Trying to do Divination Better

[Kaelik]

Divination Rewrite

Concept: Basically all of divination in D&D is failure of design often of concept. The locate X spells are extremely simplistic and barely do anything you want, but are also 90% of the present facts divination along with Scry which gives way too much info about a specific guy, but also not even what you always want. Scry definitely has to exist, but there needs to be a lot more divination spells that give information about the present that don't require asking a god with a 20 questions spell that also tells the future.

But the 20 questions spells are also a problem! If you try to use the to do present divination that really should be somewhere else, you can get anything in the universe unless the thing you want is under the Mindblank hood, in which case you get literally nothing. Everything is so vast players can't comprehend it and DMs have to write up more shit then they wanted to just to get through the 20 questions.

It gets even worse going into the future, where DMs have to predict the future of everything to be able to play 20 questions.


So what are the design goals here:

0) Replace the Locate Spells, Contact Other Plane, and Commune. Scrying is fine, but needs some slight clarification of targets, and Divination is basically perfect as is.

1)To develop a comprehensive suite of present time divinations that actually do the things you actually want them to so that players actually cast them when they want present information.

2)Some limited future questions that are a lot less comprehensive then Contact Other Plane but are way more direct in getting you to what you actually want.

3)Some changes to Mindblank to make it not a complete fuck off to the concept of divination, but still block a hell of a lot of stuff including all the stuff you want it to.

So first let's look at what Divination questions people might WANT to have answered:

Present:
0) I'm fighting a monster or enemy RIGHT NOW and I want to know how to beat it/not lose to it.
1) How do I beat this specific monster/enemy, what are their abilities?
2) Where's a specific thing right now that I want to find?
3) Where's the X that is easiest for me to obtain?
4) Where's a specific person right now that I want to find?
5) Where's a person who can do X for me?
6) What's going on over there?
7) What's happening to so and so?


Future:
8) If I do X, will that be good or bad? What kind of likely bad things happen to me?
8) I have this idea where I think if I just knew THIS I could do something cool. Can I know that?
10) I have this idea where I think if I did THIS the result would be Z. Is that true?


Spells:

Important Facts
Divination
Level: Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Immediate Action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One Creature
Duration: 1 min./level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes (object)

You divine information about a creature you are fighting. On casting the spell you gain knowledge of their weakest save, any vulnerability to energy types, and if they have any special weaknesses (stakes to the heart, garlic, taking double damage from AOEs as a swarm, Golem gets slowed by Fire ect.).

On the second round you gain knowledge of the most dangerous or powerful attack they have available to them at that moment. If the “real” answer is a specific spell you just get told the spell level they have an attack spell available to cast. This effect repeats every round until the spell ends, though that could mean it just keeps telling you they have 9th level spells every round while they kill you with 8th level spells.

Research
Divination
Level: Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 Minutes
Effect: Knowledge of one creature
Saving Throw: Will Negates (See Text)
Duration: Instantaneous

You specify a certain kind of creature you've heard of or seen. If you specify a specific creature you've seen it gets a Will Save to negate the effect and you know the spell failed. If you are operating off of a name or description, there is no save.

You can see the Monster Statblock in a Monster Manual of any monster you name or sufficiently describe. If you ask about a specific creature you get to see it's stat block at the time you saw it last on a failed save. On a successful save, the creature knows that someone cast this spell specifically.

Special: If the creature is subject to Detect Scrying then they know immediately the Distance and Direction to the caster succeed or fail on the save. If they are subject to Mindblank, the spell fails as if the save was made and then they know the Direction and Distance to the caster. If you are on another plane from the creature, it just specifies the Plane you are on.

Locate X
Divination
Level: Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 Hour Per CL.

You cast the spell and name or describe a generic object, feature, or type of person. The spell provides you knowledge of the distance and direction to the nearest such object, feature, or person. If there is half an inch of contiguous lead in the direct line between you and a specific example it will not be considered the closest. As you move around, you might get different answers allowing you to track down one, but also potentially shifting based on lead blocking.

If there is no acceptable example on your plane, you gain the result “Null/Null”.

This spell is effected by the 40ft Rule if you use it. Detect Scrying informs people when they are a identified as the closest by this effect and the distance and direction to the caster until they are no longer the closest. Mindblank makes you not the closest creature as if you were blocked by lead.

Some valid examples of what you can name: Sword, Shortsword, Greatsword, Weapon, Magical Sword, +2 Flaming Burst Shocking Burst Feycrafted Gnomizish Quickrazor, Door, Tunnel, Tree, Forest, Desert, Blue Orchid, City, River, Bridge, Boat, 3 Masted Schooner, Guard, Shopkeeper, Reclusive Wizard, Scroll seller, A Scroll of Locate X, Shipwright, Rogue (out of character class), Rogue (in character, description of actions/profession), Murderer, Corpse, Army, Division, Lieutenant Colonel, King.

Some invalid examples: The Sword that made this wound, A door into the armory, a tunnel that leads to the underdark, the tree that this dryad belongs to, The boat that stole our goods, The Wizard who cast Research on me, The Shipwright that built this ship, A shopkeeper selling a scroll of Locate X, the person who murdered this corpse, a murderer under the laws of country X, the Corpse of so and so, the army lead by X, the army of nation Y.

Locate Macguffin
Divination
Level: Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 Minutes
Target: One Magical Item or specific person
Saving Throw: Will Negates
Duration: Instantaneous

You cast the spell and name a specific magic item or specific person you are looking for. Succeed or Fail on the will save, they know this spell targeted them. If they fail the save you know the fastest generally safe way you could reach their current location including weird shit like if the fastest way is to go get someone in town to teleport you to a specific location to wait 4 days to get on a boat that is going to sail into the MALESTORM that blocks teleportation. This spell is not very useful for finding people that move a lot.

This spell is effected by the 40ft Rule if you use it. If a target is under Mindblank, this spell fails as if they made the save. If a target is under Detect Scrying, they know the distance and direction or plane of the caster at the same time that you gain this information. If every possible path to the object passes through half an inch of continguous lead, then the spell fails as if they made a save. If they opened the lead door to their lead safe room, the spell works as normal by finding whatever path works.

The purpose of this spell is finding a specific person, not finding out information, so you can Name, Bob the level 14 Wizard, but you cannot name “the person who murdered Duke Wellington.” You can name “The Artifact that is destined to defeat Lord Gelvan” if you've learned about the artifact that explodes him on touch, but you can't target “an artifact that would help me defeat Lord Gelvan” if you didn't know that there was such a thing.

Obtain Macguffin
Divination
Level: Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 7
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 Minutes
Target: One Magical Item or specific person
Saving Throw: Will Negates
Duration: Instantaneous

You cast the spell and name a specific magic item or specific person you are looking for. Succeed or Fail on the will save, they know this spell targeted them. If they fail the save you know the fastest way you could obtain the item or reach the person. This provides a safe way when their is one that takes less then a year, but if there isn't, the spell just provides the fastest way. It does not tell whether it gave a fast safe way or a fast unsafe way. This might mean “Go to this dungeon take a left, right, left, straight, left, straight, down, straight, up, right” or it could mean go to this location and wait a week to ambush the possessor on the road, or it could just be like “Cast Teleport and go to the Wandering Moon Inn.”

This spell is effected by the 40ft Rule if you use it. If a target is under Mindblank, this spell fails as if they made the save. If a target is under Detect Scrying, they know the distance and direction or plane of the caster at the same time that you gain this information. If every possible path to the object passes through half an inch of continguous lead, then the spell fails as if they made a save. If they opened the lead door to their lead safe room, the spell works as normal by finding whatever path works.

