Your thoughts on divination

[Svrtr]

From seeing the future to shaping the future, from weal and woe and cursing enemies and blessing allies to the swordsman that sees his enemy's next move and preempts it, divination is a school of magic that has a lot of different styles in different mediums. However, many of these functionalities in PnP and other mediums are often things that REQUIRE a DM and do not work in a video game.

With this pre-amble said, I want to hear your thoughts on what YOU think divination should be, how it should function, and what sort of PnP spells or divination spells from other TTRPG games you enjoy that would work within the limitations of being a video game like NWN

And please, I ask your feedback and thoughts in a world where scry doesn't exist, do not let it come up please.

[Trashkeeper]

Hi, I really like divination as a spell focus and do think it's a shame that not enough things are tied to it, though it is understandable.

My personal thoughts on it is that divination should be put into the niche box and allow it to do things that are utility-based and be invested in the RP spell focus it's meant to be. I hope to one day see the divination of alignment and such be further expanded beyond just elements and specific cards. I feel like you can implement a much more expansive thing about the characters' habits the more invested you are in divination.

As for spells, there are a few that may translate relatively well for RP reasons, such as multilingualism. Perhaps set it to only a few minutes so it doesn't screw over the value of learning languages and lock it away from extra special languages like Loross and Deep Speech and the like, limiting it to only regular languages. It expands a bit more on translation RP and allows diviners to very specifically prepare this kind of gleaned understanding.

There should also be a weaker but AoE version of premonition that they might be able to get access to, maybe as part of learning the ESF or something, but in general it'll just be like Stoneskin, Mass to give them a nice special support niche.

I also think something based off of the 3.5e spell Intuition would be good, where you could maybe add/double your wisdom modifier to certain skills like spot/search/listen because the senses are being enhanced to look for things. Just for a few minutes. An advanced version of clairvoyance and all that.

Agatha's Cryptic Depiction would be fun if it were utilized in a way where it becomes a roulette of buffs instead that are unique to Divination. Perhaps one of them is just an advanced version of premonition, another being a burst of haste. Mostly little things that add to the gameplay but nothing that can possibly replace the power of Wild Mages.

Maybe a spell that is a specially-flavored for diviners where if premonition is on, there could be an on-hit damage like mestil's acid sheath, the diviner punishing their attackers by retaliating as they attack. I'm sure there's a lot of fun things.

Lastly, perhaps a weapon enchantment that assists the diviner with melee attacks and allows them to 'predict' their opponent's moves by striking first. A % on-hit slow for unprepared adversaries are sure to fall to anyone who underestimate a diviner.

Either way, looking forward to whatever comes along. I love diviners and I think the RP potential of a Diviner beyond a certain spell would be amazing. I, for one, would love it if it leaned into a sort of fortuneteller style and if the deck of stars could be used in conjunction with all kinds of spells.

[Paint]

Divination is a weird school of spells to consider. Divination is clearly based on a few different cultural mythos of divining -- you know, it being divining.

Offensively, divination should allow you to alter the fate of your foes a little -- or give you insight into what their actions are, their weaknesses, etc -- to weaken their defenses. I'm not really sold on the idea that divination should do direct damage so much as set opportunities up to deal damage either with other spells, or with raw attacks.

Spells focused around weakening elemental resistances, decreasing skill checks, situationally denying advantage bonuses to AB or damage, etc, all make sense as a place to start there.

Defensively, divination should give you breathing room in much the opposite way. Being able to predict an opponent's moves in game terms can probably be seen as some sort of bonus to concealment, or giving you bonuses to skill checks -against- a target in given circumstances, or stuff that increases your AB situationally against a single target.

Unfortunately, some of this ground is already tread by other schools, and a lot of it is tread by hexblade's hex, which essentially acts as a big multitool for applying these negative effects. The difference is the hexblade's hex always succeeds and has to be dealt with, or you just eat that penalty.

As far as utility goes, spells that make diviners more capable of tracking someone they've just encountered -- possibly a touch spell to make it harder to avoid being scried for some amount of time unless it's dispelled -- or to make it easier to track the target are both good options. Additionally, spells to play with the aura system -- which is an esoteric mess -- to fool people, or to prevent fooling are also very interesting. I want to caution against anything that makes breaking disguises easier to do, though.

Divination spells that only interact with places around the module to allow you to talk to secret NPCs or something could also be cool, especially if there was a secret shop that sold shenanigans things, but that feels like a lot of work, and wouldn't necessarily be worth it?

