Help vs. Scrying

[Orichin]

Hello all. I'm DMing a relatively low-magic, gritty-feeling campaign in Greyhawk's Bandit Kingdoms. We've currently played over 30 sessions, and I'm running into a problem. I want as best I can to play the party's foes "realistically," in a setting where *most* of the NPCs are evil, including the greedy baker, etc.

.....

In short, there are a lot of powerful people who'd rather the party become dead. These people would have great access to scrying magic, in particular through the local temple of Iuz.

Is there anything that I as DM can suggest to keep this from working? Thanks.

Having the party run far, far away isn't much of an option - the parties have established a town of rescued slaves, freed prisoners, converted guards, etc., that they'd be loathe to abandon. Further, the entire story arch to which we've been working involves - eventually, somehow - striking serious blows against the Slavers Guild, destroying it if possible, and I don't just mean in Stoink. And bloodying Iuz' local minions as much as is practical in the process.

The party would rather die fighting protecting the town than flee and leave 500 people to die or re-enter slavery. We even have a ranger/cleric of Tritherion and a pseudo-paladin of Tritherion.

So I'm trying to think of an excuse for not having them hunted down like rabid dogs at this point .

The main problem I see here is (I'm not flaming anyone here) a DM who's too nice to run a 'gritty' game full of evil. If you're trying to be realistic about the game, send the party's enemies after them with as much animosity as they would feel.
The new mayor would have the PC's pictures posted all over town and post a reward for his father's murderers-preferably dead.
The clerics would employ whatever assets they felt were necessary, and scrying is very cheap and an incredibly useful tool. (un)Holy warriors of Iuz, mobs of supplicants in a preacher induced frenzy, or calling in favors are all equally cheap (if not free to the church) methods of eliminating the PC's.
Historically, as in many campaign settings, slavers make LOTS of money, and are greedy enough to a)sell human lives and b)protect their interests with a vengeance seen only in organized crime.

Your PC's have committed several high-profile assassinations and murders of powerful people. It would be utter stupidity for them to stay where they are. Other powerful NPCs will view the PC group as a potential threat, one they may not wish to be on the business end of.

As I see it, the PC's have only a few options open to them.
-Settle down in their community of free slaves and hope their enemies will forget about them (unlikely), or go down in a blaze of glory when the place is razed to the ground by their enemies (more likely).
-Stand and fight their enemies like any self-respecting hero would do in a different game (TPK in this case, looking at the odds).
-Run. Run like the outnumbered, outclassed, surrounded dogs they are, and live to the next session (those last 5 words are key to a gritty game).

You as the DM may have unintentionally led them into it, but the PC's have dug themselves a grave in Stoink. You can try to hand them a way out like a nice DM, or you can throw a nearly insurmountable challenge at them and see if they can deal with it (IMHO a more rewarding style of play so long as PC death isn't a way of life).


Regardless of what your group decides to do, this situation will make them better players. They'll remember what happened last time they made enemies they couldn't handle and didn't count on-which is the essence of a 'gritty' game.
Organizations are tremendously powerful enemies simpley because of the vast resources they have at their disposal-this is the only warning I'd give the PC's, then see where they take the game from there.



As far as realistic and/or gritty solutions to the problem? The PCs could arm their city. Make it so their enemies would have to spend more money to kill them than to defend against them.
A 3rd party could intervene, offering the PCs protection of some sort in return for their services, or for an unnamed price to be collected at a later date. The 3rd party may not be a 3rd party at all, but say, operatives of the slave guild luring the PCs into a false sense of security before they strike without warning.
Let the PCs get utterly roasted by their enemies. Destroy everything they worked to create. Then raise them as undead servants in the thrall of Iuz's church. It may take a couple sessions for them to find a way to release themselves or return to life, but when the game finally gets back on track, the players will have a newer, healthier respect for their opposition, and more importantly; a vendetta.

 

[smetzger]

1) Scry requires a will save. When a person succeeds on a saving throw they know that they just made a saving throw, but don't necessarily know why. Anyone with decent ranks in Spellcraft would know that Scrying is one case where you may get this tingley feeling.
2)Also, "If the save succeeds, you can’t attempt to scry on that subject again for at least 24 hours."

