No secrets can be kept due to Consult Oracle?

[MichaelSomething]

Wouldn't the best way for a villain to bypass this problem is to magically compel another person to kill the victim for him/her? Or just throw a huge monster at the victim?

 

[keterys]

Why use the word potential as well, when you're saying they automatically know information known to at least one creature.

Because they can only answer observed and can't predict the future. They have serious restrictions, but 'Five people know this information, but I wasn't watching them' isn't it.

Which implies Consult Oracle should be cryptic (how can one word answers be cryptic), and should be be genuinely informative or helpful.

Or brief phrases. Basically it means the Loremaster is trying to help. Someone trying to find out who killed someone might have to ask a series of questions like:
'Who murdered my father?'
'Kalas Siratal'
'Who is Kalas Siratal?'
'A drow.' (or 'An assassin' or 'A man' 'A troubled individual')
'Why did Kalas Siratal kill my father?'
'Money.' (or 'He was asked' or even 'Boredom')
'Who hired Kalas Siratal?'
'Rarik Cregdar'
etc.

instead of 'Your father was murdered by a hired assassin at the behest of Lord Thaviel, because your nemesis wishes you removed for the kingdom for a time.'

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Because they can only answer observed and can't predict the future. They have serious restrictions, but 'Five people know this information, but I wasn't watching them' isn't it.

Or brief phrases. Basically it means the Loremaster is trying to help. Someone trying to find out who killed someone might have to ask a series of questions like:
'Who murdered my father?'
'Kalas Siratal'
'Who is Kalas Siratal?'
'A drow.' (or 'An assassin' or 'A man' 'A troubled individual')
'Why did Kalas Siratal kill my father?'
'Money.' (or 'He was asked' or even 'Boredom')
'Who hired Kalas Siratal?'
'Rarik Cregdar'
etc.

instead of 'Your father was murdered by a hired assassin at the behest of Lord Thaviel, because your nemesis wishes you removed for the kingdom for a time.'

Here's the problem with this interpretation Keterys. It doesn't MATTER how you read the text of the ritual. The DM still has secrets. The DM will keep the DM's secrets. The Oracle WILL not always be able to provide answers. These are just going to be facts in almost any campaign with a non-trivial plot (one where you might actually contemplate using this ritual). Consult Oracle IS thus going to be cryptic, have incomplete information, etc. because its necessary for it to. In other words whether Bagpuss has parsed the text of the ritual accurately or not really doesn't matter.

 

[keterys]

I don't think I'm arguing that it's the most awesome divination in existence.

I'm arguing that saying 'Well, it only has the potential to know, so I choose for it to not know anything I want' is _not what's written_ so if you want to make it so, inform your players, else the earlier poster who basically said to never do divinations because DMs screw you over on them is right.

Now, I'm all fine with 'I don't like these divinations, so they're not in my game'. I just don't think it's good form to mislead the players or make them waste valuable resources.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think I'm arguing that it's the most awesome divination in existence.

I'm arguing that saying 'Well, it only has the potential to know, so I choose for it to not know anything I want' is _not what's written_ so if you want to make it so, inform your players, else the earlier poster who basically said to never do divinations because DMs screw you over on them is right.

Now, I'm all fine with 'I don't like these divinations, so they're not in my game'. I just don't think it's good form to mislead the players or make them waste valuable resources.

I think where I'm coming from is that a scenario is VERY likely to arise something like:

Player: I cast Consult Oracle and ask "<plot unraveling question here>."
DM: Uh.... (DM now has choice, unravel plot or limit what CO reveals by some means).

Yes, the classic response to this is the DM should have thought of this ahead of time. Right.... So every single plot the DM uses from now on has to be CO-proofed by having the bad guys go through some pretzel twists of secretly hiring assassins in a dark room or some other similar nonsense. Or making up some kind of anti-divination rituals/items/whatever. Or who knows what. Its at best a monumental pain in the DM's backside. Worse still the players will inevitably find flaws in all of these DM machinations. The DM will forget to consider some plot angles in some situations, etc. The cost of casting the ritual will for a while deter player fishing expeditions, but by Epic level 3600 gp will be pocket change and any reasonably clever party will be spamming this thing all over the place.

