Hello! I'm running a game and seem to have fallen into a weird grey area with regard to the rules. Here's the situation: My players are in the process of a murder mystery type quest. Someone (or multiple someones) in town are wereboars. They're interviewing various townsfolk, determining alibis, and trying to find out who the boar is. Rules as Written, detect magic as well as identify do NOT reveal if something is cursed. There doesn't seem to be a "detect curse" or similar spell. I don't want players to just use a single spell slot to blow open the mission.
Besides Augury(which is super limited) are there any spells in the Lv 1-3 range that could spot a wereboar?
If you're in Eberron, a half-orc with the Mark of Finding and some Finder's Goggles can identify a shapechanger, if that's enough. Would be fun to sneak in some benign wererats to confuse things in that case.
The sleep spell puts people to sleep as long as their HP are below your rolled amount of 5d8. That maxes out at 40.
Wereboars have 78 hp and will not fall asleep.
But that only detects HP, not actual Wereboars. So if they do not fall asleep, hit them with a Moonbeam spell.
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Also:
Warlock Invocation Witch Sight
"You can see the true form of any shapechanger or creature concealed by illusion or transmutation magic while the creature is within 30 feet of you and within line of sight."
Of course, that has a pre-req of 15th level. But I could see a magic item based on it.
Paladin, cleric or bard with a zone of truth spell. Go around asking your suspects if they are a wereboar - answer yes or no :)
If someone has a 4th level spell - polymorph won't work on shape changers - but it would be a slow process testing each suspect due to spell slot/day limits.
Go around casting remove curse on all your suspects so that the wereboar problem gets eliminated.
The easiest approach to identify a lycanthrope is to take a pin or small dagger and prick their finger. If they don't bleed they are a wereboar since wereboars are immune to damage from non-magical or non-silvered weapons. (Of course the characters need to be aware of this characteristic of lycanthropes to use it as a test - however, this knowledge may be quite easy to find if lycanthropes are known in the world).
If the DM want's to stop the Sleep spell trick, the obvious solution to the Sleep spell is for most of the suspects to be high level. If they were all above 7th level, you can't rely on Sleep to detect those too weak to be a Wereboar.
Wow! There's a lot of great advice for me here! Thanks all!
I really like the knife trick where you prick their finger. That would be the kind of thinking that I would reward and be OK with.
What I am trying to do is build a bit of uncertainty. The party could choose to stay in town for ~26 days until the next full moon but that seems unlikely. They're probably going to have to "lock in" who they think are wereboars and check back next month to see if their guesses are correct. Basically, the town has 3 jail cells and they'll be able to imprison up to 3 townspeople. They don't know how many wereboars there are. Consequences will happen if they don't imprison the boars, and they will get less of a reward if they detain an innocent.
It sounds like the answer I was looking for (can players cheese my adventure without doing any real detective work?) Is no. They're level 5 and lack access to things like true sight. Casting sleep on random folks will have consequences and convincing people to prick their fingers will require interacting with each character.
Next session is on Sunday, I will report back to let you know how it goes.
Wow! There's a lot of great advice for me here! Thanks all!
I really like the knife trick where you prick their finger. That would be the kind of thinking that I would reward and be OK with.
What I am trying to do is build a bit of uncertainty. The party could choose to stay in town for ~26 days until the next full moon but that seems unlikely. They're probably going to have to "lock in" who they think are wereboars and check back next month to see if their guesses are correct. Basically, the town has 3 jail cells and they'll be able to imprison up to 3 townspeople. They don't know how many wereboars there are. Consequences will happen if they don't imprison the boars, and they will get less of a reward if they detain an innocent.
It sounds like the answer I was looking for (can players cheese my adventure without doing any real detective work?) Is no. They're level 5 and lack access to things like true sight. Casting sleep on random folks will have consequences and convincing people to prick their fingers will require interacting with each character.
Next session is on Sunday, I will report back to let you know how it goes.
Bear in mind they should need 2 pins, to make sure that their target is susceptible to the silvered pin but not the unsilvered one. A general commoner is susceptible to both, but there are also ways to shrug off both, like stoneskin.
There is no low level spell that would reveal lycanthropes and if its your goal anyway, just decline any attempt, especially if you want a more tradditional iinvestigation process to keep going until mystery solved.
The idea of Moonbeam is once you find the boar attacking someone you can figure out who they are while weakening them at the same time.
Pretty sure that wasn't the original idea. But it's a solid suggestion and if you can get the timing right it could work very well, need to remember that if the situation comes up..
The idea of Moonbeam is once you find the boar attacking someone you can figure out who they are while weakening them at the same time.
Pretty sure that wasn't the original idea. But it's a solid suggestion and if you can get the timing right it could work very well, need to remember that if the situation comes up..