Combine these two things and scrying has a decent chance of notifying someone that someone is trying to watch them.

This is a good chance to make the party paranoid. I say start the scrying. They will most likely notice it, become paranoid, and devote resources(which could be beneficial elsewhere) to prevent scrying.

 

[Nail]

As for the Scry problem:

• There is a Will save. Have the bad guys scry the people they think have low Will saves first. If the Bad Guys(tm) don't know, then just pick the PC with the highest profile.
  
• The person Scrying the PCs (a cleric of Iuz?) needs to have met them, otherwise there is a +5 to the Will save. It's not enough that some minion has met the PCs. (Moreover, who knows the PCs killed anyone? Who survived the PC onsluaght?)
  
• Once active, the Scry spell creates a Scrying sensor, which can be detected with a DC 20 Int check. Everyone nearby gets a chance.
  
• The Scry spell only sees and hears the person being scryied on and stuff within 10 of that subject. That may or may not be enough for a teleport.
  
• Be fair about when during the day your NPCs scry. You (the DM) can't just pick the most opportune time....give the NPCs a reason. If it were me, I'd have them scry at sunset, or perhaps when I think the PCs are about to go to bed. It may be the case that the Bad Guys(tm) mis-time the Scrying!
  
• The party wizard should know (be told by the DM) what the common counters for scrying are. Example: Entire party sleeps in a Rope Trick, which gives them all a +5 to the Will save...as well as denying the scrier any info about the PCs surroundings.

Start scrying, DM!!!

 

[Amaroq]

There is a Will save.

At +5, if the priests have only secondhand knowledge of the subjects.

Be fair about when during the day your NPCs scry.

Definitely. Remember, the NPC's won't have 24/7 coverage (or whatever hour/day combination your campaign uses) - they certainly won't hear every conversation the PC's hold.

3.5 scrying takes an hour to cast and provides only 1 minute/level of sight and sound; plus its fifth level, so a 10th-level cleric can only cast it twice per day.

denying the scrier any info about the PCs surroundings.

Not every scry spell will be able to give the NPC a read on where the PC's are; again, 3.5 scrying only shows a 10' radius around the subject, which definitely isn't enough to identify nearby landmarks, etc; in many cases, it may not even be enough to detemine who the PC is speaking with!

It may be the case that the Bad Guys(tm) mis-time the Scrying!

Great idea, and one you could have a ton of fun with: your Bad Guys start laying traps for the *wrong series* of party actions, based on overhearing part of a discussion, where the party sounded like it was leaning towards plan A, but missed the part where they changed their minds and switched to plan B: which will have the added effect of giving your players the feeling that they 'outsmarted' the Bad Guys by coming up with a 'better' plan.

Once active, the Scry spell creates a Scrying sensor, which can be detected with a DC 20 Int check. Everyone nearby gets a chance.

"Any creature with an Intelligence score of 12 or higher can notice the sensor by making a DC 20 Intelligence check." That's up to your interpretation as DM, but I might rule that everyone nearby gets that chance automatically, without having to 'declare' that action; and to award Circumstance bonuses for actively declaring that they were scanning for such a scry sensor in advance of having a particular conversation; you might also award the 'synergistic skill' +2 for particularly high ranks in Spot, Spellcraft, or Knowledge (Arcana) - (but remember that whatever you give your PC's today you ought to give your NPC's tomorrow). And of course, the sensor would show up on detect magic, once your PC's have figured out that the enemy is scrying you.

Is there anything that I as DM can suggest to keep this from working? Thanks.

In a campaign I'm a player in, a powerful NPC wizard chided us about how somebody else (not him) was scrying on us, and how we needed to be more careful; he wasn't somebody we trusted, but on that he was correct. That's just one of a number of things you could do to 'tip your hand' to the PC's: there might be any number of NPC's who could warn the PC's what's going on, if properly motivated.

