You do fucking win at D&D.

[Kaelik]

I would be totally fine with CoP not working on Mindblanked/Non Detected. But I would generally be strongly opposed to having them work on True Seeing, just as a houserule.

Poor baby True Seers need to be able to see the Greater Invised people beating them up.

[Juton]

Who cares if the god of magic knows that you cast nondetection? It's the things that happen while the spell is on the character that are hidden and that matter.

Second, Contact Other Plane is a divination spell and spells like nondetection block divinations in a completely open-ended way. Just like most divinations can't need line of effect or targets to work, blocking-divination spells can't require line of effect or targets or else they can't work at all either.

I know that everyone plays with divinations as working perfectly all the time because they can't wrap their minds around facts like mind blank blocking true seeing or true strike, but letting divination-blocking spells actually block divinations regardless of targeting or LoS rules is literally the only way that divination-blocking spells can work at all. Otherwise, you might as well remove misdirection, nondetection, screen, mind blank, and sequester as well as antimagic like antimagic shell or globe of invulnerability.

Hell, nondetection lists clairvoyance as a spell that it blocks and that spell creates a magic sensor that lets you see an area as if you were there. It's a pure magic logic effect as written.

I will explain my understanding of how this works. The god in question has perfect knowledge of what happens with respect to his portfolio for weeks in advance (1 week per divine rank I believe). By RAW there is nothing a Wizard can do to prevent the god from knowing what spells he is going to cast. Contact other Plane lets the caster talk to the god, nothing else, the people the caster is asking about are never targeted by the spell. The spell doesn't affect anyone at all except the caster and the god in question.

If you rule that non-detection or mind blank prevents the god from knowing what you are getting up to, that can be fair, rational and intuitive. Unfortunately it clashes with RAW. Now this is stupid and I agree with Frank that these rules are worse then none at all. But these are the rules, and if you have the misfortune of playing a strictly RAW game then you will have this preposterous sword of Damocles hanging above your head once you hit mid levels.

[virgil]

Who cares if the god of magic knows that you cast nondetection? It's the things that happen while the spell is on the character that are hidden and that matter.

Second, Contact Other Plane is a divination spell and spells like nondetection block divinations in a completely open-ended way. Just like most divinations can't need line of effect or targets to work, blocking-divination spells can't require line of effect or targets or else they can't work at all either.

I know that everyone plays with divinations as working perfectly all the time because they can't wrap their minds around facts like mind blank blocking true seeing or true strike, but letting divination-blocking spells actually block divinations regardless of targeting or LoS rules is literally the only way that divination-blocking spells can work at all. Otherwise, you might as well remove misdirection, nondetection, screen, mind blank, and sequester as well as antimagic like antimagic shell or globe of invulnerability.

That's actually a bit hard to grok. Would nondetection help against Contact Other Plane? A god should be able to exceed the CL check required to surpass the DC as cast by a mortal wizard.

[K]

I will explain my understanding of how this works. The god in question has perfect knowledge of what happens with respect to his portfolio for weeks in advance (1 week per divine rank I believe). By RAW there is nothing a Wizard can do to prevent the god from knowing what spells he is going to cast. Contact other Plane lets the caster talk to the god, nothing else, the people the caster is asking about are never targeted by the spell. The spell doesn't affect anyone at all except the caster and the god in question.

You are making a basic logic error.

Here the order of operations:

1. Caster casts a spell like nondetection.
2. God knew that he was going to cast it weeks it advance.
3. After the caster has cast nondetection and during its duration, the god doesn't know what spells are being cast. In fact, the god gets advance warning in terms of weeks that he won't be detecting any spells from the spellcaster for that entire time to the limit of his future sense.

---------------------------------------------------------

That being said, nondetection can interfere with the spell contact other plane and not the god because all divination-blocking spells have to work that way. In the same way that you can see through a magic sensor created by clairvoyance with normal senses but won't be able to see a person with nondetection, the spell will also interfere with your communications with the god in respect to you.

When nondetection screws up a clairvoyance, the spell still works. There is still a magic sensor that sends visual information to the caster, but the caster can't see the person/object protected by nondetection even though the two magic effects never intersect in space. In the same sense, a nondetection doesn't fool the god and the god can still detect things, it's just that the spell contact other plane can't correctly ask any questions about you or receive any correct answers from the god because nondetection doesn't need to come into physical contact with the divination spell itself because of magic logic.

The only other possible interpretation is to say that nondetection and other divination-foiling spells don't work on almost all divination spells because they almost all work indirectly, including spells like clairvoyance that are explicitly mentioned as being foiled.

[K]

Who cares if the god of magic knows that you cast nondetection? It's the things that happen while the spell is on the character that are hidden and that matter.

