Divination: Contact Other Plane

[Aversill]

I'm trying to make the Contact Other Plane spell from 1st edition D and D.  Basically, you make contact with a big thing from some alternative universe and it answers a series of yes/no type questions.  I'm fine working out the particulars for myself, but where do I start?  What power am I looking at?

[Ndreare]

I would build this as (and have in the past) Detect Answers as a very broad group with +30 to the perception.

Once you put the modifiers on it it works perfectly.

[Aversill]

I'm trying it with Universal Translator.  Going off the APG, it says you can buy that as Universal Scientist, or Universal Professional Skill, etc., with the special effect being that a creature from another plane is giving you the knowledge.  I'm not sure if I should buy it as a compound with the various universal's or whether it's enough that it's being put into a "spell power pool."  This is the first time I've really thought about divination, though, so I'm not 100% sure I like this answer.

 

I like your idea, Robert, as it seems to congeal divination as a group of possible spells, but why +30?  That seems really excessive to me.

[Ndreare]

The bonus is to offset the penalties for know the most obscure stuff. Kind of like the ks:everything skill in the Advanced Players Guide.

Since you have a detect with the potential to detect any and everything the penalties for even casual "what color is my shirt" questions can be step.

[Ndreare]

PS: Do I know you? You knew my name.

[drunkonduty]

Well you can always build it as Clairsentience with limitations like "vague and uncertain" and "limited power - can only answer Yes/No questions" and "-limited number of questions" as well as "side effect - being contacted may get real pissed off at you."

 

Another, much whackier and probably cost prohibitive, method might be: Mind Scan plus Telepathy. Both bought with "Extra-Dimensional."

 

The Mind Scan should be bought with about a +20 sort of modifier (to offset the penalty for scanning a whole dimension) and  Limitations like: "Only to scan for minds that know the answers to your questions" (there is a logic loop hole in that one but hey, it's magic); "Only for extra-dimensional,"  and "Only to allow Telepathy to make contact."

 

The Telepathy is also bought with "Only for extra-dimensional" and "Only for Yes/No answers" and "Only for Surface Thoughts" and "Limited number of questions." The telepathy would need to be in the 12d6 - 14d6 neighbourhood. That gives an average of 42-49 which should be enough to get through to a pretty powerful Otherworldly thing.

 

And the whole mess gets "side effect - being contacted may get real pissed off at you."

 

If you're willing to go the extra mile drop "Only to scan for minds that know the answers to your questions" and replace it with "Limited Power - Must Know the Name of the Being contacted." This would mean the character could only Contact beings it knows about (via an appropriate Knowledge Skill) and suspects might have the information required. It also means that the PC has invited a specific being into their life giving the GM all the excuse needed to bring it into a more active role.

 

Cheers.

[Markdoc]

PS: Do I know you? You knew my name.

 

We know all about you, Robert.

We know where you live.

We know where you buried the bodies. 

 

See, that's what the +30 is for.

 

Cheers, Mark

 

Also, it helped that you put your name and address on your ID

[Ndreare]

We know all about you, Robert.

We know where you live.

We know where you buried the bodies. 

 

See, that's what the +30 is for.

 

Cheers, Mark

 

Also, it helped that you put your name and address on your ID

Lol. I never think about that stuff.

[DShomshak]

I've used Mind Scan + Mind Link to represent effects like this.

 

The bonus to the Mind Scan depends on how good you think the Power is at distinguishing between entities, and how hard it is to "localize" entities in other dimensions. If you know in advance that you're trying to contact, say, Athena and ask her advice, what population do you assume for Mythic Olympus? You *might* be trying to pick her out of only a few hundred entities.

 

It's also easier if you don't care which entity you contact, though this involves some assumptions about the knowledge base of random extradimensional entities. ("Oh mighty spirit of Heaven, does King Ludovik plan war?" "Damn if I know, wizard, I'm the Deputy Janitor of the Celestial Palace.")

 

You also might need only enough dice of Mind Scan that you can establish a Mind Link. This assumes that the entity you contact is willing to answer questions. How can you be sure of this? Well, if there weren't entities willing to answer questions from mortals, your GM wouldn't be allowing the spell in the campaign...

 

Add in suitable Limitations such as, "Only Yes/No answers," or a Side Effect that failed Mind Scan targeting results in contact with a spirit who lies, and you're on your way."

 

Gotta say, though, that "Detect Answer" has a certain elegant simplicity that I like. It gets right to the point of what the spell is for.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Aversill]

The text of the spell suggests that you don't know who you're contacting.  Otherwise, I'd be fine with mind scan and telepathy.  It's just that I don't think you're supposed to mind scan people to use telepathy when the only way to figure out who you're scanning for is to have already used telepathy.  In other words, I'm not sure I buy the whole "only on people who know the answer" limitation as a limitation.

