Epic Divination Scrying

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Skarain
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Skarain » Sun Jun 19, 2022 10:15 am

On Ravenloft, I think Familiars were able to be possessed by a Wizard and moved to a different zone even that the caster. It has been a long time, but I think it did return back to you when you ended possession.

If Scrying was meant to have a sensor, maybe spawn an invisible "Scry Sensor" next to the location/target. An Invisible Familiar with custom skin and snail-like speed. Have the sensor be visible if have See Invisibility and able to Dismissal/Dispel Magic it. Naturally, you couldn't scry targets that are protected.

I do not know if such a mechanic is possible by any stretch, but it might allow more control over the duration of the Scry, as well as give more counters, as you'd be able to see the sensor with See Invis.

Richrd
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Richrd » Sun Jun 19, 2022 10:58 am

Scrying is basically a superpower that allows you to immediately see, hear and spy on anyone you wish whenever they fail to refresh their improved invisibility spell.

To ask for buffs to it seems strange to me, seeing as it is already the greatest spying tool on Arelith. Meanwhile people think that sneak characters are an issue but hey, that's a whole other can of beans.

Pondering my orb. Remove scry.

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Morgy
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Morgy » Sun Jun 19, 2022 11:07 am

Other suggestions would be, if possible, to remove the area title from the loading screens when scrying. I feel that information is used too much to locate or report on others. You shouldn't know that regular looking room is in Dis, or the UD, IF your pc has not been in that exact place. I get people can still meta this knowledge from previous PC experience perhaps, but it's still better than automatically knowing every location.

I've no idea how possible this is, though.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sun Jun 19, 2022 1:30 pm

I really like Scrying personally and would hate to see it go. I agree it needs some changes perhaps, a balence between 'everyone can watch you at any time all the time trivially' and 'ok so for one million gold, half your total xp, 3 feats, 100 points in Spellcraft, 100 spell components, once per RL month you have a chance to scry on someone if they pass a Will save where the DC is 2.'

The thing is the balence between 'scrying at someone on the wrong time can destroy their character' and 'scrying should be impossible' is difficlt. We've tweaked and tweaked and teaked and personally I think we now need to step back, and do a quick redo. Making Scrying
a) Less easy to get
b) Less easy to abuse
c) Less easy just to use as a find-and-kill tool
d) Less easy to block, if only by accident
e) Possibly less costly.
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jubisloviu
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by jubisloviu » Sun Jun 19, 2022 2:10 pm

Remove scry.

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Zavandar
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Zavandar » Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:11 pm

keep scry
Intelligence is too important

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Sincra
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Sincra » Sun Jun 19, 2022 6:26 pm

Please keep in mind Scry is and has been a core mechanic that the Ward system counters fully.
There is also the dreaded FOIG counter and even still there is 1 module location that allows scrying.

We in recent years have seen the addition of scry like mechanical access for factions, be it in the Cordor CCTV system or telescopes of City Buildings, the key difference being these are fixed to locations via the module and not a player.

I personally do NOT want to let you scry and or move about previous areas.
I do want to give more access to information gathering tools and at the same time offer counter play that is more reasonable than a FOIG system or a 100% reliable tool that can be slapped down for hours at a time.

This is all future ideas though and is prone to denial, discussion and the fading of interest.
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WanderingPoet
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by WanderingPoet » Mon Jun 20, 2022 7:32 pm

Morgy wrote:
Sun Jun 19, 2022 11:07 am
Other suggestions would be, if possible, to remove the area title from the loading screens when scrying. I feel that information is used too much to locate or report on others. You shouldn't know that regular looking room is in Dis, or the UD, IF your pc has not been in that exact place. I get people can still meta this knowledge from previous PC experience perhaps, but it's still better than automatically knowing every location.

I've no idea how possible this is, though.
Arguably you shouldn't be able to scry into another plane of existence in the first place; it's rather weird to be able to throw your scry all the way from Cordor to Dis, but not from Bramble Woods to Cordor (and yes, I realize there are mechanical limits). It would solve your issue a bit if you could only scry on your plane of existence, as then you'd have to be in Dis to find them, and then knowing they're in Dis/a specific building in Dis isn't as weirdly meta.

