The first sentence could indeed only say that you detect that there is simply magic somewhere within 30 feet. But if it does not indicate which objects and creatures bear magic, how do you interpret the second sentence ? Obviously, you do not see the aura around all the creatures and objects at once, but then do you do by trial and error on all creature or objects ? Or do you get some sense that some things are magical and others not and you can use your action to focus your sense on one of them ? Honestly, the sentence is so badly worded.
And don't get me started on what happens if a visible creature or object has multiple magics on it, do you get all the schools of magic at once, or one per focus ?
As SagaTympana said above, you see all visible creatures and objects at once, as well as learning all schools of magic affecting each.
Prior to this, the detection of magic says you detect it but this is where I state the spell is open in it's description, it does not state if you merely detect that there is magic in range or if you are aware of there being multiple sources of magic in range/number of magical effects/creatures in range.
I would lean in the direction that you feel each individual magical effect in range and thus do know the number but this is more to avoid slowing the entire game down every time somebody wanted to use the spell/ritual. Technically the spell itself is a magical effect in range too, as a fun thought why the former (only know there is magic in range) also creates additional issues.
As towards Direction, while the spell doesn't give direction (at least not without being able to see the aura), a DM could still indicate direction to save time when say looting for magical items or what not, just so you don't get a party searching around a room for over an hour to find that one magical effect that they just can't put their fingers on. The spell doesn't give that but can be a house rule to speed things up slightly, however invisible creatures should never have their position given away in this fashion as it's part of their design.
The first sentence could indeed only say that you detect that there is simply magic somewhere within 30 feet. But if it does not indicate which objects and creatures bear magic, how do you interpret the second sentence ? Obviously, you do not see the aura around all the creatures and objects at once, but then do you do by trial and error on all creature or objects ?
That's my understanding. You only see the aura around a person or object if you spend an action studying them.
Detect magic can't find invisible things (if it did then detect invisibility would be pointless).
You absolutely do see the aura around all visible creatures/objects at once. That’s exactly what the spell text says. It’s worded perfectly fine.
If something has multiple spells cast on it, you see all relevant auras. It’s not complicated.
Well, you choose to read it this way, but I would not have worded it that way if that was the case, I would not have put "any", I would have put "all" ("you see an aura around all visible creatures and objects that bear magic, etc."). "any", for me, implies a choice, meaning that you select one object out of a collection. And also, the absence of plural in the sentence at the end is, for me, telling.
But this only works out only if you know the number of objects and how many. It seems to me that the designers took previous edition of the spells where, in the second round, you can count objects and auras, the inspect them, but forgot that second step. And the wording, for me, is not clear whether getting that sense of the number of auras is implied within the general feeling (it does not seem to be the cas) or the second step when you take an action, but for me it's missing.
"Any" does not imply a choice, it implies that there maybe a complete absence of any visible creatures or objects that have such an aura.
In regards to what you see, all you see is an aura, so around most people you see no aura, around the guard captain you see an aura around his sword but it has no school of magic and around the mayor you see an aura around a ring which also has no magic. Lastly a visiting court jester is engulfed in an aura which appears to be of the school of necromancy. These previous things would all be known and really doesn't need to take much time to go over, you certainly don't need to waste time on effects you already know such as your own magical items. But as the spells goes, you do not see an aura around the assassin, nor do not know it's of the illusion school and so the DM wouldn't tell you about this; Thus are unable to react to the assassin stabbing the mayor in the back.
As for what each would have had in this setting, the Guard Captain has a +1 longsword, the Mayor had a ring of protection, the Court Jester had cast false life on himself and the Assassin had an ally cast Invisibility on him. I don't think you are going to get many scenarios where you would be dealing with much more than this from detect magic.
I generally agree with the idea that working through everything you can see is silly. Right now I play it that everything you can see glows when you use the action. This explicitly doesn’t allow you to to identify sources of magic you can’t see. You’d have to strip all magic items from nearby to be able to know there are other sources of magic.
I like the idea of using it to be a resource consumer (time) however. I might try to use a roll to see how long before you focus on the specific items you seek.
You might be able to tell if a new magical effect enters your area (such as a creature under the aforementioned "invisibility" effect, but that's about the best you will be able to get.
