What substances have you used for Detect/Find?

[Kloster]

12 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

if I lean an object against a door so that it deliberately  falls on someone...thats a trap.

and it would register at 'detect traps'.

12 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

if i work at something and lean the object against the door whilst I'm working and forget about it..that's an accident.

and it would NOT register at 'detect traps'.

Those 2 points are why I allow 'detect traps'.

[Shiningbrow]

14 minutes ago, Kloster said:

and it would register at 'detect traps'.

and it would NOT register at 'detect traps'.

Those 2 points are why I allow 'detect traps'.

Would the bear trap hanging on the wall, unset, and with jaws closed, register on your Detect Traps? Or the already triggered mouse trap (with or without mouse - and/or cheese)?

[PhilHibbs]

15 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Your game, but you can also apply the same logic to Treat Disease and Treat Poison skills since these are different and would in real life require different treatment. 

Those are skills, and the higher your skill the more rare poisons you know about. The GM can impose penalties for super rare or exotic poisons. The spell is an all-or-nothing 100% perfect sensor that can find all poisons that have ever existed. The concepts are entirely different, and I have the same concern over Detect Poison.

[PhilHibbs]

One potential logic for "detect traps" is that the deliberate setting of the trap leaves a psychic aura in the area, and that's what you're detecting. That leaves open the question, "if the person setting it failed their roll but didn't know it, does it still detect as a trap?"

[Kloster]

17 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would the bear trap hanging on the wall, unset, and with jaws closed, register on your Detect Traps? Or the already triggered mouse trap (with or without mouse - and/or cheese)?

Yes, of course, both would detects: They are traps. This is why wide definition detects such as 'writing', 'traps,...) are difficult to use.

[Kloster]

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

One potential logic for "detect traps" is that the deliberate setting of the trap leaves a psychic aura in the area, and that's what you're detecting.

Nice idea.

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

That leaves open the question, "if the person setting it failed their roll but didn't know it, does it still detect as a trap?"

In that case, yes, because you detect the psychic/mystic remain of the intent, not the trap itself.

[PhilHibbs]

12 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

That leaves open the question, "if the person setting it failed their roll but didn't know it, does it still detect as a trap?"

9 minutes ago, Kloster said:

In that case, yes, because you detect the psychic/mystic remain of the intent, not the trap itself.

The down side, of course, is that now that place detects as a trap for ever. You could say that when a trap goes off, then that dissipates the aura. But a failed trap is a failed trap for all time.

Despite my computer programmer instincts, I think this is all getting too fiddly and literal. It's magic. A magical cosmos has certain active, quasiconscious properties that a non-magical cosmos does not. Detect spells tap into this, and the specifics of how the spells work are difficult to pin down to hard rules. I'm quite ok with making intuitive calls on issues like this.

I think a failed trap does not detect as such. I'm not sure why, but I'm ok with that. YGMV.

I'm also on the fence with "detect poison", for much the same reason. I'm a little less fond of it than "detect traps". Again, I'm not sure why.

Edited June 21, 2021 by PhilHibbs

[Kloster]

2 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

The down side, of course, is that now that place detects as a trap for ever.

Yes.

2 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

You could say that when a trap goes off, then that dissipates the aura.

Yes.

2 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

failed trap is a failed trap for all time.

Yes.

3 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Despite my computer programmer instincts, I think this is all getting too fiddly and literal. It's magic. A magical cosmos has certain active, quasiconscious properties that a non-magical cosmos does not. Detect spells tap into this, and the specifics of how the spells work are difficult to pin down to hard rules. I'm quite ok with making intuitive calls on issues like this.

I think a failed trap does not detect as such. I'm not sure why, but I'm ok with that. YGMV.

Completely agree here.

4 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I'm also on the fence with "detect poison", for much the same reason. I'm a little less fond of it than "detect traps". Again, I'm not sure why.

Same for me. I accept 'detect poison', but ...

[Shiningbrow]

Wouldn't Detect Poison be simply detecting something that is specifically poisonous to the caster? In the same way that Detect Enemies would be?

[Kloster]

13 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Wouldn't Detect Poison be simply detecting something that is specifically poisonous to the caster? In the same way that Detect Enemies would be?

That's what I think.

[Shiningbrow]

Getting back to the OPs question, there's really only 1 spell that needs to be learned - Geomancy 😄 Vastly superior to any other Detect or Find spell on the market... including Detect Market 😛

 

"What do you want to find? Where do you want to find it? No problem!"

