Are scry durations too short?

[theNater]

If the enemy is a different race, you'll have trouble finding a spy to insert, and even if you succeed, it'll take weeks for them to work their way into the enemy's confidences, whereas casting a scrying spell takes an hour.

A spy need not be trusted by the enemy. Stealth, Bluff, Disguise Self(wizard 6), and the Hallucinatory Item ritual all provide ways for a spy to observe planning sessions without the targets knowing that an untrusted individual is present.

And if you have no lines of communication to the enemy camp, you can't acquire an informant, and even if you could it'd be difficult to assess their reliability.

An informant can be acquired by kidnapping. Discern Lies permits an easy way to assess their reliability.

Consult Oracle will gain you sketchy, possibly ambiguous information, and relies largely on you knowing which questions to ask.

True enough. Consult Oracle is only good if you already have a fairly clear idea, and can ask precise questions, or if a rough idea is sufficient.

Scrying, uniquely, lets you see your target first-hand, giving you a clear, unambiguous view of who they are, what they're like, and what they're doing.

Indeed it does. But who they are and what they are doing can be ascertained in less than a round.

What they are like can take longer to figure out, depending on what they are doing during the scry. However, the people who develop psychological profiles for law enforcement agencies can tell you that you don't need to observe a person to get a feel for what they are like.

What otherwise unavailable information do you gain by watching them for an hour, once you know who they are?

 

[Lizard]

Where is Osama bin Laden? Is he even still alive?

*Casts scry and figures out the answer to both the above questions and cashes in on the reward a few days later*

Try and convince me that you would not use a Scrying ritual in that, or a similar, situation.

"He's in a cave. You get a very nice look at some very boring sandstone. You see him reading a book, maybe it's the Koran, you're not sure. Another old man in a beard comes in and begins to talk to him. Vision ends. Wanna pay another 100K gold?"

 

[Ahglock]

"He's in a cave. You get a very nice look at some very boring sandstone. You see him reading a book, maybe it's the Koran, you're not sure. Another old man in a beard comes in and begins to talk to him. Vision ends. Wanna pay another 100K gold?"

And that is assuming one the person is protecting themselves versus scrying It is more expensive but take a short vacation in another plane and this ritual does nothing. If Osama if hanging out in the city of brass you get squat.

And two you know who you are looking for like in the osama example. What happens if you are looking for the killer of the king. Wearing a mask, keeping literally under wraps will thwart this for a few CP.

And basically every time you have a good enough reason to cast scry, somene has a much better reason to stop you. So unless you are using this to catch who stole the apples off your tree it probably will fail.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, given the DM is going to decide what you see when scrying, it boils down to this:

Scrying is exactly as effective as the DM wants it to be. If the DM would like you to find out something relevant, you will. Otherwise you won't.

 

[Lizard]

Well, given the DM is going to decide what you see when scrying, it boils down to this:

Scrying is exactly as effective as the DM wants it to be. If the DM would like you to find out something relevant, you will. Otherwise you won't.

Which leads to the problem of "Why not just use a Streetwise check?" (Or some other skill which you'll have at a huge bonus by the time you're ready to use scry?)

I really see the issue here from all sides. I understand that no one wants a "Screw Plot" spell in the game -- not even players, if they understand that the "fun" in the game doesn't come from "beating the DM". OTOH, you ALSO don't want to turn the game into "You lowly PCs sit there and let me, the DM, tell you my amazing story!" You give PCs abilities, they should get to use them, and if they use a potent, and EXPENSIVE, magical power, it should give them a concrete edge that "mundane" skills do not. It's a very complex dance, and involves a lot of social contract stuff, "implied assumptions", and so on.

I don't envy the designers having to tackle this issue, and while I do think they over-reacted to reported abuses of scry in 3x, I do understand their motivations and concerns.

 

[theNater]

And basically every time you have a good enough reason to cast scry, somene has a much better reason to stop you.

How is this related to scrying durations? If the PCs are dealing with foes who will block "find out who they are" scrys, aren't they also dealing with foes who will block "listen in on their planning session" scrys?

