Detect Thoughts: I Know What You’re Thinking
Usable By: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard
Spell Level: 2
School: Divination
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Components: V, S, M (a copper piece)
For the duration, you can read the thoughts of certain creatures. When you cast the spell and as your action on each turn until the spell ends, you can focus your mind on any one creature that you can see within 30 feet of you. If the creature you choose has an Intelligence of 3 or lower or doesn’t speak any language, the creature is unaffected.
You initially learn the surface thoughts of the creature—what is most on its mind in that moment. As an action, you can either shift your attention to another creature’s thoughts or attempt to probe deeper into the same creature’s mind. If you probe deeper, the target must make a Wisdom saving throw. If it fails, you gain insight into its reasoning (if any), its emotional state, and something that looms large in its mind (such as something it worries over, loves, or hates). If it succeeds, the spell ends. Either way, the target knows that you are probing into its mind, and unless you shift your attention to another creature’s thoughts, the creature can use its action on its turn to make an Intelligence check contested by your Intelligence check; if it succeeds, the spell ends.
Questions verbally directed at the target creature naturally shape the course of its thoughts, so this spell is particularly effective as part of an interrogation.
You can also use this spell to detect the presence of thinking creatures you can’t see. When you cast the spell or as your action during the duration, you can search for thoughts within 30 feet of you. The spell can penetrate barriers, but 2 feet of rock, 2 inches of any metal other than lead, or a thin sheet of lead blocks you. You can’t detect a creature with an Intelligence of 3 or lower or one that doesn’t speak any language.
Once you detect the presence of a creature in this way, you can read its thoughts for the rest of the duration as described above, even if you can’t see it, but it must still be within range.
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
I’ll level with you, readers. I still don’t know how to use this spell, nor how to fairly run it. It's kind of wild, and delivers on the telepath fantasy in a glorious way, but it is messy as hell to play with.
My major challenges with the spell come down to what information can be gleaned off a person to justify its cast, and how that varies between surface level and deeper probing. Is surface level a running monologue of almost incoherent gibberish? That’s what’s playing in my head constantly. Some people think visually; is it like a jumbled up television screen with odd foggy half-creations? Or does that quantify as deep thoughts, is what the person’s actually actively thinking deep thoughts and they mostly just get mood and some words here and there? Are deeper thoughts their inner fears and beliefs that they may just have under the surface at the moment that they themselves don’t even realize? And to top it all off, how can I as a player or as a DM make this information useful?
All of it comes around to a neat RP experience, but not that much else. It can occasionally uncover some damning evidence or a crucial location, and when a team coordinates to broach specific subjects while scanning for important details, Detect Thoughts can be the best information gathering tool in the game. If you can get a surface level thought to be the general location you need to head in, that can be a no-save way to learn, and that is powerful. If you need to probe every time to get information you need, the spell gets a lot worse, and can end up just leading to unintended fights and angering groups and factions you didn’t want to anger.
I highly recommend trying it out, but I will also say I don’t know if it's a spell for every table. Some groups might find it is a bit too heavy on story and roleplay to use, while others may even find it a funny little bit that can reveal embarrassing details that is worth a laugh for the cast. This isn’t a spell that always leaps out to me and finds a home on my sheets, but it does consistently lead to memorable moments. It can absolutely justify its place on your sheets.
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