Wizards and divinations

[herceg]

The text below got me thinking again about this topic:

A wizard, meanwhile, has much more versatility, but has to pick the right spells for the job...and that means that, as long as the wizard is using his divination spells to properly prepare, he's not going to be caught off-guard by an unexpected threat, and will always have the tool he needs for the job. It's certainly possible to catch the wizard off-guard, especially if they're being stupid about preparation, but when a Wizard has time to prepare and the knowledge of what to prepare for (both of which are easy to get at higher levels), they will always happen to have the spells they need, they will always be (temporarily) the specialist who specializes in solving this particular problem.

Could any of you please elaborate how exactly do you use divination spells for preparation?

[Troacctid]

I don't. It's a waste of spell slots.

[Flickerdart]

Essentially, a wizard can do a lot ahead of time. If the wizard knows that the party needs to go bump off Lord Meanscary, he can scry on Meanscary Manor to learn about its defenses, use contact other plane to get info on the target, and legend lore to glean any other important information.

None of these slots are used during "field work" days so you can hardly call them a waste, and the knowledge so acquired means that the wizard can bring obscure and narrow tools that solve the encounter with a great chance of success. This is especially important in games that are "combat as war" as opposed to the more typical "combat as sport" approach where the party shows up without a plan and works through a dungeon encounter by encounter.

[Diarmuid]

This line of thinking always assumes:

1) A certain level of play
2) That each wizard has the exact same spells available to them
2A) That each wizard is going to use this method and if they dont that they are being played "wrong"
3) That appropriate time is available for these preparations to be taken
3A) That once a piece of information is gathered that the circumstances around that information never change
4) That people in a world where all of the above are a "given" dont actually take any actions to prevent the above from working

If worlds actually worked like this, there would be nothing but wizards in the world and each would never step outside his fabulously fortified magical demense.

[herceg]

use contact other plane to get info on the target, and legend lore to glean any other important information.

Could you write examples for the specific uses of these spells too please? (Sorry for being hard-headed and thank you for your help & time :) )

[Flickerdart]

Could you write examples for the specific uses of these spells too please? (Sorry for being hard-headed and thank you for your help & time :) )

Legend lore is basically only as good as your DM, and acts like a souped-up Knowledge check. If Lord Meanscary has a secret pet dragon, suddenly you know. If Lord Meanscary is secretly a lich, suddenly you know.

Contact other plane is most useful as a "20 questions" tool where you can ask gods things like "Is Lord Meanscary a spellcaster" (Yes) and then "Is Lord Meanscary a divine spellcaster" (No) to figure out that he is an arcane spellcaster. Because greater deities know the future, you can also ask them questions about that, but many DMs will quickly put the kibosh on this approach.

[sleepyphoenixx]

This line of thinking always assumes:

1) A certain level of play
2) That each wizard has the exact same spells available to them
2A) That each wizard is going to use this method and if they dont that they are being played "wrong"
3) That appropriate time is available for these preparations to be taken
3A) That once a piece of information is gathered that the circumstances around that information never change
4) That people in a world where all of the above are a "given" dont actually take any actions to prevent the above from working

Every complaint here except 1 is biased or completely useless.
2)Wizards can choose which spells they take at level up. They get enough of them that taking a few divinations hardly hurts, even if those divinations were totally useless (they're not), and most of the really good ones are core.
2A) I wouldn't say wrong. But "not at full effectiveness" certainly applies. Note that this is in no way a judgement. If it was nobody would ever play anything but a full caster.
3) Time isn't always available, but i find it hard to believe that it never is. And when it is proper divinations are invaluable. See also 2 - wizards are expected to take situational spells, it's their thing.
3A) Obviously you divine things that are fairly persistent. If you're planning to assault a fortress tomorrow you can be fairly sure that the defenses are going to still be as you divined them. Of course proper use of divination includes acting on the information you gather while it's still relevant. This should be obvious.
4) People do take actions to prevent divinations - that's half of what Mind Blank does, and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, Nondetection and similar things are all useful spells. But protecting any and all information that would be useful to an attacker from being divined is incredibly complex and expensive, and some spells (Contact other Plane is a prime example) are nearly impossible to defend against completely.
Warding a whole castle against divinations consumes tons of gold, and that's in addition to all the other defenses you'll want. Protecting all your minions, their homes and their possessions from being scryed is possible in theory, but in practice it's nearly impossible to afford.

