Spell Redesign: Locate Creature

This spell is stupid. In D&D’s long history of assuming the information provided by divination spells will always be sufficient to justify their use, regardless of circumstance, cost, comparison with other spells, or the relevance of any “information” given to play, locate creature ranks among the worst.

Ugly, stupid, devoid of purpose or utility in a game with no need of its existence by a team with no need of real designers.

For the mere cost of a fourth level spell, you may know the direction of a creature, provided they’re within a thousand feet.

Let’s go over what’s missing from a 4th level spell.

  • Doesn’t provide you with information about the target’s surroundings.

  • Tells you nothing about the target’s vitals, equipment, spells, or even a single fact about their person.

  • Has no separate function beyond a thousand feet (seriously, what a tiny radius).

  • Has no use case aside from tracking a recently seen creature or a creature you came to your location to find.

  • Can’t actually be used to find the target! You only learn the direction, meaning any significant obstacle while navigating to the target makes the spell worse than useless.

  • Obviously wastes a 4th level slot, which could’ve instead been used for a spell with more use cases, a better outcome in said use cases (successful use of the spell provides you with an actual benefit) even for the purpose of trying to find someone.

A buddy of mine said this spell could help you avoid encounters while trying to find someone, and as far as I can tell, that’s patently wrong. The spell only provides you with a direction; the building doesn’t suddenly mold itself to accommodate your spell. You still have no path to actually get to your intended target, meaning you have to explore and face encounters anyway. And if you didn’t? If your target was a straight shot away, and your spell told you as much? Congratulations, you just paid a 4th level slot to be certain about something you’d figure out anyways in a few minutes.

The success state of this spell vaguely confirms information you already knew or would know, at the cost of a 4th level spell slot, reducing your ability to make use of said information. The number of edge cases beyond this are infinitesimally small.

My Version (Better)

First thing’s first; we decreased the level. There was no reason for this spell to be 4th level back when it first came out in Tome of Magic, and there’s certainly no reason for it to be 4th level now. This spell was made in the 90’s, and no one at WOTC has thought to look at it critically since. This is the “quality” of designer I fix mistakes for.

This provides you with real information. First, you get a visual of your target when you come within 100 feet of them. In addition to seeing their current state, you also get to confirm distance (which the original spell does not provide). Furthermore, you can see their immediate surroundings (in poor detail, only outlines) so you can infer their condition and state. You can also see other creatures in a similar fashion! Are there guards? Fellow prisoners? We all know you’d only ever consider using this spell for some kind of rescue or assassination anyways, and the procedures for both are remarkably similar.

Finally, you can find secret doors or paths up or down levels/floors! This only comes up when casting at higher levels, and at further distances. It’s just an extra benefit for upspelling and using locate creature to prepare in advance. Who knows, you might be able to slip in the back door!

Also, we removed concentration, because we have an IQ above room temperature.

My Version (Much Better)

I cleaned up the language and changed around the pathfinding benefit a bit. Our higher levels section was getting a bit messy! I prefer the pathfinding element to remain relevant in closer quarters, so I removed the 1 mile interval note and instead made it compete with find the creature itself. It’s only a second level spell after all, we don’t want it to solve too many problems or automatically detect secret features of the dungeon. It just provides that benefit circumstantially.