The subject knowing about the spell is factored into the spell, so them starting to do crazy shit won't dodge the spell once it's in effect, but it does potentially mean it might be harder when you get there to deal with them if they are holding the item or if your goal was violent towards the person.

The purpose of this spell is finding a specific person, not finding out information, so you can Name, Bob the level 14 Wizard, but you cannot name “the person who murdered Duke Wellington.” You can name “The Artifact that is destined to defeat Lord Gelvan” if you've learned about the artifact that explodes him on touch, but you can't target “an artifact that would help me defeat Lord Gelvan” if you didn't know that there was such a thing.

Divination

This spells continues to function pretty much as is, and also Mindblank doesn't make you invisible to this, but does cause spells about you to fail. If someone says “How do we kill Lord Gelvan?” then the Divination fails like you rolled a bad percent if Lord Gelvan is under Mindblank, but if you ask “Will we face opposition trying to kill King Jim” and the only opposition you would face is Lord Gelvan, who is Mindblanked, you still get a yes. Also Wizards get it as a 4th level spell.

Scrying

This spell continues to work as is, except three changes/clarifications:

1) Scry follows the rules of Locate MacGuffin paragraph 3. You can't Scry “The person closest to so and so” or “the fourteenth in line to the throne” or “the person who stole my pen.”

2) Scrying a Mindblanked person fails like they made the save. But if you Scry King Jim and he's talking to Mindblanked Lord Gelvan, you can still see Lord Gelvan.

3) You can move and turn the scrying sensor to look whereever you want after casting so long as you keep it within 10ft of the target and it has your actual vision range, instead of the idea of “only 10ft around the target because you are looking overhead down at them.”

Greater Divination
Divination
Level: Clr 6, Wiz 6
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous

This Spell lets you ask 10 questions like Divination, one after the other and use the info from past questions in the later ones.

Material Component
Incense and a sacrificial offering appropriate to your religion, together worth at least 25 gp.

EDIT: Another kind of spell is survey spells, which is to say spells that give you general info about an area. I think as long as you keep the information specific but not too game changing, can just give all the information. The question is when those things are or aren't appropriate. Might not be ideal to create spells that just map dungeons ever/at least not till high enough level.

Survey Spells:

Survey Assistant
Divination
Level: Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Range: Personal
Duration: 10 minutes
Effect: You create a magical bird or similar flying creature that is obviously magical and glowing. It flies up and scouts the nearby area in a spiral pattern around you surveying a 1 mile radius in the first minute, a 2 mile radius in the next 3 minutes, and a 3 mile radius in the next 6 minutes. During that time, you see what the bird sees and can speak aloud or draw a map of what is seen, producing a highly accurate map showing gross terrain features, the movements of large groups of people, and any surface settlements or architecture.

The Bird itself has 1 HP per caster level and AC 20. When destroyed it can no longer survey. It cannot travel through objects or open doors.

Alternatively this creature can scout a dungeon or cave complex very quickly, but it can only follow extremely basic directions like "turn left at every intersection" and is defeated by doors. If flying inside it is limited to 300ft a round, but has perfect manueverability.

[Thaluikhain]

Locate X
Divination
Level: Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 Hour Per CL.

You cast the spell and name or describe a generic object, feature, or type of person. The spell provides you knowledge of the distance and direction to the nearest such object, feature, or person. If there is 1 contiguous inch of lead in the direct line between you and a specific example it will not be considered the closest. As you move around, you might get different answers allowing you to track down one, but also potentially shifting based on lead blocking.

If there is no acceptable example on your plane, you gain the result “Null/Null”.

This spell is effected by the 40ft Rule if you use it. Detect Scrying informs people when they are a identified as the closest by this effect and the distance and direction to the caster until they are no longer the closest. Mindblank makes you not the closest creature as if you were blocked by lead.

Some valid examples of what you can name: Sword, Shortsword, Greatsword, Weapon, Magical Sword, +2 Flaming Burst Shocking Burst Feycrafted Gnomizish Quickrazor, Door, Tunnel, Tree, Forest, Desert, Blue Orchid, City, River, Bridge, Boat, 3 Masted Schooner, Guard, Shopkeeper, Reclusive Wizard, Scroll seller, A Scroll of Locate X, Shipwright, Rogue (out of character class), Rogue (in character, description of actions/profession), Murderer, Corpse, Army, Division, Lieutenant Colonel, King.

Some invalid examples: The Sword that made this wound, A door into the armory, a tunnel that leads to the underdark, the tree that this dryad belongs to, The boat that stole our goods, The Wizard who cast Research on me, The Shipwright that built this ship, A shopkeeper selling a scroll of Locate X, the person who murdered this corpse, a murderer under the laws of country X, the Corpse of so and so, the army lead by X, the army of nation Y.

Does it have to be lead that blocks it, and not larger amounts of some lesser density material? Or lesser amount of something more dense, such as gold? Though, admittedly fiddly.

I sorta like the idea of it giving the direction, not the distance, so you have to muck about to triangulate. Or the other way around, I guess.

Alternatively, just a "sense" of the thing you are looking for. Like a Geiger counter, you get a reading, but no information on the number, distance, strength of the source, you have to wander round playing hot or cold to find it. Again, fiddly, though.

[Kaelik]

Does it have to be lead that blocks it, and not larger amounts of some lesser density material? Or lesser amount of something more dense, such as gold? Though, admittedly fiddly.

I sorta like the idea of it giving the direction, not the distance, so you have to muck about to triangulate. Or the other way around, I guess.

Alternatively, just a "sense" of the thing you are looking for. Like a Geiger counter, you get a reading, but no information on the number, distance, strength of the source, you have to wander round playing hot or cold to find it. Again, fiddly, though.

You could definitely do a Gieger counter or distance only as a lower level spell, but I think level 4 is the level you should probably get this effect, to make it easier.

I also think, generally you might want to split Locate up so people are higher level then not people? But I didn't want to have to write several more spells.

For the blocking spells, I thought I wrote in that the 40ft rule applies if you use it, referencing the rule for long distance spells in the Dungeonomicon. I personally use it, so I would use it.

But lead is a specific anti divination material according to the scrying subschool of Divination which says "Lead sheeting or magical protection blocks a scrying spell, and you sense that the spell is so blocked." And I think that's a reasonable thing to apply to a lot of these present divination spells, a way to very simply have protection from these effects for certain items and people that is clear about whether it applies to the people using it and doesn't require specific people to set up, but does require a certain amount of resources.

[Kaelik]

EDIT:

Reduced the thickness of Lead for Locate X, and added the lead to Locate and Obtain MacGuffin because it was supposed to have them all along, but I forgot in the process of copy pasting back and forth that the Lead part wasn't in the blocking section of Locate X.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

As usual I only really have something tangential to the topic to contribute.

Which is retroactive metagame mechanisms for handling future prediction.

In an unscripted game we cannot in fact predict the future. Because that would require the gamers involved to actually have supernatural abilities in real life.

It is however really easy to say "I have X benefit because this exact situation I am in right now... totally foresaw it a week ago and did some prep work off screen that I am only revealing right now!".

So an ability to have an undefined item in your pocket that turns out at the last minute to be the one item you need right now because you foresaw it's need with whatever potential items you could have obtained X time period in the past.

The ability to enter an encounter with a cover identity that would require supernatural predictive abilities and preparation X time period in advance possibly even before you otherwise should have known about the encounter and without actual on screen preparation.

