[RPG] How to an adventurer prevent trivial detection via Detect Magic and Arcane Sight

dnd-3.5espells

Most 3.5 adventurers, past the first few levels of their careers, carry a plethora of magical items and effects; this has been referred to as the "Christmas Tree Effect." This is fine if one's goal is to impress the locals with a display of magical badassery, but sometimes one might wish to, say, disguise oneself as a harmless peasant, or sneak past some guards.

Unfortunately for our would-be-stealthy adventurer, there are trivially-available ways of detecting magic:

  • Detect Magic is a level 0 spell, available to pretty much everyone with any spellcasting ability, and easily usable from a wand by anyone with even modest investment in Use Magic Device. It detects "magic auras," which are given off by all magic items, all active spells, and things which have had spells cast on them recently.
  • Arcane Sight is a level 3 sorc/wiz spell which, in addition to detecting all of the above without active concentration, also detects any creature capable of using spells or spell-like abilities, and can explicitly be made permanent.

This means that, however well our sneaking spellcaster might protect themselves from mundane modes of detection, they can expect to be caught by any sentry who has bothered with even minimal arcane preparation. In the world of 3.5, we should expect these sorts of measures from any security-minded and reasonably competent individual.

The only countermeasure I am aware of is the Magic Aura spell. Unfortunately, this spell only masks auras from magic items, and not from any of the other sources mentioned above. This will not, in most cases, be sufficient; adventurers who can't cast any spells, can't use any spell-like abilities, aren't under the effect of any spells, and haven't been affected by any spells lately are few and far between in the world of 3.5.

Is there any realistic way for an adventurer to protect themselves from this sort of easy detection? If so, how should they go about it?

Best Answer

You can't effectively hide active spells in 3.5 (in Pathfinder there's a spell for that, but not 3.5). If you wanna sneak, you gotta forgo active spells. You can hide magic items and your spellcasting abilities (along with other things like alignment and being alive), though. You need two spells:

  • Nystul's Magic Aura, which lets you hide magic items
  • Mind Blank, which lets you personally hide from all detections

Unfortunately, these spells themselves have auras, and thus can be detected by detect magic et al., curtailing their use in areas where an extra magical aura would be noticed.

The lower level spell Nondetection works similarly, except that it allows a CL check, and thus is extremely unreliable, as is Misdirection when not chain cast, as it allows a Will Save.

Generally, when sneaking into a place, you have a couple options.

First of all, if the opposition has no magic auras at all then they don't have detect magic spells, so you don't need to hide your auras.

If the only magic they have is divinatory then things are a little tricky. If they're using detect magic, they're still gonna need to study an area with you in it for 2 rounds to be able to detect your presence (1 round reveals only that there is magic, which is no longer enough to arouse suspicion, while 2 reveals the number of magic auras, which could trigger an alert when there's an extra). If they're using Arcane Sight then they need line of sight to get anything. As long as you're hidden, they won't be able to pinpoint much of anything about you.

If, like typical 3.5 opponents, they and their base and chock full of magic auras, you can pop some Nystul's Magic Aura spells and bring some potions, scrolls, or castings of Misdirection or Nondetection to hide yourself. Alternatively, you could splurge on a scroll of Mind Blank (if you're high enough level to cast this, then you should definitely just use this all the time), or use some of the other anti-divinatory effects. The extra magic auras shouldn't be of note as long as there aren't too many. Plus you can break enchantment or dispel magic preexisting auras in the area you are hiding to keep the number the same.

As a note, some people play 3.5 with the auras of active spells just modifying the auras of the thing they are on, if they are on a thing. This lets Nystul's Magic Aura et al. work to effectively hide their subjects. If you are playing in such a game, the following spells are significant:

  • Nystul's Magic Aura
  • Misdirection
  • Nondetection
  • Mindblank
  • False Vision
  • Detect Scrying
  • Antimagic Field

Also of note: enemies that lack a parade of magic auras all over the place probably don't need to be sneakily handled. Just kick in the door and clean house, unless you've reason to suspect they're a spellcaster or something. Also, Greater Teleport removes most non-reconassaince reasons for sneaking anywhere not under a forbiddance (or, less commonly, a dimensional lock or hallow/unhallow(dimensional anchor)), since you could just pop in wherever you intended to go.

For the times you just want people to think you're a harmless peasant, Bluff checks can handle that even without magic, and with Glibness you can safely inform them that those magical auras they are noticing are just a trick of the light and also they never noticed them and you never talked and these are not the droids they are looking for.

So the situations you'll want to be actually using anti-divinatory powers as a major approach in are pretty few and far between, though they are pretty long-lasting and certainly worth lower level slots as you level up.

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