Hello! I'm pretty new to D&D (only been playing for a couple years) and I had a question regarding the Deck of Many Things. Would it be possible to use some sort of seeing spell, or some sort of premonition (I'm not familiar enough with spells to name any specific ones) to determine which card you were about to pull? Maybe it's something that would be up to the discretion of the DM. Thanks for indulging me on a little hypothetical!
Not really, no. Spells that predict the future, like Augury or Divination, don't guarantee they'll be 100% accurate and instead their predictions are specifically altered by certain effects, such as drawing from a Deck of Many Things.
At best maybe the 9th level spell "Foresight" could be used to predict such a thing, since the spell overtly states that you you gain the ability to see into your own immediate future, although the spell does call that future sight "limited". A generous DM might allow it to be used to know what you'll draw before you draw it, but effects like that aren't in the actual spell description... it would just rely on taking the flavor of the spell very literally.
The best option would be to use Wish to make up to 10 players Immune to a single Magical Effect.
I personally interpret that to mean a single specific card effect, so if you have enough castings to cover the worst cards, then you could at least survive flipping the whole deck. Though, at that point, you may be better off simply wishing for whatever boons you hope to get from the Deck.
Augury would work. You simply inquire about one card per day and don't use Augury for anything else. That way you'll have a 100% accurate answer for each card in the deck, and it will only take you a number of days equal to the number of cards in the deck to have pulled all of the good cards. Ex: "would me drawing the (n)th card from this Deck of Many Things be good for me?" Or if the DM shuffles the deck between days, there's no telling how long it would take to get all of the good cards, but with Augury, you can know that you'll never draw one of the bad ones.
Obviously good effects (like getting wishes, a treasure, etc) would be "weal" so you'd draw them.
Obviously bad effects (like having your soul ripped from your body, having your items disappear, or having a fiend pursue you) would be "woe" and you would not draw them, and on the next day you'd inquire about the next card down in the deck.
Cards that include a mix of good and bad results, or merely neutral results would either result in "weal and woe", or no answer at all, so it would be completely up to the player/character as to whether it's worth the risk of an undesired result to draw these cards.
Sure, you could use deviniation of some kind to answer the question, "Is the next card good or bad?"; but if the answer is "bad" then what now? You still have the choice of "draw" or "walk away". If you walk away, I don't see that counting as "beating" the deck.
Augury would work. You simply inquire about one card per day and don't use Augury for anything else. That way you'll have a 100% accurate answer for each card in the deck, and it will only take you a number of days equal to the number of cards in the deck to have pulled all of the good cards. Ex: "would me drawing the (n)th card from this Deck of Many Things be good for me?" Or if the DM shuffles the deck between days, there's no telling how long it would take to get all of the good cards, but with Augury, you can know that you'll never draw one of the bad ones.
Obviously good effects (like getting wishes, a treasure, etc) would be "weal" so you'd draw them.
Obviously bad effects (like having your soul ripped from your body, having your items disappear, or having a fiend pursue you) would be "woe" and you would not draw them, and on the next day you'd inquire about the next card down in the deck.
Cards that include a mix of good and bad results, or merely neutral results would either result in "weal and woe", or no answer at all, so it would be completely up to the player/character as to whether it's worth the risk of an undesired result to draw these cards.
You're not wrong... But if I was the DM I would s give you "weal or woe" every time. I'm not going to look ahead and see what you'll get. So I don't know what you'll get, therefore, it's an "ask again later" for me.
My players have the opportunity to find the only deck of many things in their world. So your idea is something to think about. The deck itself is meant to be a very chaotic this to add into any game as it can destroy a campaign on many ways.
Wish spell would work if the card drawn was a negative to the player only if the person pulling the card wasn't the one casting wish. But that's on the dm.
In my game you play the card as pulled. Roll the dice. Enjoy the reward or feel the punishment of the card drawn. That's why it's a fun chaotic thing to give players after a long quest to find them.
Nothing helps, I have always ruled the deck is major pain and attempts around it don't work. Even when Bob palms the card, I just replace it with a random card.
For Augury, if I allowed it to work at all, I would check the results and make them binding on the next time you draw from the deck, good or ill. In other words, the player would be giving up their rolling on their own behalf and risking never being able to draw safely.
So Augury tells you Woe then you just sell the pack (or give it to some other person) to draw - of course, that person might decide to draw a different number of cards..
augury says: "you receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a specific course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes."
