D&D 5E Primeval Awareness and other hidden gems

[FormerlyHemlock]

Monks don't really benefit from Polearm Master because they already have a bonus action attack for free due to Martial Arts. The only they get out of it is the opportunity attack, so it's kind of a half-feat for them with full-feat cost.

 

[Celebrim]

I certainly agree that it could be very powerful if used correctly.

It's entirely dependent on the DM and how he approaches the world. In particular, it's value depends on the assumption that the DM is using 'small world' railroading techniques, otherwise the ability is not only useless but is more likely to provide misleading information than actually useful information.

For example, there is for example literally no where in my campaign world that there aren't fey within 1 mile of anyone's location. In fact, the density of fey is probably several dozen per square mile. Sprites are scarcely less common than rats, and household faeries, quiescent dryads and hamadryads, and meadow spirits are all over the place. Rarely does a pond not have at least 1 nixie in it, and every single brook, stream, or spring that doesn't completely dry up every year has a nymph or similar creature. And it would be equally rare for their to be no undead within 1 mile of location that had ever been habited. Whether it is a haunt, apparition, phantasm or low level ghost that only shows up on nights of the full moon that coincide with the anniversary of some tragic event to reinact a past tragedy, or a hunting vampire would be useful information - but that isn't provided. Dragons would provoke all sorts of false positives, as you'd be picking up mini-drakes, wood drakes, spire drakes, and dozens of other species that are scarcely more important to know about than owls, minks, alligators or bears. Knowing the hit dice of the largest creature you are detecting might serve well as an early warning system, but that isn't part of the spell. Picking up celestials and fiends would be somewhat more unusual, but not entirely unusual, and the answer to, "Are their evil spirits in this city?", is almost certainly, "Yes." Whether it's a demonic cult or simply a pact bound fiend guarding the ancient altar to some blood thirsty god of commerce or revenge in the glade of yews in the temple district that people go into only after midnight isn't a question the spell answers. However, the very fact that the city doesn't disturb the alter for fear of offending Hades or his equivalent, and hasn't done so any time in the last 2000 years, ought to tell you that the town father's probably aren't going to be happy with you for rousing a deities wrath. The elementals question can be asked more simply, "Are their any rocks larger than a bread basket within a mile?", if so there are certainly elementals quietly slumbering and dreaming dreams of solidity and stone. Aberrations are really rare, so the presence of one is a pretty big warning flag, but warning about what? Aberration is a catch all category for "weird stuff not related to anything else". What are you going to prepare for?

In short, assuming that the world is presumed to be "lived in", the power is useless. It's only useful if the only salient features of the game world are precisely the ones the player's would be interested in because those are the only features of the world that exist.

This is a problem I usually have to train my player's out of. Just because there is a temple to the god of traps on the out skirts of the village doesn't mean that the priesthood has anything to do with the latest murder, and barging in (often on the suggestion of the real murderer) unannounced and breaking stuff just means you are entering a trap and making enemies you wouldn't have had otherwise. It's just there because in the real world, there are all sorts of complexities that result from people living somewhere and I was trying to flesh out the local culture.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

In short, assuming that the world is presumed to be "lived in", the power is useless. It's only useful if the only salient features of the game world are precisely the ones the player's would be interested in because those are the only features of the world that exist.

This is a very interesting point of view I never thought about, but I don't think it pertains to the discussion about the power of primeval awareness, because the feature was clearly not designed to be used in a setting like yours. What you describe is far from what I want to run/play, and I believe it's also far from what the designers of the game expect people to run/play. In my own setting, the presence of a fiend, elemental or undead in a given place is something atypical, and usually the kind of thing players are investigating or should investigate.

If I wanted to run a setting like the one you describe, I'd probably redesign primeval awareness into something useful under those conditions. In fact, I'd probably redesign divine sense as well. I don't even know if I would keep those powers in the first place, since this kind of supernatural perception is not useful in a setting where supernatural presence pervades everything.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It's entirely dependent on the DM and how he approaches the world. In particular, it's value depends on the assumption that the DM is using 'small world' railroading techniques, otherwise the ability is not only useless but is more likely to provide misleading information than actually useful information.

