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So I'm GMing a campaign with an oracle who has Divination as a known spell. The spell description specifically says that you know the spell failed if you don't roll high enough on the base chance of success. That's happened once or twice before, and we just say that the spell fizzles.
My question is how should I handle it if the spell is prevented from working by outside magic? ie They try to ask a question about something with extremely powerful magic that prevents divination type spells from working on it? We're getting into higher levels where such stuff does exist in this campaign.
I'm debating between giving them an answer that says that the truth is hidden, or just having the spell fizzle as if they rolled too low. What would the rest of you do as GMs?
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I'd treat it on a case by case basis depending on what the description of the counteracting magic and possibly the relationships between the scryer and scryee. My default would probably be, "You see nothing." If the scryer and scryee have a relationship, I would tailor it, "You see a fog in the shape of a middle finger extended in your general direction." "You see a large yellow smiley face obstructing your view."
In the description of the spell it states[ b] If the die roll fails, you know the spell failed, unless specific magic yielding false information is at work.[/b] So if the magic being used simply conceals the information you know that something is blocking you. If on the other hand the magic being used returns false information you get that information.
So a spell like undetectable alignment would not return the information, but they would know they are being blocked by something. A spell similar to misdirection on the other hand could return false information. I realize that neither of these spell will actually work on divination but the principle remains.
The really ambiguous question is what happens if the roll succeeds and there is magic blocking it?
My question is how should I handle it if the spell is prevented from working by outside magic?
Divination is special, because it tells you what happens in case of a "doesnt work".
Generally you dont get specific feedback if and when yes why your spell didnt work.
Example:
You scan a dude with Detect Evil. No ping, as you didnt detect any evil. Might be that the dude is indeed not evil. Or that he has Undetectable Alignment on him.
Or if you try to Srcy someone, and the spell doesnt work. You do NOT know why the spell failed. Might be a succesfull WILL-Save, might be you failed to penetrate SR, might be you didnt beat the Nondetection on him, might be he is in a room shielded with lead-sheeting, might be he is currently dead and thus an illegitimate target.
Since I like answering their divinations with short rhymes, here's what I've come up with:
The role of divination,
To guide, inform, and teach,
But some well hidden knowledge
Is simply out of reach.
Awesome!
Post how the players respond to this please, I'm dying to know.
I mean, I guess they could get it on a natural 20?