The ability to prepare an escape route from an encounter without on screen preparation at whatever location you suddenly need or want it during the encounter, without on screen preparation in advance with whatever resources you could have prepared X time period in advance.

(Does it show that I was running this stuff in a sort of modern paranoid conspiracy super tech genius spy campaign?)

You get the idea. And you can use something akin to this for future divination, luck abilities, and genius level planning.

There are gamers who would decry this as tacky cheating metagamers boo hiss... but the angle is that's kinda the whole point of what this methodology is aiming at. Future foretelling abilities are MEANT to seem like the character with foresight is kinda cheating at the way story events play out, because they are, that's what knowing the future IS.

And you can set limits and advancement options on it fairly easily with the usual per X limits and time limits on how much retroactive flasback/off screen prep combined with oh I don't know, some actual somewhat formalized mechanics for character down time prep in the first place.

Not sure if that helps since you seem less focused on the future stuff.

But on the off chance that is only because you had not yet been exposed to this reply's brilliant idea more people should use...

[gatorized]

Clairvoyance
You can see things at distant locations as if you were there. If the location is somehow shielded from you, you must make
a Willpower roll against the shielding rank to use this Power. Clairvoyance works at any distance. You can even peer into
other dimensions by making a Superhuman (6) Willpower roll. Although you normally observe locations, you can instead focus
on a specific person or object. To do this, you must be familiar with the subject or have some meaningful item or fetish that
connects you. This won’t tell you where that subject is located unless something you see gives that away.

Attuned
You are attuned to some aspect of nature like currents and tides, plate tectonics, or weather patterns, to a particular geographic area like a city, forest, jungle, or sacred grove, or to the larger cosmos in general. You can tell when dramatic or unusual disturbances or phenomenon are imminent within your area of attunement. If attuned to a geographic area, you can also tell when powerful beings enter or leave, possibly even when they’re born and when they die, depending on how powerful they are. Your level of sensitivity varies depending on the scope of your attunement. For example, a magician attuned to the mansion that serves as her sanctum sanctorum is keenly aware
of everything that happens in her home, while a cosmically attuned galactic guardian is only sensitive to cosmic beings, events, and forces. This Power automatically provides you with basic information, but you can spend 1 Resolve to ask the GM for more in-depth information, assuming there’s any to be had. The information you receive may sometimes be incomplete or misleading, but it is always truthful.

Psychometry
You can pick up psychic impressions and glean information from physical objects. You can ask the GM about the basic history of any inanimate object you touch. If you spend 1 Resolve, you can ask for in-depth information about a specific person or event connected to the object, assuming there’s any information to be had. The information received may sometimes be incomplete or misleading, but it is always truthful and must address the subject of your question.

Whew, that sure was hard! Maybe stop playing shitty systems that don't do what you want and use a system that has already solved your problems instead.

[Kaelik]

Wow, thanks for providing an example of scrying spells that D&D already has and already work fine as I said during the initial post and zero examples of the kinds of spells that I was saying I wanted to have but that D&D had bad or no version of.

That definitely proved that the system you copied a scrying spell from is a better system that does all the things I want.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

To do this, you must be familiar with the subject or have some meaningful item or fetish that connects you.

I hear feet are a really common one. I'll optimize by picking feet.

[Thaluikhain]

To do this, you must be familiar with the subject or have some meaningful item or fetish that connects you.

I hear feet are a really common one. I'll optimize by picking feet.

BOOM BOOM!

[Foxwarrior]

Whew, that sure was hard! Maybe stop playing shitty systems that don't do what you want and use a system that has already solved your problems instead.

I dunno why but I find it so strange that people don't seem to care about how much more vaguely defined the magic is in other RPGs. Your scrying spell (the least ambiguous of the three) doesn't cover or reference any rules for scrying sensors like: can the scrying sensor move around? If you scry on a person as if you were there do you have to hope you're taller than them so that you don't just see the inside of their head?

Attuned too is maybe a crazy powerful anti-stealth spell, any heist would require you to account for it, which makes it too bad that there's no way of knowing what would trigger it to ping you. If only you'd listed a spell like Divination or Contact Other Plane that at least lets the players interrogate the DM about their intent in advance .

[Kaelik]

Whew, that sure was hard! Maybe stop playing shitty systems that don't do what you want and use a system that has already solved your problems instead.

I dunno why but I find it so strange that people don't seem to care about how much more vaguely defined the magic is in other RPGs. Your scrying spell (the least ambiguous of the three) doesn't cover or reference any rules for scrying sensors like: can the scrying sensor move around? If you scry on a person as if you were there do you have to hope you're taller than them so that you don't just see the inside of their head?

Attuned too is maybe a crazy powerful anti-stealth spell, any heist would require you to account for it, which makes it too bad that there's no way of knowing what would trigger it to ping you. If only you'd listed a spell like Divination or Contact Other Plane that at least lets the players interrogate the DM about their intent in advance .

Look fox, we definitely aren't going to have a fight about what counts as CONNECTED or INFORMATION TO BE HAD every time someone uses Psychometrey to pick up a ring owned by the dead King and says "Tell me exactly where the King is right now."

[gatorized2]

Wow, thanks for providing an example of scrying spells that D&D already has and already work fine as I said during the initial post and zero examples of the kinds of spells that I was saying I wanted to have but that D&D had bad or no version of.

That definitely proved that the system you copied a scrying spell from is a better system that does all the things I want.

You specifically indicated Commune as an example of a spell you don't like. Attuned can function as a version of Commune that doesn't have any of its problems. The other spells cover everything else you said you wanted to do. You're welcome, jackass.

[gatorized2]

Whew, that sure was hard! Maybe stop playing shitty systems that don't do what you want and use a system that has already solved your problems instead.

I dunno why but I find it so strange that people don't seem to care about how much more vaguely defined the magic is in other RPGs. Your scrying spell (the least ambiguous of the three) doesn't cover or reference any rules for scrying sensors like: can the scrying sensor move around? If you scry on a person as if you were there do you have to hope you're taller than them so that you don't just see the inside of their head?

Attuned too is maybe a crazy powerful anti-stealth spell, any heist would require you to account for it, which makes it too bad that there's no way of knowing what would trigger it to ping you. If only you'd listed a spell like Divination or Contact Other Plane that at least lets the players interrogate the DM about their intent in advance .

Open ended powers are good. Clairvoyance doesn't mention a scrying sensor, so I don't know why you think there would be one, although a player could certainly flavor it this way, it might be a con worth a couple points if the gm thinks it will matter. Attuned can be defended against by psi-screen or just a willpower check; or just using your own intel gathering methods to determine if that power is something you need to account for. It can be made to function as any divination or commune by just attaching pros / cons and the right flavor when you buy it. For example, Delay or Ritual - involves contacting one more creatures from other planes of existence. Limited - may not always reveal 100% of requested information. Etc.

[deaddmwalking]

If I ask you what 8x6 is and you say 48, not only are you right, I can figure out very quickly whether that's the right answer.

If I cast a spell like 'detect lies' and someone says 'I'm not the bad guy, honest', that spell is kinda helpful if it pings 'lie', but less so if it pings 'not a lie'. Then the PCs basically have to say 'divination isn't helping us, but I think he's the bad guy - let's go investigate'. Now maybe some people would prefer that magically identifying information not be an option, but then it'd be fair to ask why they put those spells in the game if they're not supposed to work?

[Kaelik]

Wow, thanks for providing an example of scrying spells that D&D already has and already work fine as I said during the initial post and zero examples of the kinds of spells that I was saying I wanted to have but that D&D had bad or no version of.

