I have a whole campaign based around my players being pseudo-emissaries of a monarch. My campaign will have them traveling away from the kingdom virtually the entire campaign, with stops back home between missions (leveling, downtime, etc.).
I'm a novice with Pathfinder magic, and I'm not sure what magical means of communication may exist for the world.
Can anyone give me some ways for immediate communication across distances in the pathfinder world? Distances would be fewer than 750 miles (maybe even half that). Whether it's one-way communication or two would also be important to know.
I played a PFS game called Destiny of the Sands in which the main NPC gave the party a gem with some type of spell that enabled us to talk to him (one-way) when we completed our mission, but I don't remember what it was.
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Bird-type feather tokens can carry short messages for 300 gp a pop. Scrolls or wands of sending would be helpful. But I'd think that a kingdom would prefer a lead-lined room with two paintings or statues inside- one of each person communicating, each using a wand of enter image to communicate, as it's much harder to scry on. There's also obscure object to protect the images from divination.
Rules citation for the lead sheeting, since many people I've met weren't aware of where to find it:
Divination
Divination spells enable you to learn secrets long forgotten, predict the future, find hidden things, and foil deceptive spells.
Many divination spells have cone-shaped areas. These move with you and extend in the direction you choose. The cone defines the area that you can sweep each round. If you study the same area for multiple rounds, you can often gain additional information, as noted in the descriptive text for the spell.
Subschools
Scrying: a scrying spell creates an invisible magical sensor that sends you information. Unless noted otherwise, the sensor has the same powers of sensory acuity that you possess. This level of acuity includes any spells or effects that target you, but not spells or effects that emanate from you. The sensor, however, is treated as a separate, independent sensory organ of yours, and thus functions normally even if you have been blinded or deafened, or otherwise suffered sensory impairment.
A creature can notice the sensor by making a Perception check with a DC 20 + the spell level. The sensor can be dispelled as if it were an active spell.
Lead sheeting or magical protection blocks a scrying spell, and you sense that the spell is blocked.
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The game presumes high-level characters are relatively rare, so magic that enables long-distance communication is relatively expensive and hard to come by. The sending spell is the default long-range communication spell, but has the obvious problem of being a 4th/5th level spell and only allows for relatively short messages and has a 10 minute casting time. Overall, an incredibly impractical spell whose only redeeming quality is that it's pretty useful as a scroll.
Another approach is to use the scrying spell, which allows a message spell to be cast through the sensor. A 7th level wizard only has a 35% chance of getting his message through, but there's no rule stating he can't try again if the attempt fails. This is enough to allow for a makeshift conversation, and functions better than sending.
Carrier Pidgeons are one of the most effective forms of communication. They're cheap, don't require powerful magic, and regular NPC's can raise them with handle animal checks. They're hardly instant, though, and only one-way. Honestly, if cost is an issue this is the way to go.
The dancing lights spell is a useful one that even the lowest-level wizards can cast. The spell allows the caster to control the shape and color of the lights, meaning you can create coded messages. With a dedicated relay chain, messages can be sent long distances very quickly. However, this suffers from the requirement of setting up such a dedicated relay chain.
Finally, there's whispering wind, which gives you 1 mile/level distance. While not on the order of hundreds of miles, it's still the closest you get to instantaneous communication. The downside is that you must specify a location and not a creature as the target, so someone has to be sitting in an exact spot waiting for your message.
But I'd think that a kingdom would prefer a lead-lined room with two paintings or statues inside- one of each person communicating, each using a wand of enter image to communicate, as it's much harder to scry on
Enter image has a 50 ft/level range. This is unsuitable for long-distance communication.
Raiziel Dragon brings up the point of "With whom."
My players are ambassador-spies of the Queen of Kyonin.
My world is magic-lite, but Elves are magic-heavy.
It would be a way for players to hear FROM their superiors when they reach a new place.
Examples of things I'd like to pull off:
Players travel stealthily to an old ruin in enemy territory, under orders, looking for something that the Queen doesn't want them to know about (in case they're captured) until they get their safely. So once they're safely there, she needs to communicate.
It seems to me that maybe "GM Fiat" is the way to go. I'm also always looking for ways to make my game more immersive. I'm thinking of tying an object that they use for communication to the cycles of the moon, so that they can only communicate on the New and Full moon (or what ever...).
Sounds like for legitimate, by-the-rules spell-means, nothing fits the bill easily.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, Contributor
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The Dream spell could be a possibility. Some elves ( Dreamspeaker varient )even have it as a spell-like ability.
Hm, if you get the spell lesser planar binding, you can employ a Cacodaemons disease. While the disease is weak at best, the Cacodaemon can then communicate with whomever it transmits the disease to, you can tell the Cacodaemon something, and it can relay it to whomever it bites.
Or vice-versa.
I truly love the knowledge and helpfulness of this community.
Splendor, I'm going to contact you via e-mail and pick your brain.
I'm really interested in your ideas.
I've encountered this question before on several occasions; as you have noticed, long-range magical communication is, for the most part prohibitively rare and expensive (for good reason, from a worldbuilding perspective -- few technologies have a more transformative impact on the world than accessible long-distance communication!). A few additional points:
- Whispering wind delivers its message whether or not anyone's around to hear it. If you set up a predetermined time at which someone's waiting to receive messages, you can avoid this problem, but that presents obvious security risks. (The range limit of 1-20 miles may also be too short for your purposes.)
- Sending stipulates that the caster must be familiar with the recipient. If the PCs communicate with their liege through intermediaries, they'll need a trusted contact.
- The mirror sight spell (as it's listed in the SRD) is known on Golarion as Irriseni mirror sight -- while this might be the most accessible means of reliable, low-cost communication available, it's up to GM discretion whether the spell is commonly known far beyond the frozen wastes of Irrisen.
- For shorter-range scouting missions, missive stones work great. Again, range limit of 3 miles may be too short for your purposes.
Finally, I'll offer a slightly more obscure solution: whispering lilies. Turns out that Pathfinder Venture-Captain Varian Jeggare developed a clever botanical solution to this very problem -- paired flowers that, when planted, transmit spoken messages from one bulb to the other. (You can read about them in this excerpt from The Lost Pathfinder: "Chapter One: The Solarium"). You could write up stats for whispering lilies and entrust your players with one of these remarkable bulbs, keeping the other half inconspicuously near the monarch or their spymaster.