True Seeing: Less Than Meets the Eye

Usable By: Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Spell Level: 6

School: Divination

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Duration: 1 hour

Components: V, S, M (An ointment for the eyes that costs 25 gp; is made from mushroom powder, saffron, and fat; and is consumed by the spell)

This spell gives the willing creature you touch the ability to see things as they actually are. For the duration, the creature has truesight, notices secret doors hidden by magic, and can see into the Ethereal Plane, all out to a range of 120 feet.

Review by Samuel West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

True Sight, as a mechanic, could not be less fun. Do you like puzzly illusions that player’s have to work through? How about using an invisible adversary to taunt and torment them? What if instead of having cool encounters where players think of creative ways to detect these magical phenomena, you just said “I don’t want to play that game; I want this to be over!” That’s what True Seeing does.

From a power level perspective, 6th level is actually way overcosted for the effect. See Invisibility is roughly half the power of this effect, and is a 2nd level slot. Illusions don’t hold up to physical inspection, making something as simple as a rock an easy way to discern if they’re real or not. Spending a 6th level slot to do what See Invisibility plus a rock could do seems suspect to me.

Seeing onto the ethereal matters in so few cases I can’t believe it was included in the spell description. Ghosts seem like the most likely thing you’ll face, but in that case their torment is probably coming while they are visible anyway. If not, and somehow you’re level 11 and facing off against a CR 4 encounter, you then can use this specific spell to see them. Huzzah.

Seeing in darkness is nearly a given in 5e; the majority of races come with Darkvision, and seeing through magical Darkness happens for warlocks as early as 2nd levels with Devil’s Sight, meaning if you wanted to abuse Darkness, you should probably do so in a way that doesn’t eat your 6th level spell slot.

Want to know what really grinds my gears? Arbitrary gold costs spells consume! True Seeing checks all the boxes for things I hate most about spells! To use this already underwhelming spell, you have to just spend some money! Sometimes, to do literally nothing when your truesight reveals no new information!

True Seeing makes it so a DM doesn’t really WANT to pose illusory, ethereal, or invisible threats against you because this spell just removes any kind of interesting problem solving those encounters normally ask for. Why throw a crafty illusionist at the party when the wizard can just point and say “Those things are illusions, the real one is right there!” All of the fun of the encounters are drained, and for what? A spell that otherwise does literally nothing?

Don’t take True Seeing. If you feel you HAVE to because you’re facing endless invisible and illusory foes, I highly encourage working with your group on systems to detect them in cooler ways. Try using sticky or colorful liquids, add in some sand, maybe try using heightened hearing and smell to pinpoint these creatures. Don’t just flip the problem solving switch. Don’t learn True Seeing.

5e Spells

True Seeing: Less Than Meets the Eye