That definitely proved that the system you copied a scrying spell from is a better system that does all the things I want.

You specifically indicated Commune as an example of a spell you don't like. Attuned can function as a version of Commune that doesn't have any of its problems. The other spells cover everything else you said you wanted to do. You're welcome, jackass.

Commune is nothing like Attune, Scry already exists in D&D, and Psychometrey does not in fact do all the things I said I wanted. It does.... none of them? Zero of them? Less then zero of them because it does a few things I don't want spells to do, but doesn't do any of the things I do want spells to do?

Like, did you read ANYTHING before making your posts? Attune is like commune? Did you read the Commune spell? Like, okay you didn't read my post, sure, but you didn't read commune?

[Foxwarrior]

a player could certainly flavor it this way

Oh it's one of those games. That makes the ambiguity more forgivable I guess since the player is supposed to fill in the details with fiction that nails down the properties more... But it's not really a system that's solved things if all the powers are only half written is it.

[merxa]

Divination certainly needs a holistic makeover. I noticed you didn't post any revisions of non-detection / mindblank?

the first spell is for me underwhelming powerwise as well possibly undermining core features of the game -- I just give this information out with a free action successful skill check. Which is perhaps overly generous, but even the PF2 recent rules remaster has something similar (taken from reddit):

Recall Knowledge on Monsters as Described in the Video:
You take the action.
You ask a question. They specifically call out that this can be what the creature's lowest save is.
On a Success you get a truthful answer (but not the exact value of a save). On a crit you get either more information or a bonus question.
~

So i think you can remove this spell, and move this into rules governing knowledge checks -- ie can you quickly identify the thing you're fighting recall relevant stuff. You can also make it a spell, but typically you don't want spells replacing skills.

Locate X
Consider reducing the level of this spell, or take a page from 5e and allow the spell to be upcast -- perhaps it starts at level 1 or 2 with a 1000ft radius, then on upcasting it becomes 6 miles / 1 hex, then kingdom wide, planet, planar. etc.

Locate/Obtain Macguffin

Can you describe what you think the differences are between these two spells? They also seem to be written with a find the path like effect, with the obtain having a more powerful variation of it? But I would find it hard to adjudicate the differences in play at the moment. My experience with find the path in play is the group is never in full agreement on what that spell can or cannot do, and the descriptions provided so far is not enough, those spells will have enormous table variation.

Some other divination spells that could use an overhaul:
identify, analyze dweomer, legend lore.

Then there is the interactions between divination and illusion (and abjuration). Illusions should come with some basic anti divination effects baked in and not get utterly obviated by mid level. Revisiting how mindblank, invisibility, and see invisibility interact is probably also worthwhile.

Could you quote or link a definition of the '40ft Rule'?

[Omegonthesane]

Could you quote or link a definition of the '40ft Rule'?

this one presumably

Dungeons: By the gods, why?

Alright, we know that you love dungeons. We love them too, despite the fact that we’re pretty sure there is no good reason for the silly things. The average D&D game world is frankly incapable of the technology or manpower needed to build vast underground complexes. I mean, look at our own world history: aside from a single underground city in Turkey and a couple of pyramids and tombs, the ancient world took a pass on underground life. Even the old excuse of “Wizards can magic it up and they do it because its defensible” is a bit lame considering that we are talking about a world with teleport and burrowing and ethereal travel; being underground is actually a liability since its harder to escape and people can drop the roof onto you, not to mention the incredible costs involved in doing it even if magic is available.

So here is what we suggest: dungeons have an actual magical purpose. By putting anything behind at least 40’ of solid, continuous material (like solid walls of dirt, stone, ice, or whatever, but not a forest of trees or rooms of furniture) the area is immune to unlimited-range or “longer than Long Range” spells like Scrying and transportation magic like teleport, greater teleport, the travel version of gate, and other effects. You can use these magics inside a dungeon, but you also stopped by a 40’ solid, continuous material in a Line of Effect; this means you can use these effects inside a dungeon to bypass doors and walls, but entering and leaving the dungeon is a problem, and parts of the dungeon that have more than 30’ of material in the way between your position and the target of your effect will be effectively isolated from your position.

[Kaelik]

Divination certainly needs a holistic makeover. I noticed you didn't post any revisions of non-detection / mindblank?

Well by specifying how every divination works with Mindblank, including Divination and Scrying, I was effectively revising Mindblank.

the first spell is for me underwhelming powerwise as well possibly undermining core features of the game -- I just give this information out with a free action successful skill check. Which is perhaps overly generous, but even the PF2 recent rules remaster has something similar (taken from reddit):

Recall Knowledge on Monsters as Described in the Video:
You take the action.
You ask a question. They specifically call out that this can be what the creature's lowest save is.
On a Success you get a truthful answer (but not the exact value of a save). On a crit you get either more information or a bonus question.
~

So i think you can remove this spell, and move this into rules governing knowledge checks -- ie can you quickly identify the thing you're fighting recall relevant stuff. You can also make it a spell, but typically you don't want spells replacing skills.

1) If people never cast the spell, that's their choice. But not everyone plays in games were they are given this information. In particular the 3.5 knowledge rules very much don't give it.

2) We definitely do want spells to replacing skills. That's definitely a thing we do actually want. You want people to have multiple ways to do things instead of being locked into one specific thing only which they had to decide basically at character creation. Also the skill system is very bad. So yeah, it's fine to have a spell slot spent to replace a skill check.

Locate X
Consider reducing the level of this spell, or take a page from 5e and allow the spell to be upcast -- perhaps it starts at level 1 or 2 with a 1000ft radius, then on upcasting it becomes 6 miles / 1 hex, then kingdom wide, planet, planar. etc.

So you want to be able to cast a nerfed version of this spell at level 3, but then also nerf every higher level version so that even the level 6-7 versions are weaker then this 4th level spell. Can't figure out if your criticism is that it's too strong or too weak.

Locate/Obtain Macguffin

Can you describe what you think the differences are between these two spells? They also seem to be written with a find the path like effect, with the obtain having a more powerful variation of it? But I would find it hard to adjudicate the differences in play at the moment. My experience with find the path in play is the group is never in full agreement on what that spell can or cannot do, and the descriptions provided so far is not enough, those spells will have enormous table variation.

Level 5 Locate spell tells you how to get to the current location. The level 7 tells you how you will encounter the person or object.

So for example, if you cast the levl 5 spell and said "The King who was kidnapped" and then it tells you to teleport to a location, and then you teleport there, and the king is not there, that's because he was being moved by the kidnappers or himself or whatever.

If on the other hand you cast the level 7 spell you would be told to teleport to a location that it gave you and the king and his kidnappers and/or if he was secretely running away, him and his guards, are going to be there, because the level 7 looks into the actual future to find out where you will encounter the person or object, and directs you to it. (And specifies that it does this even if they change their mind in response to the spell being cast.)

Could you quote or link a definition of the '40ft Rule'?

The Dungeonomicon rule specified above.

[merxa]

1) If people never cast the spell, that's their choice. But not everyone plays in games were they are given this information. In particular the 3.5 knowledge rules very much don't give it.

2) We definitely do want spells to replacing skills. That's definitely a thing we do actually want. You want people to have multiple ways to do things instead of being locked into one specific thing only which they had to decide basically at character creation. Also the skill system is very bad. So yeah, it's fine to have a spell slot spent to replace a skill check.

