Divinations...something that has always irked me

[MerakSpielman]

Evidence? Evidence?

I take it no one uses a more... realistic (read, arbitrary and magisterial) system of law enforcement in their campaigns?

IMC divinations are prohibited as being entered as evidence in court. There's a simple reason for this - they're not 100% effective. A few Misdirections could send the wrong person to the gallows. This person could theoretically be a high-ranked official. Not to mention you can never be entirely certain that the person casting the divination is telling the truth. So the officals banned divinations from any sort of legal proceeding - they especially are prohibided as introduction as a form of evidence.

Not only that, but divinations are highly frowned upon as being used as a tool to gather legitimate evidence. Some simple tricks could foil that, too. In the proposed scenario of Divine-Scry-Teleport-Interrogate the party itself would be guilty of many crimes: invasion of privacy, trespassing, etc... How do the authorities know the PCs didn't plant the evidence? How do they know they didn't blackmail an innocent person into confessing? All evidence gained by such an unconventional investigation would be inadmissible in court. The PCs who admitted to such tactics would be arrested for the violations mentioned above.

Of course, this is only the way things work in my Lawful Good societies, where people are given rights, privelages, and a legal system that has strict guidelines on the gathering of evidence. The Lawful Evil societies, like that of the Drow, are much less forgiving. The rules are looser, and false arrests and executions are an expected part of the regular functioning of society. If you get the wrong person mad at you, you could be swinging from the gallows in the morning and there will be no questions asked. People in that society know to keep thier noses out of other people's business.

 

[Dirt]

If you didn't make it clear up front that you didn't like divinations, I'd feel exactly the same way.

The trick is not to make plots that can be unraveled with a divination or three. If you're dead-set on doing mystery/conspiracies, you could make a plot that's so convoluted that none of the people involved really know what's going on. If everybody has misinformation, divinations about who did what and why are going to provide skewed results.

The other way to reduce the shattering effect of divinations is to avoid mystery and conspiracy and instead make simple, straightforward plots. Divinations supply accurate information, but even so, the information is nothing special.

The third way, and this is where it starts getting really sneaky, is to make adventures that require divination to solve. This tactic is the most difficult, but well worth it if you can figure out a way to pull it off. If you have a mystery/conspiracy, then make the clues only findable via divinations. No witnesses, etc...

Also, the best divinations require xp to cast. No big deal every now and then, but parties would do well not to get too addicted to such spells.

Having PCs with such capability is unnerving, since they have potential to destroy your best-layed plans. I mentioned this recently in another thread, but your PCs might be reaching the point where they create the stories of which they are a part, and you only act as the referee. From now on, you can't expect things to go the way you plan, but the players will be having a great time being creative.

I've had some fairly convoluted plots (sometimes without meaning to). But, when it comes down to it, a couple communes in one day can quickly destroy a mystery.

To be honest, I'm not really dead-set on creating a murder mystery. I haven't really done one of those in ages. I just offered it as an example for why I'm not particularly fond of divinations.

Here, I suppose is my other gripe: it makes it very easy for an enemy to destroy the PCs. Here is an example from my campaign -

The group doesn't make very many friends. One of the people that they upset (greatly) was the quarter master of the thieves guild in Saerisorn, the city of souls. This quarter master, named Galendower (who they discovered to be a beholder), COULD have destroyed the group. Scry, teleport, send some thieves in, done. Luckily, I had an excuse as to WHY he didn't have access to a high level spell caster (they were being systematically hunted down by the ruling class, so spellcasters with ability were scarse). But, if I hadn't, it could have been a very short campaign.

If I were to make my own house rules, I'd consider ways to mitigate spells like scry and teleport. For scrying, perhaps distance is a factor, and having an article of the person would help in finding them. For teleport, I'd make it far more dangerous to teleport to unknown locations.

As for commune, I'd make it less frequent. No wonder people say that the gods are dead...they're busy answering commune questions every day from their friendly neighborhood priests!

 

[Vaxalon]

Evidence? Evidence?

I take it no one uses a more... realistic (read, arbitrary and magisterial) system of law enforcement in their campaigns?

Any civilized society has rules about how trials are to be conducted. The medieval "might makes right" mentality was limited to a very small number of high-ranking noblemen; almost everyone actually had to abide by the rule of law.

Of course, you can make your game world as anarchistic as you like, but most of us like to have societies with at least a modicum of versimilitude.

 

[Psion]

Alright, judicious use of ESP, and the PCs are home before dinner - no need to call in Sherlock Holmes on this one!