Really, it comes down to what the basis of divination is -- knowing things you shouldn't be able to know otherwise, and applying that information to your advantage. Divination spells should always come in some flavor of that.

[AstralUniverse]

I've always found it strange that there's a spell school called divination, meanwhile there's an entire aspect of magic also called divination or 'divine magic'. So there can be arcane magic of divination, there can be divine magic of not-divination school. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but to me it seems weird.

[viatrix]

Add Unluck from 3.5e. It'll make Divination the most funny school of magic to spec into by far, depending on how often you'd end up being able to cast it. Also it would be very important to show the person hit by it what they would have rolled instead, preferably highlighted to cause as much anger as possible. It'd save the school from its mediocrity.

Divination
Level: Bard 3, Sorcerer 3, Wizard 3
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

When you cast this spell, you negatively influence the randomness of fortune for the target. Whenever the affected creature undertakes an action involving random chance (specifically, whenever any die roll is made for the creature, including attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws), two separate rolls are made and the worse result applied.

[Peacelily]

Some of the most obvious things would be tracking things like Adamantine - where veins of it are spawning at the moment (or will be in the next reshuffle). Maybe for ships - knowing pirate activity is more likely in these quarters, etc.

But for me, Divination for players should be tied more into what players are interested in - and that's information on other players, and loot, as a rule.

[Ricktastrophe]

I've always liked to view divination as something pretty fluid and open to interpretation from person to person, given that the school is said to follow a lot of weird traditions and the like to help "open the mind." I have always treated it as something felt, like intuition. Like you'd lay your hand down and would feel something small. Perhaps the area was a place where a person died, and the diviner can feel that death, or that the place was something important, and they can feel that imprint left. A spell or ritual would provide greater answers in detail, but the simple connections a diviner has to those around them and the objects held by others would be little sparks that can give a hint to something or be nothing at all. I have always liked to imagine it as a weird and difficult school of magic for everyone to grasp.

Honestly, it is all up to how the DM or player would want to run it at that given time. But as a DM myself, it is a school that would largely need a DM or players to be at work with a goal in mind. I play a diviner and keep a lot of that future/mind/location spell stuff to a minimum. I personally enjoy divination with more nuance, especially in the hands of a DM.

In terms of spells, I believe the spells had are perfect. But there are some good ones out there that would add more depth and subtlety to a diviner. I think two major ones could be the spell of Sense Alignment and Telepathy.

• The Sense Alignment could possibly also be expanded to hide one's alignment as well as sense it.

• Telepathy could work similarly to project image but be sent as a tell-like message that is heard only by the player. I would consider upping the spell component requirement to make it a less desirable spell to cast over project image potentially.

• A spell similar to that of Commune with Plants would also offer classes like the druid more...druidic feel to the game. I would imagine there would be more leg work in terms of programming, but essentially, there could be a plant someone on a map that would report a log similar to a guard npc.

[Tempedius]

If we're adding pnp spells then Arcane Eye, Grave Strike, and Tongues would all both be very thematic and simple to add.

[Old Lies Die Harder]

My thoughts are that new divination spells should provide mechanical benefits of the numerical variety that scale with focii.

I don't have a 3.0/3.5, or even 5e based suggestion pulled from books for these spells at this time, only a vague idea.

But consider the relationship between Resist Elements and Protection from Elements. One is capped at a lower damage value, but buffed 1.5x with spell focus, which can potentially free up other spell slots. What if there was a physical damage protection spell that was to Premonition as RE is to PfE?

Let's call this new spell "Foresight" for the sake of discussion.

Foresight: Make it a self-only spell. The caster gains damage resistance x/- against all physical forms of damage. The spell ends after absorbing y points of accumulated damage from any single physical type. Spell foci increase either x or y by some amount.
Premonition: Allows the caster to see a few moments into the future. This grants him damage reduction 30/+5, and absorbs 10 points of melee damage per caster level before collapsing.

Alternatively, foresight could operate like this and make it a little more uniquie:
Foresight: Make it a self-only spell. The caster gains damage resistance 15/+1 against all physical forms of damage for (duration). Spell focus divination increases this to +2, gsf to +3, ESF to +5.

Fudge the numbers however you want, but the idea is to give a lower level version of premonition that's divination only, and maybe comparable to stoneskin.

