Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

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Anomandaris
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Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Anomandaris » Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:28 pm

Curve wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:01 pm
Jordenk wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 6:26 pm
Some good points but making it easier to tell you’re being scried, let alone by whom specifically, would be the final nail in the coffin for this ability.

Knowing you’re being scried is another failure condition that results in zero information gain, as the person knows you’re watching. So it’s only useful when you’re maybe running a gank squad and can get to them fast. I think it’s cool that diviner’s can tell but otherwise would hate to see this expanded.

Adding the fact that you could find out “who” is scrying through some roll or check would just make it EVEN worse. And what would you get, their true name? That’s a major consequence for many PCs, I mean MAJOR if you’re running a double life. Maybe you could know what region they’re in or what race, really general info, but otherwise it would turn scry from tedious, fairly ineffective and low ROI to a pretty terrible ability.
This feels extreme. What you are saying is that there is absolutely no counter-measure or way to make scrying at least somewhat interactive that would not ruin scrying. Is that your opinion? Do you have any ideas how to introduce reasonable counter-measures or ways to make scrying more interactive?
Jordenk wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 6:26 pm
I’ve found out who scried me on multiple occasions as a mundane PC without even knowing I was being scried at the time, all by good old fashioned means. They take action, write a report or any number of scenarios that cause them to show up on your radar. With some counter intel rp you find out oh, this persons doing this, it was a private meeting, they know “x” they prob scried me. It just take some rp and effort. Scry becomes impactful when you 1) find info and 2) do something with that info. So that action (fairly often) presents the opportunity for the person being scried to figure out who’s involved. Furthermore, who can scry is often very easily discoverable IC info, so it’s not hard to guess who might be spying on you.
It's hard to base server policy or changes on one person's experience with things like you say above being easy. I don't doubt that you can see a world where not everyone's experience is the same as yours. Those players have to be accounted for too.
Jordenk wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 6:26 pm
it’s no longer filling its role and becomes just bad from a feat/resource/risk to value standpoint.
Two questions:
1) What is the role of scrying?
2) What is an acceptable ratio of feat/resource/risk to value?
Good questions and points. If folks found consensus on the two questions I think we'd be closer to a meaningful solution. I'll mention I did hint at a few ways, vaguer information and, like XXX posted after, revealing this info after the scry duration to not spoil the successful scry's efficacy.

I'll still argue that revealing someone's true name is too big a penalty for a low ROI. It's a secret many PCs keep their whole life. It's something only knowable thus far by actually telling someone or being metagamed. Having some div dip mega save sorc know your name cuz you scried them and they hit a 60 DC will save like nothing sounds cheesy and awful.

I'm also not sure Scry needs to be "interactive" as an action itself. It creates interactive RP as a byproduct, otherwise you're just sitting there watching people and doing nothing, at which point who cares. So scry itself being interactive shouldn't be this holy benchmark we measure the quality of its implementation against.

Also there are plenty of countermeasures to prevent Scry from "working." It's significantly easier to stop someone from scrying than it is to scry someone, that's a pretty hard and fast fact that is big factor to remember.

1) IMO Scry should serve these roles:
-Facilitating what I'll bucket as "non-consensual meetups." I.e. finding someone and showing up when they don't want you to and won't tell you where you are. Could be pvp or other "conflict/hostile" rp.
-Countering the closed, locked door meetings and secretive actions that are otherwise rely exclusively on a risky and heavily optimized stealth maneuver. It's just another option to gather info besides stealth and with locked doors, countermeasures etc, it's nice to have variety and options. If you care about interactivity this is a big one as people plotting for hours without getting caught is not interactive. Also doing it remotely across the server without knowing where the meeting is or if it's even happening is huge, because people don't announce on the boards "super secret faction meeting to discuss xyz" prior, so you just gotta canvas your targets and hope to get lucky. Doing this in person, physically is tedious and WAY lower % chance to find anything happening.
-Maybe meetups with friends? But it's pretty easy to find ppl with speedies, illusions, wisps, portals and so on. But sure this too.


