Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Grymar 01-09-06, 12:50 PM	Seeing how the Sharn Watch's inquisitives are fairly low level, how do you see them going about using divination to help solve a murder? The low-level div spells are not that great, but I'm trying to come up with creative ways to use them. SRD Cantrips * Detect Poison: Detects poison in one creature or small object. * Detect Magic: Detects spells and magic items within 60 ft. * Read Magic: Read scrolls and spellbooks. 1st * Comprehend Languages: You understand all spoken and written languages. * Detect Secret Doors: Reveals hidden doors within 60 ft. * Detect Undead: Reveals undead within 60 ft. * Identify M: Determines properties of magic item. * True Strike: +20 on your next attack roll. 2nd * Detect Thoughts: Allows “listening” to surface thoughts. * Locate Object: Senses direction toward object (specific or type). * See Invisibility: Reveals invisible creatures or objects. 3rd * Arcane Sight: Magical auras become visible to you. * Clairaudience/Clairvoyance: Hear or see at a distance for 1 min./level. * Tongues: Speak any language. 4th * Arcane Eye: Invisible floating eye moves 30 ft./round. * Detect Scrying: Alerts you of magical eavesdropping. * Locate Creature: Indicates direction to familiar creature. * Scrying F: Spies on subject from a distance. To get to Scrying, which wouldn't help unless you knew who committed the murder, you'd have to be at least 7th level...not very common in Sharn. I can see using Locate Object if you had an excellent description of the murder weapon... Anything else?
lukelightning 01-09-06, 01:15 PM	A lot of the spells seem to be good for finding clues, not the murderer (which is good, since otherwise there would be no murder mysteries). Detect poison would definitely be a standard, especially for times when there is a corpse with no noticible wounds. Remember also that detect magic can detect lingering auras; 1d6 rounds or minutes for the case of faint or moderate auras; these typically won't be useful for an investigation, but 7th-9th level spells linger for 1d10xd6 minutes, so if the murderer used power word: kill to do his dirty work you might be able to detect that afterwards. Good luck with this 17th level wizard criminal, though. Locate object might be good for finding a murder weapon that might have been tossed aside, or other clues. Or if you have a suspect you can cast it to search their residence/area for something that would be a clue ("Lukelightning was murdered by a spiked chain...let's see if his arch enemy Dr. Perfect has a spiked chain....")
DarkWarriorKarg 01-09-06, 01:36 PM	Seeing how the Sharn Watch's inquisitives are fairly low level, how do you see them going about using divination to help solve a murder? don't even need divination for that. It's the Sharn watch... 1) Is there a shifter around? 2) Is there a Warforged around? 3) Is there a Cyrean refugee nearby? 4) Awright... what bout goblins? 5) What about that group over there... the one with the cowardly gnoll master inquisitive and those kids? They look suspicious to me...
Korhal_IV 01-09-06, 01:37 PM	To get to Scrying, which wouldn't help unless you knew who committed the murder, you'd have to be at least 7th level...not very common in Sharn. Or, you could be a 5th level artificer, or (more likely) be a rich government organization that can hire such artificers. Granted, not every murder is going to cause a ruckus important enough to spend thousands on a 4th level divination, but a Locate Object and Detect Thoughts spell should be almost requisite every time a middle-class citizen is murdered (note the stress on "middle class" - for anything lower than that, the corrupt officers don't care, and the PCs have to save the day!).
Cutlass 01-09-06, 02:08 PM	One should also not overlook the utility of Charm spells when interrogating people. You bring the person to be questioned in, have the interrogator cast Charm on the person being questioned and Detect Thoughts on himself and one should be able to have an excellent interrogation session without having to rough the subject up. Of course, that's quite a bit of gold to shell out for two spell castings for one interrogation, but if you want the information badly enough it might be worth it.
Grymar 01-09-06, 02:14 PM	Of course, that's quite a bit of gold to shell out for two spell castings for one interrogation, but if you want the information badly enough it might be worth it. Eternal wands! Every investigator's best friend. Locate Object 2000g Charm Person 800g Detect Thoughts 2000g It is expensive at around 5000g, but those three wands could keep an investigation running.
Pin_Cushion 01-09-06, 02:24 PM	(note the stress on "middle class" - for anything lower than that, the corrupt officers don't care, and the PCs have to save the day!). I don't know that I'd go quite so far as to say they don't care. Sure, there's a lot of corruption on the Watch, but there have to be some duty-bound cops or the whole system becomes a meaningless farce. I'd assume that overwork prevents most lesser victims from recieving their fair share of justice. This gives a DM two avenues to pursue when looking to get the PCs hired on a murder mystery. Either they save the day from callous, corrupt Watchmen, or they're hired by overworked Watchmen with more money than spare time. If you want to introduce a few magic items into the campaign the Watch could always pay the PCs with some from the evidence room.
Edymnion 01-09-06, 05:46 PM	for anything lower than that, the corrupt officers don't careNow you see, this is one of the problems with Eberron players that I really hate. Just because SOME of the members of any particular group can be corrupt doesn't automatically mean they ALL are. Are there going to be corrupt watch officers in Sharn that don't care about the little folk? Yeah, sure. But for every corrupt watchman there's going to be dozens and dozens of watch officials that are NOT corrupt. On the whole, the Watch is not corrupt. On the whole, the Silver Flame is not corrupt. On the whole, none of the "good" groups in Eberron is corrupt. Heck, on the whole, several of the "bad" groups aren't even corrupt, the Blood of Vol is full of honest folk that do nothing wrong. So no, the corrupt officials won't care about the poor folk. But the hundred honest ones will.
