Divination spells

Gwenaël/DM Notes/Spellcasting/Schools of Magic/Schools of Magic

#PHB2014

Divination spells reveal information, whether in the form of secrets long forgotten, glimpses of the future, the locations of hidden things, the truth behind illusions, or visions of distant people or places.

Cantrips

Guidance

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Classes: Cleric, Druid, Artificier

You touch one willing creature. Once before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of its choice. It can roll the die before or after making the ability check. The spell then ends.

True Strike

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 round
Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

You point a finger at a target in range. Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target’s defenses. On your next turn, you gain advantage on your first attack roll against the target, provided that this spell hasn’t ended.

First Level

Beast Bond (XGtE)

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (a bit of fur wrapped in a cloth)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Classes: Druid, Ranger

You establish a telepathic link with one beast you touch that is friendly to you or charmed by you. The spell fails if the beast’s Intelligence score is 4 or higher. Until the spell ends, the link is active while you and the beast are within line of sight of each other. Through the link, the beast can understand your telepathic messages to it, and it can telepathically communicate simple emotions and concepts back to you. While the link is active, the beast gains advantage on attack rolls against any creature within 5 feet of you that you can see.

Comprehend Languages

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a pinch of soot and salt)
Duration: 1 hour
Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

For the duration, you understand the literal meaning of any spoken language that you hear. You also understand any written language that you see, but you must be touching the surface on which the words are written. It takes about 1 minute to read one page of text.

This spell doesn’t decode secret messages in a text or a glyph, such as an arcane sigil, that isn’t part of a written language.

Detect Evil and Good

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Classes: Cleric, Paladin(Oath of Zeal), Warlock

For the duration, you know if there is an Aberrations, Celestials, Elementals, Fey, Fiends, or Undead within 30 feet of you, as well as where the creature is located. Similarly, you know if there is a place or object within 30 feet of you that has been magically consecrated or desecrated.

The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.

Detect Magic

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Classes: Bard, Cleric(Arcana & Inquisition Domain), Druid, Paladin(Oath of the Watchers), Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard, Artificier

For the duration, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you. If you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any.

The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.

Detect Poison and Disease

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a yew leaf)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Classes: Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Warlock(Mother of Sorrows)

For the duration, you can sense the presence and location of poisons, poisonous creatures, and diseases within 30 feet of you. You also identify the kind of poison, poisonous creature, or disease in each case.

The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.

Hunter's Mark

Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: 90 feet
Components: V
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Classes: Ranger, Paladin(Oath of Vengeance & Zeal), Cleric(Keeper Domain), Warlock(The Predator)

You choose a creature you can see within range and mystically mark it as your quarry. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 damage to the target whenever you hit it with a weapon attack, and you have advantage on any Wisdom (Perception) or Wisdom (Survival) check you make to find it. If the target drops to 0 hit points before this spell ends, you can use a bonus action on a subsequent turn of yours to mark a new creature.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd or 4th level, you can maintain your concentration on the spell for up to 8 hours. When you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, you can maintain your concentration on the spell for up to 24 hours.

Identify

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (a pearl worth at least 100 gp and an owl feather)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Bard, Wizard, Cleric(Knowledge & Forge Domain), Artificier, Cleric(Inquisition Domain), Warlock(The Lantern)

You choose one object that you must touch throughout the casting of the spell. If it is a magic item or some other magic-imbued object, you learn its properties and how to use them, whether it requires attunement to use, and how many charges it has, if any. You learn whether any spells are affecting the item and what they are. If the item was created by a spell, you learn which spell created it.

If you instead touch a creature throughout the casting, you learn what spells, if any, are currently affecting it.

Speak with Animals

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 10 minutes
Classes: Bard, Druid, Ranger, Cleric(Nature Domain), Paladin(Oath of the Ancients)

You gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration. The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at minimum, beasts can give you information about nearby locations and monsters, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the past day. You might be able to persuade a beast to perform a small favor for you, at the DM’s discretion.