Yeah, my original intent when I suggested it doesn't work, but it is still a good spell to have in these situations for what Mog pointed out.
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Hello!
I'm running a game and seem to have fallen into a weird grey area with regard to the rules.
Here's the situation:
My players are in the process of a murder mystery type quest. Someone (or multiple someones) in town are wereboars.
They're interviewing various townsfolk, determining alibis, and trying to find out who the boar is.
Rules as Written, detect magic as well as identify do NOT reveal if something is cursed.
There doesn't seem to be a "detect curse" or similar spell. I don't want players to just use a single spell slot to blow open the mission.
Besides Augury(which is super limited) are there any spells in the Lv 1-3 range that could spot a wereboar?
Moonbeam is the only one that comes to mind, but the party druid would have to be prepared to kill a lot if commoners if wrong.
If you're in Eberron, a half-orc with the Mark of Finding and some Finder's Goggles can identify a shapechanger, if that's enough. Would be fun to sneak in some benign wererats to confuse things in that case.
You could homebrew an item. Something that gives them true seeing, but it only works one 1 creature/day.
Sleep Spell
The sleep spell puts people to sleep as long as their HP are below your rolled amount of 5d8. That maxes out at 40.
Wereboars have 78 hp and will not fall asleep.
But that only detects HP, not actual Wereboars. So if they do not fall asleep, hit them with a Moonbeam spell.
---------------------
Also:
Warlock Invocation Witch Sight
"You can see the true form of any shapechanger or creature concealed by illusion or transmutation magic while the creature is within 30 feet of you and within line of sight."
Of course, that has a pre-req of 15th level. But I could see a magic item based on it.
As far as I can tell, the intent is to make sure the players CAN'T easily solve the mystery and have to play out the scenario. So...
That’s why I was thinking 1/day. They need to be pretty sure and can’t just go around using it on everyone.
Paladin, cleric or bard with a zone of truth spell. Go around asking your suspects if they are a wereboar - answer yes or no :)
If someone has a 4th level spell - polymorph won't work on shape changers - but it would be a slow process testing each suspect due to spell slot/day limits.
Go around casting remove curse on all your suspects so that the wereboar problem gets eliminated.
The easiest approach to identify a lycanthrope is to take a pin or small dagger and prick their finger. If they don't bleed they are a wereboar since wereboars are immune to damage from non-magical or non-silvered weapons. (Of course the characters need to be aware of this characteristic of lycanthropes to use it as a test - however, this knowledge may be quite easy to find if lycanthropes are known in the world).
If the DM want's to stop the Sleep spell trick, the obvious solution to the Sleep spell is for most of the suspects to be high level. If they were all above 7th level, you can't rely on Sleep to detect those too weak to be a Wereboar.
Not sure why that would work tbh. A wereboar's true form is human so being exposed to a Moonbeam wouldn't reveal much.
Do characters know when failing to avoid a spell is easier or harder for targets?
Wow! There's a lot of great advice for me here! Thanks all!
I really like the knife trick where you prick their finger. That would be the kind of thinking that I would reward and be OK with.
What I am trying to do is build a bit of uncertainty. The party could choose to stay in town for ~26 days until the next full moon but that seems unlikely. They're probably going to have to "lock in" who they think are wereboars and check back next month to see if their guesses are correct. Basically, the town has 3 jail cells and they'll be able to imprison up to 3 townspeople. They don't know how many wereboars there are. Consequences will happen if they don't imprison the boars, and they will get less of a reward if they detain an innocent.
It sounds like the answer I was looking for (can players cheese my adventure without doing any real detective work?) Is no. They're level 5 and lack access to things like true sight. Casting sleep on random folks will have consequences and convincing people to prick their fingers will require interacting with each character.
Next session is on Sunday, I will report back to let you know how it goes.
Bear in mind they should need 2 pins, to make sure that their target is susceptible to the silvered pin but not the unsilvered one. A general commoner is susceptible to both, but there are also ways to shrug off both, like stoneskin.
There is no low level spell that would reveal lycanthropes and if its your goal anyway, just decline any attempt, especially if you want a more tradditional iinvestigation process to keep going until mystery solved.
Hmm. Good point. My bad.
Monster slayer ranger can check immunity as an action(better than the prick method.) Rangers in general have some skill tools to solve the problem.
Generally I try to gate several clues behind 2-5 skill checks before the party "knows" all the pieces of the puzzle.
The idea of Moonbeam is once you find the boar attacking someone you can figure out who they are while weakening them at the same time.
Pretty sure that wasn't the original idea. But it's a solid suggestion and if you can get the timing right it could work very well, need to remember that if the situation comes up..
Yeah, my original intent when I suggested it doesn't work, but it is still a good spell to have in these situations for what Mog pointed out.