Verbal Components in the City

[Umbral Reaver]

There's often talk of wizards casting detect magic constantly to make sure they are able to spot every bit of magic that may come within sight.

Detect magic has a verbal component.

How well do guards in your game take to unknown spellcasting being shouted over and over within the city? Do they ignore the noisy wizards? Would they take action in case this incessant magic is doing something bad?

Similarly, parties buffing before going through the door are going to alert anyone on the other side if they use verbal components. How often do you take this into account?

[LazarX]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

There's often talk of wizards casting detect magic constantly to make sure they are able to spot every bit of magic that may come within sight.

Talk is one thing. Never seen it happen in game. And if wizards do try to do that, they'll quickly arouse the ire of the local community that may not be satisfied with the "I'm just detecting" defense. And mind you that detection still requires concentration, which means you're not moving while you're trying to be magic radar.

[Kalyth]

In my games while everyone knows magic exist few understand it. By nature most fear what they don't understand.

Casting a spell in a tavern is likely to get you kicked out or asked not to return. It would make the locals and other patrons very uncomfortable and would hurt business for the owner.

Now a well known bard putting on a little magic show for entertainment might be a different thing.

Likewise a noble would very much object to a caster casting spells in his presence. He has no way of knowing what spell you just cast. Did you just cast a spell to read his mind? Did you just put a curse on his house? Did you leave a mystical scrying spell here that would allow you to spy on him later?

I view magic as a rare thing that 95%+ of the population doesnt even remotely understand. In this setting people are going to be very uncomfortable around magic-users save for those that are established.

A tribes shaman is respected and revered but the tribe is going to fear the Strange wizard from the land across the mountains.

The more common magic is the more likely there are actual laws to govern its use. I wouldnt be suprised for towns and even entire kingdoms to laws against open use of magic. Heck I could see people using known magic users as scape-goats far all manner of things.

"I didnt mean to cheat on my wife, that evil bard-witch enchanted me and made me bed with her." Suddenly we have a lynch mob forming.

"I didnt steal anything I was at home all day, maybe that strange wizard used magic to look like me and stoled those items."

Just as cops will stop "suspicious" people now a days. I would assume guards in a fantasy world would stop spellcasters and ask what the heck they were doing. Lacking any ability to really know what the spellcaster was doing they would pretty much say "If we see you cast another spell were going to arrest you till we can get the Dukes mystic to check you out." Now the duke's mystic is probably a pretty busy girl and may take a day or two to fit and interogation into her schedule.

[Caineach]

Kalyth sums up my feelings on the subject pretty well.
Edit: I have had guards fire at spellcasters from sniper positions when they start casting spells inside a castle before. Same with Paladin detect evil. They have no spellcraft. Unless your going to train your entire retinue how to identify the spell, it just seems obvious that they would assume it is a threat first and foremost.

[Hama]

Where is it stated that you have to shout the words if a spell has a verbal component, especially if the spell is 0th level?

[KaeYoss]

You don't need to shout. Just to speak in a firm voice. People do that in cities all the time.

Come to think of it, people shout in cities all the time, too.

[Allen Oh]

Hama wrote:

Where is it stated that you have to shout the words if a spell has a verbal component, especially if the spell is 0th level?

Not necessarily shouting, but pathfindersrd says: "To provide a verbal component, you must be able to speak in a strong voice." I don't have a cite to the core rules as I am at work right now...but we interpret that rule as saying that you cannot be discreet while casting spells with a verbal component, unless you use the Silent Spell feat to obviate the need for a verbal component.

[Quantum Steve]

I think most commoners, would be suspicious, or even afraid of magic. Some cities may even have laws regarding magic use, (just as some cities have laws regarding carrying weapons)

Just don't be unfair with magic-user hate in a world where magic is downright common, (if largely misunderstood). In cities where adventurers are allowed to walk around fully armed and armoured and no one even bats an eye, don't have lynch mobs swarm a Wizard for casting Prestidigitation to clean the mud off his cloak.

[Cartigan]

This thread is silly.

1) You can't move while concentrating? Isn't that a standard action? Pretty sure you can move.
2) Firing at Paladins for using their SLA Detect Evil? How do they know he is using it? It's a SLA.

And does everyone here live in a country cabin? No one pays attention to SQUAT. Go to a moderately busy restaurant. Identify the suspicious people by sound. Can't? That's because no one is listening to anyone else. Everyone else but themselves is just noise that's none of their business. Only if some one was (a) trained to identify magic and (b) actively looking for people using magic would anyone go "Hey, that guy is casting a spell!" As opposed to "Hey, that crazy guy is saying weird stuff to himself!"

[Klebert L. Hall]

There is little evidence that in default Golarion magic is the subject of superstitious dread and/or prejudice. There isn't much evidence that it is generally heavily restricted by law, either.

If you want it to be that way in your game, then make it so - I just don't understand why you're asking everyone else about something that is entirely up to you.
-Kle.

[phantom1592]

I don't know... There are a LOT of languages in Golarion...

Would the average guard/townsperson know the different between a vocal component and Polyglot? Or Fey? or Druid? or Elven... or any of the other dozen 'conversation' languages they hear all the time?

I have a half-elf who pretty much only curses in Pixish... or I guess Fey in Pathfinder. I don't see him get shot at every time he mutters something they don't understand.

[Shuriken Nekogami]

i once had an elven sorceress who used common nursery rhymes sung in elven as her verbal components.

i had a chelexian wizard who verbally solved mathematical equations in the thassilonian tongue every time she wanted to cast a spell. her spellbook was coded in unsolved thassilonian numerical cyphers and the 'key' to solving the 'code' was in her brain. she invented such a complex code. and npcs were offended that a young woman in her early twenties was raised with this kind of education. she was a scholar who became a schoolteacher, and she eventually became the head librarian of the perfect library of mechanus in the afterlife.

[HappyDaze]

I would imagine that in most settings where magic is fairly common (such as Golarion) that some city guards might actually pick up a small bit of spellcraft. For any city that actually has investigative officers (detectives of the expert class), this skill should be common.

[LazarX]

Quantum Steve wrote:

In cities where adventurers are allowed to walk around fully armed and armoured and no one even bats an eye, don't have lynch mobs swarm a Wizard for casting Prestidigitation to clean the mud off his cloak.

Just keep in mind that groups of armored and armed strangers are going to be watched very closely in any city whose law level is at Tombstone's or higher.