Second Level

Augury

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (specially marked sticks, bones, or similar tokens worth at least 25 gp)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Cleric(Knowledge Domain), Paladin(Oath of the Open Sea)

By casting gem-inlaid sticks, rolling dragon bones, laying out ornate cards, or employing some other divining tool, you receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a specific course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes. The DM chooses from the following possible omens:

• Weal, for good results
• Woe, for bad results
• Weal and woe, for both good and bad results
• Nothing, for results that aren’t especially good or bad

The spell doesn’t take into account any possible circumstances that might change the outcome, such as the casting of additional spells or the loss or gain of a companion.

If you cast the spell two or more times before completing your next long rest, there is a cumulative 25 percent chance for each casting after the first that you get a random reading. The DM makes this roll in secret.

Beast Sense

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Classes: Druid, Ranger

You touch a willing beast. For the duration of the spell, you can use your action to see through the beast’s eyes and hear what it hears, and continue to do so until you use your action to return to your normal senses. While perceiving through the beast’s senses, you gain the benefits of any special senses possessed by that creature, though you are blinded and deafened to your own surroundings.

Detect Thoughts

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a copper piece)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Paladin(Oath of Zeal), Warlock(The Great Old One)

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.

Find Traps

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Cleric, Druid, Ranger

You sense the presence of any trap within range that is within line of sight. A trap, for the purpose of this spell, includes anything that would inflict a sudden or unexpected effect you consider harmful or undesirable, which was specifically intended as such by its creator. Thus, the spell would sense an area affected by the alarm spell, a glyph of warding, or a mechanical pit trap, but it would not reveal a natural weakness in the floor, an unstable ceiling, or a hidden sinkhole.

This spell merely reveals that a trap is present. You don’t learn the location of each trap, but you do learn the general nature of the danger posed by a trap you sense.

Locate Animals or Plants

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a bit of fur from a bloodhound)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Bard, Druid, Ranger, Cleric(Hunt Domain)

Describe or name a specific kind of beast or plant. Concentrating on the voice of nature in your surroundings, you learn the direction and distance to the closest creature or plant of that kind within 5 miles, if any are present.

Locate Object

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a forked twig)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard, Warlock(The Lantern)

Describe or name an object that is familiar to you. You sense the direction to the object’s location, as long as that object is within 1,000 feet of you. If the object is in motion, you know the direction of its movement.

The spell can locate a specific object known to you, as long as you have seen it up close—within 30 feet—at least once. Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind, such as a certain kind of apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon.

This spell can’t locate an object if any thickness of lead, even a thin sheet, blocks a direct path between you and the object.

Mind Spike (XGtE)

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components: S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Classes: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

You reach into the mind of one creature you can see within range. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw, taking 3d8 psychic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. On a failed save, you also always know the target's location until the spell ends, but only while the two of you are on the same plane of existence. While you have this knowledge, the target can't become hidden from you, and if it's invisible, it gains no benefit from that condition against you.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 2nd.

See Invisibility

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a pinch of talc and a small sprinkling of powdered silver)
Duration: 1 hour
Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Artificier, Cleric(Twilight & Inquisition Domain), Paladin (Oath of the Watchers), Warlock(The Many)

For the duration, you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible, and you can see into the Ethereal Plane. Ethereal creatures and objects appear ghostly and translucent.

Third Level

Clairvoyance

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 1 mile
Components: V, S, M (a focus worth at least 100 gp, either a jeweled horn for hearing or a glass eye for seeing)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock(The Great Old One)

You create an invisible sensor within range in a location familiar to you (a place you have visited or seen before) or in an obvious location that is unfamiliar to you (such as behind a door, around a corner, or in a grove of trees). The sensor remains in place for the duration, and it can’t be attacked or otherwise interacted with.

When you cast the spell, you choose seeing or hearing. You can use the chosen sense through the sensor as if you were in its space. As your action, you can switch between seeing and hearing.

A creature that can see the sensor (such as a creature benefiting from see invisibility or truesight) sees a luminous, intangible orb about the size of your fist.

