Epic Divination Scrying

[Gazfrost]

Divinations Scrying

I decided to take this feat thinking it be so cool to spy on other characters (for RP reasons ) but found Scrying is not as good as one hopes.
It turns out that it fails a lot of the time, because of 1 simple 4th level spell that most players use all the time unless they are standing idle because they just logged on.
All players need is a potion, wand or knowledge of this 4th level spell (Unseelie Warlocks can use this spell unlimited amount of times) and it counters the scrying 100% of the time.

What is the point of Scrying if 90% of the time it does not work, when 10% of the time it does work is because the player you are spying on are low level and are unable to cast this spell or lack the UMD to use wands.

The other problem I am finding is that if you fail you don't get another chance unless you wait 10 minutes or sleep.

Something needs to be changed with scrying because far as I see its a thumps down.

Maybe there could get a scrying item that can be crafted to increase the chance of scrying something lame like a crystal ball that bypasses basic 4th level spell because Scrying is a Epic Spell and it can not get pass a 4th level spell that nearly everyone uses.

[Eyeliner]

I think it would be nice to have an option to scry common areas instead of players themselves.

[MissEvelyn]

I just think we should add Nondetection as a spell and make players actively choose to not be scried upon. There could be other bonuses to Nondetection, maybe allowing some form of concealment while you're invisible but are being spotted by See Invisibility.

My biggest gripe with Scrying is how short it is. The kind of people you usually scry on are the kind of people who take their time writing out articulated sentences. And roleplaying (writing) takes time!

To be fair, I'm scrying as a Loremaster, so maybe that affects the duration for non-Spell Foci characters.

[Ork]

Remove scry.

[AstralUniverse]

Remove Scry.

[Dreams]

Scry is great. Add a 5% chance of seeing too much when scrying and roll from a table to give various effects displaying your madness until a reset happens:
CHA loss, INT loss, WIS loss, Will penalty, Spellcraft penalty, Lore penalty, Nightmare spell effect, take psychic damage, spawn hostile summoned ??? on you, etc.

Adding RP both flavour to it and giving it potential downsides can make it less of a “hurr i scry elf logon” and more of a tool for your RP.

[ElevenOne]

Is cool to spy other people, but it is not cool being spied at all.

As is not cool to being spied, people tend to use the ways to be protected as much as possible.

Actually, sometimes is annoying to even play something that has to spend resources to get protection (Non-casters), because, you need to be even more careful to RP and add extra time just coordinate with other people to have the scry protection.

[MRFTW]

edit by DM Monkey:[FOIG]

Let's not gatekeep people away from protecting themselves from scryganking.

[magistrasa]

My main problem with scrying right now is that too many people can do it. Between the prevalence of caster classes, Loremasters having little worthwhile competition as far as Greater Secrets go, and Shamans getting put on the ESF:Div path by default, Diviners are a dime a dozen these days. I'm not sure what I want from the ability, so it's hard to give meaningful feedback. All I know is that I've been varying degrees of dissatisfied with it for as long as I've been on this server, and every time the devs change one aspect for the better, something else comes up to make it seem worse.

I dislike that low-level Loremasters who take the Secret of Scrying still can't scry until they're level 21+.
I dislike that Loremasters get to scry to begin with.
I dislike that it's an ESF cookie instead of a proper spell.
I dislike that it's too accessible.
I dislike that there's so many easy hard counters to the ability.
I dislike that the only thing you need in order to scry is a name.
I dislike that the server's culture treats scrying with such disdain.
I dislike that only specialist wizards can get the 5-minute scry when "divine" is literally in the name for Divination and yet divine casters get the least amount of Divination spells and cannot possibly get the best scry.
I dislike that there's no save associated with scrying.
I dislike that [SPECIAL SCRY-RELATED ITEM] exists.
I dislike that the scry orb isn't a thing anymore.

BUT

I like that it exists, and I want it to always and forever exist in some capacity, even if I dislike elements of its implementation.

I am full of aimless discontent and the vibes, quite frankly, are whack. I think at the end of the day I'd rather it be something awesome, but also very difficult to achieve. Make Scrying Special Again.

[DM Monkey]

edit by DM Monkey:[FOIG]

Let's not gatekeep people away from protecting themselves from scryganking.

Do not share this information over the forums. It is very easily acquired in game through RP.