If you do play in a game with extensive use of divination (and your DM has his NPCs abide by the restrictions instead of just handwaving them knowing) there will be a lot of information warfare going on with players and NPCs trying to successfully use divinations and deny their enemies the same.
It's certainly not for everyone, but it's no less valid a playstyle than classic dungeoncrawling. Some people enjoy it.
It also doesn't mean you have to choose between "no divinations at all" and "everyones a paranoid voyeur wizard". You can choose any point in between, and quite a few parties can benefit from at least some intelligent divination use.

If worlds actually worked like this, there would be nothing but wizards in the world and each would never step outside his fabulously fortified magical demense.

Don't be dense. Information warfare happens in the real world too and yet we are not all spies.
It's hardly surprising that 99% of people will quite simply be irrelevant for anyone capable of casting high level spells, divinations or not. Or pawns, if they're unlucky.
Anything relevant at that level will simply be protected against divinations the same way high-level enemies protect themselves against other threats in games that are less divination-heavy.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I think that a more nuanced way to express the criticism is that it assumes a certain style of play.

It's well and good to take a week to scry and cast legend lore and contact other plane (though Contact Other Plane is a pretty risky spell both due to the risk of losing spellcasting ability for multiple weeks and the risk of false or random answers--and my impression is that a false answer usually has a lot more potential to harm you than a true answer has to help you) if you are in a sandbox style campaign where the action is primarily driven by the characters and (especially) if the opponents are essentially static like they usually are in Bethesda style open world CRPGs.

On the other hand, if opponents are not static, there is a significant risk that your scrying will be detected (it's not hard and there is a relatively low level for detecting scrying and another relatively low level one for false visions) or blocked (Mordenkeinen's Private Sanctum, etc), or that certain foes (probably the ones you care about) won't show up at all (Mind Blank should be an "always active" spell for anyone who has access to it in this kind of campaign). Now, this can lead to a style of campaign that is all about information warfare and catspaws and proxies and dispelling sanctums and wards if you enjoy that kind of thing but my impression is that, RAW, the information warfare defense spells and abilities (especially mind blank) are much stronger than the information gathering abilities, so you may be back to square one as soon as level 8 spells become available. (Mind Blank has the potential to make this kind of information gathering counter-productive since you could scry the bad guys' lair and hypothetically see a fighter talking to his orc lieutenants, then teleport in and discover that there's actually an ancient dragon and three 20th level wizards who didn't show up because of their mind blank spells. If you prepped your strike on the assumption that the fighter talking to a pair of orc lieutenants were what you were going to face, you could be in serious trouble).

But, regardless of that, that style of information gathering is of pretty limited utility in a lot of plot-driven campaigns where your challenges are not really self-selected and known in advance or where there is a pretty strict time limit. For example, in Age of Worms, one of the high level adventures kicks off when you see another party of (evil) adventurers on a boat, going to an island. You can start casting your divination spells then if you feel like it, but you really need to head there yourselves so that you can beat them to the quest items. And until you get there, you don't know what the quest challenges are going to be so you can't start scrying them. (Also, even if you did start your divination game, you're unlikely to find out more than you already know from previous non-hostile encounters with them and the initial plot-starting scrying. OK, he's a cleric of Vecna and there's an Efreet and a sneaky dude, and he can summon or bind devils if he feels like it (just like any other cleric). Getting any more than that is going to be tricky and if you try to cleverly prepare for their specific abilities, you run very real risks of your preparation making you more vulnerable to what they actually do if you run into one of those "false or random answer" chances on an important question, (Nah, we don't need to prep against death magic--he never uses it), or if they deliberately change their tactics in response to their own divinations (or detection of your divinations). So, even if you knew about the challenges in time to spend days on information gathering (which you don't) and could afford to take days off in the quest (which you can't), trying to prep for the specific individuals rather than the general information handed to you at the outset carries significant risks. Likewise, Red Hand of Doom is too low level for that kind of magic to be readily available and the timeline is fairly exacting so you can't necessarily spend weeks until you manage to land a scry spell on the leader of the enemy army. But even if those things were not true, when you go to Rhest, you don't know what you're looking for so you have no targets for your divinations. When you go to the Ghostlord's lair, you know about the ghost lord, but he's not necessarily the challenge you need to overcome there. Then, the Battle of Brindol comes to you and comes on its own terms. Again, you're not going to be able to know that you will fight Skather and Abiathrax and Kharn, rather than the other high level members of the army and a dozen hill giants. You could theoretically try it in the last dungeon but information warfare available to wizards is of limited value in most of the adventure.