Tongues

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: V, M (a small clay model of a ziggurat)
Duration: 1 hour
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Paladin(Oath of Zeal)

This spell grants the creature you touch the ability to understand any spoken language it hears. Moreover, when the target speaks, any creature that knows at least one language and can hear the target understands what it says.

Fourth Level

Arcane Eye

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M (a bit of bat fur)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Classes: Wizard, Artificier, Cleric(Knowledge, Arcana, & Inquisition Domain), Druid(Circle of the Hive), Warlock (The Many)

You create an invisible, magical eye within range that hovers in the air for the duration.

You mentally receive visual information from the eye, which has normal vision and darkvision out to 30 feet. The eye can look in every direction.

As an action, you can move the eye up to 30 feet in any direction. There is no limit to how far away from you the eye can move, but it can’t enter another plane of existence. A solid barrier blocks the eye’s movement, but the eye can pass through an opening as small as 1 inch in diameter.

Divination

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (incense and a sacrificial offering appropriate to your religion, together worth at least 25 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Cleric(Night Domain), Paladin(Oath of Zeal)

Your magic and an offering put you in contact with a god or a god’s servants. You ask a single question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity to occur within 7 days. The DM offers a truthful reply. The reply might be a short phrase, a cryptic rhyme, or an omen.

The spell doesn’t take into account any possible circumstances that might change the outcome, such as the casting of additional spells or the loss or gain of a companion.

If you cast the spell two or more times before finishing your next long rest, there is a cumulative 25 percent chance for each casting after the first that you get a random reading. The DM makes this roll in secret.

Locate Creature

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a bit of fur from a bloodhound)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Classes: Bard, Cleric(Order, Inquisition, & Hunt Domain), Druid, Paladin(Oath of Zeal, Castigation), Ranger, Wizard, Warlock(The Lantern)

Describe or name a creature that is familiar to you. You sense the direction to the creature’s location, as long as that creature is within 1,000 feet of you. If the creature is moving, you know the direction of its movement.

The spell can locate a specific creature known to you, or the nearest creature of a specific kind (such as a human or a unicorn), so long as you have seen such a creature up close—within 30 feet—at least once. If the creature you described or named is in a different form, such as being under the effects of a polymorph spell, this spell doesn’t locate the creature.

This spell can’t locate a creature if running water at least 10 feet wide blocks a direct path between you and the creature.

Fifth Level

Commune

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (incense and a vial of holy or unholy water)
Duration: 1 minute
Classes: Cleric(Order Domain), Paladin(Oath of Devotion & Glory)

You contact your deity or a divine proxy and ask up to three questions that can be answered with a yes or no. You must ask your questions before the spell ends. You receive a correct answer for each question.

Divine beings aren’t necessarily omniscient, so you might receive “unclear” as an answer if a question pertains to information that lies beyond the deity’s knowledge. In a case where a one-word answer could be misleading or contrary to the deity’s interests, the DM might offer a short phrase as an answer instead.

If you cast the spell two or more times before finishing your next long rest, there is a cumulative 25 percent chance for each casting after the first that you get no answer. The DM makes this roll in secret.

Commune with Nature

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Druid, Ranger, Cleric(Hunt Domain), Paladin(Oath of the Ancients & Open Sea)

You briefly become one with nature and gain knowledge of the surrounding territory. In the outdoors, the spell gives you knowledge of the land within 3 miles of you. In caves and other natural underground settings, the radius is limited to 300 feet. The spell doesn’t function where nature has been replaced by construction, such as in dungeons and towns.

You instantly gain knowledge of up to three facts of your choice about any of the following subjects as they relate to the area:

• terrain and bodies of water
• prevalent plants, minerals, animals, or peoples
• powerful Celestials, Fey, Fiends, Elementals, or Undead
• influence from other planes of existence
• buildings

For example, you could determine the location of powerful undead in the area, the location of major sources of safe drinking water, and the location of any nearby towns.

Contact Other Plane

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Self
Components: V
Duration: 1 minute
Classes: Warlock, Wizard

You mentally contact a demigod, the spirit of a long-dead sage, or some other mysterious entity from another plane. Contacting this extraplanar intelligence can strain or even break your mind. When you cast this spell, make a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw. On a failure, you take 6d6 psychic damage and are insane until you finish a long rest. While insane, you can’t take actions, can’t understand what other creatures say, can’t read, and speak only in gibberish. A greater restoration spell cast on you ends this effect.

