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I can't give much advice on the adventure, as I haven't read/played it yet. But here's some general advice:
1) Make sure everyone fully knows what Sense Elements can do before you start using it. Re-read the book, twice.
2) If you're DMing a game involving deception and intrigue, and any of your PCs have Sensing or Detecting abilities, you need to know everything you can about them and plan for them.
3) If you're going to post very specific info about a published adventure (especially one involving deception/intrigue) on a messageboard, USE SPOILER TAGS. I don't mean to come off as harsh, but a lack of spoiler warnings is a pet peeve of mine...
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Howdy, Jay. Spoiler tags are easy to use.
Down at the bottom of the messagebox you see when composing any message is a "BBCode tags you can use:" box, with a "show" tag.
Hit the "show" tag, and you'll see all sorts of ways to gussy up your messages. The last on on the list is for spoilers. Be sure to use square brackets (right next to the 'P'-key on most keyboards) and not parentheses or the curly braces.
I hope this was somewhat helpful.
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That said, yeah... I don't think Sense Elements can do all what you described. I'd revisit Complete Divine before going on. Have fun!
What element is the shugenja? From my memory of OA (I don't have CD), a fire shugenja could only sense fire, a water shugenja could only sense water, etc. Since life contains all elements, you'd eventually pick up on a living creature, but the ability as described was near useless.
In other words, you may not know what you think you know.
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Contributor
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I don't want to disparage your DM, but I think he made a bad rules call on this one. My read of the sense elements ability is very different.
First, it is tied to the shugenja's chosen element, per the Element Focus ability. Although living beings are made of all element and thus the sense elements ability can be always used to find a person, the fact that Ileosa is a person shouldn't be a surprise.
There is nothing in the ability's description that would reveal the presence (and certainly not the target) of a misdirection spell. Even detect magic can't do that and as a PC I would expect the queen to be the recipient of magical protection spells, so I wouldn't even bother trying to use detect magic on her.
Second, the ability does not tell the shugenja whether or not a particular material is magically enhanced. It only tells whether the material is natural or was created magically.
Also, I'm not sure how a level 1 (even level 2) character would be able to manage the DC 30+ of the spellcraft check to determine anything more than if the material was either natural or created by a spell effect. I could see a DC 25 check on a lucky roll, but anything beyond that is just too hard for a low-level character. (Personally, I don't allow "maximum effect" on a natural 20 for these kinds of skill checks, but some DMs may do something different.)
I don't know how the interaction went down and I also don't know how your group interprets what a use of sense elements looks like, but if your character has to do anything that even remotely looks like spellcasting during that audience, Sabina and Ileosa's other guards are going to be all over him before the end of the first round.
Ultimately, I don't see how this first-level ability could possibly have "broken" the campaign. However, even if the DM completely disagrees with my interpretation of the ability, I don't see how getting through this portion of her protection is going to matter at this point. The only thing PCs truly know is that the queen is being deceptive, which everyone likely knows already--it is courtly politics, after all. Even if they knew more than that, who's going to trust the word of an unknown 1st-level spellcaster whose abilities appear to come from study of the religious practices of far-away Tian Xia and aren't likely to be trusted, anyway.
Bottom line. I wouldn't worry too much about it. No one who matters is really going to believe your characters, yet. And even with those who do, no one is in a position to do anything about it at the moment.
Regardless of the issue whether the power described was properly used, I don’t see why you think this is important. The PCs now know two things:
1) The Queen is using Glibness.
2) The Queen is portraying herself as having the same alignment as her bodyguard using the spell Misdirection.
So what?
All this does is reveal that the Queen may not be entirely trustworthy. That’s not a big secret. Furthermore, the spells are quite innocuous. A politician with a glib tongue? Not exactly scandalous. Neither is using Misdirection.
What happens if the PCs confront her with using spells? Well, one it’s utterly irrelevant – the Queen can’t protect herself by using low level magic?
Two, it’s very stupid to confront the Queen about anything. First, for the affrontery alone, I’d have Sabina Merrin remove them from her presence and take them into custody and interrogated. What other magic have they used on the queen? Is using magic on royalty without her permission a crime? Probably. Given that the PCs were returning something to the Queen, I don’t think they’d be more than a bit roughed up. But they probably broke a lot of etiquette, and would have potentially committed additional crimes against the throne. If they actually accused the Queen of committing any crime, they’d probably be guilty of treason.
So, if I ran the scene, I’d have Sabina Merrin immediately end the interview. Summon the guards. Take them to Kressida Croft and declare they illegally used magic against the Queen, and that they should be interrogated to determine if that is the extent of their crimes. If they were simply stupid, then give them this reward (for returning the jewelry) and see them off. If there is some further criminal activity, take appropriate action. End of story.
At this point, they’d eventually be released, but probably wouldn’t have Kroft as a contact to feed them the further adventures in the book. However, there is still the potential to make a good impression on Vencarlo Orsini, and he could theoretically take Kroft’s place as a party patron and the AP could continue on as planned.
What the PCs learned is so minor and innocuous, there doesn’t need to be further action. However, their names and such are now known to the Queen, and she may be preposed to keep an eye on them. Might be more dangerous for the PCs later on.
But the AP being broken? No.
This is basically where he turns to the rest of the party and asks for a quick conversation in which he departs all that he knows and then the party determines what to do.
First, the DM should not have let you had a confab. Think about it this way: what you did was turn to the President in the White House and say, "Just a sec. We have something important to discuss privately." And then huddle up. It's an enormous social faux pas.
Second, she has glibness and misdirection one. And that's a sign of evil... why? It's a sign that she's a VIP who wears items that boost one of the three major monarch skills (the others being sense motive and diplomacy) and that also protects her from diplomats gaining extra knowledge about her. And if she is evil... so what? It's Korvosa. Check out the Church of Asmodeus or the Wizard's college! You don't know anything other than that she as a magic item that's really useful at foiling divinations and boosting her social skills. This is not the proverbial smoking gun.
In short, this is not proof that you can take to the courts, the masses, or the military.
Of course, the DM panicking tells you that you're on an interesting track. He should have held his water and waited you all out.
Creative Director
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I have to agree that the GM in this case gave out way too much information for the spell effect. At the same time, this is a great example of how spells from a non-core source can cause trouble in a game, since we don't (and can't!) balance the adventure to take into account all spell possibilities. Instead, we present the adventure using the core rules, and the GM should then take that presentation and interpret it as appropriate for his game. Misdirection absolutely should foil sense elements, in other words; the spell sense elements shouldn't be treated as more powerful than detect evil, since they're both basically the same effect (they're just looking for different things).
That said, even if you do reveal that the queen has misdirection and glibness going, I agree that doesn't necessarily mean she's evil... just paranoid and powerful. It certainly doesn't change the fact that if a party of 1st level characters attacks her... the campaign will suffer a TPK.
THAT said...
What I'm saying is: if they become suspicious of the queen at the very start of the adventure... that just takes some of the suspense and fun of the slow reveal out of that adventure. You should try to divert their attentions away from that to Cressida, who might agree with them that Illeosa's a bad seed (hell... that opinion's already held by the majority of Korvosa anyway!), but that doesn't matter. She's the queen. The PCs' job (and Cressida's) is to follow her rule, but at the same time to do the job of making Korvosa safe. And if along that way they discover something that indicates the queen is up to something legitimately bad... well, that's something that can be handled in due time. In the meantime... someone needs to help control these riots!