Information gathering through divination is often worthwhile when you try it but it won't enable you to be the Schroedinger's wizard of message board bloviators unless you are playing in a very specific kind of campaign in a couple of particular level bands. (Where the divination spells are available but mind blank is not or where wish can be regularly used for information gathering and where the DM believes that wish used to gather information defeats mind blank (which is not clear RAW)).

[Troacctid]

Essentially, a wizard can do a lot ahead of time. If the wizard knows that the party needs to go bump off Lord Meanscary, he can scry on Meanscary Manor to learn about its defenses, use contact other plane to get info on the target, and legend lore to glean any other important information.

None of these slots are used during "field work" days so you can hardly call them a waste, and the knowledge so acquired means that the wizard can bring obscure and narrow tools that solve the encounter with a great chance of success. This is especially important in games that are "combat as war" as opposed to the more typical "combat as sport" approach where the party shows up without a plan and works through a dungeon encounter by encounter.

Scry-and-die tactics are all well and good, but they don't prevent you from ever being surprised and they certainly don't guarantee you the perfect spell loadout every day. They're just the high-octane version of sending your familiar ahead as a scout.

[sleepyphoenixx]

...

You do make some good points, but you also seem to fall into the trap that i've seen here all too often - that using divinations means you have to spend days gathering information first, or you don't use divinations at all. That's simply not true.
Also wizards have the distinct advantage of the Spontaneous Divination ACF. You can simply use any left-over slots at the end of the day to cast divinations and then rest and recover them. Even non-ACF wizards can leave slots free and use them in the evenings for divination if they didn't need them earlier.

As for the difficulty and availability of divination defenses, it's a lot more complicated than what you seem to assume.
It's true that scrying is easily detectable, even if only by people with high spot checks or those capable of casting the relevant defensive spells.
It's also true that Mind Blank will screw most direct forms of divination, but it only protects a single creature and is a high level spell or very expensive item.

But you also have to consider that many high level threats don't have enough spellcasting to cast those defenses or buy those items, and detecting a scrying spell only helps you if you can actually do something about it.
There's also quite a few indirect divinations, stuff like Hindsight and Legend Lore, and it's often a better tactic to target a BBEG's minions or hideouts with direct divinations instead of the BBEG himself (which neatly circumvents a lot of protections) and target the boss more indirectly to get around his precautions.

And even with all those possibilities wizards aren't even the best at the divination game. That spot belongs to psions.

Scry-and-die tactics are all well and good, but they don't prevent you from ever being surprised and they certainly don't guarantee you the perfect spell loadout every day. They're just the high-octane version of sending your familiar ahead as a scout.

Foresight prevents you from being surprised. Scry & die tactics are to surprise others.

You can also use divinations to find your enemies before they find you. Probe Thoughts, Inquisition, Prying Eyes, Chain of Eyes, Circle Dance, Discern Location... it's said that offense is the best defense, and that's doubly true in D&D. Divination is the school that helps you find your enemies before they come find you.
And as long as you know in advance what you're going to fight (because you're the attacker) you'll be able to prepare your spells accordingly. That's what leaving slots free is for.

That obviously doesn't work against random encounters, but those aren't generally a big threat anyway.
But unless you're regularly attacked out of the blue by people you've never had anything to do with, even indirectly, you can learn about them with the right application of divinations before fighting them. Then you take 15 minutes and prepare the right spells to take them down. That's when you use scry & die tactics.

[Elder_Basilisk]

You do make some good points, but you also seem to fall into the trap that i've seen here all too often - that using divinations means you have to spend days gathering information first, or you don't use divinations at all. That's simply not true.
Also wizards have the distinct advantage of the Spontaneous Divination ACF. You can simply use any left-over slots at the end of the day to cast divinations and then rest and recover them. Even non-ACF wizards can leave slots free and use them in the evenings for divination if they didn't need them earlier.

I would presume that most wizards leave slots open until the end of the day and then either use them for long term buff spells (greater magic weapon, mage armor, detect scrying, anticipate teleportation, mind blank, etc). Using those slots for divinations is good though it does cut down on the ability to cast tomorrow's extended buffs.

