Could detect magic cantrip have an errata?

[GuitarGuyNick]

im not sure if this is the right place to post or ask. but detect magic needs an errata.

it should be that at hightened levels that it can either detect the element trait or the damage type. knowing a spell rank doesnt tell you anything thematicaly about the type of magic. the only use of spell rank information is for counteract checks for dispel magic. most of the time when players want to use detect magic they want to know what kind of damage type they are dealing with. and i propose the change that at heightened +4 you get to know the trait (i.e if it has fire or cold or death etc) and damage type.

having these context clues will help replace the previous context clues of spell schools which made that cantrip valuable.

what do you guys think?

[Baarogue]

I disagree. Rank or level is a more useful indicator of how much damage you're in for if you're using detect magic for early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity, not that it's very good at that. If you want to know more about a magical hazard, item, or effect after detecting it that's what Identify Magic is for; or Recognize Spell if you witness its casting

[Finoan]

Detect Magic shouldn't be a replacement for Identify Magic. Detect Magic is a cantrip for detecting the presence of magic. The 3rd rank upgrade makes it so that it detects how powerful the magic is - mechanically measured by the spell's Rank.

As was noted, this was changed between CRB and Player Core. In CRB the 3rd level version gave the school of the spell, but didn't identify the spell level. The Player Core 3rd Rank version doesn't give any details of the spell effect, but does indicate the strength of the magic.

So if knowing the damage type or spell traits is something that you want from Detect Magic, that is certainly a viable option for a houserule. Houserules are awesome.

[Captain Morgan]

GuitarGuyNick wrote:

im not sure if this is the right place to post or ask. but detect magic needs an errata.

it should be that at hightened levels that it can either detect the element trait or the damage type. knowing a spell rank doesnt tell you anything thematicaly about the type of magic. the only use of spell rank information is for counteract checks for dispel magic. most of the time when players want to use detect magic they want to know what kind of damage type they are dealing with. and i propose the change that at heightened +4 you get to know the trait (i.e if it has fire or cold or death etc) and damage type.

having these context clues will help replace the previous context clues of spell schools which made that cantrip valuable.

what do you guys think?

I disagree. I think it should tell you spell rank at rank 1. Sometimes an item or environmental element is way above your level, and it is useful to know that when deciding:

A) Whether to Identify Magic. If an item is level 20 and you're level 5, you'll likely crit fail and misidentify it.

B) Whether to engage with it in a risky manner.

C) Whether you are supposed to be able to deal with this problem right now, or if you need to move in and keep playing to find a solution.

[GuitarGuyNick]

Baarogue wrote:

I disagree. Rank or level is a more useful indicator of how much damage you're in for if you're using detect magic for early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity, not that it's very good at that. If you want to know more about a magical hazard, item, or effect after detecting it that's what Identify Magic is for; or Recognize Spell if you witness its casting

the only useful part of the identify magic is the critical success. i was thinking my modification would be a good addition to the higher heightened version of the cantrip.

[Errenor]

Baarogue wrote:

using detect magic for early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity,... If you want to know more about a magical hazard

"Magical hazards with a minimum proficiency rank cannot be found with detect magic at all."

And that's all of them that are meant to be hidden at all.

[Bluemagetim]

Actually I have a question on what is known from the spell below rank 3.

Is it literally just presence or no presence? The location within the 30 ft is not revealed?

If there is a door and a chest within 30 ft of your casting.

The door has rank 1 cantrip Sigil cast on it. its day two of its duration.
The chest has a magical trap with a rank 3 spell Lighting bolt that will go off if tampered with.

What is known from the rank 1 detect magic?
Do the player only know that within 30 feet there is the presence of magic?
Or does this spell tell you the door and the chest are the sources of the magic present?

Edit: it would seem rank 4 answers that question

[Finoan]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Actually I have a question on what is known from the spell below rank 3.

Is it literally just presence or no presence? The location within the 30 ft is not revealed?

Edit: it would seem rank 4 answers that question

Yup. It is simply a yes/no. Magic present, or magic not present. Somewhere.

And as was mentioned, the trap probably doesn't register unless it has no proficiency rating for its detection requirements.

[Bluemagetim]

Finoan wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Actually I have a question on what is known from the spell below rank 3.

Is it literally just presence or no presence? The location within the 30 ft is not revealed?

