Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd
On the more general issue, if this is possible at all, would the police even bother to use mind reading? They certainly won't *depend* on it. With standard magic, well, Divination isn't even cast on you, let alone resistible by you, so....
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I've considered this in my own campaigns for why all crime is not 'go to diviner, crime solved instantly' in a fantasty setting, here's what I've come up with;
1. Magic has a heftly penalty to its power source that indicates that it can be blocked by proper measures- thus a planned criminal can wear magic blocking clothes (DN laced silk? something else), and won't show up on a magical probe to the past.
2. Divination does not tell you if you were critically WRONG- so if a given diviner is the aid of the law they will be getting wrong information about 1/216 times even if they have final adjusted skill > 16, 1/216 is great for STARTING an investigation and will definitely streamline a criminal process, but it leaves enough doubt that all but the most corrupt/lazy police states would not rely on it exclusively.
3. Assuming a relatively robust legal system protections are likely in place to prevent law abuse of privacy, so mind reading is not used in a shotgun approach, there must be some burden of proof first.
4. Mages, even if relatively common, even if relatively cheap;
a. Will not all be diviners
b. Will not all be working for local law enforcement
c. Will not be inexpensive compared to a 'stock mage' because of those two considerations
Thus law enforcement will do its best to not need to pay the mage for their services. A large enough county may have a diviner on staff, but then that persons time is going to be limited.