Discern Location Question

[AnthonyJ]

Discern location should be sufficient to find the spy, unless you choose to define belonging oddly. I would only make discern location fail in one of the following situations:
1) The caster cannot describe who he is looking for in a unique manner. If you seek the writer of a letter, when the letter was actually written by two different people, you don't find both people (though I would give a hint as to why you failed).
2) The item being used is not in fact associated with the person being sought. For example, if you find someone stabbed with a knife, and use discern location with the knife to seek for the killer, this doesn't help if the knife was taken from the kitchen, rather than belonging to the killer.

Creative spies (particularly ones likely to be hunted by 15th level clerics) will find ways around this sort of problem. Generally, the tactics used to protect against scrying (don't leave anything usable as an arcane connection around) will work against discern location as well.

 

[Otterscrubber]

And that, my friend, is the secret to high-level DMing in a nutshell.

Otterscrubber, consider: the spy knows that this spell exists. Perhaps he has a manservant that he pays to write all of his notes for him. Or perhaps he had it written by a professional scribe, who he then assassinated. There are lots of possibilities without nerfing the spell.

Still seems vague, let me throw a different situation. A good Mage takes a ring from a thief, knowing it to be stolen goods and wants to find who the owner is. By the examples above the mage should be able to say "Show me the owner of this ring". As people seem to think that you dont need to know names to use this spell, which of these 3 options would be shown, the true owner of the ring, the thief who last had posession of it and still considers it his property even though it was stolen from him, or the wizard who currently has it in his posession but is trying to get it back to its owner.

By the by, my spy was a low level nothing who does not understand arcane matters such as discern location.

 

[3d6]

Ok, so let me make sure I got this straight. Discern Location will allow you to pick up an object and allow you to locate anyone who has ever been associated with it without specific information as to who that person is? Something as vague as "show me where whoever wrote this note is located" is all it requries, no names or anything else even? You need know nothing else about the creature at all?

There's a reason why discern location shows up on a lot of "overpowered spells" threads.

 

[AnthonyJ]

Still seems vague, let me throw a different situation. A good Mage takes a ring from a thief, knowing it to be stolen goods and wants to find who the owner is. By the examples above the mage should be able to say "Show me the owner of this ring". As people seem to think that you dont need to know names to use this spell, which of these 3 options would be shown, the true owner of the ring, the thief who last had posession of it and still considers it his property even though it was stolen from him, or the wizard who currently has it in his posession but is trying to get it back to its owner.

Generally speaking, it will show the first. You could, however, specifically phrase the spell to show the second, provided that the thief had possessed sufficient control over the item to count as 'owning' it (I'd probably require possession for a moderate period, such as a week, unless you are linked in some other way, such as being an item's creator).

 

[Storminator]

Still seems vague, let me throw a different situation. A good Mage takes a ring from a thief, knowing it to be stolen goods and wants to find who the owner is. By the examples above the mage should be able to say "Show me the owner of this ring". As people seem to think that you dont need to know names to use this spell, which of these 3 options would be shown, the true owner of the ring, the thief who last had posession of it and still considers it his property even though it was stolen from him, or the wizard who currently has it in his posession but is trying to get it back to its owner.

By the by, my spy was a low level nothing who does not understand arcane matters such as discern location.

Remember, its an 8th level spell. It's that close to being a Miracle. It should do what the player wants it to do, if it's at all within the bounds of reason. Rather than trying to ruin your players powers, you should just accept it, and bend your game accordingly.

High level PCs should be able to find, get to, and pound the snot out of some low level punk on their way to morning coffee. Heck, high level PCs should be able to nip off to the Nine Hells to get this guy if they have to. It isn't a challenge, and it shouldn't be made into one by excessive rules lawyering.

PS

 

[RigaMortus]

If Frodo had access to Discern Location, and used it on The One Ring, who would show up as the owner? Frodo? Gollum? Bilbo? Sauron? All of the above?

 

[shilsen]

If Frodo had access to Discern Location, and used it on The One Ring, who would show up as the owner? Frodo? Gollum? Bilbo? Sauron? All of the above?

Sauron. Creator and original owner, whom the Ring is trying to return to, after all.