ESP, now detect thoughts allows a save.

Still, this is a fantasy game. It is easy to come up with circumstances in which the information revealed by detect thoughts is insufficient to unravel the mystery. Are the situations the same sort of thing you would see in an Agatha Christie novel? Of course not... but that should not surprise you as the setting and the capabilities of the character are totally different.

If you don't want players to use commune continuously, give it an XP cost, and/or make the answers vague and easily misinterpereted. But as is pointed out in some products, you should really design your scenarios with the PCs abilities in mind. Don't try to jip the PCs out of the benefits of their abilities. Plan around them. Require them.

 

[Dirt]

ESP (aka detect thoughts I presume?) allows a saving throw. Creatures which succeed at the saving throw are immune to that casting of the spell. Further to that it requires 18 seconds of non-moving concentration to get to the 'read surface thoughts' level. Each casting will require 18 seconds of waiting before it can be ascertained who's thoughts you're listening to. Finally, the murderer would have to be actively thinking about the murder to be shown to be the murderer. Even if someone walks up to the guy and says "Are you the murderer?" may not necessarily think "yes". He might think "the bastard deserved it".

*laugh* Well, yeah, it does allow a saving throw. But, if you have room full of suspects, anyone who opts for a saving throw is immediately a suspect.

"Hmmmm...won't allow us to read your mind, eh? Throw 'im in the other room with the other two. Congratulations champ! You just made our suspect list."

Also, if they fail their save, what is to prevent another casting. ESP is only a 2nd level spell. And, yes, I mean Detect Thoughts.

Just because an NPC may be thinking "the bastard deserved it" doesn't prevent the PC from asking the question again, in a different way...or outright asking:

"So, if the bastard deserved it, does that mean that you murdered him?"

 

[Dirt]

If it has to do with clerics of that deity, those who have power from that deity, or is on ground holy with that deity, lots of detail, lots of information. (Nasty, sneaky deities can mask this, of course.) If it involves the same for a divine enemy of deity, very little information beyond "It is beyond my ken". If it is in the mind of one of the deity's followers, the information can be had. Otherwise, it's very spotty and dependent upon the deity's own portfolio.

I have always given information based on the deity's own agenda, but I hadn't considered making it more difficult retrieving information when it is outsite of their scope (followers, holy grounds, churches, and general areas of knowledge...what the God is known for). Interesting take on it. I like it.

 

[Dirt]

It's only all over if you have a number of factors in play, one being a dumb murderer, who's incapable of cleaning up after himself. A competent killer will have disposed of the clues and probably have a good alibi. The divination does diddley-squat for dealing with those issues. Unless the PCs are actually part of the local law enforcement, they will have no right no interrogate, search, detain, or do anything else to suspects.

Honestly, I was just presenting the murder situation as an example. So, let's assume that they were given the authority to use divinations.

Let's start with this: a list of possible suspects.

Commune. Alright, you now have your killer. Now, you need to prove it. Interrogate him using ESP (detect thoughts). Have several memorized...wouldn't want him to make his saves, now would we! Alright, we discover that we're dealing with a competent killer who disposed of the clues and had a good alibi. Unless the killer had a way to change his memories (this would be the one and only way to protect against this situation...and lets face it, you don't want to do this EVERY time that you think the characters are going to use ESP to unravel your plot), it would be fairly easy to get everything you needed using ESP. You can discover what clues he covered up, and the "good" alibi can quickly be destroyed. To be a good alibi, it has to be supported by some else (other than the suspect). So, onto the interrogation of the other person...and so on...and so on...

 

[Psion]

*laugh* Well, yeah, it does allow a saving throw. But, if you have room full of suspects, anyone who opts for a saving throw is immediately a suspect.

"Hmmmm...won't allow us to read your mind, eh? Throw 'im in the other room with the other two. Congratulations champ! You just made our suspect list."

Also, if they fail their save, what is to prevent another casting. ESP is only a 2nd level spell. And, yes, I mean Detect Thoughts.

Are you not seeing any obvious solutions here? I am.

First - what is the PC's authority here? It appears enough that they can round up suspects with impunity. Answer: don't give them that sort of authority. Control the social situation. Perhaps the suspects are powerful nobles that the guard only has limited authority to do anything with without proof. Even if they find a suspect, the suspect may still be free to act, and unless they find what the suspect is up to (which may take more than surface thoughts), the players may still have a problem to grapple with.

Second - control the social situation. Add additional restrictions to make it harder. For example, make it so the PCs have to discover what is up without exposing their presence as investigators, or causing the suspect to bolt.