Second, Contact Other Plane is a divination spell and spells like nondetection block divinations in a completely open-ended way. Just like most divinations can't need line of effect or targets to work, blocking-divination spells can't require line of effect or targets or else they can't work at all either.

I know that everyone plays with divinations as working perfectly all the time because they can't wrap their minds around facts like mind blank blocking true seeing or true strike, but letting divination-blocking spells actually block divinations regardless of targeting or LoS rules is literally the only way that divination-blocking spells can work at all. Otherwise, you might as well remove misdirection, nondetection, screen, mind blank, and sequester as well as antimagic like antimagic shell or globe of invulnerability.

That's actually a bit hard to grok. Would nondetection help against Contact Other Plane? A god should be able to exceed the CL check required to surpass the DC as cast by a mortal wizard.

The god is never affected. The spell contact other plane is the thing being interfered with and you would check it's caster level.

The reason is magic logic in the same way that swallowing a giant polymorphed into a goldfish does not cause your body to explode when the duration runs out and some spells perversely don't have to obey line of effect or targeting rules.

[Juton]

You are making a basic logic error.

Here the order of operations:

1. Caster casts a spell like nondetection.
2. God knew that he was going to cast it weeks it advance.
3. After the caster has cast nondetection and during its duration, the god doesn't know what spells are being cast. In fact, the god gets advance warning in terms of weeks that he won't be detecting any spells from the spellcaster for that entire time to the limit of his future sense.

This is incorrect.

Besides the god being able to automatically succeed on the caster level check to get through non-detection (probably) the shit about portfolios trumps mortal magic.

[hyzmarca]

You are making a basic logic error.

Here the order of operations:

1. Caster casts a spell like nondetection.
2. God knew that he was going to cast it weeks it advance.
3. After the caster has cast nondetection and during its duration, the god doesn't know what spells are being cast. In fact, the god gets advance warning in terms of weeks that he won't be detecting any spells from the spellcaster for that entire time to the limit of his future sense.

This is incorrect.

Besides the god being able to automatically succeed on the caster level check to get through non-detection (probably) the shit about portfolios trumps mortal magic.

That still doesn't explain how Karsus pulled off his Avatar spell.

You've really got only three viable explanations that don't screw up Forgotten Realms canon. Either Mystryl was suicidal (unlikely), Gods cannot act on information they gain via portfolio sense (highly problematic) or portfolio sense doesn't cut through anti-divination protections. One of these three explanations happens to keep the game playable once you get to the point where gods will want to personally smite your ass.

[Juton]

That still doesn't explain how Karsus pulled off his Avatar spell.

You've really got only three viable explanations that don't screw up Forgotten Realms canon. Either Mystryl was suicidal (unlikely), Gods cannot act on information they gain via portfolio sense (highly problematic) or portfolio sense doesn't cut through anti-divination protections. One of these three explanations happens to keep the game playable once you get to the point where gods will want to personally smite your ass.

I posit a fourth option. The people who do Forgotten Realms spells and lore didn't talk much with the people who worked on the core line of 3.X. I honestly don't know much about Karsus' Avatar spell, so it may even be possible that everything was done by the same person and they either forgot or just overlooked it.

Remember I'm not defending this position because I find it good or consistent with D&D in general. It's just my understanding of the strictest RAW interpretation of these type of divination spells.

[DSMatticus]

This spell protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects.

Mind blank is a really weird spell. It essentially prevents people from getting information about you from divination effects. That's really broad. Deities' portfolio sense and remote sensing and other junk aren't ever listed as divination effects, so it's probably legitimate to say they get a free pass on poking through your mind blank (they are also specifically allowed to poke through things like misdirection and nondetection, so depending on how far you stretch like it might also just trump mind blank anyway). But contact other plane is a divination effect that is providing the caster information, so when he asks questions about a mind blanked subject the spell fails to produce information, RAW. Yes, a greater deity likely knows the answers, but divination spells and effects cannot produce information about mind blanked subjects, ever, so instead you get static interference or random answers or something.

If you find a way to talk to your god through any effect not listed as divination, mind blank will not prevent that.

[Whatever]

As a general rule, setting-agnostic bullshit should trump setting-specific bullshit. But the portfolio sense, especially for seeing the future, is such total bullshit that I think you'd have a hard time finding any games that actually run it as-written; it makes for terrible stories and terrible gameplay.

[Maxus]

...Aaaand I just had a random idea for a magic item which does Contact Other Plane or maybe other divination effects.

[Foxwarrior]

There's a simple solution: The Diplomancer.

Moving those future scrying sensors is a standard action. Thus, if a Greater Deity peeks into the future and sees a Diplomancer, the Diplomancer can enslave them before they stop looking, thereby getting a pet deity weeks before learning the art of Diplomancy.

