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bcd · 04-12-2012, 05:42 AM

In DF, anything secret that is not somehow magically protected isn't effectively secret to delvers. Anyone with any kind of means will make sure to employ a counter to See Secrets and similar magicks for those secrets that actually matter.

The most obvious counter would be to hide in plain sight. That is, don't make it a secret at all. Announce your treasure within the flavour text and hope the players don't take note of, e.g., the dusty crystal chandelier which in fact is made of valuable gems. Or that the torch holders are fashioned from meteoric iron.

Another would be to have so many secrets around the place, most of which ultimately turn out to be trivial and uninteresting, the secret-seer is swamped by what are effectively false positives.

If there is a god of secrets or of trickery within the setting then it wouldn't be unreasonable to let his followers pray to him to get some divine secrecy into action, e.g., let a devout follower get a 15+MoS Power secrecy charm with a Religious Ritual roll to conceal whatever he feels like. If this god is sufficiently mercenary (and it wouldn't really take a lot) then even non-followers would come to his priests to have them conceal their various secrets.

Naturally big secrets that are otherwise unprotected might simply attract protectors some way or the other. A secret high mana node might have attracted a mana demon that has weaved spells of secrecy over the place. He may even have simply done it out of principle and then moved on never to return.

Additionally, Remove Aura will be routinely used to whitewash the past in such a setting.

Then of course there are the spells to actively protect secrets, which any serious dungeon builder surely has access to one way or the other.

Between all of these I generally assume all secrets worth being kept secret in a DF setting to have an innate Power 15-25 Scryguard or similar on it.

Now, with all that out of the way there is also a lot to be said for just allowing See Secrets to see pretty much everything that isn't explicitly under protection. This will lead the delvers into foregoing manual means of finding secrets, because the spell finds them all anyway, and so they will never find the real good stuff because that will be behind Power 30+ scryguards that really need a good proper thief to ferret out.

I also quite like the idea of the dungeon with lots of unprotected secrets that lead to various forms of traps, and most of the actual treasure protected by scryguards.

04-12-2012, 05:42 AM	#3
bcd Join Date: Aug 2009	Re: See Secrets spell In DF, anything secret that is not somehow magically protected isn't effectively secret to delvers. Anyone with any kind of means will make sure to employ a counter to See Secrets and similar magicks for those secrets that actually matter. The most obvious counter would be to hide in plain sight. That is, don't make it a secret at all. Announce your treasure within the flavour text and hope the players don't take note of, e.g., the dusty crystal chandelier which in fact is made of valuable gems. Or that the torch holders are fashioned from meteoric iron. Another would be to have so many secrets around the place, most of which ultimately turn out to be trivial and uninteresting, the secret-seer is swamped by what are effectively false positives. If there is a god of secrets or of trickery within the setting then it wouldn't be unreasonable to let his followers pray to him to get some divine secrecy into action, e.g., let a devout follower get a 15+MoS Power secrecy charm with a Religious Ritual roll to conceal whatever he feels like. If this god is sufficiently mercenary (and it wouldn't really take a lot) then even non-followers would come to his priests to have them conceal their various secrets. Naturally big secrets that are otherwise unprotected might simply attract protectors some way or the other. A secret high mana node might have attracted a mana demon that has weaved spells of secrecy over the place. He may even have simply done it out of principle and then moved on never to return. Additionally, Remove Aura will be routinely used to whitewash the past in such a setting. Then of course there are the spells to actively protect secrets, which any serious dungeon builder surely has access to one way or the other. Between all of these I generally assume all secrets worth being kept secret in a DF setting to have an innate Power 15-25 Scryguard or similar on it. Now, with all that out of the way there is also a lot to be said for just allowing See Secrets to see pretty much everything that isn't explicitly under protection. This will lead the delvers into foregoing manual means of finding secrets, because the spell finds them all anyway, and so they will never find the real good stuff because that will be behind Power 30+ scryguards that really need a good proper thief to ferret out. I also quite like the idea of the dungeon with lots of unprotected secrets that lead to various forms of traps, and most of the actual treasure protected by scryguards.