[Markdoc]

There's several ways I do this.

 

If the person is contacting a holy or profane patron somewhere, I simply allow people to buy a contact (for a being or group of beings), and the contact defines what kind of information you can get. For example (from my last campaign) two "patrons" associated with the Laughing God are

 

The Duke of Stillness: A Man with leathery skin and a wide mouth full of teeth. He can teach any language and also all spells of Elemental Earth Magic. His magic brings physical change.

The Earl of Furor: a man with fiery hair. He floats, never touching the ground, and teaches spells of Elemental air and those nature spells involving weather.

 

Logically enough the Duke of Stillness can answer questions about, language, culture, far places or caverns and buried treasure, while the Earl can answer questions about the skies, weather and any place that can seen from above. The Laughing God himself is the god of worldly power and growing things, so he could answer questions about nobility, forests, etc. All of them are powerful, immortal extradimensional beings, so could probably also give less detailed answers on a wide range of mundane topics. In some ways, this approach is more restricted than the traditional "ask me anything" commune spell, since you can't expect the Earl to know about things hidden deep in the sea, for example. In other ways, it is less restrictive since you get more than a yes or no answer (though the GM could restrict it to that, if he wanted: having the power state "You may ask me the traditional questions three, but be warned I will only answer with a yes or a no" or something similar).

 

You could build the contact the same way for just "a divine power", but to be honest, I find contacting an unnamed being for yes or no answers is bit flavourless compared to summoning The Thief-taker and questioning him about the location of a specific person.

 

For necromancers summoning the spirits of the dead to ask questions, I simply allow them to buy retrocognition, only for events the summoned spirit could know (-1).

 

The key here is that information-gathering spells in my game are designed to make the PCs work for information, and prevent "ask anything" questions, to make the GM's job of keeping the game flowing. Clever players (like me ) can abuse open yes/no questions to (for example) find almost anything easily. In our current D&D game, we self-limit our use of the Commune spell because it drives our GM nuts, but not all players are so self-restrained.

 

cheers, Mark

 

 

[drunkonduty]

Re. my cheesy cheat.

I don't like it either. But it is one way of doing it.

 

Re. Contacting a specific being.

I like the feel of it better than some anonymous nobody. Markdoc gives some nice examples. Plus don't forget the story potential of having the players begging favours of powerful interdimensional beings. It leaves it open for a little quid pro quo if you take my meaning.

[Aversill]

I'm with you all in terms of their being better, cooler campaign solutions, but right now I'm just populating the Grimoire right now.  I'm turning the 1st edition spells into Hero stuff so I'm trying to be true to the spells as they were written there...before I start drastically breaking them.

[Markdoc]

Re. my cheesy cheat.

I don't like it either. But it is one way of doing it.

 

Re. Contacting a specific being.

I like the feel of it better than some anonymous nobody. Markdoc gives some nice examples. Plus don't forget the story potential of having the players begging favours of powerful interdimensional beings. It leaves it open for a little quid pro quo if you take my meaning.

 

And to be fair, the whole "Owing a favour to a powerful interdimensional being" thing was a major theme in that campaign: the overarching themes were "How far will you go for power?" and "Can you use evil powers for good?"

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

 

 

High Range Radio Perception and Transmission, on an Immobile Focus, installed as equipment in both aircraft, would permit you to fly in one plane and contact the other.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary ponders the possible implications of that for the question of interdimensional communication, but I have a higher plane to catch

[Christopher]

I'm trying to make the Contact Other Plane spell from 1st edition D and D.  Basically, you make contact with a big thing from some alternative universe and it answers a series of yes/no type questions.  I'm fine working out the particulars for myself, but where do I start?  What power am I looking at?

The spell is still around this way in 3.5:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Contact_Other_Plane

 

I would build this as (and have in the past) Detect Answers as a very broad group with +30 to the perception.

Once you put the modifiers on it it works perfectly.

 

I'm trying it with Universal Translator.  Going off the APG, it says you can buy that as Universal Scientist, or Universal Professional Skill, etc., with the special effect being that a creature from another plane is giving you the knowledge.  I'm not sure if I should buy it as a compound with the various universal's or whether it's enough that it's being put into a "spell power pool."  This is the first time I've really thought about divination, though, so I'm not 100% sure I like this answer.

We had a similar question recently, about "Speak with Dead":

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/87852-speak-with-dead-different-ways-to-build/

 

The most important thing is always to figure out what the Game Effect is and what the Special Effect is.

The Game Effect is "getting Yes/No Answers to questions". The Special Effect is "by contacting a being in higher plane" of existence.