That's not why I expect that detailed information gathering of the kind necessary to make Schroedinger's wizard work takes days. I expect that it takes days because:
A. Most of the spells frequently referenced (scrying for example) have will saves and are subject to lower level interdiction (such as non-detection) which means that you will generally need multiple castings in order to gather useful information.
B. Other spells frequently referenced (such as contact other plane) need multiple castings to gather extensive and reliable information (a 20% false or random answer means that you probably want to get the same answer from two different sources before you can rely on it) and carry non-zero risks of long-term incapacitation (and that will almost certainly come up sooner or later if extensive use of the spell is SOP unless you are also blowing a moment of prescience every casting).
C. Some of the divinations you describe later (prying eyes, etc) are indeed less susceptible to the defenses I mentioned (though prying eyes will not see anyone under mind blank) but they generally have other limitations (prying eyes requires you to be fairly close to the area you are scouting, cannot go through locked doors or walls), etc that will limit the amount of information you can get from them.

As for the difficulty and availability of divination defenses, it's a lot more complicated than what you seem to assume.
It's true that scrying is easily detectable, even if only by people with high spot checks or those capable of casting the relevant defensive spells.
It's also true that Mind Blank will screw most direct forms of divination, but it only protects a single creature and is a high level spell or very expensive item.

But you also have to consider that many high level threats don't have enough spellcasting to cast those defenses or buy those items, and detecting a scrying spell only helps you if you can actually do something about it.

You're right that there are limitations but most of the threats that you care about them will have them or access to some form of them. As doing something about scrying, there are lots of varieties of things you can do about it. You could just shut up and not do anything until the spell expired. You could start deliberately lying in order to give false information. You could leave the room and not come back until the spell expired. You could turn out the lights and wait until the spell expired. You could dispel the sensor, you could cast false vision, etc. Heck, if you use detect scrying which provides name and targeting info on the scryer, you could start counterscrying or sending nightmare spells the caster's way.

Now, every enemy you scry on will not have access to all of those abilities but even the low level shut up and turn out the lights or start spreading misleading information (talking to someone "off camera" who is not really there, describing fake plans to lead scryers into traps, etc) are available to nearly all of them and many of the kind of opponents you want to scry will have access to the nastier and more magical responses either personally or through allies.

There's also quite a few indirect divinations, stuff like Hindsight and Legend Lore, and it's often a better tactic to target a BBEG's minions or hideouts with direct divinations instead of the BBEG himself (which neatly circumvents a lot of protections) and target the boss more indirectly to get around his precautions.

Quite true. Though the indirect targeting cannot give all of the information to be a schroedinger's wizard. It is useful information gathering, not perfect intelligence.

And even with all those possibilities wizards aren't even the best at the divination game. That spot belongs to psions.

But this thread is about wizards, we should probably keep it there.

Foresight prevents you from being surprised. Scry & die tactics are to surprise others.

You can also use divinations to find your enemies before they find you. Probe Thoughts, Inquisition, Prying Eyes, Chain of Eyes, Circle Dance, Discern Location... it's said that offense is the best defense, and that's doubly true in D&D. Divination is the school that helps you find your enemies before they come find you.
And as long as you know in advance what you're going to fight (because you're the attacker) you'll be able to prepare your spells accordingly. That's what leaving slots free is for.

That obviously doesn't work against random encounters, but those aren't generally a big threat anyway.

Again, this is limited to certain kinds of campaigns where you have an specific (usually self-directed) goal and can plan your actions specifically tailored to accomplish that. In a lot of adventures--not just random encounters--that's not reliably possible. In classic dungeon crawls like the Moathouse or the Temple of Elemental Evil, for example, you may well not have any idea about who the main villains or the henchmen you should be scrying are. You have to explore the moathouse to find out what is there. And even then, there are some tough encounters that you would not know to scry for (such as an advanced grell that attacks you on the elevator) and which will be tougher if you assume that you know about everything in advance. Now spells like prying eyes will be more useful in many of these scenarios, but even they will not reveal everything and even in a best case scenario will probably not enable you to plan the perfect spell list tailored to all the encounters in a dungeon (though you can probably avoid really bad choices--ie if there are lots of undead, you ditch the enchantment spells).

But unless you're regularly attacked out of the blue by people you've never had anything to do with, even indirectly, you can learn about them with the right application of divinations before fighting them. Then you take 15 minutes and prepare the right spells to take them down. That's when you use scry & die tactics.

I think you mean "Scry and fry." Scry and Die is when you try "Scry and Fry" but the target has greater anticipate teleportation up or you missed three quarters of the EL when you scried because they had mind blank up or the target suckered you with a false vision and you ended up teleporting into an active volcano.