[-XXX-]

This ability has become too accessible to a point where actually taking the Divination ESF seems like the suboptimal way of getting it.
Catching someone off guard to learn their location has become virtually its only practical use. Does literally nothing most of the time.

[RedGiant]

Scry is both a part of the game, the setting, and lore. There is, dare I say, an established "mini-game" to it now, which makes it counterable. With the proper investments you can also get caught.

It already has the usefulness and danger some here reference, its just not foolproof either way. Thus the system also has...balance.

So, kudos to the Devs!

[Security_Blanket]

Remove Scry.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

edit by DM Monkey:[FOIG]

Let's not gatekeep people away from protecting themselves from scryganking.

Actually, the devs straight up said they don't want it to be FOIG. This came up when people were trying to bug report it and it was being moderated.


Also, delete scrying.

[xanrael]

I wish that the one being scryed upon could make a check to counter-scry (give them a prompt) once the scrying was over. Add in an unremovable paralysis effect that lasts for 1 minute for the scryer so they can't just zone to make it useless that would happen regardless.

This was a thing for epic level play (though hard to do) and would add some risk when a scry actually succeeds. Ideally I think it should be based on something a non caster can do or even just a flat percentage chance that might increase the more times you have been scryed that day.

[Morgy]

I don't see the point in 'FOIG' for spell functions, when you can have a PC with huge lore/spellcraft and knowledge of magics, but who doesn't even know how to protect against spying magics until some rando PC comes and has to tell them.

Spells have descriptions for a reason. Frankly, most people know about it and it only seeks to disadvantage brand new players by not offering out this information in the spell description.

[Distant Relation]

Not a fan of scrying in Arelith, and I'm glad the counters are ample and widely known.

Scrying is an insanely powerful tool that usually only works because there is a storyteller/moderator (the DM at a table) controlling precisely what you see, when you see it. The DM is also given a *vast* array of tools to make scrying incredibly unreliable for the players, from blocking it altogether (nondetection, mind blank) to lying to the players (false image) and even having ways for scrying to be instantly reversed and have the players be scried upon by the big bad.

In Arelith scrying is, at best, a way to find out way too much about an ongoing, interesting plot in a way that is completely unfair to the ones being scried upon. In reality, it's more like a great way to get 2 minute snippet of a character's slice-of-life talking about buying brass ingots with their best friend at a typing speed of one line per minute. At its very worst, its a way to repeatedly track down and gank people with little recourse except use "foig" mechanics (which virtually noone learns about "in-game") to hide their location permanently.

So to echo the sentiment, remove scry. Not only is it pointless most of the time, it's incredibly toxic when it isn't.

[magistrasa]

In Arelith scrying is, at best, a way to find out way too much about an ongoing, interesting plot in a way that is completely unfair to the ones being scried upon.

God forbid we don't have complete control over every narrative beat of our characters' contrived and sequestered plotlines. If only private discord roleplay were allowed - then Arelith would truly be a paradise.

Sarcasm aside - yeah, I just really hate this argument. The server has too many walls put up around its active cliques as-is. Scry-ganking is treated like some kind of omnipresent boogeyman, but I'm tempted to think it's not nearly as prevalent as people make it out to be. And what is with the assumption that a plotline is going to be "ruined" once it's discovered by someone you didn't explicitly invite into it? Some of my most exciting and memorable moments of roleplay were either created or accentuated by either scrying on someone, or being scried upon. Yes, its current implementation has its flaws. Yes, most of the time you use the ability, it's either a peek into someone's most mundane shopping experiences, or it's outright blocked. But when it's good, there's nothing else in the world like it.

If there's anything I'm getting out of this thread and the dozens like it, it's that neither the pro's or the anti's think scrying is "fair" - it's either a capstone ability rendered useless by its arbitrarily-defined counters, or it's a powerful tool abused by griefers and fun-ruiners with no recourse. So rather than approaching this with the characteristically Arelithian mindset of, "Thing Bad, DELETE THING," why don't we figure out ways for scrying to be made more fair?

I think there should be a Will save associated with it. Succeed on the save, and you know someone's scrying on you. If you have ESF Divination, or Illusion, or Abjuration, maybe you can prevent the scry entirely on a successful save.
Alternatively, as suggested many a time, how about a low-to-mid-level Illusion spell specifically designed to block scrying?
Zone-scrying could be a cool feature, too - and I have a few ideas for how something like that might be reasonably implemented.
Or, what if you had to "attune" yourself to your potential scry targets, limiting yourself to only people you have interacted with and forcing you to keep a short, curated list?