I'm perfectly fine with it working well most of the time and I agree that the DM should avoid nerfing things that the players are paying to use, but there ARE going to be times when the proper response is simply "you don't learn anything useful". Hopefully the DM will be able to couch that in terms of obscure or useless answers to questions, but there may be times when "the oracle doesn't know" is the option at hand. This simply WILL come up sometimes. I don't care if the ritual text said outright "the oracle always knows the answers to any question and always answers", it STILL isn't always going to produce good information in any given actual game if its used often enough.

There's no theoretical or rules based question about this, it simply IS the way it will be. So I can completely understand the "these kinds of rituals are worthless" sentiment, though I think its pretty heavily overblown. CO will be highly useful to the party, but they shouldn't expect it to be a Swiss army knife any more than any other ability they have.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Oh, and for you DMs who are trying to think of reasons why an application of CO doesn't deliver, consider this: The general rules for rituals don't spell out any special requirements for using them beyond mastery of the ritual, the time required, and the components needed. This is all well and good, but you may want to consider creating some additional restrictions. Based on historical analogy CO might only work when cast in certain places or at certain times. It might require some very specific components. It may be that other restrictions exist like only certain types of characters can contact specific oracular spirits. Additional fees might apply because oracles themselves might have agendas too. I know all of this is beyond what RAW states, but don't get too hung up on that. Its your game, make it work how you want it to work.

 

[keterys]

Yes, the classic response to this is the DM should have thought of this ahead of time. Right.... So every single plot the DM uses from now on has to be CO-proofed by having the bad guys go through some pretzel twists of secretly hiring assassins in a dark room or some other similar nonsense. Or making up some kind of anti-divination rituals/items/whatever. Or who knows what.

Which falls back to my answer of: So don't allow the ritual at all.

If you don't like, and don't want to deal with, divinations... don't. Just don't mislead the players into spending gold on buying a ritual book, casting the component, etc... then changing the rules of the ritual on them.

It's basically all about establishing a good level of trust between player and DM. Situations like the response 'In my experience, divinations are useless. The DM will only give out the information he wants to... so the only time divinations are useful is when they are a plot device to send you on your way to an adventure.' earlier are exactly what should not be happening.

The DM should cope, either in advance, or on the fly, but "That ritual is stupid. Uhh, I don't know" is neither. "Magical warding prevents me from answering. Ask a different question." is more viable and "The oracle opens its mouth to answer, then disintegrates before your eyes, leaving your residuum untouched." is also a little closer. Either way it's not wasting the component cost, though it may be wasting the player's time.

But, it's also fair for the DM to realize at a certain level that he should be prepared for the PCs to just know or find out stuff, jumping entirely off the rails. Even if instead they're taking a portal to Sigil and asking a sage there. Being up front and saying to the players 'I really don't want to have to deal with what divinations do to the plot after level X, so don't take any' is fine. Do so _early_ though, cause if one of them is making Shalok Houmz the Tiefling Detective-Wizard Ritualist he might want to know before he starts play

but there ARE going to be times when the proper response is simply "you don't learn anything useful". Hopefully the DM will be able to couch that in terms of obscure or useless answers to questions, but there may be times when "the oracle doesn't know" is the option at hand. This simply WILL come up sometimes. I don't care if the ritual text said outright "the oracle always knows the answers to any question and always answers", it STILL isn't always going to produce good information in any given actual game if its used often enough.

I don't think I agree with anything quoted here.

 

[hailstop]

DM just needs to think a bit guys because this is a big fuss over nothing The fact is there are plenty of ways to handle it!

Maybe the real villain is several times removed from the fact. It'll take a lot of questions (and gold and hours) to isolate them using Consult Oracle. This can be nice because it can give the PCs a lead on some real investigation without giving the whole plot away.

If you think turnabout is fair play try Ward the True Name (Metallic Dragons p86) because that BBEG currently ten levels higher than your PCs can easily use it and that can make for a very hot time for the PCs.

Personally I happen to like warding against scrying. It's sensible and the rulebooks are very specific that such warding rituals do exist (PHB p299, DMG p27), which makes sense or Orcus would already know how to overthrow the Raven Queen And remember that 90%+ of supplements and adventures implicitly or explicitly introduce new rituals - available to PCs or otherwise. I haven't ever bothered to write it up as a ritual but I basically use it to "make one specific fact obscured to scrying attempts" and cause the scry to fail with the PCs knowing it has been blocked somehow. Writing it up formally as a ward could be an interesting exercise.

