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See 3rd post down.
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Oh no here comes the "do I get to Spellcraft for identifying spells if somebody has Silent and Still applied ?" debate again.
Last time we had it, there were grown men crying.
My take - they do, because having the spell Silent and Still doesn't remove the weird fireworks that appear around the caster as he conjures the mighty forces of arcana. But that's my interpretation, and I know a couple of people on this board who would laugh at it.
Ok, then what about a Druid sitting up in a tree 10 feet up and 60 feet from the enemy, as a Hawk. I have "Natural Spell" feat.
I cast a Silent and still Entangle spell.
So my question is
1) How do you know i am casting a spell?
2) Were does it say that caster have fireworks appearing around them when casting a spell?
3) Would you even notice a hawk sitting in a tree 60 feet away and 10 feet up?
4) Do most wizard normal Nuke and Carpit bomb small animals during combat?
5) Would you need a Perception check first to notice the Hawk, before the spellcraft check? .... What is the spell craft check noticing?
You get a perception check to notice the creature casting a spell and then a spellcraft check to figure out what spell is being cast.
Nowhere in the feats you mentioned does it say either of these checks is altered or negated. Therefore- they are not altered or negated.
A silent spell can be cast in a silenced area, a still spell can be cast while you are bound or not otherwise able to use somatic components. Nowhere in the descriptions does it say you get some freebie on the perception checks or spellcraft checks.
Conditional modifiers to the perception check may apply though, as per your DM.
So to answer your question:
1) They know you are casting a spell because.. you are casting a spell. Assuming they took the appropriate penalties for the distance on the perception check and still passed- they see you casting a spell.
2) It doesn't list fireworks- it just says when you cast a spell- those who perceive it can spellcraft to identify it.
3) Some character might- it just depends on their perception checks. Some characters would see it, others wouldn't.
4) Any creature casting offensive spells at our group is going to get nuked/arrowed/chopped into lunch meat. Forest animal or any other type of beastie. It being a forest animal doesn't give it freebies to cast offensive magics at us. Especially in a world with evil druids and other such casters. (beast form anyone?)
5) You would have to notice the hawk before you could check for the spell, yes. I don't recall if spellcraft itself has distance modifiers built into it or if that is just for perception though.
While it is perfectly logical for the DM to houserule modifiers onto those feats- since it does make sense for them to actually adjust the perception and spellcraft checks to identify them- the feats do not actually grant those so it would just be a houserule. Not even necessarily game breaking- though I wouldn't give natural spell one. The feat is already giving enough of a bonus as it is.
-S
I think that Silent Spell and Still spell should keep people from identifying your spell, and from even immediately realizing that you cast a spell.
It would not, however, negate AoO's for spellcasting as you still need to distract yourself from combat momentarily in order to concentrate on the spell. The fact that you are concentrating may be quite obvious, but the reason why likely isn't immediately evident.
Don't mistake this as an argument for RAW, rather it is what I think RAW should be.
I think that Silent Spell and Still spell should keep people from identifying your spell, and from even immediately realizing that you cast a spell.
It would not, however, negate AoO's for spellcasting as you still need to distract yourself from combat momentarily in order to concentrate on the spell. The fact that you are concentrating may be quite obvious, but the reason why likely isn't immediately evident.
Don't mistake this as an argument for RAW, rather it is what I think RAW should be.
That's basically my take on it, too. Silent Spell and Still Spell are helpful to stay hidden while casting a spell, but once you've been spotted people can still tell if you're concentrating on something (whether it's a Still spell or a psionic power or a spell-like ability).
Took me a bit of searching (I found no less than 5 threads similar to this one that I had to search through post by post), but here it is:
Hey there Everybody,
The rules here are certainly not clear, because they generally assume that the act of casting a spell has some noticeable element. Notice I did not say component, because I think the rules are silent on parts of spellcasting that are codified components versus those that occur without any sort of codification, such as the wiggle of a finger, change in breathing and other flavor bits that happen when a spellcaster makes the magic happen, as it were.
Back to the topic at hand, since the rules are silent here, I think it is well within the GMs purview to impose a penalty to the Spellcraft check to identify a spell without components (V, S, M). Since there is no real increase for spells with just one, I would guess that this penalty is not very large, perhaps only as much as -4.
This is, of course, up to your GM to adjudicate.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo PublishingEdit: I should also note that I also agree with James [Maisson], that a strict reading of the rules says you can make the check, without penalty, regardless of the spell's components.
So in other words, silent and still feats not worth a feat tax + 2 spell level increase.... ok understand now.