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Paradozen wrote:

FAQ

Basically, all spells have a visual accompanying them.

Not necessarily "visual" - noticeable. It's fine to describe some spells as "I felt a disturbance in the Force".

The choice of aesthetics is not entirely impact-free; if it's all about visuals, the spellcraft around corners becomes problematic. I prefer the "Force" aesthetic myself because it gets you around all those questions even when there's Silence and Obscuring Mist.

I'll keep that in mind it definitely makes magic feel more flavorful

FAQ

Basically, all spells have a visual accompanying them.

This is exactly what I was looking for thanks

As Diego said, there are official rules on it, recently published in ultimate intrigue. Isnt a totally popular book, so some folks havent heard about them yet.

basically, stuff happens around you when you cast. glowing lights, swirly stuff, your body pulses, whatever. more than you can just still/silent away.

Thank you that makes much more sense

Hm. If there are official rules on this, I don't think I've ever seen them. As written, I don't think that Still or Silent Spell actually make it harder to identify a spell at all.

That said, at my table, I would definitely bump up the DC of the Spellcraft check (probably by 4-ish for each feat involved), maybe even add in a Perception or Sense Motive check to figure out who's casting the spell at all. Did you see the sparkly lights by their eyes, or notice their intense concentration? Good for you, here's your Spellcraft. As for psychic casting, I wanna say that unless they've invested in the feats, probably thought and emotion make for fairly obvious indicators of a person at least doing something weird, if not necessarily indicating spellcasting to the uninformed.

So I was wondering specifically because on the spellcraft check to identify a spell being cast it's says you have to be able to clearly see the spell being cast which made me wonder if a spell doesn't have any listed visual effects and you can't be seen doing anything suspicious can you even clearly see the spell

Yes, it obvious. There is some information about that in one of the more recent books, Ultimate intrigue probably.

I'll have to go digging for that thanks for the help

So if a spell effectively has no verbal, somatic, or material components can you actually identify it with spellcraft if it's something like say a stilled, silenced, detect magic spell or a psychically cast suggestion spell with emotion and thought instead of verbal and somatic components?
Is the act of casting a spell automatically obvious just in and of itself or is it the silly hand waving and chanting that does it?

Hey Mark, so this may have been asked before and I may have missed it but with the aether kineticist what influenced the decision to make the force blast composite blast deal damage as a simple blast?
Also was the decision really necessary, 2 burn seems much steeper (not completely unreasonable but still quite steep) price when it's only half the damage of everything else at its tier, is the fact that force damage is hard to mitigate really worth that much?
I would love to hear your opinion's on the matter and get your perspective if you don't mind.