Author: Audere
Most people think of locate object as “locate Macguffin,” if they think of it at all. Pretty niche, right? Sure, sometimes you need to find the Stone of Golorr or something, but is that really worth a spell pick?
We’re here to tell you that not only is locate object worth picking on level up as a Wizard, it’s worth preparing every day for anyone who can get it.
If you’ve ever DMed a module, or read through one after playing it, you might have noticed that players don’t find all the magic items. In fact, they often miss a majority of the magic items in the adventure. Many of them are hidden in secret compartments, tucked away in odd corners, or stashed in arbitrary places that the players might have no reason to check.
And this isn’t even the fault of the players. Even if they want to be diligent, searching every nook and cranny in a dungeon is not necessarily everyone’s idea of a good time. As a player, you have to balance your greed with moving the game along. Right?
Actually, with locate object, you can sweep a dungeon for magic items in no time.
Magic items are items of a particular kind! Simply cast locate object at least once in every dungeon or fortress or other loot-prone area you adventure through, and you can pick them dry with confidence.
Doesn’t it just find the nearest one?
All right, before we go further, we should go over exactly how locate object works.
Locate object is a 2nd level divination spell with a casting time of 1 action.
Its duration is concentration, up to 10 minutes.
You can describe or name a specific object that you have seen from within 30 feet, or you can locate the nearest object of a particular kind.
Whichever you choose, you sense the direction to the object’s location if it is within 1000 feet of you, and if it’s in motion you sense the direction of its movement.
Finally, the spell can’t locate an object if any thickness of lead blocks a direct path between you and the object.
This last part might seem like a disadvantage, but it’s actually a tremendous advantage. It means you can exclude items using lead: lead-lined sheets, lead containers, lead-lined cloaks, et cetera. So in this way, you can exclude your party’s own magic items from the search, simply by blocking them with lead.
Furthermore, once you find a magic item, you can block it with lead as well to locate the next nearest magic item. After all, the spell’s effect—locating the nearest object of a particular kind—lasts for up to ten minutes.
Finally, note that you don’t have to blindly move in the direction of an object you find with the spell. Locate object doesn’t give a distance, but you can easily triangulate an object’s position by moving around.
What if my DM doesn’t let me search for magic items?
Magic items are certainly items of a particular kind, but it’s understandable for a DM to be skeptical. If they think magicalness is a rather abstract quality that requires a spell like identify to discern, consider pointing them to this line:
So a cloak being magical is an easily observable quality to anyone who handles it, just like being made of wool or linen. But even if your DM still doesn’t let you locate magic items (as this is quite powerful) locate object is far from useless.
Isn’t the range a bit small?
A 1000 foot radius should be plenty for searching most dungeons. However, you can cover even more ground with locate object by taking advantage of its duration. A phantom steed, for example, can move very far in 10 minutes. By galloping, it can travel at 26 miles per hour, or 4.33 miles per 10 minutes. That means covering an area of approximately 2000 * 4.33 miles = 1.64 square miles per casting.
As an example, Waterdeep is approximately 3.8 miles by 1.5 miles, or 5.7 square miles. So using phantom steed, you can cover an area the size of Waterdeep with locate object using only four castings!
Of course, locate object isn’t only for magic items. That’s just the beginning.
Here’s a short list of things to consider searching for with locate object:
- Magic items (of course)
- Specific worn or carried objects (who needs locate creature?)
- Spellbooks
- Trap triggers
- Concealed doors
- Spell foci
- Weapons
- Lead containers
- Gold or platinum pieces
The evil necromancer got away with dimension door? No problem; locate his robes. Frustrated with the impotency of find traps? Scan for trap triggers. Don’t trust the Cleric’s 18 passive Perception to catch all the secrets? Locate secret doors. Your search for nearby phylacteries got zero hits? Try looking for lead containers.
Once you get the hang of locate object, you might find yourself casting it often.
What if my DM doesn’t let me search for things like secret doors or trap triggers?
This is unfortunate, but happens. Thankfully, with a little creative thinking, you can often get around these kinds of limitations.
For example, instead of secret doors, you could search for smooth doors, or you could simply search for doors and walk around the rooms of the dungeon; you’ll detect any secret doors once they become the closest door to you. Instead of searching for trap triggers, you could search for tripwires and pressure plates.
Work with your DM to figure out what uses are the most reliable for your game. This spell is very versatile, so with a bit of thought you can usually find a way to locate what you want!
One of the best articles on this site. Alot of great uses for a previously ignored spell.
Would Find Greater Steed’s spell-sharing allow you to have this up both on yourself and your (presumably flying) mount? Because then you could more than double the search efficiency of the spell. Thinking for a bard with magical secrets.
There are better magical secrets pick than locate object and you really only need one person to have it to check an entire dungeon after clearing it in most cases. I do not recommend it for a MS pick, having said that I would imagine yes since your mount has it too if you put FGS into a Spell Storing Ring and someone with locate object summoned a steed they could check. But it’s much cheaper to simply take a warhorse or a mule if you’re small and check the dungeon that way.
Note: Bards have *locate object* naturally, no Magical Secrets needed!
This isn’t how Locate Object works. You don’t search for ‘magical items’ because that’s not an object, it’s an attribute given ‘to’ the object.
You would search for a sword, or a cloak, or a ring etc. You would then need to ascertain through other means whether or not the item is magical.
This is a silly argument. Lets look at the quote from the DMG pg. 136, caps for emphasis:
“Whatever a magic item’s appearance, HANDLING the item is enough to give a
CHARACTER a sense that SOMETHING is extraordinary about it.”
Is the Detect Object spell a CHARACTER? No, it is not. It has specific rules about what it can detect and magic is not one of those things.
Is your character HANDLING the as yet undiscovered item? No, it is not.
Even if your CHARACTER was HANDLING the item, could they tell the item was magical? No, they could tell that SOMETHING (as in some unknown property about the item) is extraordinary. So there’s a bucket of old swords and your character could pull one out, examine it, and tell that there was something special about that sword compared to the others. If you want to know more then that you need detect magic or identify, etc.
So can you please explain how this quote in any way applies to locate object?
Further, let me ask you this:
Could you use locate object to search for “items”? No, not a specific kind.
Could you use locate object to search for “magic”? No, it doesn’t locate magic.
If it can’t search for either of those things then why would “magic items” work?
Your best bet is to just rest and then search the dungeon with multiple castings for jewellery, weapons, coins , etc.