Edit: it would seem rank 4 answers that question

Yup. It is simply a yes/no. Magic present, or magic not present. Somewhere.

And as was mentioned, the trap probably doesn't register unless it has no proficiency rating for its detection requirements.

Thank you.

[Baarogue]

Errenor wrote:

Baarogue wrote:

using detect magic for early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity,... If you want to know more about a magical hazard

"Magical hazards with a minimum proficiency rank cannot be found with detect magic at all."

And that's all of them that are meant to be hidden at all.

Yeah I f%+#ing love being paraphrased so you can knock over the strawman you've created out of misquoting me

What I said was
"if you're using detect magic for early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity, not that it's very good at that."

What did you think I meant by that last bit?

If you're trying to say you can't detect any magical hazards with detect magic, you're wrong. There aren't many that lack a minimum proficiency to detect, but they exist. There are two in the GMC - the same two that were in the CRB in fact, and a few in Dark Archive

I didn't go off on Ravingdork when he did it recently because it was obvious he was trolling with a sock puppet alias, but you should know better

[thenobledrake]

Errenor wrote:

"Magical hazards with a minimum proficiency rank cannot be found with detect magic at all."

And that's all of them that are meant to be hidden at all.

This is the one part of how detect magic works that could use some errata in my opinion.

The spell itself and the exploration activity both suggest it's going to be helpful to be wandering about detecting for magic, but then the hazard rules make it so that only stuff that is out in the open but somehow also not readily visible (which as far as I've seen falls squarely into "the GM theoretically made this up" because there aren't any on the books) is caught by the spell.

Making the use case extremely limited and once someone gets to higher-rank spells (I think around 3rd) casting read aura is going to get the "is there magic here or not" job done faster since even if you did use detect magic to narrow down where something is you'd probably still cast read aura on it for the bonus to identify magic.

[shroudb]

thenobledrake wrote:

Errenor wrote:

"Magical hazards with a minimum proficiency rank cannot be found with detect magic at all."

And that's all of them that are meant to be hidden at all.

This is the one part of how detect magic works that could use some errata in my opinion.

The spell itself and the exploration activity both suggest it's going to be helpful to be wandering about detecting for magic, but then the hazard rules make it so that only stuff that is out in the open but somehow also not readily visible (which as far as I've seen falls squarely into "the GM theoretically made this up" because there aren't any on the books) is caught by the spell.

Making the use case extremely limited and once someone gets to higher-rank spells (I think around 3rd) casting read aura is going to get the "is there magic here or not" job done faster since even if you did use detect magic to narrow down where something is you'd probably still cast read aura on it for the bonus to identify magic.

I don't think that read aura can replace detect magic strictly due to cast time differences.

Imo the reason for detect magic exploration activity is not to replace trap finding for magic, but it's instead to spot magical auras while moving about.

A magic ring hidden in a bed, an active spell effect before you enter its radius, a low(er) level illusionary wall, that there's magic in the fountain you just passed by, and etc.

You can't readily spend a full minute on every single thing you see (for read aura) but you can be walking with a yes/no indicator(detect magic) always open and only spend said minute when that one bleeps positive to actually see what it beeped on.

[Errenor]

Baarogue wrote:

Errenor wrote:

Baarogue wrote:

using detect magic for early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity,... If you want to know more about a magical hazard

"Magical hazards with a minimum proficiency rank cannot be found with detect magic at all."

And that's all of them that are meant to be hidden at all.

Yeah I f&!$ing love being paraphrased so you can knock over the strawman you've created out of misquoting me

What I said was
"if you're using detect magic for early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity, not that it's very good at that."

What did you think I meant by that last bit?

If you're trying to say you can't detect any magical hazards with detect magic, you're wrong. There aren't many that lack a minimum proficiency to detect, but they exist. There are two in the GMC - the same two that were in the CRB in fact, and a few in Dark Archive

I didn't go off on Ravingdork when he did it recently because it was obvious he was trolling with a sock puppet alias, but you should know better

Strawman? Really? It's not "not that ... very good at that", most of the time you can't do it at all. Yes, I know there are some that can be, it's 10 out of 30 magical hazards on AoN. Of these ten 4 are -1..1 level and one is an obviously magical orb which is not hidden (well, dc 10 for 23rd lvl hazard is a guaranteed success assuming char lvl 20). It's more than I assumed. I'd still say that Detect magic mostly doesn't work as "early warning of magical hazards in your vicinity" at all.

thenobledrake wrote:

This is the one part of how detect magic works that could use some errata in my opinion.