[eggynack]

I would presume that most wizards leave slots open until the end of the day and then either use them for long term buff spells (greater magic weapon, mage armor, detect scrying, anticipate teleportation, mind blank, etc). Using those slots for divinations is good though it does cut down on the ability to cast tomorrow's extended buffs.

I don't see why you can't do both. You're going to want a good number of spells to just be, y'know, the spells they are, because such are the demands of combat. This is true whether you have spontaneous divination or not. From those spells that are necessarily being prepared, some number will likely go unused, because the wizards are few that can be perfectly efficient with their casting (and if you needed more spells, then you probably shouldn't have had so many open slots, so that reinforces my claim if anything). You use those unused spells in the only way you can, by casting divinations, and you use your open slots to do whatever. All upside, in other words.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I don't see why you can't do both. You're going to want a good number of spells to just be, y'know, the spells they are, because such are the demands of combat. This is true whether you have spontaneous divination or not. From those spells that are necessarily being prepared, some number will likely go unused, because the wizards are few that can be perfectly efficient with their casting (and if you needed more spells, then you probably shouldn't have had so many open slots, so that reinforces my claim if anything). You use those unused spells in the only way you can, by casting divinations, and you use your open slots to do whatever. All upside, in other words.

I think the ACF that lets you spontaneously cast divinations is not especially relevant to the discussion. Yes, it's a great class feature for information warfare style of play, but it's not something that every wizard--or even most wizards would have if it's available, it won't be available in all 3.5 games (core only won't have it and it's probably a maybe in any game that isn't "all published WOTC material) and as far as I know, it's not available at all in Pathfinder. So, assuming that all unused spell slots can be transformed into divinations is probably not valid for a "this is how you play [any] wizard." So, for the most part, I'm going to be addressing a wizard who leaves a large number of spell slots open during the standard day and either fills them with utility spells during the day, or if nothing came up, fills them with long duration buff spells or divinations to cast at the end of the day.

Exactly how many divinations that will net a wizard depends how many spell slots you want to have prepared so that you're ready to go if the many enemies and bad guys in the world pop in unannounced and which divinations and buffs you want to have up. I take it for granted that most wizards will probably want to have half their spell slots filled at any given time* and at least two spells in their highest level, but even if you're willing to live with only one spell available in your highest level slot, you're still going to have stiff competition for those open spell slots at the end of the day. A corollary to this applies even to spellcasters with that ACF: You never know when you're going to be attacked in your sleep, so you probably don't want to dump all of your unused spells into divinations at the end of the day. It's a good idea to leave enough that you can handle at least one tough fight. Combined with a desire for long-term buffs, this will mean that even characters with the spontaneous divination ACF you are talking about will have a limited number of divinations available at the end of each day.

Most of the divinations that we're talking about are fairly high level slots. Prying Eyes is 5th level as is Contact Other Plane (in Pathfinder). Legend Lore is 6th level. Greater Scrying and Vision are 7th level. Discern Location (and greater Prying eyes) are 8th level. For most of a wizard's career there will be some competition for those slots and significant opportunity costs to leaving most of them open. If you've just hit 13th level, you might leave one 7th level slot open, but you probably won't leave two open and 5th and 6th level slots are your bread and butter spells so you can't leave too many of them open either. Now, false image, overland flight and private sanctum are 5th level, greater anticipate teleportation and heart of stone are 6th level and mordenkeinen's magnificent mansion and energy immunity are 7th level. In Pathfinder, greater false vision sits at 7th too. When you hit 15th level and above, Mind Blank is the king of 8th level buff spells and you might want to give it to other party members too so you can spend more slots on mind blank than you will ever have available. Moment of Prescience hangs out at 8th level as well in case there wasn't enough competition for those slots. Screen is there too if False Vision isn't good enough for you. And that's just some of the long duration buff spells at those levels, not including "I'm building my power/doing things in my off days" spells like Wall of Stone, Wall of Iron, Fabricate, Planar Binding, Greater Planar Binding, Create Demiplane (in Pathfinder), etc.

So, you can leave some spell slots open at the end of each day and cast, say, legend lore and greater binding, but if you start trying to run a full suite of divinations every evening with multiple castings of greater scrying, etc you're going to start competing with the long term buffs and defenses that you could otherwise be running in those slots. Heck even planning to cast discern location on a regular basis is one less mind blank you can cast for your party.

