Price of epic-level scrying

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys,
my high level group is pretty close to reaching a Scrying pool - an ancient pool of Divination from Netherese times that is still active, so very strong stuff. Unlike Scrying spell or Even a Wish spell, this pool is 100% reliable and completely effective - it can pierce space and time and give the one asking useful and correct answers. Being such powerful item, it extracts a heavy price.
With that said, I do not want the price to be PITA for my players. I have a few sub-optimal ideas and I'd love some criticism/better ideas for this thing.
What I have so far:
- as per module, Pool harvests souls. This is an evil act and not applicable to my party, also its pretty basic and bland
- Pool could consume Magic items. Perhaps Very Rare item for 1 answer and Legendary for 3 answers (party ATM has 2x Very rare and 1x legendary)
- Level drain - a formidable price, but this takes away from the players, I do not like this
- Gold. This is, at high level play, irrelevant. Pool could "charge" 10k and still it would not really be sacrifice and it is also kinda silly

How can I shape the price and make it:
- interesting, reflecting power of this pool
- not being a d**k to my players

Thanks!

[stoutstien]

Hey guys,
my high level group is pretty close to reaching a Scrying pool - an ancient pool of Divination from Netherese times that is still active, so very strong stuff. Unlike Scrying spell or Even a Wish spell, this pool is 100% reliable and completely effective - it can pierce space and time and give the one asking useful and correct answers. Being such powerful item, it extracts a heavy price.
With that said, I do not want the price to be PITA for my players. I have a few sub-optimal ideas and I'd love some criticism/better ideas for this thing.
What I have so far:
- as per module, Pool harvests souls. This is an evil act and not applicable to my party, also its pretty basic and bland
- Pool could consume Magic items. Perhaps Very Rare item for 1 answer and Legendary for 3 answers (party ATM has 2x Very rare and 1x legendary)
- Level drain - a formidable price, but this takes away from the players, I do not like this
- Gold. This is, at high level play, irrelevant. Pool could "charge" 10k and still it would not really be sacrifice and it is also kinda silly

How can I shape the price and make it:
- interesting, reflecting power of this pool
- not being a d**k to my players

Thanks!

You could go for the curse of knowledge angle. Since it's 100% accurate its bypassing free will but free will is also what is leading to the outcome in question.

Could also couple it with the idea that truth is subjective to the one asking the question. Think snow white and the fact the magic mirror is answering the queen based on their perspective rather than from some form of metric that is transferable.

A source like this would probably also run the risk of being additive. Easy to say one more time forever leading to inaction and eventually self destruction.

[Unoriginal]

Hey guys,
my high level group is pretty close to reaching a Scrying pool - an ancient pool of Divination from Netherese times that is still active, so very strong stuff. Unlike Scrying spell or Even a Wish spell, this pool is 100% reliable and completely effective - it can pierce space and time and give the one asking useful and correct answers. Being such powerful item, it extracts a heavy price.
With that said, I do not want the price to be PITA for my players. I have a few sub-optimal ideas and I'd love some criticism/better ideas for this thing.
What I have so far:
- as per module, Pool harvests souls. This is an evil act and not applicable to my party, also its pretty basic and bland
- Pool could consume Magic items. Perhaps Very Rare item for 1 answer and Legendary for 3 answers (party ATM has 2x Very rare and 1x legendary)
- Level drain - a formidable price, but this takes away from the players, I do not like this
- Gold. This is, at high level play, irrelevant. Pool could "charge" 10k and still it would not really be sacrifice and it is also kinda silly

How can I shape the price and make it:
- interesting, reflecting power of this pool
- not being a d**k to my players

Thanks!

How about this: the Pool demands that the user *frees* a soul from its imprisonment, before the use.

It can be a physical binding (as in, the soul is trapped in an item or similar) or an Infernal Contract, or an oath, or even a curse. But the Pool will only activate by a soul being freed from its binding while in the same room as the Pool.

[HoboKnight]

@unoriginal
This is a really cool idea. I just wonder what would the pool get from liberation? I mean... how does liberation fuel pool's power? Because consumption of magic items/XP drain/soul harvesting all contribute something to the pool.
What would a liberated soul cobtribute in terms of "fuel"?

[Schwann145]

I'm a fan of sacrificing magic items, as you suggest.
I'm also a fan of "punishing" the players though (punish is in quotes for a reason - I use it very loosely). A powerful, ancient, perfect magic that is simply unavailable anymore should come with a real cost. As you say, money isn't a cost; evil acts that bypass the party isn't really a cost either. Ability drain that recovers very slowly is one way. Nobody plays with xp anymore, or I'd say an xp cost would work, ala 3.X. Curses tend to be too easy to remove to the point that they're not really a problem (or they're specifically too hard to remove, needing Wish level magic).

Keep in mind, if you're sticking to setting lore, the Netherese were... not good people. The majority of them were elitist, xenophobic, and willing to do a lot of awful things in the goal of growing their personal magical power.

[DeTess]

@unoriginal
This is a really cool idea. I just wonder what would the pool get from liberation? I mean... how does liberation fuel pool's power? Because consumption of magic items/XP drain/soul harvesting all contribute something to the pool.
What would a liberated soul cobtribute in terms of "fuel"?