This kind of idea is what I think would help Divination. I'd be inclined to avoid stuff like Sense Alignment, because we've already had enough problems with people being jerks with Detect Evil. We don't need more avenues for people to For Sure Know Ur Alignment and then use it as a lever to wedge in nuanceless PvP.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I think that tweaking the power words a little more would do wonders. Power word stun should have one round of stun no saves (fom counters) for example, and power word death should do some burst damage on a successful save vs the death part. I don't really know the two newer ones, but the same concept could be applied there. Usually, Arelithians have a lot of hps, so the scaling never really comes up.

But in general, going beyond even divination, wizards need more stuff to do that isn't locked out by the extraordinary arelith saving throws. Just make sure they always have a counter, preferably one that can be dispelled.

[triaddraykin]

*rubs hands excitedly* This'll be fun.

Let's start small.

• Detecting non-visual effects on other creatures and players. Limit it to the first three, if only to save on combat spam.

• Expand Listen range so you can hear in the next room, but at normal range still. Limit it by requiring a visual indicator that you're spying aurally.

• Amanuensis: Absorb and copy the text from a book, and copy it to another. Portable Printing Press, essentially!

• Speak any language for a minute. Doesn't mean you can understand it. Non-wandable, and maybe you can understand them at a higher level.

• Guidance cantrip. Additional die on skill checks for a minute, or until used.

• A spell that's able to tell their weakest save.

A bit more complicated, or combat useful:

• Spare the Dying-like contingency spell. On target, sets them to 1HP on being brought below it, and it notifies the caster that it just went off.

• Disadvantage on specific throws, and as per above suggestion, highlight it in the text, or give them floaty text so they know it's happening. Just in case they need to know that they're not as tough as usual. Higher spell can turn it to universal, or an entire ability's checks. Kind of like an anti-zoo spell?

• Prying Eye, a temporary, expendable scout that only lasts a few rounds. Visible, targetable, greater versions go further, or have Epic Evasion or whatever the 'can't be hit with first attack' is called.

• Locate Species. List of common creatures, find out where they're located. Maybe have an ethereal companion that leads you there at top speed. Good for having to rush and maybe get in trouble.

• Find the Path. Similarly, a locate writ target that points you towards a location, but the projectile goes so fast you can't follow it, just get a sense of direction.

• Locate Resource. The nearest resource to you, whether it's clay, emeralds, or mithral. Could tweak for specific types, like gems, metal, diggable, at higher spells.

• Being able to mark places until the next reset, and a passing diviner will see the mark. Could be player side, or module side, like there's been a fight here recently, or a large group went this way, or someone was sneaking through here. Kinda -track adjacent?

Now the juicier stuff:

• Opt-in-Visions. My main already has this in her description, asking for visions from players. One could automate it, to a degree. Via a menu, you can add in a brief vision, one line of text, that diviners opted into the system can get. I've seen everything from a character mourning an enemy they thought they hated, to basking in the glow of a mother's love for their kids at play.

• Ritual to tell secret lore about a place. A chance for a diviner to notice there's some thing imprinted on a location, and then they have to go get some casters and return to the place to find out what it is. Think of battles, or origin stories for places like the Weatherstone, Minmir Manor. The bigger the ritual, the more lore one gets.

• Similarly, being able to set your own lore about something recent. Personally, I'm envisioning thieves being able to leave impressions voluntarily. Being able to set the mood for something tragic. A detail about your house, set via the Plaque.

• Another opt-in system, a limited form of empathy. Someone can cast the spell, and you get a notice in your combat log that the spell has happened, and you can respond with a command like -feel happy, -feel furious, something like that. I'm a big fan of players being able to drop hints about their characters that their characters wouldn't necessarily display, or even like others knowing.

• Being able to hear previous conversations, like a single snippet from the last IG hour. I could see that becoming the new 'let's check the deck at random' diviner action.

• Kinda like the visions bit: Similar to character preferences in the rest menu, being able to set things that diviners can see about your character, similar to the current system of strength, dexterity, con, so on. From experience, I can tell you that people love to drop hints along the lines of 'you can tell they've trained their perception', or 'You see in a flash they're split on some major decision, and want advice'.

• Who made an object, if it's player made. Put in the advanced section because I figure that's probably a lot of work.

... Think that's enough for the moment. Anything custom-entered by players, add it to an easily skimmed log that DMs can review, see anything inappropriate, and DMs come down hard on abuse.

[jubisloviu]

The problem with divination and the reasoning for the scarcity of divination themed spells on nwn is based on how a majority of the spells in pnp would require the input of a DM to function.
I think divination could benefit from acquiring a certain number of spells that can apply themed debuffs to enemies and buffs to ally.