Often for D&D spells the Special Effect comes before the game effect and this is one such case.

Note that spell has no mentions about "your mind being exposed to attack while on the other plane" or it being able to meet a being unwilling to help.

 

Detect Answers (without Discriminatory to simulate the Yes/No/No Idea Quality) seems the best way to get the game effect.

Everything else is build as limitations into the Spell, to avoid it being too effective.

[Aversill]

I have real problems with "Detect Answers"-- that seems like messaging the rules to the point of bruising.  Just me, but as I wouldn't let my players do that, I don't know that I want to do it.  I freely admit that it's a solution, but...

 

I think that there are things in the game that are designed to give you answers.  This might be as simple as the common idea that if you want a blast, don't buy transform.  You want answers to a question: there's  a few skills that will do that already.  I'm running my magic system through power pools, so there's a bit of hokiness there in putting a skill or a talent inside of a power pool, and that's a large part of why I don't like my answer, but detect... I don't know.  As with everything in Hero, though, at a certain level, it's a matter of preference on how the build's going to go. 

[Ndreare]

?

Why, that is specificity what detect is for. Our senses are to gain information our skills are to use it.

How do you know if it is magical?

How do you know which way is North?

How do you know the alter is evil?

How do you know it is dark out?

The answer to all of these is detect.

Even the go to answer most people pick Clairvoyance is only an indirect detect, but it actually has no answering ability built in on its own without hand waving.

 

What do you feel is a better system for divination than detect which is the game mechanic for gaining knowledge?

 

PS: Detect has the built in Benfield of being a special power so it is not thrown into multipower slots willy nilly for the more controlling GMs.

[Christopher]

I have real problems with "Detect Answers"-- that seems like messaging the rules to the point of bruising.  Just me, but as I wouldn't let my players do that, I don't know that I want to do it.  I freely admit that it's a solution, but...

 

I think that there are things in the game that are designed to give you answers.  This might be as simple as the common idea that if you want a blast, don't buy transform.  You want answers to a question: there's  a few skills that will do that already.  I'm running my magic system through power pools, so there's a bit of hokiness there in putting a skill or a talent inside of a power pool, and that's a large part of why I don't like my answer, but detect... I don't know.  As with everything in Hero, though, at a certain level, it's a matter of preference on how the build's going to go. 

Absolute Time Sense, Absolute Range Sense, Bump of Direction, Combat Sense, Danger Sense, Lightning calcualtor, Perfect Pitch, Universal Translator. Those all have two things in common:

They are Talents.

They are built on Detect.

 

Lightning Calculator reads "Detect Correct Answer To Mathematical Operation (Passive)"

Could LC not answet he Question "What is 6 times 7"? And LC has automatic success, you just need some time (between Full Phase and Full Turn).

 

Seems like yes/no answers would be about as valuable, especially since (unlike LC) you will propably require a Roll and apply penalties.

 

 

If you think the character being able to cast taht spell at will is a problem, that is what the other limitations are there for. You are copying from D&D wich had a Level System (spell is 5th Level, so at least level 9) and a Spell Slots System, in addition to all the Limitations that are on the Spell.

[Aversill]

Kind of built on detect.... They're talents, not powers.  Detect answers would tell you that one is nearby, technically.  Start looking at the adders and you'll realize that you're not talking about detect.  If it looks like a duck and all...  I have detect answers with targeting, go ahead, tell me what happens there.

 

On the other hand, special effects are not rule calls, so....

 

On the other hand (if you've bought Extra Limbs), getting secrets to the universe is what, 10 Active points?  ... yeah, not in my game.

[bigbywolfe]

Kind of built on detect.... They're talents, not powers.  Detect answers would tell you that one is nearby, technically.  Start looking at the adders and you'll realize that you're not talking about detect.  If it looks like a duck and all...  I have detect answers with targeting, go ahead, tell me what happens there.

 

On the other hand, special effects are not rule calls, so....

 

On the other hand (if you've bought Extra Limbs), getting secrets to the universe is what, 10 Active points?  ... yeah, not in my game.

Wrong.

6E1 pg 108

 

 

Talents aren’t actually a distinct game element

— you construct them using Skills and/or Powers.

(See the Appendix in 6E1 for a breakdown of how

each one described here was built.)

6E1 pg 447

 

Here’s how the Talents in Chapter Four of 6E1 were created:

Absolute Range Sense: Detect Range To Objects

(Passive). Total cost: 3 points.

Absolute Time Sense: Detect Time (Passive):

Total cost: 3 points...

Bump of Direction: Detect Direction (Passive):

Total cost: 3 points...

 

Every single Talent is built from Skills or Powers.