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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Simth" data-source="post: 4656706" data-attributes="member: 29252">As the entire thread is on a highly specific application, to the best of anyone's knoweledge (except, perhaps, the OP) this application IS "by itself".It's a Concentration-duration (max 1 min/level) effect, and it's a cantrip.  With a caster level-1 wand, concentrating while you walk, casting it once after every battle (7.5 gp - not particularly expensive, compared to the Wand of Cure Light Wounds most people arrange to have, and from which most people burn quite a few charges after every battle) generally WILL get you to the next obstacle (or at least, find all magical items in the room that aren't specifically shielded against this tactic - which is easy; what was it?  Three feet of dirt or wood, one foot of stone, one inch of common metal, or a thin sheet of lead - or something like that?  Alternately, just use Magic Aura).  Yes, it's quite viable, save for a low-wealth campaign.  Half the time, you can just prepare it in your cantrip slots and do even better (thanks to the increased caster level).  For the Cure spells?  Maybe.  That one was an exaggeration (well, unless you've got non-good clerics that Rebuke, or your healer is a Druid, a Cleric of War rather than healing, or some such).  But do you prevent your Barbarians from using Greatswords, citing that the manufacturing needed to make a greatsword should be beyond a barbarian tribe?   Or do you not worry about the one point of average damage?The thing is, though, most of the applications you appear to be worried about can be done even without permanency, as they're inherent to the Detect Magic spell already.That section did not include any assumptions at all.  You specified you'd be applying the "Dazzled" condition (a defined game penalty) to such a character who walked into a wizard's tower.  Detect Magic has no such clauses about powerful or pervasive magic, so you're making a house rule.  If you're not warning your players that you'll be doing that sort of thing at the time that they'd be setting themselves up for it (especially for the character who's most likely to be doing this - a wizard - who's going to know a lot about magic in character), then you're applying a penalty with no warning, and no real way that they could get such warning, that is outside the existing rules.  How do you define "arbitrarily" that this doesn't fit?Because I dislike DM's that implement what appear to be sudden house-rules with no warning in such a way that it weakens a character, without apparently giving the player an opportunity to rebuild to adjust to the house rule when it'd be something that the character would very much know in-character.  That same 500 xp could have been spent on, say, Comprehend Languages, tailoring 12,500 gp worth of equipment by way of Crafting (around thirty wands of Detect Magic, for a full day worth of the spell, broken up however you choose - if he's getting it from a scroll, that's a 10,125 gp item all by itself, as generated in the random treasure tables), or just not having to worry about falling behind the level curve.  Granted, it's a fairly small weakening of the spell, by itself, but to me it marks part of a trend or a style of DMing that can disrupt the game.Do you tell your players up from that you'll be suddenly be making house rules that amount to "this thing you spent resources on?  It suddenly does nothing worthwhile" in the middle of game play, for no apparently good reason, when there's no particular in-character reason why it wouldn't work?</blockquote>

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