On a successful save, you can ask the entity up to five questions. You must ask your questions before the spell ends. The DM answers each question with one word, such as “yes,” “no,” “maybe,” “never,” “irrelevant,” or “unclear” (if the entity doesn’t know the answer to the question). If a one-word answer would be misleading, the DM might instead offer a short phrase as an answer.

Find the Path

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a set of divinatory tools—such as bones, ivory sticks, cards, teeth, or carved runes—worth 100 gp and an object from the location you wish to find)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 day
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid

This spell allows you to find the shortest, most direct physical route to a specific fixed location that you are familiar with on the same plane of existence. If you name a destination on another plane of existence, a destination that moves (such as a mobile fortress), or a destination that isn’t specific (such as “a green dragon’s lair”), the spell fails.

For the duration, as long as you are on the same plane of existence as the destination, you know how far it is and in what direction it lies. While you are traveling there, whenever you are presented with a choice of paths along the way, you automatically determine which path is the shortest and most direct route (but not necessarily the safest route) to the destination.

Legend Lore

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (incense worth at least 250 gp, which the spell consumes, and four ivory strips worth at least 50 gp each)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Wizard, Warlock(The Undying)

Name or describe a person, place, or object. The spell brings to your mind a brief summary of the significant lore about the thing you named. The lore might consist of current tales, forgotten stories, or even secret lore that has never been widely known. If the thing you named isn’t of legendary importance, you gain no information. The more information you already have about the thing, the more precise and detailed the information you receive is.

The information you learn is accurate but might be couched in figurative language. For example, if you have a mysterious magic axe on hand, the spell might yield this information: “Woe to the evildoer whose hand touches the axe, for even the haft slices the hand of the evil ones. Only a true Child of Stone, lover and beloved of Moradin, may awaken the true powers of the axe, and only with the sacred word Rudnogg on the lips.”

Rary's Telepathic Bond

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M (pieces of eggshell from two different kinds of creatures)
Duration: 1 hour
Classes: Wizard, Cleric(Peace Domain), Warlock(The Many)

You forge a telepathic link among up to eight willing creatures of your choice within range, psychically linking each creature to all the others for the duration. Creatures with Intelligence scores of 2 or less aren’t affected by this spell.

Until the spell ends, the targets can communicate telepathically through the bond whether or not they have a common language. The communication is possible over any distance, though it can’t extend to other planes of existence.

Scrying

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a focus worth at least 1,000 gp, such as a crystal ball, a silver mirror, or a font filled with holy water)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Classes: Bard, Cleric(Knowledge & Light Domain), Druid, Warlock, Wizard, Paladin(Oath of Vengeance, Watcher, Zeal, & Spelldrinker)

You can see and hear a particular creature you choose that is on the same plane of existence as you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw, which is modified by how well you know the target and the sort of physical connection you have to it. If a target knows you’re casting this spell, it can fail the saving throw voluntarily if it wants to be observed.

On a successful save, the target isn’t affected, and you can’t use this spell against it again for 24 hours.

On a failed save, the spell creates an invisible sensor within 10 feet of the target. You can see and hear through the sensor as if you were there. The sensor moves with the target, remaining within 10 feet of it for the duration. A creature that can see invisible objects sees the sensor as a luminous orb about the size of your fist.

Instead of targeting a creature, you can choose a location you have seen before as the target of this spell. When you do, the sensor appears at that location and doesn’t move.

Sixth Level

True Seeing

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
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)
Duration: 1 hour
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

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.

Seventh Level

Eighth Level

Nineth Level

Foresight

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (a hummingbird feather)
Duration: 8 hours
Classes: Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard

You touch a willing creature and bestow a limited ability to see into the immediate future. For the duration, the target can’t be surprised and has advantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. Additionally, other creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls against the target for the duration.

This spell immediately ends if you cast it again before its duration ends.