Depending on your DM, other persistent magical effects might overwhelm this sense of "something changed" due to the properties inherent in your party's own magical equipment, or maybe they are nice and willing to say, "yep, you know what these effects feel like, so you can ignore them" (and maybe have a chance to tell that something magical as changed within 30ft of you, but not necessarily what).
Even in that best-case scenario, however, you still cannot see the source of the effect, so cannot target it with an action to view its aura. Furthermore, without seeing the target and taking an action to focus on it, there is no innate sense of directionality to Detect Magic short of guess and check a-la-Verizon signal test ("I move 5 ft. Do I sense it now?" Repeat as needed.), a process which could take nearly the whole 10 minute duration of Detect Magic.
Maybe you walked up to something magical, or maybe something invisible is stalking you. Perhaps one of your allies cast a spell without informing you or someone stepped on a mundane trigger for a magical effect. Who knows? Not you. At least not until you can use an action to focus the effect, but even then if you cannot see the object or creature radiating the effect you do not see an aura for the effect, and therefore are reduced to the drawn-out task of signal-testing.
Wrong, you can detect that there's something magical, even if you can't see it; you need to be able to see it if you want to know what type of school. It literally says that.
you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you.
if you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic
I think it would be easier if we think about how we use our senses in our daily life (more of RAI approach). Let's use the sense of smell as an example.
Let's say you and two of your friend are walking outside. Both of them wear perfume. During the walk, you smell the perfume but pay no attraction to it. Suddenly, you smell smoke, so you look around and try to find the source. Then you see people are BBQing.
Let's see how that translates into dnd gameplay.
Detect smell:
You sense the presence of smell within 30 feet of you, and you recognize any change of it. (DM need to info the player about the change)
If you sense a smell, you can use your action to identify the source from any visible creature or object in the area.
If you can't see the possible source, you can request an Investigation check or Perception check to find the location/source as Search action on another turn.
So what I think about Detect Magic (RAI approach)
You sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you: (my own interpretation) player has information about the number of presence of magic within 30 feet, and DM will info the player if the number changes.
If you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic: (my own interpretation) the player may use an action to request a list of visible creature or object that bears magic and its school of magic.
If the player suspects the list is missing something. They can do a Search action and request an Investigation check or Perception check as an action.
Apologies if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find an answer for it. Can detect magic detect an invisible creature?
Yes, you would sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you, but you would not be able to pinpoint where or see a faint aura around it unless its visible to you, which is not without other means of detection, such as See invisibility.
A Dev also answered related questions on his twitter
Note that if the invisible creature is not also hidden, you'd normally know its location though. So it would be easy to deduce that the magic you can detect but not otherwise see is probably from the invisible creature right there.
I believe u could "see" the magic but not the creature...as.it what it looks like...u can can obviously see magic through 6 inches of stone so not being able to see the object doesnt prevent u from seeing the magic...just my opinion
I believe u could "see" the magic but not the creature...as.it what it looks like...u can can obviously see magic through 6 inches of stone so not being able to see the object doesnt prevent u from seeing the magic...just my opinion
You still won't see an aura around the Invisible creature's location, but you'll sense the presense of magic when it's within 30 feet of you. It may help if you think of it as "smelling" the magic instead of "seeing" it - you sense the reek of it through the six inches of stone or whatever.
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Even later, but I would like to leave here a reflection of mine.
Detect Magic won't help to detect the presence of magic in the area for creatures like the Invisible Stalker or a Poltergeist. These kinds of monsters have the trait:
Even later, but I would like to leave here a reflection of mine.
Detect Magic won't help to detect the presence of magic in the area for creatures like the Invisible Stalker or a Poltergeist. These kinds of monsters have the trait:
And AFAIK that invisibility is a feature of the creature, and is not defined as magical.
In the case of the Invisible Stalker, detect magic would detect them irrelevant of if the creature is invisible or not, since the creature itself is magical and is actively under the effects of a spell. If a creature were not magical and it's method of turning invisible were not magical then detect magic would not pick up anything tho, which I were I think you were trying to go with this one.
Even later, but I would like to leave here a reflection of mine.