I'm a bit confused by the response, we are firmly in homebrew territory -- so point 1 seems moot to me.

point 2 is nearly moot -- some efforts can be made to improve the skill system. If you're stuck with all the legacy 3.5 bullshit then maybe not, but you could start by just excising all the spells that give $TEXAS bonuses to random skills. But your replies seem to suggest you're fixing divination in a vacuum, that nothing else is getting fixed, just this? not tenable, but good luck there.

Again, having a single spell replace a skill isn't great design, but it's your game, so you do you. But as a spell, it still sucks, takes an immediate action, and only gives information per round. So pretty useless, and will encourage min-maxxers to have pets cast these spells from wands, or otherwise offload the action and spell slot cost. Instead of requiring a 'must be this knowledgeable to play my game well' trap, you may as well just fix access to general monster knowledge and again, skill system is where to go -- fixing core issues with adding another spell is just terrible, terrible, stupid, ugly, terrible nonsense. but yeah, if that's the hill you want to die on.

I didn't discuss the research spell specifically, i personally find it offputting and off flavor -- spells that explicitly break the 4th wall and expose the mechanical underpinning are just not for me. It makes me feel like I'm inside some isekai where I can pull up my 'status' screen and invoke my 'item box', which might be what you're going for, but yeah it's entirely a flavor issue for me, perhaps if it was worded in a way that didn't so jarringly break the 4th wall would make me feel better about it. Otherwise the spell is fine, although giving away the individual stat block of the particular creature is maybe a little too powerful for the level, returning the generic stat block might be more appropriate level-wise, with a higher level spell returning particular stat blocks of individuls.

Locate X
Consider reducing the level of this spell, or take a page from 5e and allow the spell to be upcast -- perhaps it starts at level 1 or 2 with a 1000ft radius, then on upcasting it becomes 6 miles / 1 hex, then kingdom wide, planet, planar. etc.

So you want to be able to cast a nerfed version of this spell at level 3, but then also nerf every higher level version so that even the level 6-7 versions are weaker then this 4th level spell. Can't figure out if your criticism is that it's too strong or too weak.

yes, that's correct, the level thresholds can be adjusted as needed, but this suggestion is from the perspective of tier play -- finding something within a shorter distance than 'anywhere in this plane' seems like the sort of utility a lower tier character would definitely want and not need on a full planar basis, indeed, i think if a tier 1 character casts a spell and the answer is 'on another planet' or essentially far outside their tier scope, that's just sort of bad, you want the spells characters have access to to give them relevant information that isn't moot because it belongs to another tier of play.

thats my opinion of course, but so far none of suggestions have found much perch with you ^_^ maybe feedback isn't what you're looking for?

Locate/Obtain Macguffin

Can you describe what you think the differences are between these two spells? They also seem to be written with a find the path like effect, with the obtain having a more powerful variation of it? But I would find it hard to adjudicate the differences in play at the moment. My experience with find the path in play is the group is never in full agreement on what that spell can or cannot do, and the descriptions provided so far is not enough, those spells will have enormous table variation.

Level 5 Locate spell tells you how to get to the current location. The level 7 tells you how you will encounter the person or object.

So for example, if you cast the levl 5 spell and said "The King who was kidnapped" and then it tells you to teleport to a location, and then you teleport there, and the king is not there, that's because he was being moved by the kidnappers or himself or whatever.

If on the other hand you cast the level 7 spell you would be told to teleport to a location that it gave you and the king and his kidnappers and/or if he was secretely running away, him and his guards, are going to be there, because the level 7 looks into the actual future to find out where you will encounter the person or object, and directs you to it. (And specifies that it does this even if they change their mind in response to the spell being cast.)

I am still a bit confused. Both spells have a casting time of ten minutes -- so lets say i start casting the spell, when the spell finishes, it tells me at that moment where the kidnapped king is? (or does it tell me where the king was 10 minutes ago?) -- and if i teleport (does the spell give me any special advantages to teleport, must i still be independently familiar with the location, does the spell provide a 'seen once' or different familiarity or none? Anyway, assuming I teleport the round after I cast the spell -- if the king is gone, are you saying the kidnappers themselves teleported or otherwise moved between the round i finished the spell and round after where I casted teleport?

Going to the level 7 example, if it gives me an answer of where they will be, is that when in time? the next day? the next round? Are you suggesting in play all of these details are just abstracted away and in play you would just say 'and you show up at the crossroads where the king is'? That playloop is not standard for 3.5, typically 3.5 deals in absolutes and particulars, so what sort of knowledge is the level 7 spell really giving the character and the player?

Some questions I would have for the two spells, do they inform me of any traps or bypass traps? presumably only the most direct path is presented? the obtain spell says 'best way', is that best way incorporating my stat block and abilities, what about stat blocks and abilities of my allies, or other PCs? If the best way is to walk up to random stranger in town x and say 'i am the night, you are the day, we live apart forever' and person x then teleports you there or even maybe just summons the item and hands it to you, is that sort of thing going to be included in the spell? If the best way is to 'wish' for it, but you don't have access for it, will the spell tell you to use wish or will it skip that solution and offer the next best solution the caster can implement? It's all very vague. These spells in particular are very hard to adjudicate and the current language and examples are not helping me.

Another question, if say the person is aware the obtain spell has been casted successfully, it suggests they can do nothing to pervert the meeting, but what if they have access to a domain that is otherwise inaccessible to the PC? like a timeless demiplane or perhaps a gods planar realm -- how is that adjudicated, does the spell retroactively fail, does the person under it's effect become too incompetent suddenly to engage with their plan? what if it's cast on an item and in response the item is destroyed?
~

divinations certainly need a fix, but so far i'm not sure you're going far enough, these fixes seem to be mostly smoothing out some of your home game experiences and might be hard for anyone else to really implement given how particular it is and the other homebrew assumptions that seem to be at play here. To confirm, these fixes are meant for a 3.5 game, a 3.5 tome game? your 3.5 tome homebrew game?

any changes to the scrying sensor besides being able to rotate it and explicitly stating your view from it isn't cut off after 10 feet? The big one for me is scrying a location instead of a creature. 5e actually fixed this and you can now scry any location you've seen before. Another more minor issue is with the sensor being invisible and ' any creature with an Intelligence score of 12 or higher can notice the sensor by making a DC 20 Intelligence check' is that being kept? And the focus, it's been my head cannon that whatever the scrying sensor sees is displayed on that focus, so if you're using a pool or mirror and others are there they see on that focus what the sensor sees, curious where you line up on that, is the focus largely ignored and any sights seen is done independently and internally by the caster?

thanks for sharing.

[Kaelik]

I'm a bit confused by the response, we are firmly in homebrew territory -- so point 1 seems moot to me.

point 2 is nearly moot -- some efforts can be made to improve the skill system. If you're stuck with all the legacy 3.5 bullshit then maybe not, but you could start by just excising all the spells that give $TEXAS bonuses to random skills. But your replies seem to suggest you're fixing divination in a vacuum, that nothing else is getting fixed, just this? not tenable, but good luck there.

Making a completely new skill system that doesn't suck shit, and then inventing a knowledge system that doesn't suck shit is outside the scope of a the divination rework. You are welcome to do so on your own time. I've personally made up three different knowledge rules, and seen other people make up knowledge rules, and I've never seen a single one that was worth actually reading and using or having your players ever roll a single skill check for, including two of the three knowledge rules I've written. (The third one doesn't use skill checks and is for a non D&D system.)

Removing the skills that give skill bonuses is the surest possible way to make the skill system worse, because it again forces the players to engage with the dogshit system that currently exists.