*In most games I've played, adventure doesn't wait until it's convenient for you so even if you thought it was going to be an uneventful day of haggling in Greyhawk to get a custom +5 cloak of resistance combined with wings of flying, you could be attacked by powerful enemies or alerted to an imminent threat or opportunity and have to teleport out and deal with it rather than taking an hour to prepare a full suite of adventuring spells. Having a good number of spells prepped lets you weather the storm until you can take that time to prepare.

[Thurbane]

This line of thinking always assumes:

1) A certain level of play
2) That each wizard has the exact same spells available to them
2A) That each wizard is going to use this method and if they dont that they are being played "wrong"
3) That appropriate time is available for these preparations to be taken
3A) That once a piece of information is gathered that the circumstances around that information never change
4) That people in a world where all of the above are a "given" dont actually take any actions to prevent the above from working

If worlds actually worked like this, there would be nothing but wizards in the world and each would never step outside his fabulously fortified magical demense.

I don't agree with all points, but this essentially captures my attitude.

When I step from optimization threads into an actual game, the differences are staggering.

I know a lot of people do play TO type games, but all the groups I've gamed with a generally low-mid op, and if/when you tried to cram a fully optimized Tier 1 in there, while it works in practice, it essentially brings the game to a crumbling halt; and begins an arms race where the DM has to raise all opponents to a similar level of optimization to make the game playable.

It's totally cool for groups that enjoy this kind of gameplay, but it kind of bugs me that on a lot of forums, this is the assumed level of optimization at all tables, and if not, you;re somehow playing the game wrong...

[sleepyphoenixx]

I think the ACF that lets you spontaneously cast divinations is not especially relevant to the discussion. Yes, it's a great class feature for information warfare style of play, but it's not something that every wizard--or even most wizards would have if it's available, it won't be available in all 3.5 games (core only won't have it and it's probably a maybe in any game that isn't "all published WOTC material) and as far as I know, it's not available at all in Pathfinder. So, assuming that all unused spell slots can be transformed into divinations is probably not valid for a "this is how you play [any] wizard." So, for the most part, I'm going to be addressing a wizard who leaves a large number of spell slots open during the standard day and either fills them with utility spells during the day, or if nothing came up, fills them with long duration buff spells or divinations to cast at the end of the day.

I disagree on your first point. If you're going into a game as a wizard that wants to make extensive use of divination i think it's safe to assume that you're taking options to improve on that.
Spontaneous Divination is also in CC, and the completes are allowed in most games i've seen. Even for core-only and PF games you can specialize in divination.

Even without that you still seem to have the assumption that you need tons of divinations to get any use out of them. That simply isn't true. You can get a lot of extra information just by casting 1-2 divinations a day, if you do it regularly. Unless you're in a campaign where everything is resolved in a matter of days (possible, but hardly the norm) you have time to narrow down your investigation, and every single bit of information you have before a fight can already help.
Even in very fast-paced campaigns a spell like Probe Thoughts can be worth more than one more buff if you use it on the right person.

A simple example would be capturing an enemy instead of killing him. Then you can use spells like Detect Thoughts, Inquisition or Probe Thoughts to find out who he works for, who the strongest/most important figures in his organization are, what he knows about their plans, what defenses they have and so on. That already gives you additional divination targets. Find out about their whereabouts and defenses, rinse and repeat the above but this time with an officer instead of a mook, who will have more/more detailed knowledge for you to extract.

Also keep in mind that you're usually not operating in a vacuum. Other casters in your party can use information you have divined for their own divination spells, and vice versa.

It's totally cool for groups that enjoy this kind of gameplay, but it kind of bugs me that on a lot of forums, this is the assumed level of optimization at all tables, and if not, you;re somehow playing the game wrong...

I don't think anyone here assumes that all or even most tables are high-op.
It's just that talking about low-mid op is pretty boring once you know what you're doing, and a lot of people have been here for a while so they know their stuff.
There also isn't a lot of discussion to be had when most of the points boil down to "i'd rather cast Fireball or Haste".

[Elder_Basilisk]

I agree that divinations can be very useful and provide lots of helpful information--especially the hands on divinations of the type you are discussing (probe thoughts, prying eyes, detect thoughts, etc). Where I disagree is that:

A. All divinations all the time is the only way to play an optimized wizard.
An optimized wizard will have some divinations and will use them when appropriate, but always planning to cast ten divinations before bedtime is not the only way to play an optimized wizard. The most bang for your divination spell slot IME comes from those 1-2 divinations. After that there is diminishing returns.