On the flip side of your argument, scry is open to interpretation on how it actually works (to my understanding there is no official 'this is how to RP it'). Nothing stopping someone from RPing their scrying as zooming in on the location from above as it fades through the walls during the loading screen, and thus seeing the exact building. Which would offer an IC reason for knowing the loading screen name.

It would suck a bit to lose that, as sometimes the view gets stuck in a wall and you get to see a pillar and that's it. Not really helpful for figuring out where they might be if you can't see the room, at least. Also our characters often have a high int/wis than us players, so are far more likely to remember what an area they've scried looks like than we are if we only see it every few RL months.

-----
Also as a note, technically there are 4 counters to Scrying, if you count bard's Masking Melody.
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xanrael
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by xanrael » Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:52 pm

WanderingPoet wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 7:32 pm
Arguably you shouldn't be able to scry into another plane of existence in the first place; it's rather weird to be able to throw your scry all the way from Cordor to Dis, but not from Bramble Woods to Cordor (and yes, I realize there are mechanical limits). It would solve your issue a bit if you could only scry on your plane of existence, as then you'd have to be in Dis to find them, and then knowing they're in Dis/a specific building in Dis isn't as weirdly meta.
Not that I'm arguing that you have to follow tabletop, but not being able to scry into other planes is a 5E thing, in 3.x you could do so it just gave them a save bonus.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Eyeliner » Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:19 pm

Now sure if this would even still be "scrying" but what if there was an option to listen for a longer period of time but not have any visuals-- so you could pick up a bit more of a conversation but not know where they are. Just a thought.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by perseid » Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:02 am

So, obviously there's a lot of differing views on scrying as displayed by the feedback thus far. I've got my own feelings on it, some of which align with GrumpyCat's post, but the OP was largely discussing a criticism about the reliability of scrying and so that's what I'm going to focus on here. I think that while blocking scrying isn't 'hard' (going to just power past the counterpoints like cost/effort/knowledge/etc...) I do think a lot of scriers don't necessarily use their scrying in a very effective manner.

On my own scrier I rarely scry targets with the goal of actually finding something useful because the juicy people to target will often be experienced enough to be warded when it counts (not all the time but often). Yet catching people red handed isn't the only useful aspect of scrying. A scrier can very easily build up a sense of who knows who (and who might be involved with what based on context) by just looking in on random individuals they've encountered sufficiently to scry, noting who happens to be in the room and if your char recognizes them, noting the room itself if it's one your character could recognize, and then finally noting whether it was expected that the target would know the other people they were with or be found in that location (again, assuming the scrier has ic reasons to recognize these details). You can take things even farther by trying tactics like flexing minor factoids to make people unsure whether you're keeping quiet on something you don't actually know or by making inroads with X because you saw them in the same room as Y (whom you care about for some reason but can't approach directly).

I agree that if the goal is just to ponder your orb and see people's deepest secrets then it's not an especially reliable ability but when used strategically it's still extremely potent and considering things like its use as a tool for hit squads or, as was noted in Grumpy's post, that the stakes can be as high as "I learn a secret that will completely destroy your character if I share it" I think it's very fair that individual conversations/gatherings aren't thaaat difficult to keep secure.

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Watchful Glare
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Watchful Glare » Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:46 pm

On paper it's a cool mechanic and I see no wrong with it, specially playing a character that can do it. It seems fun. On practical terms I've seen it frequently used to encourage unhealthy behaviour. Actual stalking (To one character's love interest, for instance. Or for another either character or player intensely dislike). The most 'harmless' seems to be locating someone for a gank. And after those two, spying RP for political reasons. Almost any truly earth-shattering or important faction discussion is had with wards for it, improved invis, or warded room if they cared for it. So even then, really not much.

Spy RP (save token cases) tends to happen through RP and entirely different channels.