In particular, as the knowledge rules currently exist, you might be fighting a monster and 1) No one in the party has Knowledge Local or Knowledge Dungeoneering, so you literally can never know anything about it using the skill system even if you leave, go level up 10 times and come back. or 2) You just roll bad on a knowledge check, and now you can never know anything about the monster during this fight. Both of those are fail states created by the dogshit skill system even if you rewrote the knowledge rules to be slightly better but still use the skill system.

Allowing the party Cleric to cast Detect Traps or Detect Secret Doors is BETTER then locking all such doors enternally behind forcing the players to take those skills and roll a bunch, and likewise, giving the Wizard and Cleric the possibility to spend a spell slot to learn stuff about a monster in combat if they want to spend a slot is way better way to allow them to get that information then to tell them to go cast Psychic Reformation to respec their character to have the correct knowledge skills.

Again, having a single spell replace a skill isn't great design, but it's your game, so you do you. But as a spell, it still sucks, takes an immediate action, and only gives information per round. So pretty useless, and will encourage min-maxxers to have pets cast these spells from wands, or otherwise offload the action and spell slot cost. Instead of requiring a 'must be this knowledgeable to play my game well' trap, you may as well just fix access to general monster knowledge and again, skill system is where to go -- fixing core issues with adding another spell is just terrible, terrible, stupid, ugly, terrible nonsense. but yeah, if that's the hill you want to die on.

I mean see above about using a spell slot to obviate a skill roll and attempting to redesign the entire knowledge rules or skill system from scratch, but also they will "encourage minmaxxers to have pets cast these spells to offload the ACTION COST"? Uh........ if someone wants to offload the cost that's fine! The entire point is that it's a supplement to the knowledge rules, so it's weird that you think this spell is super mandatory and also useless because the knowledge rules give this information, but like...... are we talking about the same action? 99% of characters don't use an immediate action on 99% of their turns! I don't think offloading the action cost is very important! If people want to do it, that's fine.

I didn't discuss the research spell specifically, i personally find it offputting and off flavor -- spells that explicitly break the 4th wall and expose the mechanical underpinning are just not for me. It makes me feel like I'm inside some isekai where I can pull up my 'status' screen and invoke my 'item box', which might be what you're going for, but yeah it's entirely a flavor issue for me, perhaps if it was worded in a way that didn't so jarringly break the 4th wall would make me feel better about it. Otherwise the spell is fine, although giving away the individual stat block of the particular creature is maybe a little too powerful for the level, returning the generic stat block might be more appropriate level-wise, with a higher level spell returning particular stat blocks of individuls.

Sorry, are you complaining about it saying "stat block" or are you complaining about it giving the information that Bob the level 10 Wizard you saw 10 minutes ago had specific spells prepared or wore specific items when you talk about it breaking the 4th wall? Because you can get the information about what spells someone has prepared and items worn without breaking the 4th wall, but also, separately, the words stat block, while actually about the 4th wall, are simply clearly the best way to refer to the information, instead of listing each component of a stat block in order as things players can get. I don't see why "stat block" is any MORE 4th wall breaking then when Fireball says [1d6 per caster level fire damage] which is also a reference to meta knowledge. It's a spell description.

As to the power, I guess I'm just not worried? It takes 10 minutes to cast, gives you information that won't necessarily be useful or even true when you get it, and it has a will save attached. Some pretty basic protections even tell receipents about you when you cast it. I doubt it would ever be too powerful, but it is certainly intended to be useful at least sometimes. I don't necessarily think it should be split over levels since both effects seem to be comparably powerful. It could probably be a different level spell, but I don't see why 3 would be a problem as opposed to 4. Do you have any reason for thinking this spell is too powerful at 3rd level but fine at 4th?

yes, that's correct, the level thresholds can be adjusted as needed, but this suggestion is from the perspective of tier play -- finding something within a shorter distance than 'anywhere in this plane' seems like the sort of utility a lower tier character would definitely want and not need on a full planar basis, indeed, i think if a tier 1 character casts a spell and the answer is 'on another planet' or essentially far outside their tier scope, that's just sort of bad, you want the spells characters have access to to give them relevant information that isn't moot because it belongs to another tier of play.

It gives the location of the closest X. If the closest X is within 1000ft it tells you about the one within 1000ft. If the closest X is light years away, it tells you that. In what way would a spell that gives the information "not within 1000ft, try casting this spell again after marching 2000ft" be BETTER if the answer is that something is on another planet? Just tell the players it's on another planet so they can give up until they level up.

I am still a bit confused. Both spells have a casting time of ten minutes -- so lets say i start casting the spell, when the spell finishes, it tells me at that moment where the kidnapped king is? (or does it tell me where the king was 10 minutes ago?) -- and if i teleport (does the spell give me any special advantages to teleport, must i still be independently familiar with the location, does the spell provide a 'seen once' or different familiarity or none? Anyway, assuming I teleport the round after I cast the spell -- if the king is gone, are you saying the kidnappers themselves teleported or otherwise moved between the round i finished the spell and round after where I casted teleport?

1) The effects of spells happen after the cast time completes, so you would get the information the round after you finished casting the spell, and if you teleported that round and missed the king, it would mean the kidnappers teleported with the King that round, so you could cast Trace Teleport that round and follow them potentially.

Presumably if your enemies have access to teleport they are teleporting every round until they get behing 40ft of material or into the Lead Prison Cell, since those effects would both block any divination attempt to find the King they kidnapped.

2) The spell would allow you to potentially target locations with Greater Teleport you otherwise wouldn't be able to by giving you info of what to target, but would not allow Teleport to reach a location you could not otherwise target. If it's a place you've been, perhaps you still could.

Going to the level 7 example, if it gives me an answer of where they will be, is that when in time? the next day? the next round? Are you suggesting in play all of these details are just abstracted away and in play you would just say 'and you show up at the crossroads where the king is'? That playloop is not standard for 3.5, typically 3.5 deals in absolutes and particulars, so what sort of knowledge is the level 7 spell really giving the character and the player?

It tells you when as well as where, as specified in the spell, "This might mean “Go to this dungeon take a left, right, left, straight, left, straight, down, straight, up, right” or it could mean go to this location and wait a week to ambush the possessor on the road" Which shows that if the answer is to wait a week, it tells you to wait a week.

Some questions I would have for the two spells, do they inform me of any traps or bypass traps? presumably only the most direct path is presented? the obtain spell says 'best way', is that best way incorporating my stat block and abilities, what about stat blocks and abilities of my allies, or other PCs? If the best way is to walk up to random stranger in town x and say 'i am the night, you are the day, we live apart forever' and person x then teleports you there or even maybe just summons the item and hands it to you, is that sort of thing going to be included in the spell? If the best way is to 'wish' for it, but you don't have access for it, will the spell tell you to use wish or will it skip that solution and offer the next best solution the caster can implement? It's all very vague. These spells in particular are very hard to adjudicate and the current language and examples are not helping me.

The spell takes into account your current abilities and even the current abilities of people who will aid you, and it even determines who will aid you. For example, as spelled out in the Locate spell: "best way you could reach their current location including weird shit like if the best way is to go get someone in town to teleport you to a specific location to wait 4 days to get on a boat that is going to sail into the MALESTORM" This means the spell takes into account your own current abilities (lack of teleport, possibly the ability to pay money for services), the abilities of another person in town willing to teleport you, and even that a specific boat will come to a specific location in 4 days time and be willing to take you onboard.