Maybe tapping into the aspect of fate manipulation that is a result of peering into the future could result in strenghtening your allies, predicting the undoing of an enemy could weaken his overral performance.

I feel like a lot of "Detect x" (alignment/race/class) types of spell wouldnt be that interesting to add, for the same reason the detect evil feature from paladins is neglected as it only brings mostly uninteresting aspects of "x is something i just detected it kill it!"

It certantly has room for expanding with interesting ideas, as historically speaking attempts on predicting fate and alike werent uncommon in several different cultures.

[Hyrland D~Kaya]

Diviners should be able to divine the following:

Tell the future weather. “There will be a drought for two months!”

Where to find a certain item. “Go to this shop to find wolfsbane.”

Tell fortune. “Take caution. Someone means to kill you! Beware of assassins!”

Obfuscate. “This particular future is uncertain as many fluids forces cloud my vision.”

[Aradin]

I'd like to just echo triad's post. Lots of cool ideas from probably the longest-played diviner on the server. I think if you're searching for a design philosophy for divination, lean away from numbers. We have a billion spells and abilities that let us make stronk. Giving diviners cookies to interact with Arelith's roleplay systems and engage with other players on qualitative rather than quantitative terms is the way to go, imo. Easier said than done of course, but I think if there's one school of magic that doesn't need to be PvP competitive, it's divination. It has the potential to have SO much value and be such an engaging school choice by the virtue of its cookies.

[Dr. B]

I've always found it strange that there's a spell school called divination, meanwhile there's an entire aspect of magic also called divination or 'divine magic'. So there can be arcane magic of divination, there can be divine magic of not-divination school. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but to me it seems weird.

In real-life, prior to the creation of D&D, "divine" has been used as both an adjective to mean possessing deity-like properties, and as a verb for discovering or locating something. While they share a common root and spelling, the two words have taken a somewhat divergent etymological path.

Source:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... ning%20rod

The word "divination" also is not commonly used as a synonym for "divine magic" either inside or outside of D&D.

[Kythana]

Anything too flashy I feel is better off being played out in RP. Detecting visions, emotions, thoughts, ect isn't really something I want to see a dedicated mechanic for. You can just send a tell to get that information if the other player is cooperative, or put information in the description.

Having the ability to hone in more on the investigation aspect is something I would really enjoy. Some ideas:

• Increased information when tracking(such as limited, vague class information, ability scores, names) dependent on wizard spec/spell focuses.
• Reverse tracking, making it easier to follow tracks to their source and where they came from.
• Soft bonuses to spot, listen, and search for each rank of spell focus, similar to enchantment.

When I think of the stereotypical diviner, the answers to any sort of magical information gathering are often very vague and sometimes confusing when missing the context. A good example of this is the tarot cards in Curse of Strahd.

I would additionally like to see either some high level spells, or once per rest commands that do the following:

• Find the last location a character was in, described by its features rather than the explicit zone. (If it's near trees, water, in a different plane, in a city, what culture/race it's associated with, ect.)
• Being able to see the last x lines or y minutes of chats/emotes for a character, with some sort of obfuscation mechanic. Spying on someone from afar should result in very vague and ambiguous information that needs to be investigated further.

Ultimately, I think divination is more interesting when it's less deterministic. Have different avenues of information collection and hints that lead to generating potential RP rather than outright giving the answer.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

this thread gave me an idea. i'm going to update the -cheat command (used in dice rolls and coin tosses) for illusionists and diviners. stay tuned.

[BurntGnome]

One of the divination abilities I would like to see would be more interaction with tracks, break in clues, and bloodstain investigation. This would require you store more data in them, but would be both useful for detective rp and visually neat.

By having investigation/track markers store the visual data of the subjects outfit, you would interact with these markers with divination and generate a ghostly image of who it's describing. By making it a roll, you can do this in tiers of success by having the lower the roll, there is more random variation to the outfit, getting it wrong. The higher the roll, the more exact the player model would be. I would limit the lifespan of the collection of this on tracks greatly to avoid having to store this information for long periods, no more than say, 5 or 10 minutes and much longer on bloodstains and break-in tracks, since those are far far less common and wont build up.

This gives divination players an useful, immersive role to play in investigations, manhunting, guard stuff while encouraging people to make better use of rotating disguises and covering their tracks, also adding value to the few things that dont leave tracks.

[Coolguy McMagic]

Lots of cool ideas here already. I agree with what some have already said: I'd rather have interesting new avenues for RP and investigatory stuff than new must-have spells (spells need an overhaul in general but that's not tied to Divination).

