The Secret Save Meme

I have heard several players state that you don't know the results of other's saves with absolute conviction. Where does this idea come from? I can't find a book speaking on it, but it seems like I have ran a scenario where the tactics require the enemy to know if a will debuff worked, and I am certain for Mystic Insight and Saving Finale to work as intended you must know this information about your peers before the effect takes place. Is there a written basis for the meme that you don't know unless a physical reaction is described in the spell description, or has the absence of text led to a house rule that has been repeated so many times that many people think it is a rule?

When you use a spell or ability on a creature, you know if it works. Your mage organ tingles.

I think it's just one of those things people houserule by accident because they haven't read the text that explicitly calls it out.

In Pathfinder there are several dice rolls that the rules say should be rolled secretly. Nowhere it say that the other rolls should be visible.
Similarly only a few powers and spells say that you know if they affected he target.
Generally it depend on the kind of effect if it is visible or not.

The players shouldn't know the target bonus to attacks and St and rolling the dices in the open is a good way to make that a know information.

In Pathfinder there are several dice rolls that the rules say should be rolled secretly. Nowhere it say that the other rolls should be visible.

Similarly only a few powers and spells say that you know if they affected he target.
Generally it depend on the kind of effect if it is visible or not.

The players shouldn't know the target bonus to attacks and St and rolling the dices in the open is a good way to make that a know information.

Succeeding on a Saving Throw: A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.

So in my original statement, I should have said 'spell like ability' (I am under the impression this also applies to SLAs, but SLAs are a mess).

Diego Rossi wrote:

In Pathfinder there are several dice rolls that the rules say should be rolled secretly. Nowhere it say that the other rolls should be visible.

Similarly only a few powers and spells say that you know if they affected he target.
Generally it depend on the kind of effect if it is visible or not.

The players shouldn't know the target bonus to attacks and St and rolling the dices in the open is a good way to make that a know information.

Magic Chapter wrote:

Succeeding on a Saving Throw: A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.

Targeted spell. And only the caster know.

Whale_Cancer wrote:

Diego Rossi wrote:

In Pathfinder there are several dice rolls that the rules say should be rolled secretly. Nowhere it say that the other rolls should be visible.

Similarly only a few powers and spells say that you know if they affected he target.
Generally it depend on the kind of effect if it is visible or not.

The players shouldn't know the target bonus to attacks and St and rolling the dices in the open is a good way to make that a know information.

Magic Chapter wrote:

Succeeding on a Saving Throw: A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.

Targeted spell.

Yeah, sure. I spoke with the assumption the OP knew this citation.

But, you know, there is a general rule... and that is it.

Edit: Just saw the edit inclusion of "And only the caster know."; I did say "When you use a spell or ability on a creature, you know if it works. Your mage organ tingles."; clearly that means that only the caster would know.

I edited my post as the initial reply was a bit too curt. Thanks again for the correction.

I edited my post as the initial reply was a bit too curt. Thanks again for the correction.

No problemo, sir.

The only problem I see is when knowing if a target made the save or not affect the action of the other players and the caster can't communicate that.
Giving him a piece of paper with "he saved" or "he didn't saved" and seeing if he share the information?

Knowing that someone has failed a ST against a spell like confusion, that stop the target from making AoO against not engaged targets will change the tactics of the whole group.

Thank you for pointing this out to me.... and with such flavor :P

As far as the party not knowing, the caster can speak a short sentence as a free action any time.

People like to think everything should be secret because in the "before time" of roleplaying, everything actually was.

In AD&D, for example, players never knew what their saves were--they were listed in the DMG, not the PHB, so you would just roll the die and the GM would look it up on a chart. The custom in general, actually, was that the players had no idea what the rules were, because they weren't supposed to read the DMG at all. Heck, most players didn't even own the PHB, the GM did and just let them borrow it at the table.

So, the reason for the meme is that many RPG players grew up in a culture of secret rules, and they just extend that to the current iterations of the rules, even though it is no longer correct to do so.

Thank you for pointing this out to me.... and with such flavor :P

As far as the party not knowing, the caster can speak a short sentence as a free action any time.

In my campaign there is a oracle with the Tongues curse and the ability to spam confusion (something like 10 times a day now). Only one other character /ina group of 6) share a language with her, so communicating to her the result of the confusion spell like ability without communicating it to the whole table is important.

well it would be more awesome if you didnt know the outcome. That would allow bluffs and interesting RP.

note: nothing i can recall says you know if an effect is dispelled or ended early by other means.

well it would be more awesome if you didnt know the outcome. That would allow bluffs and interesting RP.

note: nothing i can recall says you know if an effect is dispelled or ended early by other means.

I don't know that it would. Most of the time I have seen it be secret it is from things the character shouldn't bluff and actually roleplaying the victims would give the answer e.g. He is no longer staring you down menacing and relaxes his grip, a dumbfounded look comes across his face, he jerks midstep a look of terror shoots across his face.