Listen man, just be happy they didn’t bring anti-magic field grenades.
For real though, even in settings that aren’t high magic, it would be reasonable that law enforcement would have something to neutralize magic. You think you’re the first spell-slinging murder hobo to come through here?
I wish anti-magic (in D&D specifically) felt less binary, and that there were more mechanics around encountering anti-magic of varying strengths. In a busy marketplace there might be weak anti-magic just to prevent basic illusory tricks, Distort Value, Incite Greed, etc. You could still cast such spells, but it might require a higher level slot to overcome the field, and/or maybe some effect would be triggered to make your use of magic obvious to whatever enforcers are around. Making sleight of hand more relevant to magic users for casting spells subtley enough to avoid triggering such effects would be super cool. Not hard to brew, but still would be nice to have that fleshed out in the base game.
Yeah, I think the somatic and verbal components were supposed to give away casters (making the sorcerer’s Subtle Spell incredibly valuable socially), but it seems like a lot of DMs ignore or minimize it. But yeah, things like a simple persistent Detect Magic field, especially in critical areas, would make perfect sense. In a high magic setting, every vendor having a trinket that grants them Detect Magic continuously wouldn’t be out of the question.
And the Lord spake, saying, ‘First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once at the number three, being the third number be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.’
Listen man, just be happy they didn’t bring anti-magic field grenades.
For real though, even in settings that aren’t high magic, it would be reasonable that law enforcement would have something to neutralize magic. You think you’re the first spell-slinging murder hobo to come through here?
I wish anti-magic (in D&D specifically) felt less binary, and that there were more mechanics around encountering anti-magic of varying strengths. In a busy marketplace there might be weak anti-magic just to prevent basic illusory tricks, Distort Value, Incite Greed, etc. You could still cast such spells, but it might require a higher level slot to overcome the field, and/or maybe some effect would be triggered to make your use of magic obvious to whatever enforcers are around. Making sleight of hand more relevant to magic users for casting spells subtley enough to avoid triggering such effects would be super cool. Not hard to brew, but still would be nice to have that fleshed out in the base game.
Yeah, I think the somatic and verbal components were supposed to give away casters (making the sorcerer’s Subtle Spell incredibly valuable socially), but it seems like a lot of DMs ignore or minimize it. But yeah, things like a simple persistent Detect Magic field, especially in critical areas, would make perfect sense. In a high magic setting, every vendor having a trinket that grants them Detect Magic continuously wouldn’t be out of the question.
This is the kind of solution that makes me feel dumb. I am so stealing this