I have to join in and say remove scrying. It's not a hundred percent bad, I've seen it used for what in the end were neat things. But that's ultimately my conclusion, despite the good.
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Shrouded Wanderer » Sun Jun 26, 2022 5:52 pm

Im in the "remove scry" camp

I find it is used more often in the wrong way than the right way.


That being said, id be in favor of making it less costly, and letting people scry more if it require a modicom of effort on behalf of the scrier.


With that being said.

I think the person doing the scry needs an item or piece of equipment that the PC has carried on them in order to effectively scry.

Do that and im in favor of longer scrying.

Give rogues a job to pickpocket things other than gold.

Let them cut a lock of hair, or take a personal item, and sell them to divinators to be able to spy on somebody. Let those items function for say a set number of successful scry attempts as some form of component cost. And i would agree that scry is balanced.

Until then ill remain in that camp

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by TroubledWaters » Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:34 pm

Scrying is somewhat essential to find your target as the server is so large and there are so many portals, there's rarely any reason for anyone to actually travel along the road and find themselves intercepted.

Scrying is also somewhat overpowered as there are so many portals on the server that you can instantly warp to your target with your buddies and off them in a matter of minutes.

We've all been frustrated that we've been scry ganked, though for the reasons above it remains a very popular thing to do and I know for a fact that some of the people complaining about scrying in this thread have themselves participated in scry ganks.

I think reworking the amount of portals available for instant travel would be a lot more productive towards solving this issue than removing scrying. If we want to kill someone, we should have to go and stake out an ambush instead of warping to them. We should also be given that opportunity as our targets should need to travel the roads more often to get from Points A to B.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by MageTankTech » Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:16 pm

Why not just make scry allow someone to target an area instead of a specific character? I think that would simultaneously increase it's usefullness for general information gathering, and do away with these abuse concerns.

It would increase the value of combining different sources of information such as "Ranger tracks someone to an area but loses them, scrier uses scry to search for any signs of them in the area." You could allow them to assign map coordinates to determine where in the map they are specifically looking.

It would also make it much more useful in Pve since it would allow you to judge how dangerous an area is without having to walk right into the Lion's Den to find out.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Morgy » Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:43 am

MageTankTech wrote:
Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:16 pm
Why not just make scry allow someone to target an area instead of a specific character? I think that would simultaneously increase it's usefullness for general information gathering, and do away with these abuse concerns.

It would increase the value of combining different sources of information such as "Ranger tracks someone to an area but loses them, scrier uses scry to search for any signs of them in the area." You could allow them to assign map coordinates to determine where in the map they are specifically looking.

It would also make it much more useful in Pve since it would allow you to judge how dangerous an area is without having to walk right into the Lion's Den to find out.
How would you scry, say, a big area like the Hub? Can you free walk around it? Just see a random spot? One is useless, the other is terrifyingly overpowered.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by MageTankTech » Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:19 am

Morgy wrote:
Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:43 am
MageTankTech wrote:
Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:16 pm
Why not just make scry allow someone to target an area instead of a specific character? I think that would simultaneously increase it's usefullness for general information gathering, and do away with these abuse concerns.

It would increase the value of combining different sources of information such as "Ranger tracks someone to an area but loses them, scrier uses scry to search for any signs of them in the area." You could allow them to assign map coordinates to determine where in the map they are specifically looking.

It would also make it much more useful in Pve since it would allow you to judge how dangerous an area is without having to walk right into the Lion's Den to find out.
How would you scry, say, a big area like the Hub? Can you free walk around it? Just see a random spot? One is useless, the other is terrifyingly overpowered.
Do you remember the telescope in Westcliff? When you use it you will be able to see a specific part of the connecting area and it basically works like scrying.

I figured it could work like this with the player being able to choose between preset spots on the map. Perhaps it could be controlled by entering X/Y coordinates so that only someone who has visited an area and mapped it out already would know where to look. At that point it's potency would be partially dependent on how much of a zoom out they were given I suppose.