Just because the PCs get a certain answer doesn't mean they have the whole picture. Clever adversaries will anticipate investigation and may act through elaborate means so that the PCs pursue false (even dangerous) leads.

Would Consult Oracle but considered as hard evidence by the authorities? If not the party could find themselves standing in a steaming pile of mess when the authorities come looking for Duke's murderers!

Now if you want to have some real fun start combining these The PCs used Consult Oracle and discovered who the BBEG is. But he was using Ward the True Name and realised the party is on his tail. So the BBEG comissions a powerful ritualist to remove the "evidence" from the oracle! Now the party's reaction to their knowledge of the BBEG has no "evidence" to support it. They killed him and he was the Mayor? Oops! Can you spell "kingdom-wide manhunt" or "fugitive"?

Getting the idea folks?

-doug

Yep.

It's funny though...I keep telling the players they should be wanting to use divinations, but they just don't do it. I'm thinking for the next adventure, they'll need info that they HAVE to use Consult Oracle or something.

BTW Ward the True Name is in Chromatic Dragons. But thanks for the heads up on that...it's exactly something that I was looking for. The BBEG definitely would start to focus on the characters if they started to poke around with that ritual.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Which falls back to my answer of: So don't allow the ritual at all.

If you don't like, and don't want to deal with, divinations... don't. Just don't mislead the players into spending gold on buying a ritual book, casting the component, etc... then changing the rules of the ritual on them.

It's basically all about establishing a good level of trust between player and DM. Situations like the response 'In my experience, divinations are useless. The DM will only give out the information he wants to... so the only time divinations are useful is when they are a plot device to send you on your way to an adventure.' earlier are exactly what should not be happening.

The DM should cope, either in advance, or on the fly, but "That ritual is stupid. Uhh, I don't know" is neither. "Magical warding prevents me from answering. Ask a different question." is more viable and "The oracle opens its mouth to answer, then disintegrates before your eyes, leaving your residuum untouched." is also a little closer. Either way it's not wasting the component cost, though it may be wasting the player's time.

But, it's also fair for the DM to realize at a certain level that he should be prepared for the PCs to just know or find out stuff, jumping entirely off the rails. Even if instead they're taking a portal to Sigil and asking a sage there. Being up front and saying to the players 'I really don't want to have to deal with what divinations do to the plot after level X, so don't take any' is fine. Do so _early_ though, cause if one of them is making Shalok Houmz the Tiefling Detective-Wizard Ritualist he might want to know before he starts play

I never said I have any huge problems with CO or the other divinations in general. There are simply going to be times when the players won't be able to solve every information deficit problem by using them, that's all. Its fine for the players to know that going in and I've never suggested they should pay for a ritual and get nothing from it. Your "Shalok Houmz" example is fine with me, he's just going to (like any PC will) find that his shtick isn't an answer to EVERY situation. Even at 16+ level there are going to be times when CO won't be the right tool for the job and maybe now and then he'll just have to rely on other PCs to come up with solutions to a problem of this kind, or have some alternate means of his own.

I'm only suggesting strongly that DMs have a finite ability to anticipate and adapt and there WILL be times when it gets exceeded. This is just based on my experience with the game. Thus it makes more sense to assume that divinations have inherent limitations which are within the DMs prerogatives to define as he sees fit. Its simply a reality of the game. We can hypothesize some perfect DM for whom none of this pertains, but that person doesn't exist in reality.

Naturally there are some players for whom any kind of limits set on their activities that aren't backed up by some letter of the printed rules gets their hackles up. I call them on it too. Players are entitled to a fun game, not to be catered to at every turn. They should know going in that nothing is certain. Rule Zero may be applied as needed, though with as light a touch as is feasible with a decent DM.

Overall I think it might have been good if there had been a bit of a discussion of divinations and other potential plot busting situations in the DMG.

 

[keterys]

Overall I think it might have been good if there had been a bit of a discussion of divinations and other potential plot busting situations in the DMG.

Agreed.