Detect Magic won't help to detect the presence of magic in the area for creatures like the Invisible Stalker or a Poltergeist. These kinds of monsters have the trait:
And AFAIK that invisibility is a feature of the creature, and is not defined as magical.
In the case of the Invisible Stalker, detect magic would detect them irrelevant of if the creature is invisible or not, since the creature itself is magical and is actively under the effects of a spell. If a creature were not magical and it's method of turning invisible were not magical then detect magic would not pick up anything tho, which I were I think you were trying to go with this one.
Why would you think that the invisible stalker is inherently magical? It's an elemental and is naturally invisible. It doesn't use any spell effects.
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"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Even later, but I would like to leave here a reflection of mine.
Detect Magic won't help to detect the presence of magic in the area for creatures like the Invisible Stalker or a Poltergeist. These kinds of monsters have the trait:
And AFAIK that invisibility is a feature of the creature, and is not defined as magical.
In the case of the Invisible Stalker, detect magic would detect them irrelevant of if the creature is invisible or not, since the creature itself is magical and is actively under the effects of a spell. If a creature were not magical and it's method of turning invisible were not magical then detect magic would not pick up anything tho, which I were I think you were trying to go with this one.
Why would you think that the invisible stalker is inherently magical? It's an elemental and is naturally invisible. It doesn't use any spell effects.
Detect Magic doesn't specify that it only interacts with spells, though. Verbatim it reads "For the duration, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you. If you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any." An elemental is very reasonably a "magical creature" by default, but ultimately there's no RAW one way or the other for this interaction, it's a DM call.
An invisible stalker is an air elemental that has been summoned from its native plane and transformed by powerful magic. Its sole purpose is to hunt down creatures and retrieve objects for its summoner. When it is defeated or the magic that binds it expires, an invisible stalker vanishes in a gust of wind.
But unless it was visible, detect magic would not give any indication of its presence.
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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You absolutely do see the aura around all visible creatures/objects at once. That’s exactly what the spell text says. It’s worded perfectly fine.
If something has multiple spells cast on it, you see all relevant auras. It’s not complicated.
As SagaTympana said above, you see all visible creatures and objects at once, as well as learning all schools of magic affecting each.
Prior to this, the detection of magic says you detect it but this is where I state the spell is open in it's description, it does not state if you merely detect that there is magic in range or if you are aware of there being multiple sources of magic in range/number of magical effects/creatures in range.
I would lean in the direction that you feel each individual magical effect in range and thus do know the number but this is more to avoid slowing the entire game down every time somebody wanted to use the spell/ritual. Technically the spell itself is a magical effect in range too, as a fun thought why the former (only know there is magic in range) also creates additional issues.
As towards Direction, while the spell doesn't give direction (at least not without being able to see the aura), a DM could still indicate direction to save time when say looting for magical items or what not, just so you don't get a party searching around a room for over an hour to find that one magical effect that they just can't put their fingers on. The spell doesn't give that but can be a house rule to speed things up slightly, however invisible creatures should never have their position given away in this fashion as it's part of their design.
That's my understanding. You only see the aura around a person or object if you spend an action studying them.
Detect magic can't find invisible things (if it did then detect invisibility would be pointless).
"Any" does not imply a choice, it implies that there maybe a complete absence of any visible creatures or objects that have such an aura.
In regards to what you see, all you see is an aura, so around most people you see no aura, around the guard captain you see an aura around his sword but it has no school of magic and around the mayor you see an aura around a ring which also has no magic. Lastly a visiting court jester is engulfed in an aura which appears to be of the school of necromancy. These previous things would all be known and really doesn't need to take much time to go over, you certainly don't need to waste time on effects you already know such as your own magical items. But as the spells goes, you do not see an aura around the assassin, nor do not know it's of the illusion school and so the DM wouldn't tell you about this; Thus are unable to react to the assassin stabbing the mayor in the back.
As for what each would have had in this setting, the Guard Captain has a +1 longsword, the Mayor had a ring of protection, the Court Jester had cast false life on himself and the Assassin had an ally cast Invisibility on him. I don't think you are going to get many scenarios where you would be dealing with much more than this from detect magic.
I generally agree with the idea that working through everything you can see is silly. Right now I play it that everything you can see glows when you use the action. This explicitly doesn’t allow you to to identify sources of magic you can’t see. You’d have to strip all magic items from nearby to be able to know there are other sources of magic.
