Weal or Woe?

[Quasqueton]

Augury
An augury can tell you whether a particular action will bring good or bad results for you in the immediate future.
The base chance for receiving a meaningful reply is 70% + 1% per caster level, to a maximum of 90%; this roll is made secretly. A question may be so straightforward that a successful result is automatic, or so vague as to have no chance of success. If the augury succeeds, you get one of four results:
• Weal (if the action will probably bring good results).
• Woe (for bad results).
• Weal and woe (for both).
• Nothing (for actions that don’t have especially good or bad results).
If the spell fails, you get the “nothing” result. A cleric who gets the “nothing” result has no way to tell whether it was the consequence of a failed or successful augury.
The augury can see into the future only about half an hour, so anything that might happen after that does not affect the result. Thus, the result might not take into account the long-term consequences of a contemplated action. All auguries cast by the same person about the same topic use the same dice result as the first casting.

How do you judge weal or woe?

For instance, say a party of four 4th-level characters are about to enter a cave. As DM, you know a troll lives there. A troll is CR 5 -- a hard fight for the party, someone could die, or they could defeat it without too much (relatively) trouble. If they beat it, they get a decent-sized treasure horde. How would you answer an augury asking about entering this cave?

What if the troll had no treasure -- woe?

What if the party was 10th level -- nothing? Or weal because of easy treasure?

Say there is a pit trap with spikes at the entrance to this cave -- is this necessarily a woe?

I'm kind of confused as to what constitutes a weal or woe answer. Of course, if the 4th-level party were about to encounter Orcus -- that would be woe. But what does a challenging, but not overwhelmingly powerful or dismissively weak, encounter rate on the weal/woe chart?

Quasqueton

 

[the Jester]

How do you judge weal or woe?

For instance, say a party of four 4th-level characters are about to enter a cave. As DM, you know a troll lives there. A troll is CR 5 -- a hard fight for the party, someone could die, or they could defeat it without too much (relatively) trouble. If they beat it, they get a decent-sized treasure horde. How would you answer an augury asking about entering this cave?

Weal and woe.

What if the troll had no treasure -- woe?

Prolly woe, yeah.

What if the party was 10th level -- nothing? Or weal because of easy treasure?

I'd say weal. Free treasure is good (even though it isn't really quite free).

Say there is a pit trap with spikes at the entrance to this cave -- is this necessarily a woe?

How likely is the party to find the pit? How bad will the pit likely hurt someone?

I'm kind of confused as to what constitutes a weal or woe answer. Of course, if the 4th-level party were about to encounter Orcus -- that would be woe. But what does a challenging, but not overwhelmingly powerful or dismissively weak, encounter rate on the weal/woe chart?

Probably weal and woe. Heavy danger with heavy rewards, basically. Think of it as a scale; it this more likely to cause you ill or good or both or neither?

 

[Nareau]

Something to remember: It's not the DM who's supposed to be giving the answer...it's the god. So the glory of dying in battle might qualify as weal for a priest of Orcus. And a pile of treasure might not register as anything to a god of self-deprivation or poverty.

That said, it's something that requires good foresight on the DM's part. I've seen a party of 4th level characters get mauled by a troll...so unless there were unusual circumstances:
Troll with treasure = weal and woe
Troll without treasure = woe
10th level party = nothing (unless the treasure is pretty big)
Pit trap = trolls tend to be more dangerous than pit traps. But it really depends on the situation.

Think of it this way: If you were one of your players, and you had taken the precaution to cast Augury before heading into the cave...would you be angry at the DM when he gave you "weal" for a pit-trapped troll-cave? Probably. This isn't rocket science...it's pretty much just a judgement call.

Spider