Just another user 01-09-06, 05:47 PM	One should also not overlook the utility of Charm spells when interrogating people. You bring the person to be questioned in, have the interrogator cast Charm on the person being questioned and Detect Thoughts on himself and one should be able to have an excellent interrogation session without having to rough the subject up. Of course, that's quite a bit of gold to shell out for two spell castings for one interrogation, but if you want the information badly enough it might be worth it. The problem is the legality of such procedure, Using Charm Person it is not so different from drugging someone, one could even say that a charmed person could lie to say what his new "best friend" want to hear. And detect thoughts? well, that is a huge can of worms, I doubt the Watch could go away with using it, maybe the organizzations like Trust, dark lantern and C. but not the standard law enforcement. Outside the SRD there are some simple Detection spells that would probably be researched for Watch work in Khorvaine. One that come to the mind is Detect Blood, it works like Detect Magic, only it show even the littlest traces of blood useful to find where was killed the man that was dragged down that alley or trace of blood over clothes or even weapons, with a Spot check and a blood sample it is even possible to confront it with the blood found to see if they are from the same body.
Vikjunk 01-09-06, 06:32 PM	The problem is the legality of such procedure, Using Charm Person it is not so different from drugging someone, one could even say that a charmed person could lie to say what his new "best friend" want to hear. And detect thoughts? well, that is a huge can of worms, I doubt the Watch could go away with using it, maybe the organizzations like Trust, dark lantern and C. but not the standard law enforcement. Problem is your thinking from a modern perspective. Eberron has gotten past most medieval ideas like beating a confection out of a person. But it still holds to some archaic ideas like monarchies. So charming someone and having a few watch members use detect thoughts to get information out of someone wouldn’t be a problem, especially it wouldn’t leave any lasting effect on the prisoner.
Errant 01-10-06, 02:58 AM	The problem is the legality of such procedure, Using Charm Person it is not so different from drugging someone, one could even say that a charmed person could lie to say what his new "best friend" want to hear. And detect thoughts? well, that is a huge can of worms, I doubt the Watch could go away with using it, maybe the organizzations like Trust, dark lantern and C. but not the standard law enforcement. That's where corroboration comes in. In my home state a magistrate actually ruled in court that (paraphrasing) the uncorroborated evidence of a police officer is unreliable. That just means you get the lead and find some more evidence to corroborate your allegation. Even if the Charm Person/Detect Thoughts information is inadmissable itself it may still be useful for providing leads. I dare say that any clue obtained solely through magic would normally be unreliable unless it had some independent corroboration. There's always the chance that the spellcaster is dishonest, misled or simply mistaken. Whether you feel influencing magic is ethical or not depends on your personal political views re civil liberties. I won't bore you with my opinion on that.
Just another user 01-10-06, 03:04 AM	Problem is your thinking from a modern perspective. Eberron has gotten past most medieval ideas like beating a confection out of a person. But it still holds to some archaic ideas like monarchies. So charming someone and having a few watch members use detect thoughts to get information out of someone wouldn’t be a problem, especially it wouldn’t leave any lasting effect on the prisoner. So you give the police, expecially a corrupted one like the Watch, truth drugs and mind reading? That would make your average fascist state looks like Candyland. I don't think that it would fly, expecially in Breland, I could see it in Kharrnath or for the major espionage organizations like the Trust, the Dark Lanterns and C. but not for the standard police forces or even for the Redcloacks.
Just another user 01-10-06, 03:14 AM	That's where corroboration comes in. In my home state a magistrate actually ruled in court that (paraphrasing) the uncorroborated evidence of a police officer is unreliable. That just means you get the lead and find some more evidence to corroborate your allegation. Even if the Charm Person/Detect Thoughts information is inadmissable itself it may still be useful for providing leads. I dare say that any clue obtained solely through magic would normally be unreliable unless it had some independent corroboration. There's always the chance that the spellcaster is dishonest, misled or simply mistaken. Whether you feel influencing magic is ethical or not depends on your personal political views re civil liberties. I won't bore you with my opinion on that. I'm not talking only about finding clues (there is already the Eyes of Aureon for that), the problem is that Charm Person and Detect thoughts give you a lot of power on the subject, how can you be sure that the guard with detect thought is not searching for informations totally unrelated to the case that he want to use for his own benefit, just as an example.?
Rechan 01-10-06, 02:23 PM	I'm not talking only about finding clues (there is already the Eyes of Aureon for that), the problem is that Charm Person and Detect thoughts give you a lot of power on the subject, how can you be sure that the guard with detect thought is not searching for informations totally unrelated to the case that he want to use for his own benefit, just as an example.? Like say asking "So, when did you stop beating your wife?" When you're detecting thoughts, immediately the guy is going to think if he beats his wife or not. And if he does, even if he says he doesn't, you got proof he did. So then you could arrest him for something that has nothing to do with the case pertaining to what you're looking for, which would be inadmissable. I think the Watch should have to get something like a Warrant for a detect thoughts procedure, have substantial grounds to use it, and what questions they can ask/what information they can follow up on has to be very specificied. If it's not on the warrant, you have to exclude it.