For example, there is for example literally no where in my campaign world that there aren't fey within 1 mile of anyone's location. In fact, the density of fey is probably several dozen per square mile. Sprites are scarcely less common than rats, and household faeries, quiescent dryads and hamadryads, and meadow spirits are all over the place. Rarely does a pond not have at least 1 nixie in it, and every single brook, stream, or spring that doesn't completely dry up every year has a nymph or similar creature. And it would be equally rare for their to be no undead within 1 mile of location that had ever been habited. Whether it is a haunt, apparition, phantasm or low level ghost that only shows up on nights of the full moon that coincide with the anniversary of some tragic event to reinact a past tragedy, or a hunting vampire would be useful information - but that isn't provided. Dragons would provoke all sorts of false positives, as you'd be picking up mini-drakes, wood drakes, spire drakes, and dozens of other species that are scarcely more important to know about than owls, minks, alligators or bears. Knowing the hit dice of the largest creature you are detecting might serve well as an early warning system, but that isn't part of the spell. Picking up celestials and fiends would be somewhat more unusual, but not entirely unusual, and the answer to, "Are their evil spirits in this city?", is almost certainly, "Yes." Whether it's a demonic cult or simply a pact bound fiend guarding the ancient altar to some blood thirsty god of commerce or revenge in the glade of yews in the temple district that people go into only after midnight isn't a question the spell answers. However, the very fact that the city doesn't disturb the alter for fear of offending Hades or his equivalent, and hasn't done so any time in the last 2000 years, ought to tell you that the town father's probably aren't going to be happy with you for rousing a deities wrath. The elementals question can be asked more simply, "Are their any rocks larger than a bread basket within a mile?", if so there are certainly elementals quietly slumbering and dreaming dreams of solidity and stone. Aberrations are really rare, so the presence of one is a pretty big warning flag, but warning about what? Aberration is a catch all category for "weird stuff not related to anything else". What are you going to prepare for?

In short, assuming that the world is presumed to be "lived in", the power is useless. It's only useful if the only salient features of the game world are precisely the ones the player's would be interested in because those are the only features of the world that exist.

This is a problem I usually have to train my player's out of. Just because there is a temple to the god of traps on the out skirts of the village doesn't mean that the priesthood has anything to do with the latest murder, and barging in (often on the suggestion of the real murderer) unannounced and breaking stuff just means you are entering a trap and making enemies you wouldn't have had otherwise. It's just there because in the real world, there are all sorts of complexities that result from people living somewhere and I was trying to flesh out the local culture.

This is a highly animistic setting you are describing. While it's pretty cool, I don't think it fits the default D&D assumptions, especially in regards to fey and elementals. So, while the feature would be pretty useless in an animistic campaign, it's probably significantly more useful under typical D&D assumptions.

This is giving me some interesting ideas.

 

[Minigiant]

The typical D&D usually assumes there are few "outsiders" and "monsters" in civilized areas and "ranged" wilds (places with rangers who kick out outsiders or kept tabs on them).

In worlds with more "outsiders" and "monsters" than normal, I would suggest adding location or numbers.
Both in Planescape.

 

[Celebrim]

I believe it's also far from what the designers of the game expect people to run/play.

I have no idea what the people are expected to run/play. I can only draw upon the traditions from which the various features of D&D are drawn to try to have some understanding as to what the world is like assuming that the assumptions are factual. I try to make my world coherent within its own assumptions.

In my own setting, the presence of a fiend, elemental or undead in a given place is something atypical, and usually the kind of thing players are investigating or should investigate.

Ok, sure, I know people generally behave that way. But to me that's a really weird assumption. That assumption isn't grounded in the assumptions of the setting, or in historical beliefs, or in mythology, but in a modern world view that things like Bigfoot perforce must be rare, else they would be observed all the time.