2) I think the question should be what's the efficacy to value ratio, not risk. Who cares if there's risk or not? There's no risks to a lot of things in Arelith, that's fine. If you want to DO something about what you've scried, now it's risky. That's what matters.

Three feats (one epic), or LM secret, spell comps (unless div) and time is the investment. I like that there are countermeasures and it's set up that if you're thorough and reasonably smart, you can pretty much never get scried (though I could argue the recently added FOIG countermeasure is too much). Enough people don't use them consistently enough that Scrying is "useful." In order to change how "annoying" it is to use however and slightly increase it's use, removing the CD trigger on a failed attempt would be the only change I'd suggest. It'd make the investment a little more meaningful and less of a headache to leverage without fundamentally changing how it works via nerf or buff.
Last edited by Anomandaris on Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

xanrael
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Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by xanrael » Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:31 pm

-XXX- wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:04 pm
Perhaps if any PC were to be alerted that they've been just scried AFTER the scrying session has just concluded with a random chance of revealing the diviner, then:
:arrow: it would have removed the issue with people stopping doing whatever they're doing as they do when they learn about scrying attempts in real time
:arrow: it would have removed the gank-squad problem, as the target would have been alerted that it might have been a good time for a change of scenery
:arrow: it would have introduced a risk to scrying
I think this has merit, though I will say if a secret plan was scried upon and you have a 100% chance of knowing that, then that plan would probably be scrapped/changed vastly decreasing the value of the information.

Maybe for a target with no protection there is a very low chance (5-10%) that the scrying sensor gives itself away at the beginning, and a 25% chance at the end.

When scrying, you can toggle to attempt to break through defenses at a low chance. If you do and fail, it immediately alerts them someone tried and failed and they get no other information.

If you succeed there is still that very low chance at the beginning but 100% chance at the end of it being detected. When they get the alert they also get the zone name and investigative description of the scryer. This adds a bit of risk to the scryer for potentially more reward but it's an optional thing if they want to risk it.

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-XXX-
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Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by -XXX- » Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:53 pm

xanrael wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:31 pm
I think this has merit, though I will say if a secret plan was scried upon and you have a 100% chance of knowing that, then that plan would probably be scrapped/changed vastly decreasing the value of the information.
Well, it would still have foiled that plan, wouldn't it? Setting a trap and catching people red-handed solely based on the information obtained through scrying sounds a little lame TBH - the reward seems pretty major for the effort given.
Jordenk wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:28 pm
I'll still argue that revealing someone's true name is too big a penalty for a low ROI. It's a secret many PCs keep their whole life. It's something only knowable thus far by actually telling someone or being metagamed. Having some div dip mega save sorc know your name cuz you scried them and they hit a 60 DC will save like nothing sounds cheesy and awful.
I don't think that it would have needed to outright spell out the diviner's name - could've been some vague info like the deck of stars gives or something. Personally I am indifferent about the details here. I'm merely concerned about the direction that the coders have taken and am pointing out alternatives.

xanrael
Posts: 507
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 5:13 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by xanrael » Thu Apr 22, 2021 8:08 pm

-XXX- wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:53 pm
xanrael wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:31 pm
I think this has merit, though I will say if a secret plan was scried upon and you have a 100% chance of knowing that, then that plan would probably be scrapped/changed vastly decreasing the value of the information.
Well, it would still have foiled that plan, wouldn't it? Setting a trap and catching people red-handed solely based on the information obtained through scrying sounds a little lame TBH - the reward seems pretty major for the effort given.
One thing leaving it to chance does is the scryer doesn't know for sure if target knows what they said was comprimised or not, and I added the small chance at the beginning so the scryer also doesn't know with certainty if the information is real or not. So the target could know they were scried but pretend they were ignorant and reap benefits from it both if they detected it as the scry started or after the fact by not modifying much of the plan but setting a trap. It still favors the one scrying for any one instance, but the more attempts the greater the chance they're going to run into issues.

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