Another question, if say the person is aware the obtain spell has been casted successfully, it suggests they can do nothing to pervert the meeting, but what if they have access to a domain that is otherwise inaccessible to the PC? like a timeless demiplane or perhaps a gods planar realm -- how is that adjudicated, does the spell retroactively fail, does the person under it's effect become too incompetent suddenly to engage with their plan? what if it's cast on an item and in response the item is destroyed?

If you cast this spell Targetting the level 17 Wizard Jim who lives on his own personal Demiplane created with Genesis that no one else can enter, and for some reason he doesn't cast the spell Mindblank every day because he enjoys doing Hypno play with his Succubus girlfriend, and he will literally never, under any circumstances, ever, in the next 6 trillion years, leave this plane for any reason, then it will tell you to find some way of using Wish to spam transport travellers. If he also, in addition to waiting 6 trillion years, uses Dimensional Shackles in his play, then it probably tells you how to find someone his Succubus gf cares about and threaten them and give them a scroll of Sending to get the Succubus to suggest that Jim leave his plane to save whomever.

If there's no possible way to convince his Succubus GF, then it spits a null result. But if he simply casts Mindblank then it does that way beforehand! Broken items can be fixed with magic that fixes things in most cases, but if it's truly unfixable sure. But if someone's willing to break an item in response to a spell they probably DIDN'T know was cast (because the item gets the knowledge not them, but maybe it's sentient and told them) then they probably should have broken it before you cast the spell instead of after, in response.

divinations certainly need a fix, but so far i'm not sure you're going far enough, these fixes seem to be mostly smoothing out some of your home game experiences and might be hard for anyone else to really implement given how particular it is and the other homebrew assumptions that seem to be at play here. To confirm, these fixes are meant for a 3.5 game, a 3.5 tome game? your 3.5 tome homebrew game?

Besides "rewrite the knowledge rules for the 4th time" how am I not going far enough? What do you think divinations spells should do that aren't done under my proposed sample spells? Most of your specific suggestions seem to be about how you want spells to use Upcasting, a thing that doesn't really make sense for Wizards or Clerics in 3.5 where they cannot spontaneously use a higher level slot. So much so that it seems like upcasting is a thing you want to add to spells without any concrete reason why stretching the effects over multiple levels would make anything better.

any changes to the scrying sensor besides being able to rotate it and explicitly stating your view from it isn't cut off after 10 feet? The big one for me is scrying a location instead of a creature. 5e actually fixed this and you can now scry any location you've seen before. Another more minor issue is with the sensor being invisible and ' any creature with an Intelligence score of 12 or higher can notice the sensor by making a DC 20 Intelligence check' is that being kept? And the focus, it's been my head cannon that whatever the scrying sensor sees is displayed on that focus, so if you're using a pool or mirror and others are there they see on that focus what the sensor sees, curious where you line up on that, is the focus largely ignored and any sights seen is done independently and internally by the caster?

1) You can already scry a location in 3.5. You would simply use the Wizard 6, Cleric/Druid 7th spell Scry Location.

2) I think the scrying sensor rules are fine as is. I think Detect Scrying, a high enough spot check, see invisibility, and a high Int check to notice distortions in light is a sufficiently diverse and acceptable set of scry identifiers, and feel no particular reason to subtract or add to it. Primarily become detecting the scrying but it still happening is one of the more interesting results for both the scryee and the scryer, and leads to the best game outcomes.

3) I too agree that though it is not specified in the rules, your scrying view should appear in the pool or water/mirror, and allow someone else watching with you to teleport or simply know the information if that becomes relevant.

[merxa]

[Making a completely new skill system that doesn't suck shit, and then inventing a knowledge system that doesn't suck shit is outside the scope of a the divination rework. You are welcome to do so on your own time. I've personally made up three different knowledge rules, and seen other people make up knowledge rules, and I've never seen a single one that was worth actually reading and using or having your players ever roll a single skill check for, including two of the three knowledge rules I've written. (The third one doesn't use skill checks and is for a non D&D system.)

I guess I am not so down on the basic skill system chassis, maybe the numbers and DCs are not right, but that all seems fixable. 3e has enough cruft that maybe it's inescapable. I've run a simple knowledge check house rule, mostly just from pathfinder 1 knowledge check rules (under monster lore), for each piece of useful information the PC gets to know the answer to one question they have about the creature, and if one PC gets 5 or more questions I typically hand over the stat block. Otherwise typical questions might be 'saves' or AC, or more broad like diet, habits, typical attitudes. There's certainly some rough edges to this, but some variation of this has been effective at my table for many years.

Removing the skills that give skill bonuses is the surest possible way to make the skill system worse, because it again forces the players to engage with the dogshit system that currently exists.

In particular, as the knowledge rules currently exist, you might be fighting a monster and 1) No one in the party has Knowledge Local or Knowledge Dungeoneering, so you literally can never know anything about it using the skill system even if you leave, go level up 10 times and come back. or 2) You just roll bad on a knowledge check, and now you can never know anything about the monster during this fight. Both of those are fail states created by the dogshit skill system even if you rewrote the knowledge rules to be slightly better but still use the skill system.

Allowing the party Cleric to cast Detect Traps or Detect Secret Doors is BETTER then locking all such doors enternally behind forcing the players to take those skills and roll a bunch, and likewise, giving the Wizard and Cleric the possibility to spend a spell slot to learn stuff about a monster in combat if they want to spend a slot is way better way to allow them to get that information then to tell them to go cast Psychic Reformation to respec their character to have the correct knowledge skills.

We're really on two sides of a divide here. Sometimes PCs won't have some skill or spell, and that's ok, PCs are often highly adaptable and dynamic. And if PCs fail a roll, that's also ok, PCs logically aren't going to succeed on every d20 they make, and probably would quit playing if they did. Generally I believe a single PC shouldn't be able to do everything, but as a group should cover 90% or so of their level expected challenges -- I'm making up a number, but the basic notion is as a group the PCs should have nearly all the tools they need, maybe not literally every tool, but the majority of the expected ones. So Maybe they don't happen to have knock, but someone else can pick locks, or can dig through walls or flow through as a gas or a ghost etc.

Handing out class features as a single spell slot was bad, still bad, and will likely always be bad. Perhaps from your perspective that ship has sailed, you are deep in 3.5 territory where everything in the game has been turned into a spell practically, so unless you are going to turn all that off or start with a fresh system, i could see it being a bit daunting. Still, fix your home games skill system, it's certainly possible.

Sorry, are you complaining about it saying "stat block" or are you complaining about it giving the information that Bob the level 10 Wizard you saw 10 minutes ago had specific spells prepared or wore specific items when you talk about it breaking the 4th wall? Because you can get the information about what spells someone has prepared and items worn without breaking the 4th wall, but also, separately, the words stat block, while actually about the 4th wall, are simply clearly the best way to refer to the information, instead of listing each component of a stat block in order as things players can get. I don't see why "stat block" is any MORE 4th wall breaking then when Fireball says [1d6 per caster level fire damage] which is also a reference to meta knowledge. It's a spell description.

yes, pretty much. Perhaps it's petty of me. Honestly, if you took the words 'stat block' and instead described that notion in twenty words instead, i'd probably be fine with it. It really is just a flavor/fluff sort of thing.