B. (From the original post): A wizard who uses divinations will never be caught off guard by an unexpected threat and will always have the right spell for any situation he finds himself in because... DIVINATIONS!
Even a wizard who uses divinations and finds themselves in situations where they are helpful cannot reasonably expect to never be caught off guard or to be able to perfectly tailor his spell list every day. There will always be unknowns (what did the enemy wizard/cleric prepare today? What monsters will he summon? What's inside the private sanctum? or even just what's in level 2, room 3A? or did I miss a secret door with monsters behind it? Heck, even, "I had no idea he'd crit and drop our fighter; where's a wall of force when I need it?" can change the perfect spell for the situation).

[Flickerdart]

The thing to remember about divining is that you can never cover the unknown unknowns. A wizard's loadout should be maximum 50% specialized solutions, and 50% spells like glitterdust, black tentacles, alter self, and limited wish that are applicable in a broad range of situations.

[Thurbane]

I don't think anyone here assumes that all or even most tables are high-op.

Maybe not in this thread, but my general observation of this forum, as well as the other one or two I'm active on, is that a lot of people make that assumption. Maybe I have a perception bias, though.

It's just that talking about low-mid op is pretty boring once you know what you're doing, and a lot of people have been here for a while so they know their stuff.
There also isn't a lot of discussion to be had when most of the points boil down to "i'd rather cast Fireball or Haste".

Those are fair points.

[Troacctid]

Let's be honest, you can solve a lot of problems with fireballs and hastes.

[Thurbane]

Let's be honest, you can solve a lot of problems with fireballs and hastes.

True!

Spoiler

Show

[tiercel]

Maybe not in this thread, but my general observation of this forum, as well as the other one or two I'm active on, is that a lot of people make that assumption. Maybe I have a perception bias, though.

Those are fair points.

It also seems like a lot of folks focus on play at higher levels than I've commonly, or even ever, seen at gaming tables in real life. Granted, this may be partly my own bias as well -- but when I hear people talk about True Seeing or Mind Blank obviating entire schools of magic, I think, "maybe at campaign end" for tables I've been at, if that. (Also I think "obviate" is a strong term, but that's another discussion.)

Elder_Basilisk has mentioned the opportunity cost of loading up lots of high level spells; the opportunity cost isn't less at lower levels, where you might actually need your spell slots for in-combat use, not for fancy-pants I-blow-all-my-spell-slots-because-nothing-bad-ever-happens-at-night long-term buffs.

Divinations can certainly be handy, but when spending a lot of gaming time at 1st-9th levels, there's only so many divinations - and for that matter, so many spell slots per day. That's not to say that low-to-mid level play is the only playstyle, but when the discussion has Foresight and Mind Blank and Private Sanctum and whatnot from the get-go, it seems like we are leaving out part of the game -- not just "how do/can wizards use divinations?" but "how do they do so as a function of level?"

[Fizban]

Could any of you please elaborate how exactly do you use divination spells for preparation?

Could you write examples for the specific uses of these spells too please? (Sorry for being hard-headed and thank you for your help & time :) )

The secret is that Wizards are actually pretty bad at it. Clerics have the actual workhorse divinations like Divination, which actually lets you ask a general question about what's gonna happen, and Commune for more specific information. Wizards have only the vastly inferior Contact Other Plane, which is similar to Commune (for "20 questions" as Flickerdart said), except less reliable and requiring other optimization to avoid massive penalties, and they flat cannot ask general questions. Scrying is of dubious use outside of scry-n-die thanks to it's short duration, and there are tons of ways to block it. And Clerics get it one spell level later anyway. That leaves Legend Lore, the drawbacks of which are evident at a glance.

Schrodinger's Cat was meant to point out the absurdity of the theory. Schrodinger's Wizard is the same: if it seems absurd that a Wizard always knows everything because DIVINATIONS!, that's because it is absurd, and anyone who's taking it seriously missed the point. Wizards do not have access to the divinations required to simply ask what's going to happen, and even if they did it still wouldn't guarantee they'd ask the right questions. Cast as many Divinations as you like, the DM can shower you in cryptic responses and your "enemies" can prepare mult-part defenses that return false-positives or just counter divinate you, and that's without bringing in actual anti-divination magic. It's not really a huge deal.

