Tag Archives: divination

Add Tension and Interesting Choices to D&D Adventures With This Potion

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In an adventure that features a race against time or against unseen ememies, players will ask if they have time to rest,  search, or prepare. If the adventure lacks a way to reveal how much time remains, such decisions become guesswork. Informed choices make roleplaying games fun, but guessing can just feel frustrating. Players wonder if their blind decisions really matter or if their choices just get ignored so the session tracks a narrative. Often, story conventions win, so choices don’t matter. How often do parties of adventurers reach a diabolical ritual seconds before its completion? Such luck! All those guesses led to the most improbable, dramatic conclusion. (I don‘t condemn it; I’ve done it.)

The movie version of the race to foil a ritual would cut speeding characters against shots revealing the cultists’ nearing success. For drama, a dungeon master could take the storytelling liberty of describing events the characters can’t see, but that gives players actionable information their characters lack. To play in character, does the group have to pretend they don’t know what they can’t know?

Potions photo by Jan Ranft

Some years ago, the multi-table epic adventure Return to White Plume Mountain suffered from such an information gap. In it, some tables worked to create a distraction to divert foes from other groups who might otherwise be overwhelmed. At the end of the adventure, groups that drew more foes faced more monsters. The best strategy balanced making some distration without drawing a lethal amount of attention. But the players lacked feedback revealing the rising threat they faced, so I wished for some divination magic that would give players a better sense of how their actions shaped their future.

I’ve considered all this as I prepare to run the adventure Necropolis of the Mailed Fist, a “punishing” tournament adventure sure to be relished by a particular group of gluttons for punishment. Author Sersa Victory favors competition over immersion by sometimes telling DMs to make metagame announcements or to issue challenges:

“Announce to players that ‘the constellation of living spheres of annihilation has been awakened!’”

“Tell characters that they have one minute to choose between supremacy for themselves or subjugation for their enemies.”

I imagine an unseen narrator’s announcements sounding across the necropolis, and the characters looking quizzically for the source, Instead, I want a way to bring these announcements out of the metagame and into the game world.

Sometimes Dungeons & Dragons scenarios would play better when the players gain feedback that would lead to interesting choices and added tension. Often, the characters have no ordinary way to get that information. Fortunately, D&D characters live in a magical world where divination exists.

Potion of Omens
Potion, rare
After drinking this potion, you begin seeing visions or hearing phrases that reveal your progress toward whatever short-term goal you feel is most important. These omens may also reveal the most likely outcome of current activities meant to reach the goal. The DM chooses the frequency and the exact nature of the omens. The effects last for 10 days or until your goal changes.

By providing the capability in a potion, the DM controls access, so when a mission works better with extra information, characters can happen upon a potion that helps.

Divination in D&D: Spells that fish for spoilers

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The Tomb of Horrors begins with Gary Gygax boasting of a “thinking person’s module.” This description makes players suppose that the tomb rewards puzzle solving and ingenuity. But the tomb never plays fair. The poem in the entry hall promises clues, but it’s a trap as much as an guide. The tomb rewards painstaking caution, and then reckless haste, and often just lucky guesses.

So why did Gary consider his capricious deathtrap a thinking persons module?

The Wish - Theodore von HolstInstead of working as a puzzle, the tomb operates as resource management challenge. Early on, the lives of hirelings or 15-member parties served as the resource. By the time the Tomb reached print, the divination spells in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons gave players resources. Just a 2nd-level Augury told which door leads to death. A 5th-level Commune answered at least 9 yes-or-no question. Even so, the tomb served enough dilemmas to test the most patient divine power.

Unlike the tomb, modern adventures never fill rooms with life-or-death guesses. They favor stories with just a few mysteries to unravel. But when players can get some divine power on the line, can any mystery last?

How does fifth-edition D&D deal with the classic spells that call for spoilers?

Augury (2nd level) tells whether a specific action will be beneficial or harmful. The 5E version penalizes repeat castings by adding a chance of a wrong answer. Augury gives wary players hints without ruining surprises.

In earlier editions, Commune (5th level) answered one question per caster level. A minimum of 9 answers could cut through most secrets, especially since early versions placed no hard limits on the number of castings. The description of Commune says, “It is probably that the referee will limit the use of Commune to one per adventure, one per week, or even one per month, for the gods dislike frequent interruption.”

The 5E Commune only answers 3 questions and it imposes real limits on the number of castings per day. At 5th level, few players will burn a Commune spell until they become stuck. The spell gets the game moving, replaces frustration with fun, and gives the cleric a chance to shine.

In 1st edition, Divination (4th level) gathered information on an area. Essentially, it told players how much treasure and danger they could expect in a dungeon level. Second edition changed Divination into an improved Augury, which answers questions with specific advice. Crucially, the dungeon master answers with “a short phrase, cryptic rhyme, or omen,” so the response can add fun by giving new clues to unravel.

The Contact other Plane (5th level) spell could potentially gather lies or drive the caster insane. How bad do you want to know? I’ve never seen a Wizard cast this spell.

Gary Gygax wrote D&D’s divination spells to hint without revealing all the game’s secrets. Fifth edition limits how often players can rely on divination, preventing Commune from turning D&D into 20 questions. These spells give DMs a way to aid to stuck players, to give thinking players more clues to consider. They enhance the game.