D&D 5E Making Divine Sense at-will OR last longer?

[UngeheuerLich]

I think it was at will for a while during dndnext and it felt disruptive instead of useful.

 

[el-remmen]

I talked it over with one paladin player and I am seeing the other today for a session, and I think we are gonna try the 10 minutes + concentration version. You can’t hide that you’re doing it (though there maybe subclasses that will get a chance to try as an ability) and I will continue to be generous in what it detects (not necessarily limiting it to only what the ability describes if some evil is ongoing/occurring).

 

[Seramus]

Increase to 1 mile, let it go through objects. Proficiency times per day.

 

[Argyle King]

A thought I had today:

What if Divine Sense functioned as a special type of Perception check?

Passive Divine Sense would be 10 + Proficiency + Cha Bonus

Alternatively, just make it a Charisma-based Perception check.

It would function essentially just like a Perception check but only for the purposes of detecting the chosen creature type.

To balance out the change from limited uses to an ongoing passive ability, perhaps shorten the range to a 30 ft radius.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The dm for the last paladin I played just read the ability a specific way:

The presence of strong evil registers on your senses like a noxious odor, and powerful good rings like heavenly music in your ears.

Instead of just calling it flavor text, this sentence is treated like one set of rules text: the mere presence of strong evil (ie a fiend, a desecrated temple, etc) would be noticeable. I was a dragonborn so he had it come up as a smell - but it was an imprecise sense that was just "it smells like evil in here." (Or good, for that matter.)

As an action, you can open your awareness to detect such forces. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet of you that is not behind total cover. You know the type (celestial, fiend, or undead) of any being whose presence you sense, but not its identity (the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, for instance). Within the same radius, you also detect the presence of any place or object that has been consecrated or desecrated, as with the hallow spell.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier. When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.

This was then treated as a separate thing - when I smelled evil, I could focus myself and truly feel out what was going on, based ono the limitation in the rules text. I suppose I could have spent a spell slot to do it more (or just cast detect evil and good) but it never came up.

I think this might give you what you want without even technically house-ruling, just interpreting a rule a specific way.

 

[el-remmen]

The dm for the last paladin I played just read the ability a specific way:


Instead of just calling it flavor text, this sentence is treated like one set of rules text: the mere presence of strong evil (ie a fiend, a desecrated temple, etc) would be noticeable. I was a dragonborn so he had it come up as a smell - but it was an imprecise sense that was just "it smells like evil in here." (Or good, for that matter.)


This was then treated as a separate thing - when I smelled evil, I could focus myself and truly feel out what was going on, based ono the limitation in the rules text. I suppose I could have spent a spell slot to do it more (or just cast detect evil and good) but it never came up.

I think this might give you what you want without even technically house-ruling, just interpreting a rule a specific way.

I definitely like this. We've already decided to try the houserule but I will keep this in mind for if we want to roll it back or for a future game.