Spells (3e)

The character sends his or her mind to another plane of existence in order to receive advice and information from powers there. (See the accompanying table for possible consequences and results of the attempt.)

Avoid Effective Intelligence/Charisma Decrease: The character must succeed at an Intelligence check against this DC in order to avoid effective Intelligence and Charisma decrease. If the check fails, the character's Intelligence and Charisma scores fall to 8 for the stated duration, and the character becomes unable to cast arcane spells. If the character loses Intelligence and Charisma, the effect strikes as soon as the first question is asked, and no answer is received. (The entries in parentheses are for questions that pertain to the appropriate Elemental Plane.)

Results of a Successful Contact: The DM rolls d% for the result shown on the table:

True Answer: The character get a true, one-word answer. Questions not capable of being answered in this way are answered randomly.

Don’t Know: The entity tells the character that it doesn’t know.

Lie: The entity intentionally lies to the character.

Random Answer: The entity tries to lie but doesn’t know the answer, so it makes one up.

The powers reply in a language the character understands, but they resent such contact and give only brief answers to the character's questions. (The DM answers all questions with "yes," "no," "maybe," "never," "irrelevant," or some other one-word answer.) The character must concentrate on maintaining the spell (a standard action) in order to ask questions at the rate of one per round. A question is answered by the power during the same round. For every two caster levels, the character may ask one question.

The character can contact an Elemental Plane or some plane farther removed. Contact with minds far removed from the character's home plane increases the probability of suffering an effective decrease to Intelligence and Charisma, but the chance of the power knowing the answer, as well as the probability of the being telling the correct answer, are likewise increased by moving to distant planes. Once the Outer Planes are reached, the power of the deity contacted determines the effects. (Random results obtained from the table are subject to DM changes, the personalities of individual deities, and so on.)

On rare occasions, this divination may be blocked by an act of certain deities or forces.