Therefore, out of fear of being brainwashed, Greater Deities try not to look at anything personally.

[Juton]

There's a simple solution: The Diplomancer.

Moving those future scrying sensors is a standard action. Thus, if a Greater Deity peeks into the future and sees a Diplomancer, the Diplomancer can enslave them before they stop looking, thereby getting a pet deity weeks before learning the art of Diplomancy.

Therefore, out of fear of being brainwashed, Greater Deities try not to look at anything personally.

The problem with using TO stuff like the Diplomancer is: what happens when the DM uses it against you? Even if you both make Diplomancers his BBEG can be 4 levels higher than you, so he can get to all the abusive stuff quicker.

Regarding Contact Other Plane,
Looking back at an old thread on BG, Mindblank may work at stopping CoP depending on interpretation. I believe there is a work around where the CoPer only asks questions about himself or about neutral objects. He can still find out when and where he is going to be attacked, he can conceivably find out the spells and tactics used against him or his dungeon.

[Foxwarrior]

No, the DM is supposed to use the Diplomancer to keep the deities in check.

If he's not going to do that, I guess you just have to kill all the gods.

[K]

You are making a basic logic error.

Here the order of operations:

1. Caster casts a spell like nondetection.
2. God knew that he was going to cast it weeks it advance.
3. After the caster has cast nondetection and during its duration, the god doesn't know what spells are being cast. In fact, the god gets advance warning in terms of weeks that he won't be detecting any spells from the spellcaster for that entire time to the limit of his future sense.

This is incorrect.

Besides the god being able to automatically succeed on the caster level check to get through non-detection (probably) the shit about portfolios trumps mortal magic.

The discussion is moot because the spell affects the mortal's divination spell and not the god.

[K]

The real problem with Portfolio sense is the causality problems. If you can ask them exactly what spells a PC or NPC will cast, that basically limits player agency to zero.

I mean, the god of magic knows what spells you will and MUST CAST. You have no choices.

[Chamomile]

I just told you how I was screwed over by those very rules in person in a real game.

So get a new GM. When someone tries to play The Wish, the answer is not to roll over and say "well, guys, I guess the campaign is over because someone exploited the Hell out of a glitch to murder everything forever." Absurd cheese that lets you auto-win at everything should get banned and if it doesn't you are playing at the wrong table.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I almost never get house rules in my games.

I would say so. House rules for things like how critical hits work (whether you roll twice or double the result of your roll, whether or not bonuses are doubled or just the dice, etc. etc.), what counts as being threatened (almost always this is interpreted according to whatever the GM thinks "threatened" means in context, not according to any objective mechanical definition), whether or not you auto-fail all rolls on a 1 (and likewise auto-win on a 20) or just saves and attack rolls because yes, actually, I have played games where skill rolls auto-failed on a 1, how attribute rolls work, whether or not you round up or down literally anything measured in fractions and likewise whether you succeed or fail when the DC and the total roll are precisely equal, and how you get XP are extremely, absurdly common. I have seen at least half of these show up in every game of 3.X I have ever played, and when GMing I regularly have to reteach people the RAW on things like criticals and auto-failing skill checks on a 1 because out of the two or three groups they've played with, not one of them happened to use the RAW instead of one of the common house rule variants. They are so common that it is a waste of time to learn which one happens to be RAW because any given gaming group stands a significant chance of using something else anyway. I don't know what kind of idiots you play with that they'd rather sacrifice an entire campaign rather than houserule blatant cheese, but the answer to this problem is you need a new group, or failing that, team up with someone else to play the Wish and the Word. 3.X RAW delivers all kinds of absurd results, and that is not news and not particularly important to a discussion of whether or not divinations make high-level play impossible.

[K]

If you find a way to talk to your god through any effect not listed as divination, mind blank will not prevent that.

Mind Blank used to make it impossible for the gods to find you, I think as late as 3.0.

[DSMatticus]

Remote sensing and portfolio sense are not referred to as divination effects, so any magic (mortal or otherwise) which blocks divination effects (like mind blank) is meaningless with regards to those two abilities.

I believe there is a work around where the CoPer only asks questions about himself or about neutral objects.

Mind blank does not really care what questions you ask about what objects. Mind blank is a blanket prevention against divination effects that would provide information about the mind blanked subject. That's really weird. You can probably use it to create paradoxes and destroy causality (but we're already talking about seeing the future, so big whoop). But that's what it says. It doesn't say asking divination questions about mind blanked subjects fail, it simply says divinations cannot produce information about a mind blanked subject.

For most divination effects, it's probably satisfactory to simply assume mind blanked subjects don't actually exist. So when you ask "will I be attacked today?" and your only attacker will be mind blanked, you get "nope."

[hyzmarca]

That still doesn't explain how Karsus pulled off his Avatar spell.

