is still faster than the party rogue goes when he's searching for traps for every five-foot square; the only time it goes slower than that is when the method detects magic, so the Wizard stops to examine things more closely - which is analogous to the Rogue stopping to disable a trap).

Draw the cone in 3d and you will note that it doesn't include the ceiling until it is extended out a distance, assuming at least a 10 ft passageway that is - for a 5ft one it does.

I have no idea what this AGC Illusion wars is nor do I have a desire to look up 3rd party systems/books to attempt to find out.

Regardless I'm done with this topic.

 

[Jack Simth]

Draw the cone in 3d and you will note that it doesn't include the ceiling until it is extended out a distance, assuming at least a 10 ft passageway that is - for a 5ft one it does.

If you're in the middle of a ten-foot hallway (or at least initiating the cone from the middle), aligned with the hallway, then the cone hits the walls at a forward distance of five feet (45 degree angle on the hypotenuse of a right triangle, and you're in the middle of a ten-foot hallway, so you're five-feet from the wall - it hits five-feet forward by parallelism - about ten, if you're looking at the far corners); you cover it 55 feet in advance. As the turn system is an approximation to make mechanics usable, any lack of having studied the wall on either size five or ten feet in front of you for at least one full round is nothing more than a granularity issue in the rules (similar to why housecats tend to kill human commoners in 3.5, when IRL, you basically never have a housecat killing a human). Seriously, you're nit-picking over that?

I have no idea what this AGC Illusion wars is nor do I have a desire to look up 3rd party systems/books to attempt to find out.

It's a Webcomic, not a system. I didn't particularly feel like going over in detail what it meant, so I linked to it the first time I brought it up.

Regardless I'm done with this topic.

As you wish.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I have no idea what this AGC Illusion wars is nor do I have a desire to look up 3rd party systems/books to attempt to find out.

This indicates to me that you didn't bother to understand Jack Simth's position before you rejected it. (Not the lack of desire to look something up yourself, but that you didn't even notice he provided a link for your convenience.) That suggests you are no longer subjecting your own theories to meaningful reconsideration, which is a shame.

 

[irdeggman]

This indicates to me that you didn't bother to understand Jack Simth's position before you rejected it. (Not the lack of desire to look something up yourself, but that you didn't even notice he provided a link for your convenience.) That suggests you are no longer subjecting your own theories to meaningful reconsideration, which is a shame.

Or that since it was a rules question (thus using Wotc rules only) and that it sure appeared to be a 3rd party rules source (and not a webcomic) which opens things up tremendously to an entirely different plane of discussion I chose to ignore going into other sources.

Have you looked at the sheer volume of "links" that people provide in one way or another in threads, do you have the "time" to wade through all of them?

I based my answers (except for the few times I gave an "opinion") on quotes and references from the WotC rules. I provided direct references to those sources and quotes.

When I did the examples were sumarily dismissed as either irrelevent or that the WotC rules were at best vague themselves.

Disable Device specifies an action for making the check, so the addition of "studying" has no impact on what else you can do in the meanwhile - because you're taking a very defined action as part of making the check and doing the studying.

The Melee Attack traps specify you need to be doing "nothing else". Detect Magic does not specify such. If anything, the distinction on the melee attack trap studying would suggest that Studying is not, in and of itself, an action under most circumstances.

The phrase for Illusions isn't particularly well defined anyway - nor are the game-mechanical effects of making a Major Image of a grown dragon. Illusions have always had a lot of ad-hock aspects to them. Likewise, the Wizard Spell Preparation section isn't particularly clear on what studying means. Otherwise, if anything, studying appears to be reasonably strongly implied to be divorced from actual actions

What, then, is the mechanical distinction between "studying an area" and not, bearing in mind that both are concentrating on maintaining a spell, and not on "being observant"?

