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We used this spell in our game last night and felt it was a little too powerful as written. What we noted:
- Can use Perception in place of Diplomacy - using the most-invested skill in place of any other skill really devalues the other skill and the characters who've invested in it. As long as you have access to this spell, the mage and the perceptive person will play a more important role in getting information than a character who goes out canvassing the town with Diplomacy.
- Faster than legend lore
- More diverse information than legend lore (1 topic per caster level). If focused all on one topic, can instead almost guarantee a natural 20+Perception bonus, which in some cases is better than legend lore, a 4th-6th level spell
- No costly material component
Does anyone have thoughts on how ears of the city should be rebalanced? Or disagree with our assessment?
Too good, I agree. Considering the mechanism it needs a risk of false info IMO. About 25% feels right, though I'm not sure of the exact game mechanic to achieve that.
Wow. That spell is just so annoyingly convenient on multiple levels.
Why do designers think it's okay to completely overshadow skills with 1st level spells? What bothers me the most is that it will shut down any attempt at roleplaying, too.
You could spend hours interacting with people from all over town, maybe getting a couple of friends and enemies while the plot advances in your vicinity.
...or Bob could do the magical equivalent of googling it for 30 seconds and be done.
Hmmmmm
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If I changed something, it would be that the spell only allowed you to use Perception instead of Diplomacy. You'd still need 1d4 hours to canvass people, but a higher caster level could reduce the time needed.
There are a few limitations on this spell that can balance it out.
First is the fact that since the spell does not involve interacting with people it does not allow you to know the sources of the information. That in itself can be a significant limitation. For example you may learn that the person you are looking for is here, but you may not know who saw them or where specifically they were seen. It also make following up on the information a lot more difficult. Since you don’t know who the information came from you can go question that person.
Second is that the spell is highly focused and only returns information on the specific topic or individual specified. This means that you have to be very precise in what you are looking for. You do not get any information on anything else. If you don’t have enough information to figure you exactly what you are looking for this spell is useless. This also means the spell is useless for getting a feel for the local scene.
The third thing that can be used to balance the spell is that it only returns information from locals. In village or small town this is not going to be a problem, but in a large city each district may be considered a separate area and casting it in district will not return any information from another district. Admittedly this is not that much of a restriction in some cases. But in the case of a prepared caster it may require that they allocate multiple 1st level spells to cover the whole city. At low levels this could mean that the caster has to use his all his first level spells for the day.
Legend lore seems like an odd point of comparison. The two spells don't really overlap very much. One is for gathering what the local yokels think they know about someone or something, important or otherwise, while the other essentially plumbs the pages of history and lore itself for information on someone or something Important™, can find information even when none actually exists, and is generally only used when tactics like the first spell are woefully out of scope.
As to comparing it with just using diplomacy: Lots of spells exist that amount to quicker versions of existing skill checks. This isn't really out of the ordinary in that sense.
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But is it balanced for a first level spell? Considering that spider climb, fly, and invisibility come in at 2nd or 3rd? And honeyed tongue comes in at 2nd with only a +5 bonus on one Diplomacy check to gather info (taking the normal time)?
I'd propose:
Ears of the City
School divination; Level arcanist 3, bard 2, cleric 3, inquisitor 2, oracle 3, shaman 3, skald 2, sorcerer 3, warpriest 3, witch 3, wizard 3
Casting
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (a small piece of a brick)
Effect
Range personal
Duration 1 hour/level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes (harmless)
Description
You see and hear a stream of past scenes and pieces of conversations related to local people and events. The flashes are so brief that it is impossible to identify individual people or places, but when you concentrate on a specific topic or individual, you can piece together a coherent narrative told in a multitude of changing voices in your mind.
Each hour for the duration of the spell, you can attempt a Diplomacy check to gather information as though she had spent 1d4 hours talking to local people. Since the information gathering doesn’t involve actual interaction with people, only observation, you can use your Perception skill instead of your Diplomacy skill. While thus concentrating, you are effectively blind and deaf.
Doesn't seem broken to me.
What it does mostly is speed things up, accomplishing 1d4 hours of information gathering in 6 seconds. By more often then not, this isn't particularly relevant. Unless you are in a time crunch, being faster doesn't matter too much.
Perception vs. Diplomacy isn't a big deal either. A party is still going to need diplomacy and it is unlikely that the best diplomacy in the group is going to be much, if any, worse than the best perception. Since it is a target touch spell so it is just the best in the party that matters the skill switch will rarely have a significant mechanical benefit.
That said, I don't like this spell. Not because it mechanically messes things up, but because it totally removes all sorts of role-playing opportunities and encounters and also it would be more difficult for me as a GM to convey that information.
I would much prefer something like:
"You see and hear a stream of past scenes and pieces of conversations related to local people and events. The flashes are so brief that it is impossible to identify individual people or places but you gain an instinctive understanding of the local people and how they relate to each other and what they are likely to be knowledgeable about.
For the next 24 hours you can use this instinctive knowledge to make Gather Information diplomacy checks in 1d4x10 minutes instead of 1d4x10 hours or if you choose to take the longer time, you gain a + 5 insight bonus on the roll. "
To me that feels like a spell that is interesting, enhances the game and will create more roleplaying as opposed to a spell that just makes the game for 'Roll the dice and I'll tell you what you know."