[Godlearner]

Honestly speaking, I find it amusing the amount of time we are spending in attempting to rationalize  real world into a magical world metaphysics. Makes me kind of glad I am married with kids, otherwise I would say that my chances of finding a mate and procreating is quite small.

[Agentorange]

14 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Honestly speaking, I find it amusing the amount of time we are spending in attempting to rationalize  real world into a magical world metaphysics. Makes me kind of glad I am married with kids, otherwise I would say that my chances of finding a mate and procreating is quite small.

It keeps us off the streets and out of trouble  😃

[Agentorange]

17 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Honestly speaking, I find it amusing the amount of time we are spending in attempting to rationalize  real world into a magical world metaphysics. Makes me kind of glad I am married with kids, otherwise I would say that my chances of finding a mate and procreating is quite small.

Detect Potential  Mate ?

[Godlearner]

13 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Detect Potential  Mate ?

Yeah, we all have a matrix for that, don't we.

[MOB]

On 6/20/2021 at 6:18 AM, Godlearner said:

Had Trolls run around with Detect Iron. Other ones I found useful are Detect Poison, Detect Detection, Detect Spirit and of course Detect Undead.   

The bad guy in my LM scenario knows Detect Detect Detection*, just in case those pesky junior scribes get any ideas.

*to be strictly accurate, one of the heads in his collection does...

Edited June 21, 2021 by MOB

[rondaa]

In an instance where the adventurer's player wanted a detect spell to help find their Durulz cousin, I suggested Detect Feather.

This has allowed me to create interesting adventure breadcrumbs more than once, whether the feathers were attached to a host or left at the site of a scuffle.

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, Godlearner said:

Yeah, we all have a matrix for that, don't we.

Nope...

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Getting back to the OPs question, there's really only 1 spell that needs to be learned - Geomancy 😄 Vastly superior to any other Detect or Find spell on the market... including Detect Market 😛

 

"What do you want to find? Where do you want to find it? No problem!"

But for this one, you need 'detect sorceror that knows Geomancy', because I think they don't advertise, at least in Sartar/Prax.

[Shiningbrow]

13 hours ago, Kloster said:

But for this one, you need 'detect sorceror that knows Geomancy', because I think they don't advertise, at least in Sartar/Prax.

I'd be confident that the local LM temple would probably know someone, somewhere... Of course, it wouldn't come cheap, especially if you're paying for the call out as well... 

[soltakss]

On 6/21/2021 at 4:21 AM, Scorus said:

Yeah, Detect/Find Poison doesn't work for me. For me a "substance" has to be objective.

So, the spell is subjective.

If I cast Detect poison then it will show poisonous things. It might also show things that are not poisonous to me but are deadly to Aldryami.

If a Broo casts Detect Poison, does nothing show up, because Broo are not affected by poison? Or do things show up because they are poison, to which the Broo is immune?

[soltakss]

It's like Detect Enemy. If I cast it and my mate Lookus Liked-By-All cats it in the same place at the same time, some people would detect under my casting but nobody will be detected by Lookus.

Does that invalidate Detect Enemy? Of course not.

[Lordabdul]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

If I cast Detect poison then it will show poisonous things. It might also show things that are not poisonous to me but are deadly to Aldryami.

If a Broo casts Detect Poison, does nothing show up, because Broo are not affected by poison? Or do things show up because they are poison, to which the Broo is immune?

I agree with @Shiningbrow that it's just subjective to the caster, so in the first case, it would only show you things that are poisonous to you -- Aldryami are irrelevant unless you are an Aldryami yourself. In the second case, yeah a Broo would detect nothing except for some very odd substance that somehow can hurt Broos too. I doubt that Broos have "Detect Poison" as a spell, although one could imagine getting fancy and accepting the existence of "Detect X for Y" spells.... so a Broo may have a "Detect Poison for Humans" spell to help find nasty stuff. Each variant of "for Y" would be a different spell, probably.... as if your JC books didn't have enough spells 😜

Edited June 22, 2021 by lordabdul

[Godlearner]

I would say its similar to the Visibility or River Eyes spells, for most people useless. Detect Poison would be a useless spell for a Broo.

[soltakss]

On 6/22/2021 at 11:36 PM, lordabdul said:

as if your JC books didn't have enough spells 😜

You can never have enough spells.