I can't find an official ruling anywhere, so hopefully someone can assist.
Last night we had an NPC follower of a party member use a quickened spell-like ability that doesn't have a visible emanation. The debate came up that you can still roll Spellcraft to identify the spell.
The GM decided against it, since the player had been waiting 12 levels of play to reveal their companion's Bouncing, Quickened, Ill Omen spell-like ability to move things along. (They can only do that once a day, but it IS objectively pretty cool.)
But one player said you can still role to identify, and another swore they'd read somewhere that you can't identify Quickened spells or Spell-like abilities. Neither could find evidence to support their claim.
Can you all please help us with finding an official ruling?
Yes, you can, because there are always visible side effects (barring the use of feats saying otherwise).
What exactly do I identify when I’m using Spellcraft to identify a spell? Is it the components, since spell-like abilities, for instance, don’t have any? If I can only identify components, would that mean that I can’t take an attack of opportunity against someone using a spell-like ability (or spell with no verbal, somatic, or material components) or ready an action to shoot an arrow to disrupt a spell-like ability? If there’s something else, how do I know what it is?
Although this isn’t directly stated in the Core Rulebook, many elements of the game system work assuming that all spells have their own manifestations, regardless of whether or not they also produce an obvious visual effect, like fireball. You can see some examples to give you ideas of how to describe a spell’s manifestation in various pieces of art from Pathfinder products, but ultimately, the choice is up to your group, or perhaps even to the aesthetics of an individual spellcaster, to decide the exact details. Whatever the case, these manifestations are obviously magic of some kind, even to the uninitiated; this prevents spellcasters that use spell-like abilities, psychic magic, and the like from running completely amok against non-spellcasters in a non-combat situation. Special abilities exist (and more are likely to appear in Ultimate Intrigue) that specifically facilitate a spellcaster using chicanery to misdirect people from those manifestations and allow them to go unnoticed, but they will always provide an onlooker some sort of chance to detect the ruse.
So RAW, yes, you can Spellcraft it, unless the GM decided there is no visible emanation, which was the case.
So both parties were right, but in different cases and for different reasons?
As I read the FAQ, the GM isn't supposed to just decide there isn't a visible emanation. Of course, Rule Zero certainly lets them, in which case it'll be unidentifiable---but invoking Rule Zero makes RAW/FAQs irrelevant. So I would say the player who advocated the right to ID was correct.
Since there are class abilities, feats, etc. that specifically make it harder to identify a spell that is being cast via spellcraft. I have to assume that unless something like that is in effect then it can still be identified. The feat "conceal spell" for example, makes it harder for others to know you're casting a spell and little else.
To do otherwise would cheapen/make worthless these feats/abilities. This would make quicken spell do everything conceal spell does and more.
By the rules if you see someone casting then you can identify the spell. The book never said anything about needing a visible effect. The idea of a visible effect came later, and is really an addition to the rules.
You can even spellcraft a silenced still spell or even SLA's which don't use movement or sound to be cast, and that was even before the "manifestation" FAQ.
So unless the GM makes up special rules the spell can be identified, and if the GM makes up special rules then he needs to decide how things work because he's now changing the interaction between different parts of the rule.
Yes, you can, because there are always manifestations
visible side effects(barring the use of feats saying otherwise).
Corrected that for you. Whether manifestations are visible, audible, smell-able, or some other sense-able is entirely up to a particular group and what works best for their table.
The feat chain you in order to try and hide a spell from a spellcraft check is deceitful, conceal spell, improved conceal spell plus skill ranks in appropriate skills (bluff, disguise, slight of hand). Making the check harder (15 + relevant skill + relevant stat) and taking away from the opponents their bonus for spell level. Prior to the manifestations FAQ, you could use still, silent, and eschew materials to hide what you were doing. It also made psychic casters have similar issues with manifestations even though their spells are thought and emotion. I get that casual casting of spells in public to do harm needed to be curtailed but to leave it so open ended and nebulous as to what the manifestations are turned it from fluff to rule without mechanics. If they really want to do this, each spell should have a listed manifestation as part of the spell text.
Prior to the manifestations FAQ, you could use still, silent, and eschew materials to hide what you were doing.
That's not true. In a discussion on the forums a few years ago the devs said there was no rule saying those feats made it more difficult to spellcraft a spell. They did suggest a houserule for GM's to use to make it more difficult.
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Corrected that for you. Whether manifestations are visible, audible, smell-able, or some other sense-able is entirely up to a particular group and what works best for their table.Yes, you can, because there are always manifestations
visible side effects(barring the use of feats saying otherwise).
No, because the Spellcraft skill itself requires sight as the method to identify a spell. So whatever the manifestations is, it must be visible.
I guess I don't see how you could know that someone was casting a silent, still, eschewed materials spell other than the spell effect and then only if there was some visible effect. It seems to me that you need to *add* manifestations to make it possible with such a metamagic'ed spell
None of those metamagic feats remove the manifestations that already occur as part of the spellcasting process.
Believe me, this conversation has been thoroughly hashed out, and the bottom line is that Paizo really, really does not want you to be able to hide spellcasting.