D&D 5E Unfair Scrying

[Maxperson]

If you’re the victim of scrying, there’s a feeling of powerlessness that comes with the experience. When a BBEG points their magic mirror your way, they suddenly know where you are, what your plans are, and (most likely) how to defeat you. That’s not a good feeling. It engenders paranoia, simmering resentment, and a deep-seated desire for revenge. And while you may want your players to hate the villains, you don’t want them to hate you.

Scry is often misused in my opinion. The odds are very, very slim that the BBEG is going to scry at the exact moment the party is planning. More likely he's going to watch them walking or eating dinner, perhaps telling jokes or sleeping. It's best use is to keep tabs on where a group is and won't be of much use in learning plans or how to defeat a group.

 

[Scott Christian]

And to add to Max here, scrying, if detected can become a good RPG moment. Maybe they use the time to feed false information. Or maybe they use it to taunt the baddie on the other end; play a game of who can come up with the best insult. Winner gets 5 gold, losers have to do the dishes.

 

[Lanefan]

One possibility might be to require different types of scrying for different things. For example, looking through a crystal ball or reflecting pool is great for vision but the scryer can't hear anything, while using a clairaudience spell or device allows hearing but doesn't give any visuals; and a single person trying to do both at once is probably unwise if said person wants to remain sane.

Scrying that simultaneously allows sight and hearing is very powerful, perhaps too powerful, whether it's the PCs using it or their opposition.

 

[Lanefan]

Scry is often misused in my opinion. The odds are very, very slim that the BBEG is going to scry at the exact moment the party is planning. More likely he's going to watch them walking or eating dinner, perhaps telling jokes or sleeping. It's best use is to keep tabs on where a group is and won't be of much use in learning plans or how to defeat a group.

Use of scrying would be of use in learning how to defeat a group in that it wouldn't take much to at least figure out what the group has in it - do those all look like caster types, or are they all armed to the teeth, or are they going heavy on stealth, etc. This can greatly inform tactics on how to deal with them.

Also, how many of them are there in total? Even this knowledge can give a scryer a pretty big advantage - if the scryer sees three casters, an innocuous-looking type, and two tanks on the road but only two tanks and two casters walk in the door later, that's a red flag to be looking out for invisibles or sneaks.

 

[Maxperson]

Use of scrying would be of use in learning how to defeat a group in that it wouldn't take much to at least figure out what the group has in it - do those all look like caster types, or are they all armed to the teeth, or are they going heavy on stealth, etc. This can greatly inform tactics on how to deal with them.

That works better for older editions. In an edition like 5e where wizards can wear and cast in full plate and walk around with swords, and fighters can do well with light weapons and leather armor, it's not so effective. Looks can be and are deceiving.

 

[dave2008]

If you’re the victim of scrying, there’s a feeling of powerlessness that comes with the experience. When a BBEG points their magic mirror your way, they suddenly know where you are, what your plans are, and (most likely) how to defeat you. That’s not a good feeling. It engenders paranoia, simmering resentment, and a deep-seated desire for revenge. And while you may want your players to hate the villains, you don’t want them to hate you.

It's not just scrying either. If you do decide to make power-plays with magic — unlimited counterspells, teleporting your villains, or otherwise using abilities that players can’t reasonably counter — think long and hard about the impact on the game. Players can scent a whiff of unfair GM-fiat a mile away. Dressing it up as “some of the casters in this setting are more powerful than you” is fooling exactly no one. Because railroading is a dirty word, even if you dress up in the rules.

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

Not my experience, but if it is yours it seems you have the solution already.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

If you’re the victim of scrying, there’s a feeling of powerlessness that comes with the experience. When a BBEG points their magic mirror your way, they suddenly know where you are, what your plans are, and (most likely) how to defeat you. That’s not a good feeling. It engenders paranoia, simmering resentment, and a deep-seated desire for revenge. And while you may want your players to hate the villains, you don’t want them to hate you.

It's not just scrying either. If you do decide to make power-plays with magic — unlimited counterspells, teleporting your villains, or otherwise using abilities that players can’t reasonably counter — think long and hard about the impact on the game. Players can scent a whiff of unfair GM-fiat a mile away. Dressing it up as “some of the casters in this setting are more powerful than you” is fooling exactly no one. Because railroading is a dirty word, even if you dress up in the rules.

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

So is fair scrying that which the PCs perform?

 

[Shiroiken]

Scry is often misused in my opinion. The odds are very, very slim that the BBEG is going to scry at the exact moment the party is planning. More likely he's going to watch them walking or eating dinner, perhaps telling jokes or sleeping. It's best use is to keep tabs on where a group is and won't be of much use in learning plans or how to defeat a group.

This. While traveling, we had a BBEG wizard scrying on us daily. The DM had one of us make the save periodically, but never told us what it was for. We figured it out when we realized every time we rolled low, we had an encounter with her minions a few hours later. She was using it to check on the location of her enemies; she really didn't care too much about our plans, because we were supposed to die.

 

[LizardWizard00]

If you’re the victim of scrying, there’s a feeling of powerlessness that comes with the experience. When a BBEG points their magic mirror your way, they suddenly know where you are, what your plans are, and (most likely) how to defeat you. That’s not a good feeling. It engenders paranoia, simmering resentment, and a deep-seated desire for revenge. And while you may want your players to hate the villains, you don’t want them to hate you.

It's not just scrying either. If you do decide to make power-plays with magic — unlimited counterspells, teleporting your villains, or otherwise using abilities that players can’t reasonably counter — think long and hard about the impact on the game. Players can scent a whiff of unfair GM-fiat a mile away. Dressing it up as “some of the casters in this setting are more powerful than you” is fooling exactly no one. Because railroading is a dirty word, even if you dress up in the rules.

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

Na - that is totally fair.

FYI, I am a player and it is completely fair for the DM to use the tools of the game, just like we do.

 

[Oofta]

This. While traveling, we had a BBEG wizard scrying on us daily. The DM had one of us make the save periodically, but never told us what it was for. We figured it out when we realized every time we rolled low, we had an encounter with her minions a few hours later. She was using it to check on the location of her enemies; she really didn't care too much about our plans, because we were supposed to die.

My question is simple - how did the BBEG know where you were just from observing you for 10 minutes a day? Because scrying is just a drone with a camera pointed at the target from up to 10 feet away. Depending on ambient noise and how loudly you're having a discussion, they may not even be able to hear you. Unless you happen to be walking past some landmark or a signpost, scrying doesn't tell you much.

If it works for you, great. I'm not really arguing against it, just noting it as a caution to others who might use the spell this way. Most of the time scrying isn't going to reveal much of anything useful.