Not the original suggestor but maybe something like this:

The pool needs some kind of medium to do its thing, and a loose soul is just the right thing. It doesn't permanently harm the soul, but does deplete it's ability to remain in the material, sending it off to the afterlife immediately afterwards. So for the pool to work, a loose soul is needed. The easy way out is human sacrifice, but freeing a bound soul works just the same.

Edit: or if that feels too exploitative still, maybe the soul moving to the afterlife creates a kind of hole/window in the fabric of reality for just a moment the pool can exploit.

[KorvinStarmast]

Keep in mind, if you're sticking to setting lore, the Netherese were... not good people. The majority of them were elitist, xenophobic, and willing to do a lot of awful things in the goal of growing their personal magical power.

This is worth following up on.

I offer this suggested price, since you don't want the soul sacrifice but we will get 'sucks some of the soul/life force out of you' consistent with the points on the Netherese being rough customers.

Some ideas:

1. Debilitation similar to Raise Dead and its limitations/side effects

Take -4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Heal one per long rest.

Or

You have two levels of exhaustion, and can only recover them with time. After one week, you have one level of exhaustion.
After two weeks, you are back to normal.

2. Debilitation similar the side effects of casting wish as something other than a level 8 or lower spell.

a. You take xd10 of necrotic damage, where x = proficiency bonus. The malevolent sentience imbedded in the pool likes to suck the life force from more powerful creatures.
b. The damage can't be reduced or prevented in any way, and reduces max HP. You restore 1/xth of the amount taken each time the sun rises during the following days. (x = proficiency bonus.

Powerful magic with a bit of a nasty sentience exacts a price. Additionally, suggest this constraint:

The scrying is only available to you
once per full moon,
or
once per new moon.

[Schwann145]

This is worth following up on.

I offer this suggested price, since you don't want the soul sacrifice but we will get 'sucks some of the soul/life force out of you' consistent with the points on the Netherese being rough customers.

Some ideas:

1. Debilitation similar to Raise Dead and its limitations/side effects

Take -4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Heal one per long rest.

Or

You have two levels of exhaustion, and can only recover them with time. After one week, you have one level of exhaustion.
After two weeks, you are back to normal.

2. Debilitation similar the side effects of casting wish as something other than a level 8 or lower spell.

a. You take xd10 of necrotic damage, where x = proficiency bonus. The malevolent sentience imbedded in the pool likes to suck the life force from more powerful creatures.
b. The damage can't be reduced or prevented in any way, and reduces max HP. You restore 1/xth of the amount taken each time the sun rises during the following days. (x = proficiency bonus.

Powerful magic with a bit of a nasty sentience exacts a price. Additionally, suggest this constraint:

The scrying is only available to you
once per full moon,
or
once per new moon.

I like all of these.
The moon stuff is particularly "scrying" themed, IMO.

[HoboKnight]

Moon thing is great also from a standpoint of players having enough time to figure out what are they willing to pay IMO.

What do you guys think of the pool having 3 options and players can select:
- old school fuel - souls
- magic items (annoying and really expensive)
- liberated soul thing - it is convoluted and difficult to get, but it is least taxing on players

Also every scrying applies exhaustion on the one demaning the scry. Exhaustion heals at a slower rate, as suggested.

[Unoriginal]

@unoriginal
This is a really cool idea. I just wonder what would the pool get from liberation? I mean... how does liberation fuel pool's power? Because consumption of magic items/XP drain/soul harvesting all contribute something to the pool.
What would a liberated soul cobtribute in terms of "fuel"?

There is plenty of ways to do it:



1) The Pool is actually a swirling vortex of Chaos from Limbo, harnessed by the Netherese as a divination tool. Without "paying the cost", the Pool is constantly random scenes from all across the planes of existence, changing from scene to scene and location to location at high speed.

By freeing the soul, the user creates Chaos, which allows the Pool to focus on showing what the user wants in particular. Even if only for a little bit until it returns to its chaotic randomness.

2) There is power in binding, but there is power in breaking too. Keeping a soul bound requires power/energy. By breaking the binding, all of the power/energy that was put into the binding is released, and the Pond was built to harness that form of power.

Same reason as to why Oathbreaker Paladins still have power to harvest.

3) The Pool doesn't react to the soul being freed, it reacts to the power/dedication/investment someone had to pour into finding a bound soul and releasing it from its binding.

4) The Pool was built according to the instructions of an Archdevil, who wanted to make sure no lesser Devils would be able to use it to spy on their superiors, as to avoid getting disposed of by their underlings if the underlings ever found the Pool. The reasoning is that only a pretty powerful Devil can afford to just free a soul, the same way that only a pretty rich person can afford to destroy their own sport car by bashing it with a hammer repeatedly.

The Netherese agreed to work on the Pool because a) they had a deal with the Archdevil that they deemed worth the effort of building the Pool b) they were able to use the Pool for themselves whenever the Archdevil wasn't using it, as long as they could find bound soul to free.

5) The Pool is actually powered by a very Chaotic entity or group of entities, but they only show up in the "powering up the Pool" circle if they get the appropriate tribute. Freeing a soul from its binding is what the entity (or entities) considers an appropriate tribute.

You could have three circles, one of the circle summoning a Demon, another summoning a Slaad, and the third summoning a chaotic good entity, with each summoning happening when someone tries to activate the Pool. It is only when a soul is freed from its binding that all three agree to power up the Pool.