The point of scrying right now and the reason it's balance is being called into question is because it is used to spy directly on people, correct? Take that element away from it and give it a different purpose and it may not be so divisive. It doesn't even have to be the suggestion I gave and of course depending on it's purpose I'm sure the restrictions such as cooldown timers and what not could be adjusted to be less harsh making it a more practical tool to use in everyday life.
Last edited by MageTankTech on Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Exordius
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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Exordius » Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:19 am

Definitely like the idea of reducing the amount of portals, ideally should remove all of them but having a few portal hubs in prime locations would be good too. People could still port from city to city, but if they want to hit a certain dungeon or access certain resources they would have to physically travel there to do so. Scrying is too good to be removed when we can nerf portals instead.

Also could do to make scrying last longer without having to take a certain class/specialization.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:15 pm

Morgy wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:19 pm
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.
This is the best post in the thread. It got me thinking, prior to loremaster there were casters with divination focus who said it was unoptimal, underpowered, they wanted it to do more. It's a 3 feat investment after all. In contrast, loremaster is much more optimal to take for a number of mundane classes, so they can access scrolls and other things that it enables. So scrying has become way, way more common, which has made it much more of an issue.

Maybe just remove scrying from loremaster.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by magistrasa » Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:47 pm

Party in the forest at midnight wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:15 pm
Maybe just remove scrying from loremaster.
+1

Honestly I feel like all the ESF cookies Loremaster gets should see a review, but scrying is the biggest one in my opinion.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Preserver » Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:14 pm

As a Loremaster lover I would be sad to see the class lose its cookies because of gripes with certain mechanics, and though I can offer no viable alternative or idea on how to change scrying, I posit the solution is not really to reduce accessibility to the mechanic, but to correct it in a way that makes it less disliked.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:52 pm

The thing with loremaster is, they give up less than arcane casters. It's more mechanically optimal for some builds to be loremasters, whereas nobody will say taking divination feats is mechanically optimal. So you get scrying on top of the mechanically optimal thing. That's why there's a giant number of scriers now. In the past it was probably kept in check because it was less mechanically optimal, and fewer people were doing it. So if you want to talk about why scry ganking is seeing a surge, it's probably because mechanically optimal builds can now scry.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by Subtext » Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:25 pm

First of all, Loremaster is rarely the mechanically optimal choice. It certainly adds quality of life and has some powerful applications but it still means a feat and stat investment as well as a third class slot that an otherwise mundane character could use to fulfill their role more effectively. I love the class for the sheer amount of cookies it adds first and the quality of life second.

Second, you don't need Loremasters to scrygank and it has been an issue before as well when the class wasn't as widespread. It is one argument against scrying overall though.

Third, I don't believe that scummy behaviour that clearly isn't in line with the rules should be countered by nerfing a class in terms of mostly RP cookies. It's not a potential problem with Loremasters but people who might not be a good fit for an RP server.
That's like banning motorcycle helmets because they have been used in robberies.

Fourth, I really resent the idea of leaving these cookies to wizards and clerics. They already have a massive advantage over mundanes in terms of being pretty much good at and suited to everything while requiring very little resources in comparison.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by ElvenEdibles » Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:16 pm

Keep scry. It's fine.
Richrd wrote:
Sun Jun 19, 2022 10:58 am
Scrying is basically a superpower that allows you to immediately see, hear and spy on anyone you wish whenever they fail to refresh their improved invisibility spell.

To ask for buffs to it seems strange to me, seeing as it is already the greatest spying tool on Arelith.
For the reason I bolded it is in fact, not that great of a spying tool. Use of II or -ward is pretty widespread.

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Re: Epic Divination Scrying

Post by MissEvelyn » Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:31 pm

Scry has been around a while.

When more sources of scry were added, more sources to counter it were too.

Is it possible that we as players are a little too careful about our characters' secrecy? Secrets are meant to be found out! These discovered secrets are the ingredients to tell a wonderful story.

Scry has been around for a while, but player distrust has grown more than ever since its inception. And I think that that may be where the real issue lies.


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