Useless spells because of durations

[Hypersmurf]

In the spell description, you discover the paladin "can sense the presence of evil. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject." Okay, good enough. He's concentrating for one round. So you look at the appropriate text in the spell.

"1st Round: Presence or absence of evil."

Okay, easy enough: "No, you don't detect any evil."

You can't read the first few sentences of a spell description and then stop!

If the spell said "WARNING! It is very easy to overlook the fact that a Neutral vampire has an evil aura! Take note! If a paladin uses his Detect Evil ability, it will detect a Neutral vampire!"... but said it as a note at the end of the spell text... then someone who reads the first few sentences and stops will still miss it.

When someone uses an ability that mimics a spell, and you want to know how it works, you read the spell. Not a little bit of the spell.

The 'appropriate text' in the spell is all of it.

-Hyp.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

You can't read the first few sentences of a spell description and then stop!

Listen very carefully. Seriously. Really, really try to understand. Try to put aside your desperate need to never, ever be wrong. Please.

In detect evil there is a table called the "Aura Power Table." It is only by reference to this table that one can come to the conclusion that anything other than actual "evil" registers on detect evil.

Do you understand so far? Please, simply answer "yes or no."

I'm very hopeful your answer is "yes.".

Okay, given that the table is called the "Aura Power Table," it follows that one would refer to it when one wants to determine the power of an aura.

Do you follow? Again, let's pray for and assume "yes."

Now, given a paladin engaging in detect evil for one round, and only one round, do you understand that nowhere in the text of detect evil is the outcome of that action dependant upon "Aura Power"? The "Aura Power Table" is, by the text of the spell, irrelevant to one round's worth of detect evil. It is only in later rounds that "Aura Power" becomes relevant.

Please try to grasp this.

The table is not called "Aura Presence," or "Aura Existence." It is called "Aura Power." If the power of the aura isn't needed, then it's not only easy to miss the table, it's correct to miss the table. By missing the table you end up with an incorrect result -- i.e., Neutral undead not registering -- but that is the fault of the spell's text, not the fault of the user.

Look, if someone says, "I'm going to detect magic (or detect animals or plants or detect undead) for one round," there is absolutely no reason to look beyond the line of those spells that says "presence or absence of." It is only with detect evil that someone who has absolutely no interest in anything beyond "presence or absence" still must look upon an "Aura Power Table" to make the spell function correctly.

ONCE AGAIN AND I'M TYPING SLOWLY: Even though a user of detect evil may have absolutely no interest in the power of any evil he might detect, the poor construction of the spell nevertheless requires that user to look at a table called the "Aura Power Table."

I just don't know how much clearer this can be. Detect evil is a muddled spell. By futzing other rules, the designers improved its function over 3.0, but it remains a muddled spell. If you can't admit that, then you're simply lying to yourself. Why you would do so is pretty clear to me, but I'll leave it for you to figure out on your own.

 

[Lamoni]

Wait a minute, are you telling me that someone that doesn't know this spell well and has to look it up in game might not choose to pause the game to read through the entire spell description? How absurd!

Are you also saying that someone might expect the detect evil spell to function similar to other detect spells like let's say... detect magic?

Okay, with how it is written it is absolutely clear that it detects undead. However it isn't clear by the name of the spell or by what you would normally expect from a detect evil spell.

You are both right. There is no room for confusion when read in its entirety, but it is quite confusing that detect evil would also detect neutral mindless creatures and it is easy to overlook.

Enough of this subject yet?

Edit: I admit to having read Detect Evil through several times without ever noticing that it could detect non-evil undead. I read that it could detect the strength of auras, but since I never had any interest in determining the auras of evil creatures I always skipped the table. I can see Hypersmurf never making an error like that though. I think that he would never overlook any rule and it is very nice for us that he seems to memorize everything that he has read. He sure makes a great rules resource on these boards.

 

[Apuglisi]

Back to topic...

Back to the topic about some useless spells...

I love druids but i think they describe something and then they try to sell me a version quite different than what they describe...

Druids are supposed to be one with Nature...yet they can speak with animals for what? 1 min/lvl?!...that is ridiculous, at least to my eyes...

And it has nothing to do with the GM...I, as a player, feel quite dissapointed with that...
Hide from Animals lasts for 10min/lvl...So I can hide from them for quite a bit time but I need to be in a lucky day and find an animal quite in the mood to answer my questions quickly otherwise I will loose my spell...
To not mention that an animal has an intelligence quite different from mine wich makes it hard to believe that i can talk to them in 1 min as easily as I could talk to a sentient being...

What if I want or need a full report of activities in a forest and I need detailed descriptions? Arent these animals the eyes and ears of the druid?
Can you believe that a medium lvl druid would have to sacrifice several lvl 1 spells to be able to achieve that?

For me, as a player, is quite unreasonable and is one of the main reasons why I dont play a druid (being the class I love most).

 

[Hypersmurf]

It is only by reference to this table that one can come to the conclusion that anything other than actual "evil" registers on detect evil.

Do you understand so far? Please, simply answer "yes or no."

Absolutely.

Okay, given that the table is called the "Aura Power Table," it follows that one would refer to it when one wants to determine the power of an aura.

Do you follow? Again, let's pray for and assume "yes."

