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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quasqueton" data-source="post: 2911657" data-attributes="member: 3854">I said I’d get back to this thread, and I forgot until just now.I’m going to make up some scenarios similar to, but completely different from real ones I’ve dealt with because I don’t want everyone to get wrapped up in telling me how I did something wrong in a specific instance. I’m more interested in the general, here.For instances:The party meets with an NPC mage, and the party wizard has detect magic up to give the mage a good look over. Now, instead of concentrating on the verbal exchange and role playing, I have to figure out and tell the party wizard all the buff spells the mage has up.The party is examining the evil alter in the evil temple, contemplating stealing the jeweled statuary. Unknown to them, touching the alter without saying the “password” opens a secret door, letting in a beasty to attack the thieves. But the bard casts detect magic – what and where does he see auras? An abjuration on the alter? What about the secret door? What spells are the magic effects? [Think of almost every published D&D module – there’s always something like this that has no straight-out-of-the-book spell or explanation. Heck, the Tomb of Horrors (currently in discussion on this forum) is full of such things.]One party member has picked up a magic item, unknown to the rest of the group (and he might not even know it is magical). When the party mage uses detect magic to look in an area where the other PC just happens to be standing, does he see the “new” item on the other PC? Does he recognize it as something new (after all, most PCs have a few magic items on them all the time)? “Hey, where did you get that moderate abjuration aura?” “What? What aura?”“That moderate abjuration aura, right behind that faint illusion aura, and beside the strong evocation aura. No, the other one. Right under the moderate evocation aura.”“Have you been keeping track of my magic items?”A door that will only open to someone speaking the password. What aura, what strength, what spell?A tiled floor that zaps trespassers who don’t walk in a certain pattern. What aura, what strength, what spell?A fresco showing a raging battle, from which a warrior will jump out of when the door to the room closes. What aura, what strength, what spell (and where – the door, the wall, the floor the PCs is standing on?)?[The last three come from classic adventure modules.]It’s good when the PCs/Players think well enough to use detect magic, but it’s seeming, to me, that it is getting so much use that I spend an inordinate amount of time telling the spellcasters about magic auras. A sorcerer can use it 4-7 times a day. It used to be (in previous editions) that detect magic was used only when the party really suspected a trap or trick, or actually more likely, to detect magic items in the treasure pile. Now it gets used so often that little magical effects that I never really considered worthy of jotting down aura info in my adventure notes (like a password door) suddenly require me to put attention in them.Ironically, in a previous campaign, the party wizard used detect magic regularly (I think it was his only ever prepared 0-level spell) from the start of the campaign to level 6. Then I made a dungeon that had many magical effects, and most were little clues to things going on in the dungeon. I made detailed notes on the auras the PC wizard would find, knowing he’d use detect magic just as he had been doing all along. The son of a gun didn’t use detect magic a single time in the whole dungeon. Not a single, damn, time.And for the record, as I said above, detect magic is not ruining my game. It’s not a constant headache. It’s just sometimes annoying. I’m surprised that I’m the only one to have this problem. <shrug> Oh well.Quasqueton</blockquote>

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