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Does the spell Nondetection (and therefore the Unseen Seer ability Guarded Mind) protect the target from all divination spells or just the ones given as examples in the PHB (see quote)?


I am especially interested to know whether it works against See Invisible.

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3 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted


Ask the Kobold: I Spy with My Little Eye by Skip Williams, nuff said.








And if the man who wrote the book is wrong, then all the rules are.

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Hi, Zanath. I've updated your post by including some relevant quotes from the article directly in the answer. We like to do this both as a convenience for people who find our site via search engines, and so that the answer maintains value if the linked site moves or disappears. –  AceCalhoon Jun 25 '12 at 15:30
It looks like Skip William himself wrote the following e-mail, which was kindly pointed to me by my online campaign webmaster. I don't know if his sources are reliable. "Non detection works (on) any divination, not just the examples listed in the spell description. I realize now that when I responded earlier to this question I was thinking of the lower-level Misdirection spell." –  Zachiel Sep 6 '12 at 16:52
I have found the original link to the guy who claims he asked Skip William himself community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/24027461/… –  Zachiel Mar 14 '13 at 17:56
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It most definitely does work against See Invisible. The spells listed there are used mainly as examples, not as an end-all list. The passage that highlights this best is:

...becomes difficult to detect by divination spells such as clairaudience/clairvoyance...

...If a divination is attempted against the warded creature or item,...

Emphasis mine. Nondetection protects against all divination magic.

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Does it work against True Seeing? –  dlras2 Mar 11 '12 at 20:35
It looks like it. I can't find anything in the text of Nondetection or True Seeing that would make Nondetection not apply to True Seeing. True Seeing is powerful, for sure, but it's still a divination, so Nondetection still protects against it. –  DuckTapeal Mar 11 '12 at 21:13
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I should think that if a creature with true seeing (or normal sight, for that matter) were to look directly at a creature covered by Nondetection they would see the creature because it's not invisible. I think Nondetection was meant to protect against indirect divinations such as scrying and crystal balls with true seeing, etc.

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