 

[Folly]

The issue I have with the short duration vs long duration stems from the "And basically every time you have a good enough reason to cast scry, somene has a much better reason to stop you." statement. This is true because the DM decides the target would takes such measures. Further scrying has always been at the whim of the DM as to how effective it is, consequently how effective the spell is has hardly changed. What has change is how believable the spell is, and how that impacts suspicion of disbelief. The issue with the spell is not what it provides or doesn't. Its not that the information is not available via different means. The problem comes from the player looking at the spell and thinking about how much information is truely available with a 30 second view time and how that affects their reaction to the information gained from the spell. Scrying having such a short duration causes cognitive dissonance within the player.

And before someone says that you get a persons identity with a 30s view. Ask yourself if you would recognize the person who stole your car stereo? So the information you actually get is what they look like for the 30s of the view. If they happen to be disguised or in some other manor obstructed from the sensor that information is even in question.

 

[theNater]

The problem comes from the player looking at the spell and thinking about how much information is truely available with a 30 second view time and how that affects their reaction to the information gained from the spell. Scrying having such a short duration causes cognitive dissonance within the player.

I suspect the cognitive dissonance is the result of the fact that the duration has changed. Does 30 seconds feel wrong because it's inappropriate for scrying, or because earlier editions had longer scrys?

Think about fantasy movies and stories wherein the hero goes to a sage for a vision. The sage engages in some ritual motions, possibly chanting and applying powders, then an image of the target appears. It hangs in the air/mirror/water for a few seconds, then fades away. This is how 4th edition scrying works, and it's not inherently any more bizarre than 3rd edition scrying.

And before someone says that you get a persons identity with a 30s view. Ask yourself if you would recognize the person who stole your car stereo?

It depends. While they're stealing my stereo, are they sitting upright in the car, looking down at the stereo, while I watch through the windshield? Or do they have their head down next to the stereo, while I'm running towards the car and yelling at them to stop? In the first case, I'll certainly be able to identify them. In the second case, I've got a moderately good chance to pick them out of a lineup, but probably wouldn't recognize them on a crowded street.

Scrying is generally going to be more like the first scenario, because the sensor can be anywhere near them, and the observer is likely to be relaxed and able to focus.

So the information you actually get is what they look like for the 30s of the view. If they happen to be disguised or in some other manor obstructed from the sensor that information is even in question.

If they are usually disguised in that manner, than you can still identify them just fine. You won't know what they look like out of disguise, but that's only a problem if they only wear the disguise while being the target of a scry. As the sensor is "a shimmer in the air", I am under the impression that it takes up no space, so it can be right in front of the target's face if necessary. A DM actively making the spell unhelpful is not a failing of the spell.

 

[MarkB]

I suspect the cognitive dissonance is the result of the fact that the duration has changed. Does 30 seconds feel wrong because it's inappropriate for scrying, or because earlier editions had longer scrys?

Think about fantasy movies and stories wherein the hero goes to a sage for a vision. The sage engages in some ritual motions, possibly chanting and applying powders, then an image of the target appears. It hangs in the air/mirror/water for a few seconds, then fades away. This is how 4th edition scrying works, and it's not inherently any more bizarre than 3rd edition scrying.

Sure, and as payment you cross the sage's palm with silver. If you're crossing his palm with twenty-one thousand gold pieces in order to gaze into his 10,000 gp deluxe widescreen scrying orb, you might well expect the full length movie rather than just the trailer.

 

[Lizard]

This can easily be solved by changing the description/flavor text of Scry. Instead of "You watch the subject", make it "You may specify a particular moment in a person's life to watch", and make it two skill checks: The first is History, to see if you can "Tune in" at all, and the DC should be 20+1/2 target level, or the like. A second check is made to see how much of the specified event you get to see -- use the current rules. If you fail to "tune in", you expend only 1/10th the usual resources and only a minute of time, and can try again tomorrow.

Presto! No more cogdis, because scrying explicitly becomes the Gilligans Island Radio.