Mystery Magic
December 5th, 2011
It’s Mystery Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, and that puts me in a somewhat awkward position. You see, I already wrote an article about mysteries, and how to use them in your game, earlier this year. While that article was by no means exhaustive, I must admit (however reluctantly) that I am not, myself, an accomplished mystery writer, and so have only so much practical mystery knowledge to impart in any event. Still, I’m not one to shirk a theme-week, so today I’m going to zoom in on one specific aspect of mysteries in a Pathfinder game: spells, and how they can help or hinder a mystery-inclined DM.
Detect Evil
This spell is far from the most delicate of tools when attempting to solve a mystery, and can be stymied in a variety of ways. That said, it’s incredibly easy for PCs to gain access to (as a first level spell on most spell lists, not to mention the fact that paladins can use it at will), and so deserves a quick mention here.
The best way to prevent detect evil from ruining your mystery is to ensure that being evil isn’t the same as being the murderer. You could, for example, have more than one evil suspect. Alternatively, if your group is more tolerant of moral grey areas, perhaps the killer isn’t strictly evil, and has a semi-sympathetic reason for their crime (perhaps the victim was himself an unrepentant murderer who had killed the killer’s daughter/sister/husband/friend, and might have killed again). Perhaps the “murder” was in fact an accident, but the killer is still afraid to come forward because he thinks no one will believe him.
Of course, there’s no need to go to such extremes if your killer has access to magic. Bards and clerics get undetectable alignment at a low level, which will stymie all alignment detection, effectively making the caster register as true neutral. Sorcerers and wizards (as well as bards) get misdirection as a 2nd level spell, which actually lets the caster effectively project the aura of something (or someone) else, meaning that a chaotic evil demoniac can appear to detect evil as though he were a lawful good paladin (and, in particularly evil cases, he could use another casting of the spell to make the paladin appear chaotic evil, to really confound your PCs). This spell allows a saving throw by the detector, however, so it’s not quite as safe as the other option.
Detect Thoughts
This spell can prove the bane of any NPC with a big secret, even when not in a particularly mystery-rich environment. There’s no faster way to learn that the baron who’s paying so generously for such an easy escort job is, in fact, setting the party up to be framed for a robbery, or what have you. Luckily, the spell only grants access to “surface thoughts,” which can generally be taken to mean the things that the subject is actively thinking about while they are under the spell’s effect. That means that unless the secret in question is being actively considered by the NPC, the spell will thankfully miss it, so PCs generally need to have at least a reasonable suspicion about what’s going on, in order to trigger those thoughts…unless the NPC just happens to be thinking about them anyway, that is.
The spell has verbal and somatic components, and requires three rounds of concentration to “go live,” so if players start casting it in front of NPCs, they at least get some warning that something magical is going to happen, and may even be able to identify the specific spell. If they do so, there are some interesting options that become available to a clever DM. In other fantasy and sci-fi media where mind-readers and telepaths who read surface thoughts are involved, it’s common for the hero to “trick” the telepathy by willing themselves to think false thoughts. In theory, an NPC who knew they were subject to a detect thoughts could do the same, thinking lies in an attempt to fool the spell. There obviously aren’t any rules for this, but it would be reasonable to assume that a Concentration check, or perhaps an Intelligence or Wisdom check (the latter being much friendlier to non-casters) to actually maintain that kind of rigid mental discipline without accidentally betraying the thoughts they want to hide, followed by a Bluff check, would do the trick.
Of course, for the magically-inclined, there are other ways to defeat a detect thoughts spell. At low levels, sorcerers and wizards can use nondetection to render themselves immune to that spell, as well as a host of other detect spells, and at higher levels mind blank renders the caster immune to basically all divination spells for the entire day. Rangers also get access to nondetection (albeit at a much higher level). Bards, clerics, and druids are probably best served by avoiding a detect thoughts spell, or ensuring that they pass their saves.
