Wizards and extra senses

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I’m hashing out some extra sensory perception for wizards and witches that operate similar to AD&D dwarf ability to sense new construction and the like; the wizard has to be concentrating to use the sense. The types of senses I’m planning are for things like sensing magic, sensing spirits, sensing demons, and so forth. The idea is to have the casters able to provide more types of information during play without said info solving problems for the group.

My question for you: what things would you find it useful for mages to be able to sense in this fashion?

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I have in the past rolled the spells of detect magic and read magic into a MU skill “Arcana” so that these things can be accomplished by spending a turn and (sometimes) rolling a check against stats. I have found it useful in as far as both of these spells are very useful, especially for engaging with the dungeon, but for lower level PCs they are also a “waste” because they aren’t sleep, light or unseen servant (the three best traditional level 1 spells I think).

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Some kind of “Second Sight” for detecting Faerie Folk and such might be thematically appropriate for a given setting. Being able to determine if someone is under the effects of Bewitchment or Enchantment might be more specific, but more interesting than just sensing Magic in general.

One could even tie this sort of thing to the First Level Spell they have prepared for the day:

  1. Charm Person: Sense Bewitchment
  2. Detect Magic: Sense Magic (not as specific as the Spell perhaps?)
  3. Floating Disc: Intuit Height/Depth
  4. Hold Portal: Sense direction of Egress perhaps?
  5. Light (Darkness): Sense Hiding Creatures/Ambush?
  6. Magic Missile: Sense other Wizards
  7. Protection from Evil: Sense Malevolence (Demons, etc.)
  8. Read Languages: Sense Mood/Outlook of a given text’s Author?
  9. Read Magic: Ditto Above?
  10. Shield: Sense Protective Ensorcellments
  11. Sleep: Perceive the Dreams of a Sleeping Creature
  12. Ventriloquism: Sense Deceitful/Misleading Speech?
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I am one of those “I hate detect magic” types. It can be kinda limiting for world building (it implies that there is a distinction where you might not want one, sets up a materialist world vs. non-materialist world dichotomy), but it also feels… cheap. too um, gamey? like someone used X and you can detect X.

I like sensing spirits/demons/etc. sensing like, ‘runes’ or something would be good, like if someone is cursed, the MU could find the little balled up piece of parchment with the curse that is tucked into the hat of the cursed.

my favorite of anything anyone has said, including me, is “sense of egress” above. it feels magic-y. I would want a sense that sets my materialist brain thinking “WAIT, how does that work?”. what IS egress? feels so mythical to me.

perceiving dreams is great too. and useful!

something connected to death might work well. maybe seeing someone’s last breath. like, last breath’s might hang in the air for a while (does that feel too cleric-y?).

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I think there’s a wide spectrum of senses one could attribute to wizards, widely ranging in power, and from the whimsical to the more practical.

If we’re aiming for something closer to the dwarf’s senses, then it’s more the pragmatic, procedural side of things. Something that slots into the usual dungeon exploration. It’s easy to get something either too useful or useless here. For example, if we’re being rather “dwarf-like” and give the MU an ability to detect if a certain part of the dungeon was made by magical means, does that come into play often enough?

“Is a magical creature behind this closed door?” might be too good, especially if it works all the time.

Something like “knows when other creatures are spellcasters” sounds okay enough to me. It has some tactical and role-playing benefits, but isn’t really unbalancing in general. Quite often you’ll find that out soon enough… But you get this Highlander sense that has a certain appeal to players, and it creates some “connective tissue” between you and other casters. I wouldn’t restrict it to arcane casters, though. Both for simplicity’s sake, and it would be quite cool for worlds where there’s some antagonism and warlocks/witches could suss out priests that might hunt them.

On the more setting-specific side of things, what about being able to know the positions of the stars at all times? Quite a few backgrounds have that as the source of arcane magic. For RP, you can do your horoscope from everywhere. On the practical side, it’s basically an extended direction sense, although one might require the MU to actively concentrate on it.

One could have something that gets more powerful as the MU progresses, although it might be fun to not tie that to mere levels.

What if you have some very basic ability, but it gets better if you get proper MU attire? Wizard’s hat, robe & staff (the MU might start out with simulacra, but you only get a boost if it’s proper)

Or maybe ioun stones? With none, you can touch something potentially magical and after a turn of concentration you know whether it really has the arcane spark, but if you’ve got nine ioun stones floating around your head, you basically see the matrix.

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