[AstralUniverse]

Scry-ganking is treated like some kind of omnipresent boogeyman, but I'm tempted to think it's not nearly as prevalent as people make it out to be.

It is. It really is.

[Morgy]

My biggest gripe with scrying is that so many people have it now with the common taking of loremaster levels. For PCs that are RP'd as pure thugs or henchmen, having access to this level of magic just feels odd to me.

[Svrtr]

I too must agree, pros versus cons of scrying and what it actually provides narratively? What it can ACTUALLY provide as a foil to those being scried on?


Remove scry.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Scrying spells and sending spells are both wonderful tools that I consider to be somewhere as important as the ability to teleport when discussing mages... in table-top.

I think scrying as implemented on the server started as a neat idea. I don't hate it. I understand that work and effort went into it. But in the grand scheme of scrying, and what it means for any setting, table-top or persistent world CCRPG, scrying as implemented does not implement enough of the intricacies of the system to leave either side (the scried or the scrier) satisfied on a mechanical level.

Scrying can be amazing for the RP of information gathering, and other interactive scopes like sending in an ally to be scried on rather than scrying directly on a target. However, the majority of scrying instances I have witnessed do trend towards the search and destroy variety.

There's nothing wrong with that- it's a perfectly valid use of the spell. But a lot of its counter-options and the intricacies that give it vulnerabilities and things more interesting to do than reveal and destroy aren't included. The scrying system was meant to include much more complexity and counter-play options for both sides. I realize that would be a lot of work and it's a big ask of anyone...

But I'm of the opinion that unless someone loves scrying enough to do that work behind the scenes, scry will tend to generate more animosity between players than it will any kind of positive OOC or IC interaction.

TL;DR

Alter scrying to fit its PnP origins much more closely (not just the spell itself, but the other interactive mechanics and spells that surround scrying as a whole), or remove it.

Tangentially, I would like to point out that in the context of scrying another player for search and destroy, it's clearly a PvP action, and some PvP specific rules should probably be attached to it, unfortunately. Off the top of my head, one such idea that comes to mind is that while scrying a target to attack them is valid, if you/your allies lose that fight, you probably shouldn't be able to rest and scry them again to send someone else after them for at least 24 hours.

[Eyeliner]

Certainly hope it's not completely deleted as my divination wizard will be completely pointless without that ability. It could stand to be made more rare I suppose and may be too easy to get.

As I said I think the ability to scry places in addition to characters would add a lot. It would be more interesting to me to see who is in a certain (common) area and what's being said than track down one PC in a lot of occasions. Of course quarters would be exempt.

[Stop. Ninja Time]

Being able to scry places would be pretty amazing, though some places are too big for it to really work. Being able to scry a place and move around would solve that problem. Though how you'd know the name of places would make it a little harder, so it'd probably need a list of every place you've been and that could be a little ridiculous to try to find the area you care about.

Implementing it closer to the D&D rules would be really interesting and give some additional counter play. It's an invisible sensor that can be seen (maybe make it TS only, because so many people have See invis up 24/7). Cast true seeing and see if you're being scried, maybe even say the source of the scrying, so that they can learn who did it. The will save idea is also nice, as long as it didn't roll visibly to people so that it can be accidentally meta'd.

Scrying is a lot -safer- than stealth, as a consequence of homes being generally impenetrable. Lots of people with true seeing don't enter/exit without using it, so it's hard to stealth. But stealth can be a lot more powerful against anyone lacking true seeing spam, as you can sit with them for dozens of minutes.

I wonder if people would dislike scrying less if true seeing didn't counter stealth; if instead it gave like a +50 to spot/listen, so that it greatly increased ability to detect sneakers, but only if you invested. Sneakers could sneak in to listen and thus entirely trump scrying as a means of listening, but a lot less safe.

Generally my experience with scrying is that 95/100 scrying attempts give you someone doing nothing worth seeing or warded people, 4/100 you catch a glimpse of something useful before your 2 minutes are up, 1/100 catch something really useful that could have an actual effect on the RP.

I wish scrying didn't nuke all your buffs, it really makes it quite a bit less useful overall in anything but a "I hide to scry" situation; but I can imagine that the concerns about people scryganking would be even more true then - if you could scry while moving easier.

[AstralUniverse]

if instead it gave like a +50 to spot/listen

So basically you want us to turn into Amia 12 years ago.