Help! How can our PCs find something we lost?

[Mistwell]

It depends on how urgent it is to find it. A Miracle solves all problems, if you're willing to pay the XP. But if you're willing to take a little longer you should be able to do it with good detective work.

Start with a Divination. "How do we recover the stolen cauldron?" is probably safest. "How do we find the thieves who took the cauldron?" runs the risk of them having passed it to someone else, but might give you a more specific answer. Of course, no reason not to do both. If you can get a place or a person from a Divination, it's time for legwork and social skills. Gather Information in towns that might be connected, Intimidate people involved into talking, that sort of thing. Make liberal use of spells to increase the skill rolls and aid in interogations. After you get a few more clues you can break out Commune and play 20 Questions to narrow things down. Hopefully, this will be enough for you to know whose door to kick in.

I agree. Start with Divination, narrow things down a bit, do the footwork, use your knowledge skills and NPCS, then move on to commune, and play 20 questions. You should be able to get your answer, and without use of the expensive Miricle spell.

 

[TYPO5478]

If you're going the 20 Questions route, I find it helps to start general and get specific:

"Is the cauldron still on this plane of existence?"
"Is the cauldron still on this continent?"
"Is the cauldron still in this country?"
"Is the cauldron more than one country away?"
"Is the cauldron more than 500 miles from here? 100 miles? 50 miles?"
"Is the cauldron stationary (or being moved)?"
etc.

Ask questions that help regardless of whether the answer is yes or no:

"Is the cauldron north of here?" If the answer is yes, then you know it's north of your position; if the answer is no, then it is either south of your position or due west or east (provided it's still on the same plane, of course). Presumably, if it were on another plane, the answer to that question would be mu.

Then there are (riskier) questions that the deity may or may not be able to answer. Quesitons of possiblity and intention:

"Are the people who have the cauldron going to a city?"
"Do the people who have the cauldron intend to keep it?"
"Will the cauldron stay on this plane of existence for the next 24 hours?"
etc.

I just reread commune; remember that a short phrase could be substituted for a yes/no answer. Try to take advantage of that. Also remember that "the entities contacted structure their answers to further their own purposes." Make sure they're on your side before you ask too much (although, the fact that the spell describes the answers as being correct to the best knowledge of the entity implies that the entity is bound to be honest even if its purpose differs, even drastically, from yours).

 

[Piratecat]

Typo, great advice.

We didn't get the resolution we expected! We started the divination process, accidentally sprung a trap with a number of deadly null shadows... and lost a member of the Company in the process. First death in literally five years. It was almost three deaths, truth be told; we just barely pulled it out.

And in the post-fight investigation, stone tell - a spell I had forgotten about - gave us a faint clue as to the perpetrator. We figured it out from there, because although it was someone we had totally forgotten about and thought was an ally, a number of clues have just snapped into place.

We don't know where the cauldron is, but we know who's behind it, and we don't think that THEY know we know. That gives us an edge, and we are Wroth.

And Sagiro, bless his heart, is a rat bastard.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Those null shadows are extremely dangerous, iirc, since they are invulnerable to magic. Although the page that Sagiro put their stats on seems to have vanished.

Did anyone save a copy of it?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I thought I had - but I can't find them.

Hee, hee, I'm a crafty one:

http://home.comcast.net/~dorian.hart/NullShadows.html

Found a Yahoo link to the ENWorld thread with a dead link; found a Yahoo link to Sagiro's new web host; guessed that the site naming conventions were similar, and after a couple of attempts, I found it.

 

[Sagiro]

Remember: My players should not follow that link!

(Also, the Null Shadows the party fought last night were different from these in several respects, in terms of abilities and overall power level.)

-Sagiro

 

[Cheiromancer]

Hee, hee, I'm a crafty one

You sure are! Thanks.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Remember: My players should not follow that link!

Right-o! Although the original link was from the Story Hour, so I felt safe in posting it. BTW, I think I'll be using these guys in a soon upcoming game of my own...

 

[Piratecat]

Null shadows are brilliant design, in that they challenge high level groups as much or more than low level groups. The ones we just fought would be horrible for anyone; they had iterative touch attacks and drained constitution (on a 2nd fort save), in additional to draining spells as normal.

It was terrifying, and a bitter victory. So why do I feel like the game was a blast?

 

[Nail]

Jiminey-Crickets, are those shadows nasty! I had forgotten......