To my knowledge no one else has provided clear references to actual WotC sources, the statements that "study" is not a defined as a game term is a stickman arguement since the term is used repeatedly in the rules and as far as I can descern the term means what the dictionary defines it as (alright to provide even more clarity and user friendliness) from Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary

study:
(1) The act or process of studying; the pursuit of knowledge, as reading, observation, or research

(2) attentive scrutiny

(3) a branch of knowledge

(4) Studies. a branch or department of learning

(5a) a work (e.g., a thesis) resulting from studious endeavor

(5b) a literary work on a subject

(5c) a preliminary sketch, as for a work of art

(6) a musical composition designed as a technical excerise

(7) mental absorption

(8) a room intended or equipped for studying or writing

(9a) one who memorizes something

(9b) memorization of a theatrical part

IMO it is painfully clear that the the dictionary meaning of study is what the rules are talking about in every case I have found (albeit different "meanings" still the dictionary definition).

For what its worth I tend to agree with your statement from earlier and I think we are saying the same thing and that it can fall under definiton (2) of study.

FWIW, I agree with Jack Simth and disagree with irdeggman. "Studying" has no special meaning in this case. I interpret it as simply "directing your attention toward," which is to say, keeping the object of your attention within the range and area of the spell while maintaining concentration.

Which to me is the same thing as specifying "studying" in this case - you are specifying that you are looking for or at something while the spell is in effect. You are not merely looking around (which is the default normal for walking and the basis of the game's no facing and reflexive spot checks). When I say looking around I mean that the PCs' eyes are wandering in all directions and not focused on a specific one for any length of time (like the spell requires).

 

[Jack Simth]

I based my answers (except for the few times I gave an "opinion") on quotes and references from the WotC rules. I provided direct references to those sources and quotes.

When I did the examples were sumarily dismissed as either irrelevent or that the WotC rules were at best vague themselves.

Considering that what you were trying to respond to was about what "studying" meant in terms of game mechanics (action cost, pros and cons of studying vs. not studying in-game), and none of the quotes you used addressed that?

To my knowledge no one else has provided clear references to actual WotC sources, the statements that "study" is not a defined as a game term is a stickman arguement since the term is used repeatedly in the rules and as far as I can descern the term means what the dictionary defines it as (alright to provide even more clarity and user friendliness) from Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary



IMO it is painfully clear that the the dictionary meaning of study is what the rules are talking about in every case I have found (albeit different "meanings" still the dictionary definition).

And likewise - none of those reference things like action cost of studying, what "studying" one thing does to your spot/listen check for someone sneaking up behind you, or any other game-mechanics. Yet what started this out, was you saying "I disagree" when I said a caster could scan for magic while traveling down a hallway (game mechanics).

For what its worth I tend to agree with your statement from earlier and I think we are saying the same thing and that it can fall under definiton (2) of study.

Cool.

Which to me is the same thing as specifying "studying" in this case - you are specifying that you are looking for or at something while the spell is in effect. You are not merely looking around (which is the default normal for walking and the basis of the game's no facing and reflexive spot checks). When I say looking around I mean that the PCs' eyes are wandering in all directions and not focused on a specific one for any length of time (like the spell requires).

Okay.

 

[irdeggman]

Isn't that sort of like the DM saying you didn't get a spot check to notice the ambush because you didn't specify you looked up? What does this distinction add to the game?

In 2nd ed it mattered a lot (because facing was a part of the game).

In 3.5 it still does, but not as much.

Here is an example. In a tunnel in the dark there is a creature hiding in the overhead waiting on an ambush.

Now the PC has dark vision.

The creature cannot hide using darkness for cover if the PC has dark vision and looks in that direction since he can see the creature even casually.
If the player does not specify that the PC is looking in a manner to see above him then he can't negate the concealment that the creature is gaining from the darkness in order to hide and thus the creature gets huge bonuses to his surprise check as a result - not to mention bonuses for being invisible on the attack since he wasn't "seen".

It is far better to give a description of how your PC is behaving then to not give one, establishing a general pattern of "searching" or looking or opeing a door (for a group of PCs) makes the game run a lot smoother than the resultant arguments from a total misunderstanding of what the PC was doing between teh DM and the player.