ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist and Divination Magic (potential spoilers)

[comanderbeef]

I'm gearing up to run Zeitgeist in pf2e next week. I'm wondering what other people have experienced with the likelihood of divination magic undermining many of the investigations and mysteries in the campaign.

In my own homebrew world I just flat out ban secret revealing magic and I'm considering doing it in this campaign as well. Are there any problems with this plan? Does the campaign assume players have access to this stuff to make some investigations work? I usually get really annoyed at all the macguffins I have to give my bbeg to prevent their plans from getting easily discovered by the PC's.

 

[MrsMongoose]

Our Medium couldn't get a straight answer half the time, although I don't know if divination has been beefed up from 1e to 2e.

Pay attention to the exact wording of what they ask and be as strict on the spell wording, time needed to cast the spell, and planes of existence as you can; you can probably bend it enough that it's only semi-useful, or more like Speaking with the Dead (if they hate you, you're not gonna find out).

i.e.

Spoiler: Spoiler

being able to work out Rock was in the bag by Divination should be almost impossible, except by working out everywhere he is not (even if they figure out he's probably still alive via deduction)

Also, low level Divination apart from Detect X used to be pants: I mean, if they sling around the Discern location level 8 spell then maybe, but by that point they're probably out of the Dream thing already...

That custom Detect Planar Energy is the best spell ever though: gives just enough info to put the wind up the players...

 

[efreund]

The books don't make this clear until later, but the global planar effect of the moon of Mavisha is that it's hard for divination to get a read on anything that occurs on an island. So there's an in-game reason to obfuscate any attempts to probe

Spoiler

Axis Island or other such facilities

Also, most of the Ob's secretive stuff takes place

Spoiler

in the Bleak Gate. Be it under Cauldron Hill, or at their palace near Vendricce

The game actually assumes the PCs will use low-level divination magic quite a bit. I remember callouts in adv2 for investigating the various items found on the body, throughout adv3 for tracking down where

Spoiler

Shijen and Xambria

are going, and in adv4 for if you try to

Spoiler

read various folks' minds

.

Now, bigger divination that becomes available later in the campaign? Yes, potentially a problem. But early on, the campaign has it handled for anything that's available to low-level characters in 4e or PF1e. You say you're running in PF2e: does that game have strong low-level divination magic above-and-beyond what was possible in 4e/pf1e? Can you be specific about what you're concerned about?

 

[RangerWickett]

I say let people get clues via divination, but the Ob have wards that deliver innocuous results if you try to do divinations to tie them to the conspiracy.

Like say in book 2, if they use a locate object spell to find the documents Wolfgang stole, assuming they're in range, that would let them maybe skip working with Lorcan Kell, but you could still have the shadow man follow their moves, alert Leone, then do the rest of that scene.

By contrast, if they use detect thoughts on Macbannin, he's a high level spellcaster who would have wards up, and who would laugh at them as he had them arrested.

In between, maybe they detect thoughts on the shadow man when they first encounter him on Cauldron Hill? They might get him to let slip that he works for Macbannin, which I suppose might speed up the route to the climax, but they'd still need evidence to make it stick, which would be hard without either the stolen documents or a confession from the dragon brothers.

And even if the party figures things out with some magic, the campaign is designed to be resilient. The most that they ever manage to do is speed up by one adventure. The conspiracy is very well compartmentalized.

 

[comanderbeef]

I say let people get clues via divination, but the Ob have wards that deliver innocuous results if you try to do divinations to tie them to the conspiracy.

Like say in book 2, if they use a locate object spell to find the documents Wolfgang stole, assuming they're in range, that would let them maybe skip working with Lorcan Kell, but you could still have the shadow man follow their moves, alert Leone, then do the rest of that scene.

By contrast, if they use detect thoughts on Macbannin, he's a high level spellcaster who would have wards up, and who would laugh at them as he had them arrested.

In between, maybe they detect thoughts on the shadow man when they first encounter him on Cauldron Hill? They might get him to let slip that he works for Macbannin, which I suppose might speed up the route to the climax, but they'd still need evidence to make it stick, which would be hard without either the stolen documents or a confession from the dragon brothers.

And even if the party figures things out with some magic, the campaign is designed to be resilient. The most that they ever manage to do is speed up by one adventure. The conspiracy is very well compartmentalized.

Ok that's good to hear. I'll probably let secret revealing magic slide then if the adventure seems to have thought about its implications. I'm coming from 5e and its just impossible to run any kind of mystery. I usually just block off those magics to let the story breathe but it sounds like the campaign is well built on that front.

