What did you learn from your last commune with nature?

[Noumenon]

From reading Commune with Nature, it seems like you could cast it and have your DM tell you

• There are woodland creatures present in a 9 mile radius.
• There is a stream to your west.
• This is a forest.

[sblock=Commune with Nature]You become one with nature, attaining knowledge of the surrounding territory. You instantly gain knowledge of as many as three facts from among the following subjects: the ground or terrain, plants, minerals, bodies of water, people, general animal population, presence of woodland creatures, presence of powerful unnatural creatures, or even the general state of the natural setting.

In outdoor settings, the spell operates in a radius of 1 mile per caster level. In natural underground settings—caves, caverns, and the like—the radius is limited to 100 feet per caster level. The spell does not function where nature has been replaced by construction or settlement, such as in dungeons and towns. [/sblock]

What I want to learn from a 5th level divination is

• There is a powerful unnatural creature 2 miles west and flying north -- a demon.
• There is mithril deep under the hills.
• There is a pack of lions near here, their spirits calling out for some wild empathy.

Does it depend on the DM? Could I think of it as "imagine animals scouted the entire radius for you", or "ask the DM three questions for the nature spirits to answer, sticking to the provided list of topics"? Or is this spell just meant to suck?

 

[Dice4Hire]

From reading Commune with Nature, it seems like you could cast it and have your DM tell you

• There are woodland creatures present in a 9 mile radius.
• There is a stream to your west.
• This is a forest.

What I want to learn from a 5th level divination is

• There is a powerful unnatural creature 2 miles west and flying north -- a demon.
• There is mithril deep under the hills.
• There is a pack of lions near here, their spirits calling out for some wild empathy.

Does it depend on the DM? Could I think of it as "imagine animals scouted the entire radius for you", or "ask the DM three questions for the nature spirits to answer, sticking to the provided list of topics"? Or is this spell just meant to suck?

Commune with nature is incredibly powerful.

Incredibly

So for a single spell, you get knowledge of an area 18 miles in diameter, and for question one, you can get info on the nature in that immense area, including every single area built up which are null spot.

The spell says minerals so there is your mithril. I hope your nature-loving druid will not mine it though.

As for the demon, I would say so. It says unnatural creatures.

As for the lions, looking at animals would tell you that, but maybe not their need for some human-animal wild empathy loving.

Commune with nature is a ridiculously powerful diviniation spell for druids.

 

[frankthedm]

Does it depend on the DM?

Yeah, it's a vague Divination spell, those really put the ball in the DM's court.

Or is this spell just meant to suck?

Highly doubtful. Developers generally intend spells to have their uses, but sometimes they make things under-perform by not stating their intentions more clearly. Another shining example of this was Foresight.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Yeah, it's a vague Divination spell, those really put the ball in the DM's court. Highly doubtful. Developers generally intend spells to have their uses, but sometimes they make things under-perform by not stating their intentions more clearly. Another shining example of this was Foresight.

A search would discover a whole bunch of other discussions over the years on Foresight - so much depends upon the DM's interpretation!

 

[Noumenon]

Yeah, it's a vague Divination spell, those really put the ball in the DM's court. Highly doubtful. Developers generally intend spells to have their uses, but sometimes they make things under-perform by not stating their intentions more clearly. Another shining example of this was Foresight.

Nice catch, it will let me argue that divination spells are hard to specify mechanically and so are sometimes not as fully outlined as the various effects of, say, Symbol of Pain.

Commune with nature is incredibly powerful.

Incredibly

So for a single spell, you get knowledge of an area 18 miles in diameter, and for question one, you can get info on the nature in that immense area, including every single area built up which are null spot.

The spell says minerals so there is your mithril. I hope your nature-loving druid will not mine it though.

As for the demon, I would say so. It says unnatural creatures.

As for the lions, looking at animals would tell you that, but maybe not their need for some human-animal wild empathy loving.

Commune with nature is a ridiculously powerful diviniation spell for druids.

Is this how you actually play it, or just from reading it? I thought the demon one was pushing it because it's supposed to only tell of the presence of unnatural creatures. I like the power boost by making the spell "locate nearby civilized areas", although it seems like it could just give you facts from elsewhere in the area wihtout telling you that.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Is this how you actually play it, or just from reading it? I thought the demon one was pushing it because it's supposed to only tell of the presence of unnatural creatures. I like the power boost by making the spell "locate nearby civilized areas", although it seems like it could just give you facts from elsewhere in the area wihtout telling you that.

It is how we used to play it fro 1e to 3e; I couldn't tell you how much our 3e experience was just carrying forward what we knew from 1e days though!

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Is this how you actually play it, or just from reading it? I thought the demon one was pushing it because it's supposed to only tell of the presence of unnatural creatures. I like the power boost by making the spell "locate nearby civilized areas", although it seems like it could just give you facts from elsewhere in the area wihtout telling you that.

Unless mithral isn't a mineral, then it'll show up on the Commune with Nature, but only if you ask about minerals.

I don't see why it couldn't tell you where outsiders and undead were, since they're unnatural. Probably would need to be significantly unnatural, i.e. high hit dice.

Brad

 

[Noumenon]

I found a little more stuff from Wizards about this spell, a 2007 Forgotten Grimoire article by a freelancer.

This remarkably potent divination spell actually gets surprisingly little use in game. With its remarkable aboveground range of 1 mile per caster level (that's 9 miles aboveground for the minimum caster available: a 9th-level druid), you can glean an incredible amount of information as it relates to natural elements. Here are some additional thoughts and uses of this spell:

Commune with nature states that it reveals any "powerful unnatural creatures" within range. Based on the creature types, it could be surmised that it reveals the presence of aberrations, constructs, undead, and outsiders. I suggest that you use the table from detect evil in the Player's Handbook to determine what would be considered a "powerful" creature.

Use of this spell would reveal the best places to create certain types of traps, especially pits or rockslides.

If used underground, commune with nature would allow you to know every tunnel, passageway, and air pocket within the spell's impressive range. That's far better than using prying eyes or other scrying/divination magic to scout out each individual path.

"Create dungeon map" is too powerful and would lag the game if you ask me. But "Find a battleground favorable to you" is a pretty cool spell use.

I noticed that the SRD summary on the druid spells page is "Commune with Nature: Learn about terrain for 1 mile/level", which sounds even weaker than the spell text.

Is there anything more powerful sounding about the 1E text? I'll check my friend's 2E books on Wednesday.