Heck, I heard a player recently complain that he'd never seen a DM arbitrarily award 'insight' to the character which he-the-player hadn't thought of; this is especially the case for an average person trying to role-play an exceptionally smart or exceptionally wise character: it is reasonable to think that the character, whose subconscious mind has many more hours to devote to the problem than the player does, might think of something the player hasn't. You might decide that any character who makes a DC 20 Wisdom check thinks of the enemy scrying on them, even if the player hasn't. "You wake up in the middle of the night, startled awake by the realization that...."

And of course, there's the old standby of having the cleric or (pseudo?) paladin's diety appear to them in a dream, etc.

I think your problem is just getting the players started thinking about the problem, and let their creativity run with it.

 

[Jdvn1]

teleport counters:
The spell in complete arcane (forget its name) that alerts you to incoming teleports near you and gives you a round to ready actions, etc.

Ken

I believe that's called Anticipate Teleport.

 

[Jdvn1]

Oh, and the Complete Arcane also has tips on dealing with stuff like Scry, so.

 

[the_bruiser]

Back from Christmas vacation. I just want to say thanks to you guys for such great comments and advice.

1) There are only two clerics in Stoink both willing and able to do the scrying, so that helps, there will only be one or two attempts per day.

2) As far as I can tell, scrying on the party does not tell them exactly where the party is, right?

3) Our wizard is now casting Detect Scrying on himself every morning. When someone scries the party will attempt to verbally mislead the opposition with regards to their plans and location.

4) The party has hired a group of 500 mercenaries to guard the town, which is two days' journey from Stoink. That's not enough to stop an army, or even the entire might of Stoink's standing guard, but it certainly is enough to make Stoink leadership leary of removing that many guards, given the precarious position vs. Urnst to the south. At almost 1000 gp / week, this is going to bankrupt the party fairly quickly (we're playing a relatively low-magic, low-wealth campaign), they recently sold a minor artifact to a wizard and have the funds to keep it up for a few months. (For anyone interested, the artifact is the Manual of the Winding Way from a recent dungeon adventure which I modified for our campaign.)

At least one of you recommended False Vision. I looked it up, but doesn't it only last 1 minute/level? So wouldn't you have to cast it in response to being scried, and thus the opposition would know they were seeing a false vision?

In response to several of your opinions that I need to improve my rat bastardness, Mayor Huely has sent an assassin after the group leader. He's pretty scary - a halfling rogue with wands of mirror image (harder to target) and blink (every attack gets sneak attack!). That's going to be fun . It'll be especially nice if the halfling realizes he can't win and escapes by jumping through a wall to try again later - that blink spell is pretty handy.

Anyway, thanks again, guys.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I actually think it would be quite fun to have the players lose their captured city back to their enemies as a result of their actions. Then they can try to retake it at higher levels. It's more realistic and makes it clear to the P that there are consequences for their actions.

Right now, it sounds like they can do whatever they want and the DM will protect them from the receiving end of payback.

Teach em' a lesson. They'll thank you for it in the longrun.

 

[Steverooo]

Also, on an older note, a thin sheet of lead or gold, or thicker pieces of other materials, used to be able to stop Scrying, although this has apparently been removed from 3.5e. Formerly, adding sheets of lead foil to the walls, floors, and ceilings of houses and tents made them immune to scrying.

Furthermore, a targetted Dispel Magic on the magical scrying sensor (once spotted) also ended the spell, automatically. This, too, is no longer mentioned. It has never been required that a PC state that they are attempting to spot a magical sensor, though...

[EDIT: HA! I FOUND IT!!! PHB:173, under Divination (Scrying), last paragraph! It's still in the game! Ha, ha!]

Also, note that scrying does NOT allow hearing, only seeing. Your priests of Iuz will have to use the Lip Reading version of the Spot skill, in order to determine what is being said.

Rings of Mind Shielding might also be nice. Amulets of Proof vs. Detection & Location, too. Mayor Daily probably had one of these...

 

[Steverooo]

No light - no scry

... unless the scryer has Darkvision, or a spell or magic item to give it to him (then there's a 5% chance/level that it'll work).