Ok, long story short, I'd like to have an adventure or campaign based around a criminal case, using an Investigator as the PCs' patron. Here's my major problem: EVERYTHING CAN BE THWARTED BY MAGIC!
Scrying and divination spells can really screw everything up. Finding the bad guy can result into Scrying onto him and then teleporting right next to him.
Any advice on how to make a criminal case REALLY hard to solve? I'm not really talking about having powerful minions taking roles of the main culrpit until the mastermind is revealed, but asking more about making it difficult for PCs to easily solve it through magic.
Sure, I can't expect my party to have a diviner everytime, but... anything would be welcomed.
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Usually in most setting with magic, relying on magic to solve a case is not allowed. Because again with magic being that prevalent, it is relatively easy to do many things, false divination , using Geas to force someone to do something or force them to not talk. Someone can even cast spells to change the state of decay of a corpse or even make evidence disappears with just a spell.
Basically in a fantasy setting, it is even more important to Prove Beyond a Reasonable Doubt that someone did it and this usually requires to collect real evidences, witnesses and find the Mens Rea .
Of course it changes from places to places, in a barbarian society, everything is quickly solved with an axe and nobody cares about the truth.
Take the magic option out of them. Make the settlement they're in consider magic a crime, or (not so nice) antimagic zone (I wouldn't do that, because when the magic is banned the PCs HAVE the option of using magic, albeit they have to do it carefully. When it's antimagic it's useless to try)
The other options are countering them, using magic of anti-scrying, anti-enchantment, lead sheets, and everything that is a bane to magic. And if the spellcasters have spellbook (or witch's familiar, for the matter), make them lose it, so they are anti-magicked. Steal them with a band of rogues or something.
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What spells are you worried about? Few are actually that hard for a clever murderer to circumvent or avoid. I mean, a ring of Mind Shielding takes things like Discern Lies off the table. What else are you worried about?
Speak with Dead? They wore a mask, so the corpse knows nothing except that someone in a mask killed them.
Scrying? Requires you to know who you're looking for, and teleporting to them after scrying is iffy rules-wise, since you don't necessarily know where they are.
Contact Other Plane? Unreliable and fallible information source.
Legend Lore? Needs 2d6 weeks and gives incomplete information unless you already know quite a bit.
Commune? This is probably the biggest worry, but it remains extremely limited in this sort of situation.
Basically, all of these are very good for figuring out who didn't do it, but unless you've already got a really good suspect (and happen to be correct), they don't tell you who did do it.
All your mastermind needs to do is be careful.
Scrying? Requires you to know who you're looking for, and teleporting to them after scrying is iffy rules-wise, since you don't necessarily know where they are.
Scrying allows you to see and hear around the target; Teleport can get you there with a 76% of success, using the "Viewed Once" option, if the target's within the spell's range.
Greater Teleport basically says "screw this" and you get in the right spot every time.
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Scrying allows you to see and hear around the target; Teleport can get you there with a 76% of success, using the "Viewed Once" option, if the target's within the spell's range.
Greater Teleport basically says "screw this" and you get in the right spot every time.
Depends. If you know where they are, sure, Scrying probably works. If it's someplace you've never seen before and you don't even know what country they're in, I'd be inclined to disagree. Teleport says you need "...some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination."
Scrying provides the second (layout), but not necessarily the first (location).
And then of course there's Teleport Trap, which isn't gonna be universal, but should be a serious risk on a main villain's safehose by the time PCs are casting 5th level spells.
Scrying allows you to see and hear around the target;
To see what? How do you know where to look? How do you know whom to look for? Investigating a murder almost always happens after the fact. Unless you're a tracking a serial killer who continues to murder and leave clues, most murders are singular acts and the perpetrator is likely trying to hide the fact. Knowing where a murder is going to occur takes a lot more than a scrying spell. As far as solving a murder goes, scry does nothing.
Teleport can get you there with a 76% of success, using the "Viewed Once" option, if the target's within the spell's range.
Greater Teleport basically says "screw this" and you get in the right spot every time.
Until you've got physical clues to work with to reveal information that will lead you to the perpetrator, what is the murder weapon, the motive to why it occurred - all which an investigator is suited to discover, magic is pretty much useless.