What is the point of obscure object?

[airwalkrr]

I have never seen anyone learn this spell, and I am pretty sure the reason is because it is utterly useless. It masks an object from scrying, but scrying has to be targetted on a CREATURE. Am I the only person who finds this odd?

 

[Particle_Man]

Well if you scry a creature you can normally see the creature and stuff around the creature. If you really want to hide the king's sceptre you could cast obscure object on it, and then, if someone scries the king or the king's butler or whoever, they will get the person, but the sceptre will be invisible to them and they won't even know if that is because the sceptre is not in their scry "area of effect" or because the item is either invisbible or obscured with obscure object.

I am not looking at the spell description so maybe this won't work, but this is a possible use off the top of my head.

 

[fuindordm]

I used it once on a valuable item the morning after the party stole it, but I have no idea whether it helped or not. We did manage to hide out for that day to recover our strength.

But I have no idea whether our enemies tried to scry us or not, so who knows...?

 

[Hussar]

Would it not also block Locate Object? What exactly is a Divination (scrying) effect?

 

[starwed]

Scrying is a subschool of Divination which (from the SRD) includes Arcane Eye, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Scrying, and Greater Scrying. I'd assume that there might be some more in splat books.

 

[pawsplay]

It's very handy if you plan on stealing something valuable.

 

[Christian]

It's very handy if you plan on stealing something valuable.

In what way? That's the question here, and it's not clear what the answer is. As described, the spell only affects the four spells listed, and the value seems very limited. If you've obscured the item you've stolen, and someone seeking it looks at you via Arcane Eye, Clairvoyance, Scry, or Greater Scry, they won't see it on your person. Well, OK--but if the searchers are spying on you this way, you're obviously a suspect, and they could just as well follow up (once the divination pins down your location) with direct observation, against which the spell will be useless.

If Scry could target an object rather than a person, then Obscure Object would be very handy, obviously. If you had no idea who'd stolen your gewgaw, you could ordinarily Scry on the gewgaw & see its current location--but an OO spell would block this. But the Scry spell can't be used this way; there don't appear to be any Divination (Scrying) spells in the Core Rules that meet the criteria to be blocked by Obscure Object. So that particular effect listed under the description never comes up ...

 

[airwalkrr]

I guess the consensus is that there is in fact no point to the spell.

 

[Sejs]

I guess the consensus is that there is in fact no point to the spell.

Couldn't you scry an object in 3.0?

Could just be that the spell didn't recieve an update when the rules for what it protected against changed.

 

[hong]

In what way? That's the question here, and it's not clear what the answer is. As described, the spell only affects the four spells listed, and the value seems very limited. If you've obscured the item you've stolen, and someone seeking it looks at you via Arcane Eye, Clairvoyance, Scry, or Greater Scry, they won't see it on your person. Well, OK--but if the searchers are spying on you this way, you're obviously a suspect, and they could just as well follow up (once the divination pins down your location) with direct observation, against which the spell will be useless.

Ah, but in that case, the spell has served its purpose -- namely, to facilitate an encounter! Ie, no scry-teleport-grab; instead, you'll have to actually interact with the person you're scrying.

Scry is a plot-device spell. This is an anti-plot-device spell.