Does Anyone Else LOVE the new Detect Magic?

[Plane Sailing]

I find it frustratingly vague. It says you can study the auras to gain clues into the nature of the magic, but it gives absolutely no information about what counts as "study", what the DCs should be or what kind of information you gain. It also says that it can't detect magic that is designed to be hidden, but what is that? Does that mean every illusion is immune to detection? What about polymorph type effects, alarm spells, or other wards? Considering how rules-lite this spell is, I doubt I can expect to find any help in the other spells' descriptions about whether or not they're "designed to be hidden."

This is not the kind of stuff that I want to just make up when I DM! This isn't DM "empowerment," this is forcing the DM to make up rules when he really shouldn't have to. I'm saying this as someone who often DM's.

For me it is empoweringly vague. It is exactly what I want to see. It allows me as a DM to apply common sense without opening the doors to rules lawyering and the vulnerability to special cases which are later added.

I love it!

 

[Balesir]

For me it is empoweringly vague. It is exactly what I want to see. It allows me as a DM to apply common sense without opening the doors to rules lawyering and the vulnerability to special cases which are later added.

Ah, "common sense"! Isn't that the (only?) stuff that everyone has so much of that they don't consider that they need any more of it than they already have?

 

[Gold Roger]

I'm with Clever Nickname. The spell is great and contains all the information the player needs to know. The design obviously doesn't work for many other abilities and game elements, but for this game world defining minor ability it's spot on.


That said, I want a 2-5 pages mini-chapter in the DMG called "Handling Detection and Identification of Magic" and I want it to be put in the worldbuilding section. We need advice and suggestions on how to use this ability, DMs need to establish consistency at their tables and players need to know what to expect with their DM. But we don't need a minor spell that takes almost a page in the PHB and comes with a bunch of tables.

 

[Abstruse]

Does detect magic get abusive being at-will or is it just right? On one hand, it reflects a sixth sense of a spellcaster. On the other, its going to become a standard assumed part of a Dm's descriptions to the players. Should there be any limitations on detect magic's use?

It really depends on how you flavor and roleplay it in my experience (in general with at-will detection abilities, not specifically Detect Magic in Next). Same with a paladin's "Detect Evil" in 3.x/PF.

If your players are abusing it, make them suffer something to balance it. Paladin's always casting Detect Evil, have someone Lawful Good get upset when they notice it because it's an invasion of personal privacy. Have the villagers start an Occupy Bahamut's Temple movement. For lots of roleplay fun, have a riot break out as the Lawful Neutral city guards start pushing around the Neutral Good townfolk and your paladin right in the middle of it because he caused it. If he doesn't fix the chaos he started, he Falls.

Detect Magic getting spammed? Start treating it like the wizard's sight or third eye from the Dresden Files novel. You see everything around you as it Truly is and you remember everything. Everything. Perfectly and for all time. If they try spamming it on evil creatures to see if they have goodies, start ripping Fear, Horror, and Madness Check rules from Ravenloft since they're seeing the True nature of uncompromising evil on a regular basis.

Strict rules are great, but if you're creative, you can fix a lot of in-game problems with interesting in-game solutions that add to the story and world rather than add complexity. I can understand why someone would want a strict DC table if nothing else for consistency's sake, but my style of gaming is to be less rigid and worry about telling an interesting story first and be a rules lawyer second.

 

[Balesir]

So, basically, you think that, yes, it might be unbalanced but you advocate inventing a pack of arbitrary backlash rules because any player taking advantage of that imbalance is obviously playing in a way that is badwrongfun?

I think my preference would be to come up with balanced and clear rules from the start (well, after playtesting) and stick to them.

 

[Falling Icicle]

The more I've thought about it, the more I think that detect magic shouldn't be a spell at all. It should, IMO, just be a basic thing that any spellcaster can do, not just those who happened to choose a particular cantrip. "Magic Sense" or some similar ability could be given to all spellcasters (and maybe non-magic users could get it somehow too, perhaps with a feat). This ability would allow people to notice and analyze magical auras with Intelligence or Wisdom checks, expanding what perception-type checks allow such characters to perceive.