Plot Killer: Divination

[LostSoul]

Use a lot of minions. When the group tries to divine who the murderer was. It was a minion. Perhaps a minion of a minion. It will take more digging to find the real power behind the plot.

Yeah, that sounds like the Baron Harkonnen from Dune. Never do anything that you'd have to lie about later, because the Truthsayer is always going to be able to pull it out of you. Keep your hands clean, bloody your friend's.

I like the idea about the veils. A neat peice of flavour that makes a lot of logical sense.

Using anti-divination magic isn't really cheesy; it's there, just like the divination spells, and only makes sense. Cheese is when all your NPCs have rings of mind shielding.

 

[Renfield]

Ah yes... minions... minions are fun a pity all my damnable players DIED before they could go and fight the wonderful higher up minions I had p[lanned for them. *sigh* Damn trolls and my good roles. Ah well... now I have an evil group to contend with... something tells me divination won't be too much of an issue however these suggestions and ideas are very useful in the case it becomes an issue. Something tells me I'm going to have fun, a vampire day walker... a possible fallen celestial... and an evil Psion.

 

[takyris]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in addition to lead, doesn't running water prevent some divinations? In response to a divination-heavy enemy, one of my players constructed an "Honesty Room" with a very tiny moat around the edge of it.

Minions are good, and so are possession and charm spells. If you're an evil mastermind and there's an old noble you want dead, there's nothing quite as fun as:

1) Locating a young man courting an attractive young lady.
2) Having a minion use Change Self to appear to be the old noble, and have him make an insulting remark about the young lady in a public place while the actual old noble is otherwise occupied.
3) Drugging the drinks of the young man and his friends with a slow-acting poison that causes temporary Wisdom damage.
4) Having a different minion use Alter Self to appear to be the young lady, and have her come weeping to the young man, crying that after the insulting remark, the old noble sought her out in private and made unwelcome advance.
5) Casting Modify Memory on the young man's friend and have him "remember" seeing the old noble do what the fake young lady said -- with a leering smile and lecherous eyes.
6) Casting Charm Person on the young man and, as a trustworthy new acquaintance, advising him that "this sort of thing has happened before, a shame no one is bold enough to face him, I've got the key to his private chambers if anyone DID want to try and stop him before he ruins another young lady..."
7) Sitting back and shaking your head with a horrified expression when a young man, mad with jealousy, kills an old noble who nobody could ever believe would do such a thing. Young people these days, violent and hotheaded. Why, even the young lady herself denies that the old noble ever so much as talked to her. What that madman was thinking, we'll never know, although thank goodness even the divinations confirmed that he did indeed kill that poor old noble...

 

[takyris]

Beyond that, remember that not all divinations give all the information.

Detect Lies only tells whether or not someone believes what they are saying. A simple Suggestion or Modify Memory can make that easy enough.

Speak with Dead only tells what the person knew at the time of their death -- so any good assassin wears a mask, or an illusion of someone else's face.

Any powerful bad guy has, what is it, False Vision, the spell that messes up Scrying attempts? And not just of the powerful bad guy alone in a room. No, they've got an illusion programmed that involves the bad guy shaking hands with someone the heroes trust -- a high-ranking official or something like that -- and then the bad guy says, "Oh, the PCs? They won't be a problem. We've got someone on the inside who is VERY close to them." And then he looks over at a corner, where one of the PCs' girlfriends or wives is in chains. "We never thought her cover would hold this long..."

And, once it's been triggered, it's a simple matter to ask a minion to go to the PC's wife down at the market and surreptitiously Sleight-of-Hand something into her pocket, a minor magical item that causes her to radiate powerful Illusion magic.

Oh, how your players will laugh when they realize that they've been duped into killing somebody's utterly innocent wife...

 

[Renfield]

Alas my group is relatively intelligent and would likely investigate the whole wife thing a little more thoroughly, this is of course if one of the characters even *had* a girlfriend or a wife or even some form of significant other which is rarely the case. Then my current problem would be that my particular group is evil for this campaign... Still, under most circumstances those scenarios would work wonders and do some nice mind screwing, though my particular group can get quite clever when they need to be and tend to have the mental stats to back it up, or at least the two who focus on the more intellectual characters. The joys of letting my characters use mongoose publishing items >.< Of course I love their stuff so don't get me wrong there. Still very clever, still, the more elaborate the illusion, the more likely I'll end up hearing one of the characters say "I'm rolling for disbelief" so I'd likely keep it mild and have the villain simply doing the shaking hands thing.

 

[takyris]

the more elaborate the illusion, the more likely I'll end up hearing one of the characters say "I'm rolling for disbelief"

And THAT's when you have the minion in question be an extremely HD-advanced bodak. "Yes, you see through the illusion... Fort save?"

Let's see, what else can we do...

Short-lived creature raised by evil wizard/sorcerer, who gives them the same name as someone else important. "Your deity confirms that Sir Elstigan Trueblade carried out the heinous murder of the orphans and puppies," when Sir Elstigan Trueblade is in fact the name of the local paladin AND the hideous abomination that the wizard cooked up in his laboratory a few months ago.

In Song & Silence, the Spymaster PrC allows the person to eventually foil divination attempts by being so "in-character" that he really becomes another person. E.g., detect Evil doesn't work on him if he's currently "playing" a good person.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Good stuff, talkyris. You are truly an evil DM.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Speaking of raising party paranoia levels...

I once had a party that annoyed a fairly strong cult without knowing it. They defeated a band of highwaymen and stole their horses not knowing they'd been provided at high cost by the cult. When they cut cross country, a single cult member got a good look at them.

He scried them, showed them to the rest of the cult, and the hunt was on. 20 clerics and mages, working in 1 hour shifts, maintained a 24 hour surveillance on the party, and dispatched assassins left and right, directing them straight to the party, regardless of what the party did.

If you were to do something similar, I'd guarantee your party would come up with effective counters to divination spells that your npc's could then use...

Could also make for an interesting mirrored wall effect BBEG spies on mage spying on BBEG, both looking at the back of the head and into the scrying device seeing... themselves.

 

[Renfield]

Oooh, a lovely idea *writes it down*