You've really got only three viable explanations that don't screw up Forgotten Realms canon. Either Mystryl was suicidal (unlikely), Gods cannot act on information they gain via portfolio sense (highly problematic) or portfolio sense doesn't cut through anti-divination protections. One of these three explanations happens to keep the game playable once you get to the point where gods will want to personally smite your ass.

I posit a fourth option. The people who do Forgotten Realms spells and lore didn't talk much with the people who worked on the core line of 3.X. I honestly don't know much about Karsus' Avatar spell, so it may even be possible that everything was done by the same person and they either forgot or just overlooked it.

While that's a reasonable position, it still doesn't solve the real in game problem where your PCs all die in their sleep without any saving throw because something they'd probably do in 19 weeks is offensive to some deity.

[Juton]

So get a new GM. When someone tries to play The Wish, the answer is not to roll over and say "well, guys, I guess the campaign is over because someone exploited the Hell out of a glitch to murder everything forever." Absurd cheese that lets you auto-win at everything should get banned and if it doesn't you are playing at the wrong table.

I have. No DM says up front "strap your self in for some bullshit", that is something you only discover after months of investment. And sometimes people will pull off the Wish and the Word, in a real game. Your only options are to whine or leave. Absurd cheese happens and you can't stop it from happening by appealing to common sense.

3.X RAW delivers all kinds of absurd results, and that is not news and not particularly important to a discussion of whether or not divinations make high-level play impossible.

I would say my experiences have some use because this type of shit happens, if the RAW isn't fixed then the rules don't work.

---

For most divination effects, it's probably satisfactory to simply assume mind blanked subjects don't actually exist. So when you ask "will I be attacked today?" and your only attacker will be mind blanked, you get "nope."

I think you're wrong. If the CoPer asked 'Do I get in a fight today?' that will return an accurate answer, after all the person using CoP isn't mind blanked so he can learn things about his future. If you where to ask 'Who do I get in a fight with?' then mindblank comes into play. Even here mindblank still would convey some information, if the CoPer doesn't get a name or description, after a few verifications he can assume his assailant is using mindblank and plan accordingly.

He can even get trickier than that. If at the beginning of every fight the CoPer casts nerveskitter, since it's the only spell you can cast flat footed I believe, you whisper to yourself the name or description of what you are fighting you can send that information back in time.

The important distinction is the person using CoP has to be getting information about his future, not the future of the person using mindblank.

[Fuchs]

Any divination that's giving more than vague hints about the future is a mistake in my opinion since it creates too many problems, not the least of it being the loss of player agency.

[DSMatticus]

This spell protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects.

That is the RAW. It is an incredibly, incredibly broad statement that prohibits gathering information about mind blanked subjects through divination effects. If the result of a divination effect gives a player information about a mind blanked subject, you have violated the RAW of mind blank. The fact that any given event might have multiple participants, only one of whom might be mind blanked, does not change the fact that any information you gain about that event is also information gained about the mind blanked subject. And mind blank doesn't let you do that, as written right there.

Listen, here's the preposterousness of what you're arguing.
1) X and only X is going to attack Y today.
2) Y casts CoP and asks "is Y going to be attacked today?"
3) CoP says "yes, Y is going to be attacked."
4) Absolutely no information about X has been imparted to Y.
That's trivially bullshit. You have learned something about X. You have information about an event he is going to participate in. You may not know it's information about X, but the information itself is still objectively about X and now you have it so you have unwittingly gathered information about X, something mind blank expressly forbids.

You are inventing some kind of weird targeting rules where divination questions 'target' things (they don't) and mind blank stops you from being a 'target.' No. That's the first half of the spell. The second half is completely untargeted, and is basically "divinations produce no information about you."

It's weird. It's ill-defined. It's going to be paradoxical in edge cases. But it isn't defeated by cleverly worded questions because it doesn't prevent specific types of questions, it directly prevents the gathering of information in a question-agnostic manner. You might as well try and overcome fire resistance by aiming your fireball at the square next to the fire giant. Targeting has nothing to do with this; the effects are what's blocked.

[Juton]

You are inventing some kind of weird targeting rules where divination questions 'target' things (they don't) and mind blank stops you from being a 'target.' No. That's the first half of the spell. The second half is completely untargeted, and is basically "divinations produce no information about you."

Contact Other Plane
Divination
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Concentration

Most divinations have a target.

Aside from that nit-pick, you've made your argument, I don't agree with it. I've made my counter argument, you don't agree with it. I don't think me restating my argument will sway you. Can we agree to call this an impasse?

[DSMatticus]

I said divination questions, not divinations. Those are not the same thing. CoP is a game effect with a target. The questions you ask CoP are not. You missed the point there. But yes, we can drop it.