I think that this can be taken to ask something like is going through this door a good risk or a bad risk? It's a prediction of things going well or woefully or "for both good and bad results". Drawing random cards from the deck of many things give good and bad results. I'd go with that. For those that work with a view of the existence of gods, there may always be an option to go with the Einstein quote "God doesn't play dice..." Let chance do its thing in the usual ways but with Augury now yielding a 5th possible response, f off.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
The news is that Ao, the mightiest of the Forgotten Realms gods has hacked my laptop, has written this message and has added a d20 rng dice roll. It may be down to your belief system whether Ao could possibly know the result in advance or would need to wait until after pressing Post Reply to see what will happen.
For Augury, if I allowed it to work at all, I would check the results and make them binding on the next time you draw from the deck, good or ill. In other words, the player would be giving up their rolling on their own behalf and risking never being able to draw safely.
So Augury tells you Woe then you just sell the pack (or give it to some other person) to draw - of course, that person might decide to draw a different number of cards..
That's assuming that the other person gets the deck in the same order as you do, an assumption that's not correct in my games. *evil grin*
For Augury, if I allowed it to work at all, I would check the results and make them binding on the next time you draw from the deck, good or ill. In other words, the player would be giving up their rolling on their own behalf and risking never being able to draw safely.
So Augury tells you Woe then you just sell the pack (or give it to some other person) to draw - of course, that person might decide to draw a different number of cards..
That's assuming that the other person gets the deck in the same order as you do, an assumption that's not correct in my games. *evil grin*
But, assuming that different people could get the deck in different orders, augury could just be used repeatedly on different members of the party etc. to check the result for each creature.
I treat the Deck of Many Things as truly random. There is no "order" until the cards are drawn. Using an actual deck of cards is only an approximation for the actual magic item, so real world exploits wouldn't propagate into the game.
Like a quantum state, attempting to observe a card changes it.
I treat the Deck of Many Things as truly random. There is no "order" until the cards are drawn. Using an actual deck of cards is only an approximation for the actual magic item, so real world exploits wouldn't propagate into the game.
Like a quantum state, attempting to observe a card changes it.
Also a completely reasonable approach and love the quantum state analogy
The only approach that doesn't break the deck of many things is to say that augury doesn't work with it.
For Augury, if I allowed it to work at all, I would check the results and make them binding on the next time you draw from the deck, good or ill. In other words, the player would be giving up their rolling on their own behalf and risking never being able to draw safely.
So Augury tells you Woe then you just sell the pack (or give it to some other person) to draw - of course, that person might decide to draw a different number of cards..
That's assuming that the other person gets the deck in the same order as you do, an assumption that's not correct in my games. *evil grin*
But, assuming that different people could get the deck in different orders, augury could just be used repeatedly on different members of the party etc. to check the result for each creature.
For Augury, if I allowed it to work at all, I would check the results and make them binding on the next time you draw from the deck, good or ill. In other words, the player would be giving up their rolling on their own behalf and risking never being able to draw safely.
So Augury tells you Woe then you just sell the pack (or give it to some other person) to draw - of course, that person might decide to draw a different number of cards..
That's assuming that the other person gets the deck in the same order as you do, an assumption that's not correct in my games. *evil grin*
But, assuming that different people could get the deck in different orders, augury could just be used repeatedly on different members of the party etc. to check the result for each creature.
Augury is only about yourself taking an action.
I love it. A major aim of a church will be to gain a deck of many things so that they can "play" cards. RAW Augury is "about the results of a specific course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes". Maybe you can just wait another 30 minutes or until the end of your next long rest and try again.
Would it be possible for someone to raise an undead servant, then have the servant draw a card? Would the servant be able to nullify effects like the Sphere or Loss of XP? Additionally, if an undead is used and they draw a card summoning the Avatar of Death or the Devil and the undead loses, do the enemies turn on the caster or do they simply vanish?
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Hello! I'm pretty new to D&D (only been playing for a couple years) and I had a question regarding the Deck of Many Things. Would it be possible to use some sort of seeing spell, or some sort of premonition (I'm not familiar enough with spells to name any specific ones) to determine which card you were about to pull? Maybe it's something that would be up to the discretion of the DM. Thanks for indulging me on a little hypothetical!
Not really, no. Spells that predict the future, like Augury or Divination, don't guarantee they'll be 100% accurate and instead their predictions are specifically altered by certain effects, such as drawing from a Deck of Many Things.
