Divine & Primeval Sense

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

thorbardin

Sep 05, 2014 6:59:16

What is the point of the paladin's Divine Sense, or the Ranger's Primeval Sense?

 

Divine Sense

As an action, you know the location of any celestial, fiend or undead within 60' of you that isn't behind total cover. 

 

So, outside the range of your lightsource but not behind a wall? How useful is this? 

 

"The human paladin squeezes his eyes shut and tells the party there is a vampire ahead of them in the same room. 

The elf says, yeah I know, I'm looking at him right now."

 

Primeval Sense

By expending a spell slot, for 1 minute per level of said slot, you can detect the presence but not the number or location of aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead, within 1 mile (6 miles if its you're favoured terrain).

 

So, the answer is a yes or no binary with no clue as to either where or how many. It's actually worse if you're in your favoured terrain because then you have a 12 mile diameter circle to hopefully stumble into that fey. If on the other hand you've never been in mountains before, you'd only have a 2 mile diameter circle to search through. I don't know when any of my players would want to use this. Morgan Webb used it in the latest Acquisitions Incorporated, and Chris Perkins told her the total... because, it was actually better for the story for the group to know they kind of danger they were in. I doubt however that "clouds" is her favoured terrain, so she shouldn't have had a 6 mile radius detection, and it shouldn't have been for the whole day... but whatever. 

 

Anyone got some really creative uses for these abilities. My players are going to ask me how to use them, and right now they seem irrelevant. 

 

thanks in advance

#2

Xaspian

Sep 05, 2014 7:17:10

"Some of the nobles have been acting strangely this whole party, as if under some supernatural influence."

"Hang on a sec - yeah, that guy at the back is a demon. It must be in disguise!"

 

"The vampire used an invisibilty spell to disappear! It could be anywhere!"

"I can sense it there, next to that statue. Get him quick before he escapes!"

 

"Something's not right about this. We should have seen signs of the dragon by now. Maybe she's not home?"

"You're right, there are not dragons nearby... but there are some fey. Perhaps those pixie bounty-hunters got here ahead of us."

 

"That pack of zombie wolves won't be far behind us, we'd better keep moving."

"I'll keep my senses open so we know when they're getting close."

 

The abilities aren't going to be useful all the time, but they could be handy in the right situations. 

#3

thorbardin

Sep 05, 2014 7:20:58

Thanks for those examples, that's very helpful.

#4

Ard3

Sep 05, 2014 7:46:30

For Divine Sense

Works in any non-cover vision limiting circumstance, for example darkness, fog or invisibility.

Sees through any and all appearance changing spells, abilities and disguises of those three types of creatures with no chance of failure. Is that creepy count more than he appears to be? Or if BBG has servants dressed as identical to him to confuse which on is the real deal, use this to know.

Note that you also notice presense of any consecrated/desecrated place or object. Like say many plot-important macguffins. Is the Book of Icky Things in this hall filled with lots of stuff? One use of this and you know. Might be useful if there is no time for thorough search.

 

For Primeval Sense

If you know that that there isnt any of them in your local area and use this like once a day to just get a heads up if something out of ordinary is happening.

Not that useful I think. I would probably house rule it give general idea what direction, how far and maybe how many. Like about 2 miles NW, handful of fey.