It gives the location of the closest X. If the closest X is within 1000ft it tells you about the one within 1000ft. If the closest X is light years away, it tells you that. In what way would a spell that gives the information "not within 1000ft, try casting this spell again after marching 2000ft" be BETTER if the answer is that something is on another planet? Just tell the players it's on another planet so they can give up until they level up.

my point is this locate effect should be available at a lower level, perhaps as a level 1 or level 2 spell slot, however I wouldn't want a level 1 or 2 spell to extend across the entire plane -- that's fine at level 4 or 5, not 1 or 2, and upcasting as a mechanic seems like a simple solution to me -- you only need to write one spell (and therefore you only need to really understand how it works with this one spell, instead of being forced to parse and memorize the logic of 3 or 4 spells, this just good design, it reduces cognitive load and makes running and playing the game just that much easier and faster).

The spell takes into account your current abilities and even the current abilities of people who will aid you, and it even determines who will aid you. For example, as spelled out in the Locate spell: "best way you could reach their current location including weird shit like if the best way is to go get someone in town to teleport you to a specific location to wait 4 days to get on a boat that is going to sail into the MALESTORM" This means the spell takes into account your own current abilities (lack of teleport, possibly the ability to pay money for services), the abilities of another person in town willing to teleport you, and even that a specific boat will come to a specific location in 4 days time and be willing to take you onboard.

The examples provided have been helpful, I feel I could adjudicate these spells now in play, although the obtain spell still has some difficult edge cases (which admittedly get mostly swept away by mindblank, but I still see a few null return states). I think I would change the wording from 'best way' to 'good' or 'effective' way/means. Best is too easy to get tripped up over, GMs are only human and truly informing someone of the 'best' method is practically impossible, but if you simply say it will be effective or very good, then there's some wiggle room and even if the PCs later on discover there may have been a better method it doesn't violate the logic of the spell, otherwise if the PCs determine later on they had a better means, then you're stuck making up retroactive bullshit or admitting the obvious -- you're human and this is only a game.

Besides "rewrite the knowledge rules for the 4th time" how am I not going far enough? What do you think divinations spells should do that aren't done under my proposed sample spells? Most of your specific suggestions seem to be about how you want spells to use Upcasting, a thing that doesn't really make sense for Wizards or Clerics in 3.5 where they cannot spontaneously use a higher level slot. So much so that it seems like upcasting is a thing you want to add to spells without any concrete reason why stretching the effects over multiple levels would make anything better.

I have a few concrete suggestions. Roll scry location (an obscure spell from a splat book) into the scry spell. Remove your level 2 spell and fix your skill system. reword research spell so it doesn't as jarringly break the 4th wall. Implement a locate spell for lower level characters. Reword the locate/obtain mcguffin spells so they are easier to adjudicate and run.

Yes, in 5e since ever caster works like a pathfinder arcanist, upcasting is implemented more elegantly. But upcasting itself is an effective mechanic, as I explained earlier, it reduces spell overhead, reduces complexity, reduces cognitive load.

Going over your post, your typical go to answer has been a spell. I think spells are an effective touch stone to use in discussion because to me they are saying I think this sort of ability should be available at this sort of level, but if literally these abilities are only spells it becomes a bit of a problem, I mean not being a spellcaster in 3.5 is just not a valid life choice for an adventurer.

Spells you mentioned: Scry location (from complete scoundrel), Trace Teleport (must be from some psionic book? only Psion/Wilder apparently have it in their spell list), Psychic Reformation (probably the same book, again only psion/wilder) -- a PC not having access to these abilities seems much more likely than not being able to interact with the skill system, a core part of the system that was presented in the original players handbook. 3.5 has enough spells, too many spells, and writing more spells I don't think is the fix. You want to reduce spells, consolidate spells, provide alternative abilities to spells, but again maybe this is all past the point of no return, if everyone is always playing a spell caster than maybe this is the way to go for your group. It just, to me, it's deep in the weeds when you need to step back and tackle some of these things more holistically.

[Kaelik]

1) It's very interesting in that your big speech about how the skill system is great and I'm dumb for wanting people to succeed on all D20 rolls you eventually just came around to "Yeah it's actually fine for there to be 12 different ways to get past a door and ignore the skill system" which was the thing that I said when pointing out that the spell is fine. Again "identifying important facets of the monster" is not a "class feature" in the sense of being an essential part of a character, and it seems perfectly fine for the wizard or cleric to have an option to do that instead of requiring the entire party to coordinate their knowledge ranks across characters to always have a roll.

2) Have you ever played a 3.5 Cleric or Wizard? It doesn't actually matter if you think upcasting is a good mechanic, it is not a thing that 3.5 Wizards or Clerics can DO. They literally can't. Are you now saying someone should rewrite the entire Wizard and Cleric class in addition to the entire skills system in a divination rewrite?

3) I think you are corrrect that the word "best" could be replaced with a more specific term. Not actually concerned about the superlative part, but specificity in this would be good.

4) I provided an example of the spells Teleport and Trace Teleport in response to you asking a question about teleporting. I provided the example of Scry Location to you suggesting I should modify the scry spell to scry locations. I provided Psychic Reformation as a sarcastic example of how bad the skills system are, that the way to learn new information about a type of monster you didn't put ranks in at character creation is to go find a Psion to cast a power with an XP cost to respec your entire character starting from level 1 so you can choose different skill ranks, which is to say, a really shitty option. Your attempt to condemn me for bringing up spells which proves I'm just a filth Caster Player who's opinion should be disregarded in a Divination rewrite because I keep trying to address a Divination rewrite by writing Divination spells is more then a little incoherent as a criticism.

[Foxwarrior]

2) Have you ever played a 3.5 Cleric or Wizard? It doesn't actually matter if you think upcasting is a good mechanic, it is not a thing that 3.5 Wizards or Clerics can DO. They literally can't. Are you now saying someone should rewrite the entire Wizard and Cleric class in addition to the entire skills system in a divination rewrite?

Ahaha, but you have missed a thing: upcasting has been available to 3.5e wizards for longer than 5e has existed! https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Summon_Monster_(3.5e_Spell), for one example, but there are a couple others on the wiki that are just hard to find...

Yeah it hardly matters because it just saves you a spell known at the higher level, but it's mildly convenient for reading purposes because you don't have to write a new spell block! (which just says "as Lesser Locate X, except with a range of anywhere on this plane")

That said, I'm not sure it's better to make spells have a gradient of power instead of just having one spell at a reachable level that does the thing. You get a lot more of a feeling of progression and change if you actually unlock new powers that change how you play instead of only slightly better versions of old things.

[Kaelik]

2) Have you ever played a 3.5 Cleric or Wizard? It doesn't actually matter if you think upcasting is a good mechanic, it is not a thing that 3.5 Wizards or Clerics can DO. They literally can't. Are you now saying someone should rewrite the entire Wizard and Cleric class in addition to the entire skills system in a divination rewrite?

Ahaha, but you have missed a thing: upcasting has been available to 3.5e wizards for longer than 5e has existed! https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Summon_Monster_(3.5e_Spell), for one example, but there are a couple others on the wiki that are just hard to find...

Yeah it hardly matters because it just saves you a spell known at the higher level, but it's mildly convenient for reading purposes because you don't have to write a new spell block! (which just says "as Lesser Locate X, except with a range of anywhere on this plane")

That said, I'm not sure it's better to make spells have a gradient of power instead of just having one spell at a reachable level that does the thing. You get a lot more of a feeling of progression and change if you actually unlock new powers that change how you play instead of only slightly better versions of old things.

Upcasting is the mechanic of choosing what spell level you cast the spell at when you cast it, not the mechanic of being able to prepare a single spell in higher level slots, which is a thing Wizards could already do with Metamagic feats.