The spell itself and the exploration activity both suggest it's going to be helpful to be wandering about detecting for magic, but then the hazard rules make it so that only stuff that is out in the open but somehow also not readily visible (which as far as I've seen falls squarely into "the GM theoretically made this up" because there aren't any on the books) is caught by the spell.

I'm not sure this would be called errata: it seems as a conscious decision for it to work like that.

As for description, when my new players started to use detect magic I warned them straight away that it won't be a guarantee against illusions and magical traps.
And I've found a whole lot of 5 relevant magical hazards out of 30 printed in rulebooks which could be detected by DM.

[Ravingdork]

I for one was really surprised and dismayed when Paizo opted to give you something borderline useless, such as spell rank, when they could have given you something both useful and interesting, such as traits.

[thenobledrake]

shroudb wrote:

I don't think that read aura can replace detect magic strictly due to cast time differences.

It can't replace the "I'm repeatedly casting this as an exploration activity" part, that's true.

But that's the part that is hardly of any use because there's really not much to find in practice by doing that.

You can't find magic traps. You'll only detect illusions if they are lower-rank. Line of effect blocks detecting items not already in plain view. Basically the main thing you can do is go "oh, there's magic nearby" when a creature carrying a magic item or under a spell comes within range. Because even active magical areas are either plainly visible (i.e. wall of fire) or are likely to have it not actually matter that you get a yes/no answer on the presence of magic (i.e. alarm or a wall of force).

So you can just skip all of that. Then use read aura after you've found things in the actual fashion that things are found to know what's what without having to do the whole hokey pokey.

Because, to put it as clearly as I can, what people expect from detect magic is actually mostly impossible according to the way the rules work and it seeming useful comes down to a GM (likely unknowingly) ignoring the rules to make it useful (such as carrying forward the assumption that it can detect through materials so long as they aren't too thick for the type of material)

[thenobledrake]

Ravingdork wrote:

I for one was really surprised and dismayed when Paizo opted to give you something borderline useless, such as spell rank, when they could have given you something both useful and interesting, such as traits.

Knowing the rank helps you make an informed decision about whether you want to try Identify Magic or to counteract the effect in some way. That's far from useless.

It is, in fact, more useful than the old version telling you what school. And while knowing the traits of a spell would be at least some kind of knowledge it's still potentially leading into not being able to make any informed decision as a result of that information.

For some examples: If you don't know anything at all about what you're detecting you're likely to choose not to enter the area or touch the object. If you learn it has a fire trait you know have some information, but you're not likely to be making a different choice than without the information.

If you pick up a detection trait you still don't have any idea what is being detected; it might be an alarm that is going to go off if you enter the area, or it could just be a privacy-concerned wizard's enchantment that turns a red light on in the room if anyone tries to scry into it. The information doesn't change what decision you're likely to make.

[Captain Morgan]

Yup. Rank tells you how risky it is to engage further. For a very small spoiler of an example, the namesake of the first book of a popular AP is a structure which has a DC 50 to identify its magical properties. The party encounters it at level 1. As written it is impossible for the party to pass the check and they have a 95% chance to receive false information for trying. Trying is a colossal waist of everyone's time and the party has no way to know that... But would if they were 5th level so Detect Magic told them the rank.

In general, Pathfinder lacks good mechanics to tell players if something is vastly above their pay grade. You can't tell a monster is impossible for you until you have traded blows, rolled an implausibly hard recall knowledge, or been told by an NPC. This constrains how creatures are used in adventures to almost always be level appropriate, creating an impression of a treadmill which scales to you instead of an organic world. The fiction is poorer for this. Sometimes PCs should need to hide from the horrifying monster. Sometimes they should get attacked by things so much weaker you don't even bother rolling initiative, just ask players how they want to deal with this nuisance. And while I sorta get not making creature level totally transparent, spell rank is a defined thing in-universe. You should be able to tell if something is using 10th rank magic, the a pinnacle of mortal comprehension.

I also think Detect Magic was over nerfed and the rank information is the first positive addition since the game was published. The spell is currently counterintuitive.

