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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dark Dragon" data-source="post: 6291574" data-attributes="member: 1115">True, the Divinition school in the group is now largely inaccessible for the PCs. But I have to clarify the term "banned" with respect of the Divination school. We agreed that the listed Divination spells are not entirely removed from game, but still accessible for NPC "oracle"-type guys. It is up to the DM to decide if the party meets an oracle or not, and the PCs still need to pay for the oracle's spellcasting (price at the DM's discretion).I fully appreciate your comments and thoughts on the interplay between Diviniation and obscuring spells, and I understand your objections. Many of the tactics of the evil guys you have described were indeed used by the DMs of my group (we rotate DMing, so most players had to DM from time to time). But from my and from some other players impression it was a race of arms: a good divination spell is foiled by an obscuring spell. Or the murderer was disguised/polymorphed. Or he summoned/called a creature to do the job. Or ordered someone else to use poison (with ridiculous DCs, but that is another story), hoping that the victim is not paranoid to cast Detect Poison first... This foils simple or straight forward spells to gain some knowledge about the evil guy. Detect Evil is also easily foiled by using a number of evil NPCs who have nothing to do with the case at hand, but are an easy way to mark the wrong trail (and foil the paladin). But it boils down to a race of arms nevertheless, and this is in my opinion boring after a while.As a result of this race of arms the players still have to use their brains and work with the clues given by the DM, because their magic is foiled by counter-magic or well-known stuff that blocks the simple divination spells. You mention the Agatha Christie stories. I haven't read the books but I have seen some of the movies. The old lady simply uses her brains and puts the pieces of the puzzle together. The same for Hitchcock's Psycho: a surprising end simply because the murderer was disguised. The best way to represent some knowledge (or brains) that the PCs may use is the skill point system. If the player has a good idea or clue outside the skill point system they should go ahead and elaborate their thoughts. If that is the case, I as a DM would not block such thinking by refering to the skill system. If the players ask if a PC may use skill xyz to find out something, this is ok as well, and may provide food for more ideas.In contrast to this thinking I really dislike it if the players return the answer to a question to the DM by e.g. casting "Commune". Why would the patron deity of a LG cleric deny a proper answer, if the cleric asks first the simple question "Was one of the family members - that I know by name - of Lord X's family involved in planning of the murder of Lord X?" If the answer is yes, he may proceed with 8 other questions asking involvement of specific family members. If the answer is no, he can replace ad hoc "family" with evil organisations or known enemies of Lord X for the remaining questions. Clever players write down the questions in advance with alternative questions depending on the previous answer. Good, but still it returns the overall answer to a question back to the DM. And other than by DM's decision this spell can't be foiled. If the DM denies an answer, it comes close to banning, IMHO. Yes, it may be called lazy game planning and scenario design. It may be also called avoiding another race of arms. All the counter-measures you have described foil the divination capabilities of PCs involved in unraveling a crime. If you want that the PCs use their divination spells, why foiling than the effect? It is as good as banning the spells, and may leave some players frustrated about a DM blocking their PCs' abilities. So I wonder what hints and tips you as a DM would give to the party to unravel the true murderer or find a kidnapped person if all divination spells are blocked? Even if a DM takes a lot of time in scenario planning, I doubt that the DM has all possible questions and ideas of the players in mind AND has an ad hoc fitting answer to possible questions. This is especially true for spells that make predictions about the future (Augury, Divination, Weathereye), a larger area (Commune with Nature), or give knowledge about past events (Hindsight, Legend Lore, Vision). You never know if or when a PC spellcaster happens to cast these spells in a campaign. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Many of these points were indeed used against the party, sometimes even by some PCs (I played an assassin who relied a lot on disguise and/or killed over some distance). Your point f) is a nice idea, reminds me a bit of the movie "Pact of the Wolves". Your ideas work also well in a setting with a restricted use of divination spells, and may emphasise a use of social skills (Gather Information, Sense Motive, Bluff, Diplomacy, Heal (to investigate a corpse, find traces of poison), Intimidate). I fully agree that magic strongly supports building a myth around e.g. a murder. I do not like it however how it is then so easily de-mythified by the system that has spells ready for a number of situations (for which the DM has to have a proper counter-measure prepared, sometimes the same again and again - like the sheet of lead). That's why we agreed to limit access to such spells; and others that were obvioulsy overused due to flaws in the design.</blockquote>

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