 

[comanderbeef]

The books don't make this clear until later, but the global planar effect of the moon of Mavisha is that it's hard for divination to get a read on anything that occurs on an island. So there's an in-game reason to obfuscate any attempts to probe

Spoiler

Axis Island or other such facilities

Also, most of the Ob's secretive stuff takes place

Spoiler

in the Bleak Gate. Be it under Cauldron Hill, or at their palace near Vendricce

The game actually assumes the PCs will use low-level divination magic quite a bit. I remember callouts in adv2 for investigating the various items found on the body, throughout adv3 for tracking down where

Spoiler

Shijen and Xambria

are going, and in adv4 for if you try to

Spoiler

read various folks' minds

.

Now, bigger divination that becomes available later in the campaign? Yes, potentially a problem. But early on, the campaign has it handled for anything that's available to low-level characters in 4e or PF1e. You say you're running in PF2e: does that game have strong low-level divination magic above-and-beyond what was possible in 4e/pf1e? Can you be specific about what you're concerned about?

I'm coming from 5e so i'm mostly concerned with spells like augury or detect thoughts or speak with dead that can just uphend an entire mystery by themselves. So I guess my concern was mostly with how well the adventure dealt with these things as i'm gonna be converting to pf2e as i go. good to hear the adventure has thought about these things though. I'm just reading through adv2 since i'll be running that one first and i see some mention of anti-div stuff so my concerns are mostly mellowed out

 

[RangerWickett]

In adventure 2 we explicitly expect PCs to talk to corpses. Some villains are sloppy, but the clever ones understand what resources the RHC has access to, so they use layers of distance, disguise, and deniability. If you ask Nilasa, "Who killed you?", she'll say it was a shadow man with a gun. Cool; that's somewhat useful, but it doesn't help you find the guy. If you ask her, "Where's Gale?", she'll probably say something like that she has various hideouts in the Cloudwood, and if you press for specifics she might list one spot where the two of them met, but only after someone verified Nilasa wasn't followed, so Gale knew it was safe to come.

I dunno. Does anyone have examples of their PCs ripping through mysteries with this magic?

 

[arkwright]

Well, on the extreme end, one of my players took advantage of the downtime between books to spam divination. Noting that this was 4e, divinations in different editions have very different powers and limitations. As a GM, it was a neat way for me to flesh out the world/mystery, and to encourage player engagement. The Ob geas provides an easy out for blocking divinations and answers when needed to maintain the story.

I'd note that based on the Skyseer prophecy/events alone, a player can make some educated guesses that are much more spoiler-y than any divination.

Part of why we play fantasy is to have mechanics and plot points that you can't in a more grounded game. Divinations can seem pretty forboding to a GM, but it's good to try to be open-minded and think how bad it could really be if certain questions are answered.

And, lastly, do re-read the exact text of the divination powers your system has. Chances are the information they provide is more limited than you might imagine, so it might not demand as much from you.

 

[Falkus]

In adventure 2 we explicitly expect PCs to talk to corpses. Some villains are sloppy, but the clever ones understand what resources the RHC has access to, so they use layers of distance, disguise, and deniability. If you ask Nilasa, "Who killed you?", she'll say it was a shadow man with a gun. Cool; that's somewhat useful, but it doesn't help you find the guy. If you ask her, "Where's Gale?", she'll probably say something like that she has various hideouts in the Cloudwood, and if you press for specifics she might list one spot where the two of them met, but only after someone verified Nilasa wasn't followed, so Gale knew it was safe to come.

I dunno. Does anyone have examples of their PCs ripping through mysteries with this magic?

Not from me. The fact that any significant Obscurati member is shielded from divination works well enough to require regular investigation. Divination is a helpful tool, but it won't give you a shortcut to the end.

 

[hirou]

I dunno. Does anyone have examples of their PCs ripping through mysteries with this magic?

4e, artificer specialized in Arcana, can pass Hard DC of lvl 30 with 1 on d20. Obscurati protection rituals (DC 32 IIRC) never posed a threat, Magic Map ritual played a crucial role several times, but all in all I think some mystery still held, incredibly. Isolation of information does wonders. IIRC they guessed Born's existence before seeing him, Stanfield's involvement was suspected since literally first session (and they still reinstated him as a governor), Axis island importance was guessed from meta standpoint (duh), but I really can't remember any big reveals that were ruined by magic. Ah, Rock's murder in adventure 9 was mostly solved with magic, but it wasn't trivial to actually accuse the right person even after they knew him.