Does Anyone Else LOVE the new Detect Magic?

[Li Shenron]

In this most recent playtest, the wizard cast it nearly every single round. Eventually, after about the fifteenth time he cast the spell, he told the DM to "just assume I am casting Detect Magic constantly, over and over again, unless I call another action." She responded, "Okay, but you will be muttering incantations and waving your hands around the entire time, which will make hiding and sneaking difficult." He decided to back down, and went back to just casting the spell at every whim.

Very good call.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If such a spell starts getting abusive, I'll use my standard limiting technique--put it on the players where the boundaries are, then brutally enforce those.

For example, if someone was spamming it all the time so as to never miss anything, I'd have every thieves guild on the planet employing low-level casters to case each adventuring party as they arrive through the city gates, and then the guild would rob them blind. If it's ok for the players to spam it, it's ok for the thieves guild, tax collectors, etc. to spam it. If the players are more judicious and reasonable about it, then so is everyone else. They define the world as they want it; and then play in precisely that world.

 

[KesselZero]

I generally don't come down on the side of more rules, but in this case I do have to agree that the Detect Magic description seemed overly vague to me, especially the bits that have already been called out such as "determining the nature," "study," "magic that has been designed to be hidden." I took that to mean magical traps and the like, since you'd assume somebody making a magical trap would put some time into hiding the big glowy magical aura, but it definitely needs clarification re: illusions. (Illusions aren't meant to be hidden, after all-- the magic is meant to be seen and heard and smelled! Something else is being hidden by the illusion.)

I understand the appeal of letting the spell work how the DM needs it to work in the moment, but I think this is overall a risky stance. It's pretty well agreed that even the most fantastical systems need to have internal consistency, especially in a rules-light system that encourages player creativity. The players should know that Detect Magic will work more or less the same way every time, and as a DM I would hate to have to come up with a new excuse for why it does or doesn't work in every situation based on what I want to happen. And anyway, the point of roleplaying games is that the players will come up with creative uses of their abilities that will surprise the DM. You shouldn't be shuffling the laws of reality around behind the screen to make things work how you planned. Of course I don't mean to say that the DM doesn't have the power to make reasonable rulings (the BBEG would protect his treasured artifact behind a non-detection field or whatnot), and I thought the example about differences in what "study" can mean was very clever, logical and fair. But no ability, especially not a player ability, should work on the power of plot.

Although as a cone, the spell needs line of sight, meaning it can't detect anything hidden in a shoebox. So: shoeboxes?

 

[CleverNickName]

This is a really good answer to that kind of behaviour. Just because it's a cantrip and you can cast it as often as you want doesn't mean that DM's should let players do so.

It's great to see someone that had a good answer, though, rather than just "This is stupid. Stop doing it."

For the record, she didn't forbid him from doing it. She just explained that there would be undesirable consequences. I'm sure she had a plan in the back of her mind for him, should he decide to keep spamming it. ("Attracting extra attention to yourself, eh? Time to roll for another random encounter...")

 

[Balesir]

Ah, this brings back memories of the old (AD&D) SOP:

Illusionist's player: "I cast Phantasmal Forces in the clearing"
DM: "There's no enemy about..."
Illusionist's player: "I know - we're heading back to the inn after this, anyway."
Wizard's player: "I cast Detect Magic - does the PF show up?"
DM: "No, it doesn't."
Illusionist's player: "Yay - power to me!"
Wizard's player: "Oh, crap."

Ho, hum.

 

[Bagpuss]

3. Yes, illusions are "meant to be hidden," so I would rule that Detect Magic wouldn't reveal an illusion, and that illusions are immune to detection using the detect magic spell. It's only a cantrip, after all. But other DMs might disagree, and they could easily decide it wasn't hidden "enough," or that some illusions are too powerful to detect at low levels, or that they detect as magical but give off strange or erroneous signals (an illusionary bodak detecting as magical, but not evil), or whatever the story needs.

So what you are saying is it is another case of the DM having control over a players abilities. So the player might assume Detect Magic, actually detects magic, and use it, assume something isn't because the DM tells him it isn't. But the DM has decided Detect Magic just doesn't detect this particular magic.

If you like this sort of DM control over player abilities, you might as well write Magic Missile (and nearly all attack spells for that matter) as "It does some damage, which may kill the target ask your DM the results".

 

[Someone]

I find the description unnecesarily verbose. I'd recommend this simplified version, which conveys the same information:

Detect Magic
Minor divination

It detects magic in a 30 foot cone. The DM determines exactly how.

 

[Gryph]

I wouldn't say I LOVE it, but I will respect it in the morning.

 

[Bagpuss]

Detect Magic
Minor divination

It detects magic in a 30 foot cone. The DM determines exactly how.

I like your thinking.... we could cut down on page count this way.


Magic Missile
Minor evocation

Magical dart(s) hit one or more creatures. The DM determines exactly how many and what damage, if any, it does.

 

[CM]

Is it blocked by a glass window?
A thick, opaque curtain?
A thin, transparent curtain?
Water?

Will it detect the swallowed magic items in the bulette's stomach?

Rather than an at-will spell, I'd like to see detect magic as a skill like perception (free to all casters and those who take the magician feat or similar), and have DCs to detect various effects. Maybe the magic weapon in the enemy's hand is a simple DC and automatically detected (DC 10). Maybe the magic potion hidden inside the hollow book on the moldering bookshelf is a little more difficult (DC 18), and the illusory rock outcropping covering the cave high on the clif face is extremely difficult (DC 25)

It's something I like to call passive enchantment perception