D&D 5E (2014) How to deal with a Warlock gaining Detect Magic as a cantrip

[ccs]

What others have said.

AND: Stop looking at what characters can do from an adversarial PoV.
So your Warlock likes to detect magic? Great, play into that somehow.

 

[iserith]

hello all


time for some help and advice…


I have a PC who is a warlock character who has the Detect Magic spell as a cantrip.


He enables this at all times, making it quite difficult for me to have any surprises for the PCs. Any magical traps are seen as are any hidden weapons.


How have other people coped with this? are there any tricks I can use to shield some of these things from him??


help would be appreciated

As for magical traps, no big deal, I say. You found it - now what? Can you figure out what it does and how it works? Can you disable it? The challenge isn't over after finding the thing.

I'm not sure what you mean by hidden weapons exactly, but same deal as above. You know about it - now what do do with that knowledge? The challenge remains.

 

[redrick]

Let them detect magic! This is something the Warlock invested in. Keep using magic items and magic traps the way you did before, and let the Warlock revel in how great it is to cast it any time in a hurry.

But sneak in a couple magic items and magic traps disguised with methods described above. Let your Warlock get hammered by a properly concealed magic trap if they are too comfortable depending on Detect Magic. I think sticking with the mundane shieldings (lead, stone and distance) is better than "Detect Magic Nullification" fields like Nystul's Magic Aura. Just turning off player abilities by fiat is lame; much better to be aware of the limitations of those abilities and exploit them.

 

[Wulffolk]

Or you could challenge them with an area saturated with magic. If magic is everywhere then sensing it would be like trying to hear somebody talk while standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier with a dozen jet engines running at once.

 

[Warpiglet]

Let them detect magic! This is something the Warlock invested in. Keep using magic items and magic traps the way you did before, and let the Warlock revel in how great it is to cast it any time in a hurry.

But sneak in a couple magic items and magic traps disguised with methods described above. Let your Warlock get hammered by a properly concealed magic trap if they are too comfortable depending on Detect Magic. I think sticking with the mundane shieldings (lead, stone and distance) is better than "Detect Magic Nullification" fields like Nystul's Magic Aura. Just turning off player abilities by fiat is lame; much better to be aware of the limitations of those abilities and exploit them.

Totally. I like the image of a warlock that can sense magic! It is part of the character and would be a rip off to have it purposefully circumvented at all times. Let them feel their power but occasionally surprise them--D&D is supposed to be dangerous and exciting!

 

[discosoc]

Remember that in a world where magic is everywhere (say that with the Movie Preview Guy's voice), countering magic would basically always been considered when possible. So if someone goes to the trouble securing a dungeon with traps, they are probably going to line them with a thin sheet of lead or something. It's a useful ability, and he should still feel like he's getting value for taking it, but you still need to keep in mind that he's highly unlikely to be the only guy in the Realms who can cast it -- regardless of frequency.

 

[Sloblock]

hello all

many many thanks for all of the suggestions and comments, I have a much better way forward for how to handle this.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

How have other people coped with this? are there any tricks I can use to shield some of these things from him??


help would be appreciated

Players having lots of information isn't a problem--it's great! Half of the worries I have are about trying to feed the players enough information to point them in the right direction and foreshadow dangers before they actually occur.

Use this opportunity to seed additional hooks, not to conceal them. When they meet a giant frog, let him detect magic coming from the stomach of the frog. Then if they spook the frog and it runs away, they'll know to chase it--possibly right into a band of gnoll marauders. (How to foreshadow in advance that there are gnoll marauders in the area? Well, maybe rumors? Tracks? Dead bodies? But that has nothing to do with Detect Magic.)

 

[The Scythian]

Like others have said, carefully read how the spell actually works.

The spell will tell a character if there's magic within thirty feet. That's all. It doesn't provide the location, direction, intensity, amount, or school of that magic. It just lets the character know that there's magic within 30 feet, and that it's not blocked by three feet of wood or dirt, a foot of stone, an inch of metal, or a thin sheet of lead. In other words, there's no way for a character to differentiate between the magic trap behind a thin wooden panel in the wall 25 feet away, the magic mouth spell cast on the pillar 5 feet away, and the potion in his backpack.

A character can use an action in order to see a faint aura around any visible magical object or creature within the spell's area of effect and learn its school of magic. The key word is visible. In the above example, the character could spend an action to focus and see a faint aura around the pillar and know that the magic is illusion-based. The fireball trap behind the panel in the wall? Not visible, so no aura or additional information. The potion in her backpack? Not visible, so no aura or additional information. The assassin sneaking up on her with a +5 dagger of brutal overkill? Not visible, so no aura or additional information.

 

[Mistwell]

What others have said.

AND: Stop looking at what characters can do from an adversarial PoV.
So your Warlock likes to detect magic? Great, play into that somehow.

I agree. Invocations are a Warlocks most precious limited resource. They're close to being equivalent to a feat or ability score increase. Do not punish the player for choosing to spend this very limited resource to do this. It's OK if they spot magic traps and items - it's the only purpose of them taking this invocation and not an offensive one or otherwise combat one.

If you reduce this invocation into rare usage to simply find the magic items in a captured horde of treasure you're basically saying they Warlock spent their very rare invocation on something that could have been done with a few first level scrolls.