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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
As a GM, have you ever struggled against “easy magical solutions?"
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<blockquote data-quote="Fauchard1520" data-source="post: 8461133" data-attributes="member: 6896326"><p>Tell me if you've ever run into this one. You're in a murder mystery game, and you've got a corpse on your hands. And happily, since you're the luckiest mage in Golarion, you've got <em>speak with dead </em>prepped and ready to go. That's when your GM starts to get sweaty and nervous-looking. </p><p></p><p>"The jaw is missing," he says. "I mean... the victim didn't get a good look at their assailant. The corpse doesn't speak your language. All my answers are too cryptic to understand!"</p><p></p><p>To my way of thinking, this sort of blocking maneuver represents a game master struggling against the world established by the game rules, a world which makes it trivially easy for players to solve a murder mystery. The same holds true of spells like <em>zone of truth, locate object, </em>and (most generally) <em>detect magic. </em>There’s a balance to be found between clever antagonists who know to cover their tracks, and “irritating GMs who never let my freaking spells do what they’re supposed to do.” </p><p></p><p>So here's my question to the board. As a GM, have you ever struggled against “easy magical solutions?" What spell or ability was trivializing your encounters, and how did you deal with it? <em>Should </em>you deal with it? Or is it better practice to not plan around player abilities? </p><p></p><p>(<a href="https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/supernatural-man-of-mystery" target="_blank"><strong>Comic for illustrative purposes</strong></a>.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fauchard1520, post: 8461133, member: 6896326"] Tell me if you've ever run into this one. You're in a murder mystery game, and you've got a corpse on your hands. And happily, since you're the luckiest mage in Golarion, you've got [I]speak with dead [/I]prepped and ready to go. That's when your GM starts to get sweaty and nervous-looking. "The jaw is missing," he says. "I mean... the victim didn't get a good look at their assailant. The corpse doesn't speak your language. All my answers are too cryptic to understand!" To my way of thinking, this sort of blocking maneuver represents a game master struggling against the world established by the game rules, a world which makes it trivially easy for players to solve a murder mystery. The same holds true of spells like [I]zone of truth, locate object, [/I]and (most generally) [I]detect magic. [/I]There’s a balance to be found between clever antagonists who know to cover their tracks, and “irritating GMs who never let my freaking spells do what they’re supposed to do.” So here's my question to the board. As a GM, have you ever struggled against “easy magical solutions?" What spell or ability was trivializing your encounters, and how did you deal with it? [I]Should [/I]you deal with it? Or is it better practice to not plan around player abilities? ([URL='https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/supernatural-man-of-mystery'][B]Comic for illustrative purposes[/B][/URL].) [/QUOTE]
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As a GM, have you ever struggled against “easy magical solutions?"
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