I'd generally prefer new Divination features to be tied to the Spell Focuses, rather than being tied to new spells.

The reason for that is twofold:

1. One of the premier Diviner classes in Arelith is Shaman, and as spontaneous casters they have very little room to pick up utility spells, so adding cool new spells would mean they'd likely have to miss out on that.
2. Anyone can use scrolls and adding new features to investigate stuff through spells would open those up to anyone with Lore, which would greatly cheapen the uniqueness of Divination in my opinion. There's the option of making those scrolls not scribe-able or not work when cast from a scroll, but I think that's an awkward work-around because it feels inconsistent and unintuitive.

[Reigh]

Divination,
"Divination spells enable the character to learn secrets long forgotten, to predict the future, to find hidden things, and to foil deceptive spells.

Many divination spells have cone-shaped areas. These move with the character and extend in the direction the character looks. The cone defines the area that the character can sweep each round. If the character studies the same area for multiple rounds, the character can often gain additional information, as noted in the descriptive text for the spell." https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3e_SRD:Divination_School

Now depending on the rules we go by this changes, now i read the speak to the dead and reading the future would not work in a PW world like arelith, but i'd say you sure can put it in. One example i can think of is like you might be able to read someones future limitedly, especially if someone has like writwork, if they could be able to see someones writs and those are great clues, or have it sync with the track system or enchace it. Or speak with the dead maybe graves that people have placed or is made ig, and maybe have some rewards, or maybe give details on the description of the person who killed and just roleplay the ghosts last memories of like what spells were cast and what attacked them, which would be generated by a log if it is possible i have no idea of the mechanics but i thought to share some though on those two. But Divination is playing around with the benifits of seeing into the future like damage resistance and i think true strike for a massive ab boost, i think if you keep the goodies and started with the nerfs like most classes get played with, might be some ideas.

[MarkRed]

A few spells that ACTUALLY already exist in 3.x and that I think could be done :

• Arcane Sight
  Allows you to see Magical auras within X feet(Could potentially give another way to "bypass" stealthers, make it something like Paladin's Detect alignment where it simple makes a hidden check and if they fail it says someone nearby failed or wahtever) , and if you focus on one person you can determind their casting type, and highest circle spell.
  https://dndtools.net/spells/tome-and-bl ... ght--3389/

• Assay Resistance
  Tells you someone's magical vulnerabilities(Could show like current defensive stats like their essences or class/racial defenses), and give you bonuses to overcoming their SR
  https://dndtools.net/spells/complete-ar ... ance--483/

• (Zone of) Revelation
  Reveals ALL hidden targets in an area for 1 round
  https://dndtools.net/spells/dragons-of- ... ion--1099/
  https://dndtools.net/spells/manual-of-t ... ion--1858/

• Status
  Shows exact HP and negative Status (So people don't just blurt out, "Yeah I'm cursed")
  https://dndtools.net/spells/players-han ... tus--2517/

• Targeting Ray
  An arcane version of Blessed Aim (Which is just Bless but stronger and only for Ranged attacks)
  https://dndtools.net/spells/spell-compe ... ray--4299/

Now for a few random ideas~

• Divine Mark(?)
  Some kind of Divine marking? That allows you to place a marker or tag upon someone that only you can see. So you can track targets? Maybe gain a bonus and perhaps a special marker on their tracks to tell exactly who you're hunting for. Obviously this is a strong spell that can be used quite dangerously, but limiting it's duration could keep it nasty but useful.

• Repent (?)
  On a failed save force the target to take a knee (Dazing them) for several rounds, if they have recently struck another player they take a -4(Or more) to their save, and deal CL/3D6 to them. On a successful save they are slowed by the guilt of their sins.

• Prediction! (?)
  Caster sacrifices CL/3D6 HP and gains an equal amount of DR for the next 3 rounds. Extended by 1 per SF to a max of 6.

• Blinded by the Light! (?)
  AOE that applies a short but saveless blind to any target currently under the affects of TS (Either the CL/Turn Spot bonus or simply the ACTUAL TS bonus).

[perseid]

Some random ideas based mostly on PnP with some side thoughts thrown in:

Detect Animals:
Sense the types of animal in an area

Detect Fish:
Target a fishing hole to learn the potential fish caught there (but not the types of bait needed).

Detect Magic:
See a hidden set of visual cues, or simply a combat log readout, of all the non-boon buffs on a character.