Certainly.

Now, given a paladin engaging in detect evil for one round, and only one round, do you understand that nowhere in the text of detect evil is the outcome of that action dependant upon "Aura Power"? The "Aura Power Table" is, by the text of the spell, irrelevant to one round's worth of detect evil. It is only in later rounds that "Aura Power" becomes relevant.

But because it contains useful information, it's not irrelevant. Someone who skips reading part of the spell description because they assume it's going to be irrelevant before they read it is only skimming the spell.

If you want a vague, hazy idea of how the spell works, that's fine. But if you actually want to know what effects the spell has, you read the spell. Not bits and pieces here and there that look vaguely relevant.

If the power of the aura isn't needed, then it's not only easy to miss the table, it's correct to miss the table.

If something has a certain amount of evil-aura-power, the aura exists. Given that that table is what tells us what possesses evil auras, it can't possibly be correct to ignore it.

Look, if someone says, "I'm going to detect magic (or detect animals or plants or detect undead) for one round," there is absolutely no reason to look beyond the line of those spells that says "presence or absence of."

Certainly there is... in case there is important information in the other lines of the spell.

Once you're familiar with a spell, you can afford to look at just the line you need. But the first time that spell is used, read the whole thing so you know how it works.

Someone who has read Detect Evil start to finish knows that it detects undead creatures. They can now look at just the 'What happens in round 1' line if they need to, because they're aware that other information may be relevant.

Someone who has not read Detect Evil start to finish does not have that luxury, because they can't know what parts of the spell description are relevant to the situation at hand.

ONCE AGAIN AND I'M TYPING SLOWLY: Even though a user of detect evil may have absolutely no interest in the power of any evil he might detect, the poor construction of the spell nevertheless requires that user to look at a table called the "Aura Power Table."

The information is there. The effect of the spell is not ambiguous. It's only by not reading the whole spell that anyone encounters the problems you describe.

-Hyp.

 

[Olive]

ONCE AGAIN AND I'M TYPING SLOWLY: Even though a user of detect evil may have absolutely no interest in the power of any evil he might detect, the poor construction of the spell nevertheless requires that user to look at a table called the "Aura Power Table."

It's not a poorly constucted spell, but it might be a poorly constructed spell description...

I just don't know how much clearer this can be. Detect evil is a muddled spell. By futzing other rules, the designers improved its function over 3.0, but it remains a muddled spell. If you can't admit that, then you're simply lying to yourself. Why you would do so is pretty clear to me, but I'll leave it for you to figure out on your own.

I'm not quite sure why you can't see that Hyp is no more wrong than you are. You, and others, fell it's hard to understand. Hyp and I feel it isn't. That's a simple amtter of opinion, and getting upset over it isn't going to change the fact that people's opinions exist.

However, since you're accusing people of ignoring things that don't suit them:

I'm sorry, I didn't realise that it was the designers fault that you didn't read the rules.

This was the one line you didn't see fit to quote in your response. And it stands. The rules are there, clearly stated even if you don't agree with the thinkign behind them (which is a completely different arguement). You need to read the entire spell descripton to know what the rules of that spell are. Not reading the table, even if it doesn't appear immediately necessary to do so, is just a bad idea.

Now, could the spell be re-written to include a sentence that says 'This spell detects a nuber of creatures that do not have an evil alignment. Please read the associated table for more information'? Sure it could, but why should it? It's a perfectly reasonable thing to expect that the player and DM will read the entire spell description.

 

[Piratecat]

I'm going to step in here and remind folks that it's okay to step away for a bit and take a deep breath. Be kind to one another, and not snippy.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Hey, isn't this where a moderator usually comes in and nicely asks someone to stop being rude?

 

[Hypersmurf]

I think part of where wilder_jw and I are at cross purposes are our definitions of what makes a clear rule.

The question "Does Detect Evil detect undead?" could have four answers.

1. "Yes." If this is the answer, the rule is clear.
2. "No." If this is the answer, the rule is clear.
3. "Sometimes", or "under certain conditions", or "certain types of undead". If those conditions are unambiguous, then the rule is clear; otherwise, it's not.
4. "It's debated." The rule is unclear.

Now, in both 3E and 3.5, the answer is "Yes". Once you've read the spell, there is no ambiguity. I consider this to be a clear rule.

Likewise, I consider the fact that a creature must have room to move to make a Reflex save to be clear, despite the fact that someone who only looks up 'Saving Throws' and doesn't look up 'Evasion' won't find it. It's stated unambiguously in the Evasion description: "As with a Reflex save for any creature, you must have room to move in order to use Evasion".

(What's not clear is exactly what defines 'room to move', particularly for creatures of varying sizes.)

Just because a rule is not in an intuitive place doesn't make it unclear.

To me, 'unclear' is where two rules conflict (what Str bonus does a lance wielded as an off-hand weapon while mounted add to damage?) or where the text gives information with mechanics that aren't defined (such as the aforementioned 'room to move').

-Hyp.

 

[sfedi]

Deflect Arrows deflects things that are not arrows. The name does not dictate the effect.

Detect Evil detects things that are not evil. The name does not dictate the effect.

That's poor design.

In computer programming.
In marketing.
In medicine.
In everything.

It leads to confusion.

That's bad.