Divination Spells
by Elvis SpadoniI want to share some considerations that arise from my current adventure, the Eye of Traldar, which I am playing with level 10-11 PCs.
For those who don't know the story, it involves recovering a magical object that gives great divination powers (spells such as detecting evil, ESP thoughts, the invisible, locating objects, etc.) from the hands of the Steel Ring by going directly in the fortress of Forte Destino, in the Barony of the Black Eagle.
By having characters with many more spells I made the eye more powerful than that. Let me start by saying that I have introduced (and it seems like an excellent addition) the possibility of casting spells - which is also found in 5ed - as if they were of higher levels, making them more powerful or more difficult to avoid. So I've decided that anyone who possesses the Eye casts any divination spell at the maximum possible level (such as a 36th level wizard, inc. 9th level).
This created a very interesting dynamic to play that the module doesn't provide. The one who currently possesses the Eye IS USING IT for his own interests, including defending himself from the attack of the party of which he has a vague idea but which he is investigating thanks to the great powers he possesses.
So I had to study all the various divination spells and think about how he (the bad guy) could use them for his purposes. At the same time, the PCs had to understand how to avoid being discovered and defend themselves from this great power.
In short, I won't go into details but a world opened up to me (without exaggerating) or rather a magical version of what a spy film could be where instead of technology there is magic. This opponent hovers oppressively over the players and instills fear.
It's a nice way to also learn what divination spells are and practice. It was necessary to introduce a spell that BECMI does not have and which allows to balance an excessively free use of some spells: "stop divination", introduced by AD&D (in BECMI we can obtain this spell from the anti-ESP/crystal ball medallion), but also "detect divination" (AD&D and 3.5). A fight between magicians is created in the attempt to steal information or hide it which is the backdrop to the old and healthy swords.
The use of firm divination makes the use of some spells such as "contact external planes/speak with gods" (I merged them into one) more credible, which if you think about it can too easily spoil information that must remain secret. This is why I imagine that in this world there are clerics who are paid to continuously cast protection spells for those who can pay them enough. For example, Duke Stefano certainly has clerics who are responsible for keeping the most important secrets concerning him and the Grand Duchy hidden. Real firewalls. So the bad guy on duty certainly has a cleric at his service who among other things keeps information about him hidden, for example where he is, otherwise with a few "talk to the gods" spells it might be impossible to make things difficult, perhaps make this information the reward of a mission.
In short, with some reworking, this story of divination seems to me to be a game dynamic, linked to magically gathering information or protecting it (the parallel I draw is with a hacker in a cyberpunk scenario), very interesting to run parallel to the game. Of course we need to clarify many points about different spells, add them, etc, where the BECMI is a little immature, as is normal.
Once the mission is finished I'd like to share the additions I made to make it challenging for expert PCs.
And what experiences do you have with divination spells?