-It doesn't make you better at discovering magical hazards 99% of the time. They could have aped something from the remastered Read Aura and given a +2 circumstance bonus and/or a higher grade of Perception proficiency for the purposes of hidden magic stuff and it should count as searching for those purposes.

-The first question a newbie asks after successfully Detecting Magic is "Where/What is magical?" I don't know why it suddenly becomes acceptable to answer when players hit 7th level but isn't out the gate.

- The fact is you usually CAN tell what items or areas are magical by just manipulating the position of objects relative to your 30 foot emenation. But this just achieves the same effect as the 4th rank version with extra steps, and lessens the point of Read Aura. (Though Read Aura's new circumstance bonus to identify finally gives it a niche.)

PF1 detect magic was a bit too reliable for detecting traps and honing in on exact aura locations... But the PF2 version makes the game more tedious IMO.

[Bluemagetim]

Do I break anything by just running it with location as a given?

[Captain Morgan]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Do I break anything by just running it with location as a given?

IMO? Not at all. But I'm not a professional game designer.

[Bluemagetim]

I guess it would come down to what are the fun interactions that might be missed out on by players if they know magic is within 30ft and not the location without searching around and using other abilities?

[shroudb]

i think it's just a function of time.

in a scene that time is irrelevant, like in a dungeon that you go room by room and search everything, there's nothing gamebreaking accounting for the bit of extra time and abstracting to say that you scrutinize everything and know where each magical effect is.

In a scene where time is more relevant and you want to minimize time spent, breaking into a room and just knowing that there's magic around you, you may be forced to either abandom stuff, or make choices of where to search.

[Bluemagetim]

Ok that makes sense.
Really if not knowing location adds value to story telling or player engagement then I would just run it as is. But if it detracts from it I guess I just say ok you sense magic in the area by gaming your magic radius you pinpoint the northwestern corner of the room.
if they do want to pinpoint the location what is done next? Read Aura?

The upside to needing two cantrips is that more than one player can contribute to finding magic in an area and then pinpointing the location of object, making two people feel useful. the downside is if there is only one person in the party with these spells then having to dedicate two cantrips to this is bad.

[Captain Morgan]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Ok that makes sense.

Really if not knowing location adds value to story telling or player engagement then I would just run it as is. But if it detracts from it I guess I just say ok you sense magic in the area by gaming your magic radius you pinpoint the northwestern corner of the room.
if they do want to pinpoint the location what is done next? Read Aura?

The upside to needing two cantrips is that more than one player can contribute to finding magic in an area and then pinpointing the location of object, making two people feel useful. the downside is if there is only one person in the party with these spells then having to dedicate two cantrips to this is bad.

Depends. To use Identify Magic, you need to "discover that an item, location, or ongoing effect is magical." If there are a bunch of movable objects in the northwestern corner, you could use process of elimination to figure out which item is magic with Detect Magic. If that isn't an option for whatever reason, and there's no obvious visual queue indicating something is magic, then Read Aura is your best next step. But if you only have room for one of the two, you almost certainly want Detect Magic. If you can afford both cantrips, read aura will at least give you that sweet +2 circumstance bonus to identify the magic.

[Ravingdork]

One cool thing about detect magic is that it let's you ignore known magical auras. Therefore if you use Captain Morgan's process of elimination to determine the source of an aura, you can then ignore it, and possibly pick up on other unknown auras in the area.

The spell is surprisingly versatile if you're willing to do a little work and think things out a little.

[Purplefixer]

Having it reveal the tradition might be nice, too.

"This glass bottle has a primal aura! It's full of clear liquid and has a brass stopper... I know it's a Level 7. We should have the druid identify it."

I will also tentatively agree with Ravingdork (a dangerous past-time, I know) and say: Yeah, traits could have been cool...

[Captain Morgan]

Purplefixer wrote:

Having it reveal the tradition might be nice, too.

"This glass bottle has a primal aura! It's full of clear liquid and has a brass stopper... I know it's a Level 7. We should have the druid identify it."

I will also tentatively agree with Ravingdork (a dangerous past-time, I know) and say: Yeah, traits could have been cool...

Less items than you'd think have a tradition associated with them. It might be nice still for that occasional item, though. If an item has a tradition, identifying it with anything else will user a higher DC. (+5 is the norm in Foundry, but that might not be official.) I think the rules are vague on knowing what skill is best for Identify Magic.