Divine Death:
Cast on a corpse or ear to receive a personal vision (to enable lying) that tells you the race, rough skin color (similar to the deck of stars), and hair color of whoever dealt the final blow to the victim as well as whether it was done with a ranged weapon, melee weapon, or spell. Maybe have this destroy the body/ear as part of the spell to make it more interesting.

Lucky:
Self-Only buff akin to Good Hope but available to all wizards.

Scholar's Touch:
Cast on a book to add a "copy" to a mental shelf you can browse by targeting yourself with the spell. Cast on a shelf to open a menu that lets you select one item to copy to your mental shelf per casting.

[ayobobo]

CoolguyMcMagic made a good point about shamans and why it would be a good idea to not neccessarily tie these to spells, but instead spell-like abilities and features of Divination foci, and/or classes (or also give shamans more known spells).

Also agree with Babylon System in saying that the Power Words could do with a minor tweak.

Those aside, here are some specific examples of what others have already said, plus some of my own.

Detect Magic
Ability to see a player's buffs upon inspecting them based on caster's spellcraft, and with bonuses from each Div foci.

(Detect Fish, Detect Animals, in the same vein as what perseid offered)

Comprehend Languages
Caster gains number of lore ranks towards understanding languages equal to Caster Level, with bonuses from each Div foci.

Tongues
The same effect as "Sage Tongues" from warlock (and warlocks get a new improved version), with increased duration for each Div Foci.

Locate Creature
The caster learns of target player's location (strip the module name target player currently resides within). For example, if someone is in "Andunor (West Wheel)" then that is what would pop in yellow server text when someone casts Locate Creature, then types in said player's name. For bonus fun, add an element of randomness, and only Div foci can negate each tier of the randomness in the output. Then we could also add Nondetection as an Abjuration spell, and have that as the end-all "Divine Perception" counter.

Speak With Dead
Cues off Necromancy and Divination, and emphasizes shamans
Summons a ghostly NPC that shares lore of the area when interacted with. Some prime candidates include:

• The dryad bones in Westcliff

• Somewhere in the darkspires barrow

• Somewhere in Minmir

Telepathic Bond
Touch range small area-of-effect spell that for the duration, you can hear what that effected players says, regardless of shout, whisper, or talk.

Mind Mouth
Cast the spell then input a player's name. For the duration, anything that player says will appear in your log. Like Locate Creature, include an element of randomness however (such, maybe the target can be selected at random, and the log output never actually says WHO these words are coming from - you just have to hope you tapped into the correct target), with each tier of Div foci reducing that random chance. And of course once again, we could add Nondetection as an Abjuration spell, and have that as the end-all "Divine Perception" counter.

[Edens_Fall]

I've always like the tarot cards/aura system that Diviners have access to IG. Perhaps an update that would allow them to know more of the PC they are reading. New auras and meanings. New fortunes from using the cards. SF would give a general thing like now, but ESF would allow for the more detailed information.

Also would be neat if Diviners with ESF could be warned of assassination contracts against them like the old system use to do for everyone. Would allow them to be the only class able to forsee "trouble in their near future" so to speak.

[hugolino]

Divination can take advantage of a strength of video games and provide more information to the caster.

For example, offer a way to judge how difficult a creature (whether minion, ally, or foe) may be to battle, how warded a target may be, how badly hurt a creature may be relative to the caster, which of its saves is lowest, is there a secret door or shadow door nearby, what will the weather be after it next changes, and even how far a target is away from the caster. Divination can even reveal information about one's self or remove the fog of war from the current map until the next reset. In any case, offer a variety of ways to obtain information that the game engine or programmers knows but which is normally not apparent to us. Preferably this should be information that can often change over time so that a spell does not lose relevance once players have used it and taken notes. So, for example, no detect alignment or race. That information is stagnant, and if someone is bluffing you're just trivializing their skill with a spell, which often requires far less investment

See below for a viable divination example from classic Dungeons & Dragons.

+++

KNOW PROTECTIONS - Originally Divination, Arcane
(a 1st level spell from the D&D 3.5 book “Magic of Faerun”)

Components: Verbal, Somatic
Range: Close
Target: One creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You learn many of the unusual defenses the target creature has. The spell tells you the creature’s damage reduction, spell resistance, and any resistances or immunity to energy attacks. It does not tell you any of its other defenses, such as fast healing or immunity to poison.
+++
Beyond this, I wish "Comprehend Languages" were allowed in some form, even if limited to only one language at a time and in some other way.