[Troacctid]

Wizards do technically have pretty easy access to commune via Improved Familiar (imp or quasit).

[Fizban]

And Arcane Disciple, and Divine Oracle, and Spontaneous Divination, and. . . still gotta jump through hoops though, Clerics get it all natively and Wizards don't.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Schrodinger's Cat was meant to point out the absurdity of the theory. Schrodinger's Wizard is the same: if it seems absurd that a Wizard always knows everything because DIVINATIONS!, that's because it is absurd, and anyone who's taking it seriously missed the point. Wizards do not have access to the divinations required to simply ask what's going to happen, and even if they did it still wouldn't guarantee they'd ask the right questions. Cast as many Divinations as you like, the DM can shower you in cryptic responses and your "enemies" can prepare mult-part defenses that return false-positives or just counter divinate you, and that's without bringing in actual anti-divination magic. It's not really a huge deal.

If your argument boils down to "but you have to use it properly" and "but the DM can screw you over" you're not actually making much of a case for your point of view.

Now i'm not saying a wizard can learn everything ever with divinations. That's impossible (and would be rather boring). They're also not the best at it (again: psions).
But that doesn't mean wizard divinations aren't useful or "just a tool for the DM to railroad you" (i've seen that argument around too).
You can make a lot of plots more comfortable for yourself and your party with divinations, cutting short lenghty investigations, finding clues and people instead of stumbling around blindly and hoping for DM fiat and getting valuable information on enemy capabilities that might make the difference between victory and a TPK.

[Emperor Tippy]

Contact Other Planes is one of the best general use divination spells in the game even if you don't go with the "can predict the future" interpretation.

32 Int is enough that you always make the DC 12 Intelligence Check for the Lesser Deity result so you have no risk (you don't auto fail attribute checks on a natural 1) and gets you 60% accuracy.

Now say you are going to explore a forest, so get a map of the forest (and it can be an incredibly crude map, you really just want grid squares on it and semi accurate boundary points).

Then you start with the first round of questions.

"Are there any undead within the area represented by this map?"
"Are there any constructs within the area represented by this map?"
"Are there any dragons within the area represented by this map?"

And so on. Repeat the spell twenty times with the same questions and you should know the true answers to all of those questions with a fair degree of accuracy.

I've accurately mapped every single permanent structure, road, body of water, and local population of an entire nation in a day of game time (thanks to a Mage's Lucubration trap for unlimited spell slots).

---
A foe willing to properly use divination is a very dangerous and difficult challenge to overcome.

[torrasque666]

-Snip-

Do note that Emperor Tippy is basically the Cthulhu of the boards. He's got a fantastic level of system mastery. He plays at a level of optimization most never come close to imitating. And there are more like him who he plays with, but I'm not sure if they visit these boards.

[Diarmuid]

32 Int is enough...

...thanks to a Mage's Lucubration trap for unlimited spell slots

A foe willing to properly use divination is a very dangerous and difficult challenge to overcome.

Yes, I've taken those out of context but I think that's a pretty good representation of the other side to what many of us are trying to represent here. 32 Int is something that has never and will likely never exist at any gaming table I've ever been a part of. Spell traps for unlimited spell slots, same thing...heck spell traps of any kind other than ones in a dungeon/castle/etc used as a defense have never been seen at my tables. And that's fine because thats the choice my groups have made. Those that have/use them...I hope they enjoy them and the type of game they represent.

It's the last one, where proposing this is the "proper" way to do something many of us get caught up on. It wasnt directly said, but it implies all other ways are "improper", or "wrong" which is the fallacy.

[ryu]

Yes, I've taken those out of context but I think that's a pretty good representation of the other side to what many of us are trying to represent here. 32 Int is something that has never and will likely never exist at any gaming table I've ever been a part of. Spell traps for unlimited spell slots, same thing...heck spell traps of any kind other than ones in a dungeon/castle/etc used as a defense have never been seen at my tables. And that's fine because thats the choice my groups have made. Those that have/use them...I hope they enjoy them and the type of game they represent.

It's the last one, where proposing this is the "proper" way to do something many of us get caught up on. It wasnt directly said, but it implies all other ways are "improper", or "wrong" which is the fallacy.

Proper as synonym for ''to best effect'' is an entirely legitimate, and this case accurate use of the term. Does anyone care to argue that that wasn't an extremely powerful use of contact other plane?

[Segev]

I know spell traps, if used in that fashion, would swiftly be banned by most DMs I've played with.