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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 6272865" data-attributes="member: 20323">Ah, ok thanks, I get it now. <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=":)" /> And I have a rejoinder...Yes,  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] made the point very well! I think I'll limit my rejoinder to the Information Gathering scenario he and  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] were discussing. I'll leave the Perilous Journey for another post.The short version of my rejoinder is (a) smart, tough, but mostly fair adventure design, and (b) recalibrating divinations.Ok, first off I'm assuming this is a significant element of an adventure - say, tracking down an urban adversary like a crime boss, a murderer, or a political dissident - and not simply an impromptu trying to find a criminal not important to the adventure. Because in the latter case I would run it as an opposed Streetwise check. In other words, it is something with some design work devoted to it (even if it's the DM's chicken scratch notes) and thought about stakes, consequences for failure, and the adversary's strategies.So *how* the adventure design treats this scenario is really important. Adventure design needs to take into account common "adventure breaking" abilities of PCs of that level, then the designer needs to decide how to respond to those abilities. Usually this should be to challenge them, but not negate them. I'll talk about Divinations shortly, but let's start with a mundane example... the Streetwise skill... so what happens when they start asking around about the BBEG? Why doesn't one check crack the whole case? Who has the clues they need to find him? It needs to be more than just one NPC and more than one clue. What's the advantage to piecing these clues together? The players should learn about the BBEG and his defenses/traps/resources, as well as the greater situation. If a binary question ("is the bad guy here?") is all the information the players want then I'd argue that the adventure design has failed to add enough story details to make learning about the BBEG compelling. There should always be a sense of exploration of the unknown and curve balls thrown at the PCs. Basic storytelling guideline that also applies to adventures, right?Divinations, at least as they are presented in 3e/d20 are overdone. Here is one of my favorite quotes (from <a href="http://harbinger-of-doom.blogspot.com/2013/07/divination-in-gaming-part-one.html" target="_blank">Harbinger of Doom</a>) about divination magic in D&D that explains my philosophy about them:So, back to casting our Scry spell to find the BBEG. What I would expect such a spell to require to make sense in the narrative is: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A component/focus which is closely related to the BBEG. Using the magic principle of familiarity (which many games like Ars Magica, Mage, and True20 do), this would be something the BBEG was in contact with for a long time like a favored penknife, a drop of his blood or some of his fingernails, or a relative (living or dead). So the PCs would need to acquire the component first, and that may take time.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Next the PC needs to be able to name the target they're scrying on. True name principles of magic require that it be the target's actually given name, which the PCs have uncover thru...other footwork. Of course, if they knew where the BBEG was already they could just cast Scry at that location, but the whole point of this adventure is finding the BBEG so obviously they don't have that info yet.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Casting the spell shouldn't be like turning on the TV and getting an absolutely clear picture - that just doesn't feel right, and strikes me as the kind of thing a crystal ball should help with ("clearing the image" as it were). So there's some check or roll like 4e rituals involved to determine the extent of details the image of the BBEG picks up.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">From what they're able to gather of the area and people around the BBEG during the duration of the spell, the PC needs to deduce the BBEG's location using...you guessed it...other clues they've gathered. Since this is an adventure for PCs at a level to access Scry, it needs to present some specific guidelines about what the spellcaster sees/hears.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And if there are countermeasures that work against scry, like  rotating your bricks with blood of a blind man for example, whether the BBEG has any of those implemented. Probably not, but it depends on the BBEG.</li> </ul>So there are several steps to casting the Scry spell the way I've conceived it that still make it seriously awesome (and maybe give a better sense of it being *magic*), but all put it into the context of a greater investigation happening. Scry is a strategy not an adventure-ended: the rogue gives the wizard a funny look when he starts blathering about discovering "the given name of The Shadow" and finding "the principle of familiarity", but the rogues eyes light up when the wizard concludes with: "...so that's why we need to visit the whorehouse he frequents and shake down his thugs."</blockquote>

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