What's to prevent casting another detect thoughts? Well, if you have a sorcerer or telepath, perhaps nothing. But if you keep in mind the social situation, that could control it. People don't take well to spells being cast on them. In a society that is conscious of this, casting a spell in the middle of a chamber full of supposed suspects would be like waving a gun around at a polite dinner party. So, if you really want it to be subtle, you need silent and still spell (or hide power), which raises the level of the spell a bit. Even if PCs do have the resources, perhaps the enemy has resource to detect when a spell is in operation.

 

[Vaxalon]

The group doesn't make very many friends.

Anyone who makes enemies of powerful people should expect big trouble.

...Scry, teleport, send some thieves in, done.

The modern equivalent of this would be sending an assassin with a high-powered rifle and an advanced scope. Before you do this, consider the implications for the person who would do it.

First of all, hiring the spellcaster is going to be moderately expensive. For ordinary everyday hits, it won't be his method of choice. Instead, he'll put a reward out. If the PC's never come back to his city, then they are out of his hair, and he doesn't need to worry about it. If they do come back, there'll be a thug around every corner that wants the five thousand gold piece prize for bringing back a head.

 

[WizarDru]

Well, those are two separate issues, really.

The first issue, namely that of divinations, is a mixed-bag. They have oodles of limitations to them, and wise NPCs learn to take adavantage of said limitations. One of my favorite examples is from Piratecat's story hour: an evil NPC taunts the players, by possessing a zombie. The NPC identifies himsefl by name, makes them an offer that they refuse, and then departs. Not much later, they choose to scry on him, intent on giving him what for. The trick? He lied about his name, so the scrying reveals a completely different person...a mutual enemy, in fact. Great stuff.

Another way to make divinations less effective, without using high-powered tactics, is diffusion. Against a single target, divinations are highly effective. Against a large organization of loosely affiliated cells, not so much. Using trickery and discretion, you can prevent your players from asking the proper questions in the first place. A simple alter self spell can cause the players' divinations to be targeted in the wrong location. Commune, in particular, can be difficult to use if you set things up properly. With mostly 'yes' or 'no' answers, it's difficult to use if you don't know the right questions to ask. Commune confirms or denies your suspicions...but it doesn't give you information, per se...merely validates it. If you have ten suspects, Commune makes it simple to determine the murderer, by the process of elmination. Make it a crowded ball with 200 people in the crowd, and disassociate the killer from a direct relation to the victim, and you're starting to get there.

However, as PC's story hour illustrates well (and mine, to some degree, too), the focus changes as the party gets more powerful. The question no longer becomes "Who?" as much as "How?". They know that Lord Robilar killed the duke...but as city councilman and head of the merchant's guild, he's virtually untouchable, for example. We cast commune and know he's guilty....but the ruling priesthood of Rao says that we are unlawful heretics, using tainted information from Olidamarra that cannot be trusted and is surely some form of trickery.

The second question is part of a different problem: which is how to justify why a vastly more powerful foe wouldn't just smite a low-level group of adventurers? There have been whole threads on the topic, but the simple answer is that such concerns are usually both campaign-specific and usually out of the players knowledge until late in the game.

In fact, you hit on the classic answer in your own post: because there are other factors involved. The beholder-guildmaster may be bound by specific rules in the guild charter...rules the PCs are completely ignorant of, even though they benefit from them. An example like Elizabeth invoking the right of Parley in Pirates of the Caribbean, for example. Perhaps the beholder has equally powerful enemies of his own, and can't afford to attack the players, or give his enemies a justification to come after him, at least until he's better defended. Sure, I could kill that pesky band of adventurers that revealed my counterfeit Illithid skull manufacturing operation....but that might get the attention of the Illicit Magical Appropriations Bureau on Mechanus. Next thing you know, we could all be up to our armpits in Inevitables. No, just dispatch some brigands not directly related to the guild. make them cheap, stupid and brutal. You get the idea.

Finally, split the party's attention, and you split the resources. Someone close to the party is murdered...but who did it? If the party (who is apparently unpopular) finds themselves with few friends, they may have a hard time deciding which enemy has come for them this time....especially if it's a new player in the employ of an old. If they waste half of a spell determining who isn't behind the attack, that begins to add up.

I know my party has relegated Communes to the back burner, because their situation is too complex for it to be too useful. The complicated interconnections between the bad guys politics means that the players can never be certain how many dirty fingers were in any single pie...without spending plenty of x.p..