At best maybe the 9th level spell "Foresight" could be used to predict such a thing, since the spell overtly states that you you gain the ability to see into your own immediate future, although the spell does call that future sight "limited". A generous DM might allow it to be used to know what you'll draw before you draw it, but effects like that aren't in the actual spell description... it would just rely on taking the flavor of the spell very literally.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I wonder if Augury can be used to determine if the card about to be turned is Woe or Weal.
The best option would be to use Wish to make up to 10 players Immune to a single Magical Effect.
I personally interpret that to mean a single specific card effect, so if you have enough castings to cover the worst cards, then you could at least survive flipping the whole deck. Though, at that point, you may be better off simply wishing for whatever boons you hope to get from the Deck.
I don't think augury would work because I feel like that lands in the "weal or woe" option for situations where the choice isn't obvious.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Augury would work. You simply inquire about one card per day and don't use Augury for anything else. That way you'll have a 100% accurate answer for each card in the deck, and it will only take you a number of days equal to the number of cards in the deck to have pulled all of the good cards. Ex: "would me drawing the (n)th card from this Deck of Many Things be good for me?" Or if the DM shuffles the deck between days, there's no telling how long it would take to get all of the good cards, but with Augury, you can know that you'll never draw one of the bad ones.
Obviously good effects (like getting wishes, a treasure, etc) would be "weal" so you'd draw them.
Obviously bad effects (like having your soul ripped from your body, having your items disappear, or having a fiend pursue you) would be "woe" and you would not draw them, and on the next day you'd inquire about the next card down in the deck.
Cards that include a mix of good and bad results, or merely neutral results would either result in "weal and woe", or no answer at all, so it would be completely up to the player/character as to whether it's worth the risk of an undesired result to draw these cards.
Sure, you could use deviniation of some kind to answer the question, "Is the next card good or bad?"; but if the answer is "bad" then what now? You still have the choice of "draw" or "walk away". If you walk away, I don't see that counting as "beating" the deck.
You're not wrong... But if I was the DM I would s give you "weal or woe" every time. I'm not going to look ahead and see what you'll get. So I don't know what you'll get, therefore, it's an "ask again later" for me.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
My players have the opportunity to find the only deck of many things in their world. So your idea is something to think about. The deck itself is meant to be a very chaotic this to add into any game as it can destroy a campaign on many ways.
Wish spell would work if the card drawn was a negative to the player only if the person pulling the card wasn't the one casting wish. But that's on the dm.
In my game you play the card as pulled. Roll the dice. Enjoy the reward or feel the punishment of the card drawn. That's why it's a fun chaotic thing to give players after a long quest to find them.
Nothing helps, I have always ruled the deck is major pain and attempts around it don't work. Even when Bob palms the card, I just replace it with a random card.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
So Augury tells you Woe then you just sell the pack (or give it to some other person) to draw - of course, that person might decide to draw a different number of cards..
augury says: "you receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a specific course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes."
I think that this can be taken to ask something like is going through this door a good risk or a bad risk?
It's a prediction of things going well or woefully or "for both good and bad results".
Drawing random cards from the deck of many things give good and bad results.
I'd go with that.
For those that work with a view of the existence of gods, there may always be an option to go with the Einstein quote "God doesn't play dice..." Let chance do its thing in the usual ways but with Augury now yielding a 5th possible response, f off.
The news is that Ao, the mightiest of the Forgotten Realms gods has hacked my laptop, has written this message and has added a d20 rng dice roll.
It may be down to your belief system whether Ao could possibly know the result in advance or would need to wait until after pressing Post Reply to see what will happen.
1
That's assuming that the other person gets the deck in the same order as you do, an assumption that's not correct in my games. *evil grin*
But, assuming that different people could get the deck in different orders, augury could just be used repeatedly on different members of the party etc. to check the result for each creature.
I treat the Deck of Many Things as truly random. There is no "order" until the cards are drawn. Using an actual deck of cards is only an approximation for the actual magic item, so real world exploits wouldn't propagate into the game.
Like a quantum state, attempting to observe a card changes it.
The only approach that doesn't break the deck of many things is to say that augury doesn't work with it.
Augury is only about yourself taking an action.
I love it. A major aim of a church will be to gain a deck of many things so that they can "play" cards.
RAW Augury is "about the results of a specific course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes". Maybe you can just wait another 30 minutes or until the end of your next long rest and try again.
Would it be possible for someone to raise an undead servant, then have the servant draw a card? Would the servant be able to nullify effects like the Sphere or Loss of XP? Additionally, if an undead is used and they draw a card summoning the Avatar of Death or the Devil and the undead loses, do the enemies turn on the caster or do they simply vanish?