Talent/Spell of the Week: Pathfinder

[Shostak]

[EDIT: Dear me! In a fit of Prootishness, I neglected to consult my spreadsheet which would have told me that we've already had Spellsniffer as a topic. I hope for a spirited discussion, regardless.]

[This series is becoming more like "Talent/Spell of the Fortnight" or even "...When I Get Around to It", but neither of those has quite the right ring, so we'll stick with the inaccurate title.]

Spellsniffer
This IQ 17 Thrown spell is exceptionally efficient at quickly detecting, revealing, and analyzing spells and magic items. Spellsniffer's version of Reveal Magic is nerfed from the basic spell, since it covers a much smaller area. However, its Detect and Analyze Magic aspects are, for the most part, greatly enhanced, applying to every spell and magic item within an area of effect some 44 feet in diameter. And it does this for a casting cost of half of that of Analyze Magic, which only works on a single target spell/enchantment! The ability to apply to all spells within the area of effect comes at a price: Spellsniffer analyzes magic with a greater chance of failure than Analyze Magic, since it requires 4d/IQ instead of 3d. But for someone with the IQ requisite for the spell, this still means succeeding about 85% of the time--that's roughly 5 times out of 6.

Among the character types for whom Spellsniffer is ideal are thieves or spies looking for valuable items and arcane hazards, and merchants who think they are likely to deal in paranormal paraphernalia.

To my reading, Spellsniffer's description implies that the spell is always successfully cast, but it's results are subject to failure. Maybe this is just too small potatoes to bother with, but shouldn't the spell be subject to a normal casting roll? This would allow for critical successes as well as critical failures, which could make all of the results of a given casting either more reliable or completely misleading. I can imagine having a critical success on the casting roll allow you to use the best of two or three Detect/Analyze rolls per spell/item. On a critical failure, the GM could leap into providing devious misinformation without any additional rolls. But, even if you don't require a casting roll, what does a critical success on the Detect Magic component of Spellsniffer do for understanding a given spell? Does it give a bonus to the Analyze roll?

Spellsniffer is, in my opinion, vastly overpowered, even at IQ 17 (Or not! See two paragraphs below!). At such a modest casting cost, a wizard can nonchalantly cast the spell several times over a pile of loot or in a reasonably large room (a sorcerer's workshop, a palace official's office or apartments, a prison, a bank, a caravanserai, a bazaar stall, an inn's dining room, etc.) and gain a wealth of information about whatever magic is present in it. Even if magic items have a couple of Conceal spells on them, a wizard with IQ17 will have a 50% chance of detecting them and a 20% chance of successfully analyzing them. By maintaining Spellsniffer for a mere 1 ST, a wizard could run 10 hexes and scan another area without any overlap with the previous area of effect. A wizard partnering with a pickpocket could identify every mark in a room with relative ease.

Several approaches to putting reasonable limits on Spellsniffer suggest themselves. One could have it work through spells starting at the top of the spell list (as per Analyze Magic) and stop working on its first failed roll. Another idea is to increase the casting cost to at least 5. The maintenance cost could also be increased, or perhaps the spell could require recasting for continued effect. Yet another possibility is to reduce the area of effect to a mere megahex or mega-megahex. I like the idea of having Spellsniffer failures place a false aura on an item/target spell that muddies all subsequent uses of Spellsniffer on it. Or, one could have failures make Spellsniffer always produce the same result for that caster. This undermines the usefulness of using Spellsniffer multiple times over the same suspected magic items, looking for repeated results. Having had Spellsniffer used frequently by characters in games I GM, I'd prefer to just disallow the spell altogether--I don't think that it adds to the fun.

But, maybe I'm giving the spell too much power. It is entirely possible that I misunderstand the intended resolution of the information that Spellsniffer (and Reveal Magic, for that matter) offers. Does it only tell the caster that spells/enchantments are somewhere within the area of effect? Or does it locate them within that area (e.g. "in this hex", or "on that person", or or even "on this item"? (I know Reveal Magic doesn't say what item is enchanted, but perhaps the Detect Magic aspect of Spellsniffer does?) I've always interpreted it as having the latter specificity, but perhaps I'm wrong. If so, Spellsniffer is still remarkably effective, but not nearly as overpowered as I've allowed it to be.

Conversation starters:

• What's your opinion about the resolution of the information Spellsniffer provides?
• How do you treat critical successes?
• With what other spells or talents does Spellsniffer work particularly well?
• Other than Conceal spells, what are countermeasures to Spellsniffer?
• Do you even allow Spellsniffer in your games?
• What house rules have you applied to it?
• Do you have a spectacular Spellsniffer success or failure from your games that you can share?