I like the idea of using it to be a resource consumer (time) however. I might try to use a roll to see how long before you focus on the specific items you seek.
You might be able to tell if a new magical effect enters your area (such as a creature under the aforementioned "invisibility" effect, but that's about the best you will be able to get.
Depending on your DM, other persistent magical effects might overwhelm this sense of "something changed" due to the properties inherent in your party's own magical equipment, or maybe they are nice and willing to say, "yep, you know what these effects feel like, so you can ignore them" (and maybe have a chance to tell that something magical as changed within 30ft of you, but not necessarily what).
Even in that best-case scenario, however, you still cannot see the source of the effect, so cannot target it with an action to view its aura. Furthermore, without seeing the target and taking an action to focus on it, there is no innate sense of directionality to Detect Magic short of guess and check a-la-Verizon signal test ("I move 5 ft. Do I sense it now?" Repeat as needed.), a process which could take nearly the whole 10 minute duration of Detect Magic.
Maybe you walked up to something magical, or maybe something invisible is stalking you. Perhaps one of your allies cast a spell without informing you or someone stepped on a mundane trigger for a magical effect. Who knows? Not you. At least not until you can use an action to focus the effect, but even then if you cannot see the object or creature radiating the effect you do not see an aura for the effect, and therefore are reduced to the drawn-out task of signal-testing.
Wrong, you can detect that there's something magical, even if you can't see it; you need to be able to see it if you want to know what type of school. It literally says that.
2 parts:
I think it would be easier if we think about how we use our senses in our daily life (more of RAI approach). Let's use the sense of smell as an example.
Let's say you and two of your friend are walking outside. Both of them wear perfume. During the walk, you smell the perfume but pay no attraction to it. Suddenly, you smell smoke, so you look around and try to find the source. Then you see people are BBQing.
Let's see how that translates into dnd gameplay.
Detect smell:
So what I think about Detect Magic (RAI approach)
If the player suspects the list is missing something. They can do a Search action and request an Investigation check or Perception check as an action.
You literally answered the question. So helpful! Wow!
Yes, you would sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you, but you would not be able to pinpoint where or see a faint aura around it unless its visible to you, which is not without other means of detection, such as See invisibility.
A Dev also answered related questions on his twitter
Note that if the invisible creature is not also hidden, you'd normally know its location though. So it would be easy to deduce that the magic you can detect but not otherwise see is probably from the invisible creature right there.
I believe u could "see" the magic but not the creature...as.it what it looks like...u can can obviously see magic through 6 inches of stone so not being able to see the object doesnt prevent u from seeing the magic...just my opinion
You still won't see an aura around the Invisible creature's location, but you'll sense the presense of magic when it's within 30 feet of you. It may help if you think of it as "smelling" the magic instead of "seeing" it - you sense the reek of it through the six inches of stone or whatever.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Late and old...
But I think invisible creatures... NO, detect magic won't find those.
But a creature or person invisible because of the spell invisibility, will give out the aura.
No. Auras only appear around visible creatures or objects.
Detect Magic won't help to detect the presence of magic in the area for creatures like the Invisible Stalker or a Poltergeist. These kinds of monsters have the trait:
Invisibility. The stalker is invisible.
Invisibility. The poltergeist is invisible.
And AFAIK that invisibility is a feature of the creature, and is not defined as magical.
In the case of the Invisible Stalker, detect magic would detect them irrelevant of if the creature is invisible or not, since the creature itself is magical and is actively under the effects of a spell. If a creature were not magical and it's method of turning invisible were not magical then detect magic would not pick up anything tho, which I were I think you were trying to go with this one.
Why would you think that the invisible stalker is inherently magical? It's an elemental and is naturally invisible. It doesn't use any spell effects.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Detect Magic doesn't specify that it only interacts with spells, though. Verbatim it reads "For the duration, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you. If you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any." An elemental is very reasonably a "magical creature" by default, but ultimately there's no RAW one way or the other for this interaction, it's a DM call.
I would say that an invisible stalker is inherently magical.
But unless it was visible, detect magic would not give any indication of its presence.
"Not all those who wander are lost"