But that was hardly the beliefs of people who actually believed in fairies, who did not believe fairies were some far away remote and rare being, but something real and present with them. The Greeks didn't believe that there was just a nymph here and there, but well everywhere. Yes, they may have thought something like harpies or cyclops were to be found a bit farther afield in places a bit harder to the power doesn't detect giants or magical beasts that I can tell. Even today, if you do historical research regarding your own town or city, and ask the question, "What places in town are considered to be haunted?", you'll likely come up with dozens of answers (I did this once thinking about setting a Wraith game in the 'real world'). People who believe in ghosts don't just think that ghosts are found 1000's of miles away. They think the world looks like, "I see dead people...All the time. They're everywhere." Heck, when Homer tells a story about what the world is like, he doesn't even put the gods only out there at a distance, but has them interacting with mortals both openly and in disguise all the time.

And without a single doubt, the D&D default setting as presented is far more pervasively magical than even the myths of the real world.

I don't even know if I would keep those powers in the first place, since this kind of supernatural perception is not useful in a setting where supernatural presence pervades everything.

Isn't D&D's default cosmology just such a setting? Or at least, isn't it generally said to be and described to be just such a setting where the supernatural is pervasive? D&D has been set in settings like 'Masque of the Red Death', where the supernatural is an invasive force and not necessarily present everywhere, but that's the exception rather than the rule. The usual setting is more like Forgotten Realms, where magic does in fact pervade everything.

To the extent that I think you are right that the designers didn't expect people to run/play something like I just described, it's because they don't expect GMs to use any technique other than 'small world'. That is to say, the expectation of the average professional designer is that since the only things that can be included in a published adventure are those things that are really important, then those things are the only things that actually exist.

 

[Celebrim]

Both in Planescape.

I'd forgot about Planescape. Yes, Planescape is even more pervasively supernatural than my homebrew, and yet it's a published setting.

 

[Minigiant]

I have no idea what the people are expected to run/play. I can only draw upon the traditions from which the various features of D&D are drawn to try to have some understanding as to what the world is like assuming that the assumptions are factual. I try to make my world coherent within its own assumptions.



Ok, sure, I know people generally behave that way. But to me that's a really weird assumption. That assumption isn't grounded in the assumptions of the setting, or in historical beliefs, or in mythology, but in a modern world view that things like Bigfoot perforce must be rare, else they would be observed all the time.

But that was hardly the beliefs of people who actually believed in fairies, who did not believe fairies were some far away remote and rare being, but something real and present with them. The Greeks didn't believe that there was just a nymph here and there, but well everywhere. Yes, they may have thought something like harpies or cyclops were to be found a bit farther afield in places a bit harder to the power doesn't detect giants or magical beasts that I can tell. Even today, if you do historical research regarding your own town or city, and ask the question, "What places in town are considered to be haunted?", you'll likely come up with dozens of answers (I did this once thinking about setting a Wraith game in the 'real world'). People who believe in ghosts don't just think that ghosts are found 1000's of miles away. They think the world looks like, "I see dead people...All the time. They're everywhere." Heck, when Homer tells a story about what the world is like, he doesn't even put the gods only out there at a distance, but has them interacting with mortals both openly and in disguise all the time.

And without a single doubt, the D&D default setting as presented is far more pervasively magical than even the myths of the real world.

Yes, the D&D world is more magical. But the magical being in D&D an in myth are not always close to home.

You have to go out in the wild before PE pings anything except fey. The thing is D&D's fey are more secretive than the fey of myth who is "always up in yo stuff".

 

[Celebrim]

The thing is D&D's fey are more secretive than the fey of myth who is "always up in yo stuff".

I presume that D&D's fey are the fey of myth. Otherwise, what's the point?

 

[Morrus]

I presume that D&D's fey are the fey of myth. Otherwise, what's the point?

D&D is it's own fiction at this point. Medusa is a creature type, not the personal name of one of three gorgons. And, for that matter, a gorgon is now a gas breathing cow.

The point is D&D is it's own universe, built over 40 years, just like, say, Middle Earth, Star Trek, or the Marvel Universe. The fact that some terms are shared with common mythology is incidental at this stage.