Locate Object
Not all mysteries are murder mysteries, and when it comes to a theft, locate object is a pretty powerful tool in an investigative caster’s arsenal. The first limitation to consider when such magic is being employed is its range. Since it is limited to “long” range (400 ft. + 40 ft./level), it will prove much more useful in a closed-off mansion scenario with a small area to cover than it will if the thief could be anywhere in the city, or perhaps even the kingdom. Still, you can move while the spell is in effect, so with the aid of a coach or similar means of transportation, you could reasonably canvas a fantasy city relatively well.
The real Achilles heel of locate object, however, is the familiarity the caster must have with the object in question. If the wizard’s own spellbook goes missing, he’ll have no problem zooming in on it with the spell, but if asked to track down a spellbook he’s never seen before, he’ll probably wind up detecting every book within the spell’s radius. This, in and of itself, can still be helpful, especially if what you’re searching for is something like “massive diamond,” that’s going to be relatively rare. If you have to track down three or four massive diamonds before you find your own, the spell will still get you where you need to be. But searching the city for every single sword?
Even if you do make the mistake of letting your PCs touch and feel and smell the object to be stolen before the crime occurs, there are still ways to get around it. As the spell details, a lead-lined backpack, or the spells polymorph any object or nondetection will do the trick with little fuss. Note that, ironically, it is not protected by obscure object. You could also defeat the spell by creating a number of duplicates of the original item (either through polymorph any object, or through good old-fashioned crafting), and scattering them about, on moving objects if possible, to create dozens of false trails and bamboozle pursuing investigators.
Speak with Dead
This spell seems at a glance to be the bane of all murder mysteries, to the point where any sane DM would ban clerics from such adventures altogether. Luckily, clever DMs will soon realize that there are dozens of ways to get around a speak with dead spell, and it’s not a big stretch to assume that fantasy murderers would make a point of doing so, in the same way that modern-day murderers are careful not to leave fingerprints or DNA at the scenes of their crimes.
While the spell goes into great detail to talk about all of the ways that the corpse can resist answering the caster’s questions, it seems unlikely that most murder victims would be particularly hesitant to give up information that could lead to catching their killer. It is certainly possible – for example, if they knew that the murderer was one of their loved ones, and they still wanted to protect them, despite the obvious reasons not to – but in general, I’d imagine this is one case where they’d be pretty cooperative (although, if they had secrets of their own that they don’t want the investigation to uncover, they may still try to protect those, even after death).
Luckily for investigators and corpses, there’s typically not that much information that would need to be provided: if the victim can identify their murderer, it’s a pretty cut-and-dry case. Or so it would seem. The easiest solution would be for the victim to have been murdered from behind, or by an invisible killer, or even just one whose features were obscured by a heavy hood. This, however, is thinking small. If the killer has access to invisibility, they probably have access to disguise self, or a hat of disguise. A clever killer, who had reason to think there was even a possibility of a speak with dead, or, worse, a raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection spell, would take the time to make even the victim believe that they had been killed by someone else, effectively sealing the deal.
This kind of evidence might well prove too strong for your PCs to get past, and so if you do plan on going this route, and don’t want to see your adventure end on a false-positive, you might want to consider ensuring that this false-murderer has a concrete alibi. Genre-savvy players will determine that this is “one of those mysteries where you know who the killer is, and have to prove how he did it.” Others may figure out that it was an illusion (which, in and of itself, should help narrow down the suspect). Whatever the case, they’ll know that they have more work to do, and while trying to find their evidence, they’ll hopefully stumble upon the real killer.
Of course, there’s a more expedient method of ensuring that speak with dead doesn’t ruin the mystery, and that’s to desecrate the body. As the spell outlines, a corpse in poor repair gives similarly poor answers, and a corpse with no mouth can’t respond. Burning the victim should be more than sufficient to ensure not only that the corpse can’t answer any questions, but also that they can’t be resurrected except by the most powerful of magics.
The Big Reveal
If that’s not proof that magic doesn’t have to be the death of mystery, I don’t know what is. To be honest, I had hoped to cover a few more spells, but it turns out I had a lot more to say about each one than I originally thought, and I’ve sort of run out of space. If you’d like me to continue my investigative reporting on various sleuth spells, send me an e-mail and let me know, and you just might get your wish.
In the meantime, thanks for reading.