If someone casts a spell at you, such as Charm Person, and you pass, do you know it happened? Do you get a sense of which direction the spell was cast from or who cast it?
You know a spell was cast at you -- you don't necessarily know who or what spell.
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.
However I would like to point out that currently there are only two ways (iirc) to actually cast a spell without being noticed and both of those are for bards, one is a feat and one is an archetype.
Casting a spell always provokes (unless it is a swift action spell) and you (if trained in spellcraft) can always try to identify a spell cast near you even if it doesn't have material, somatic, or verbal components.
Actually, I don't think they could even be entirely certain it was a spell. A "hostile force or tingle" could just as easily be mistaken for an oncoming headache.
YMMV.
Considering that no other time does a successful save give you knowledge that you succeeded on the save in such a fashion, I would say you could be pretty certain.
Especially if they cast it within line of sight/effect of you and you are trained in spellcraft.
A headache is not a hostile force. That verbage aloen makes intent pretty clear.
Considering that no other time does a successful save give you knowledge that you succeeded on the save in such a fashion, I would say you could be pretty certain.
Especially if they cast it within line of sight/effect of you if you are trained in spellcraft.
I agree that a spellcaster would be more certain than a layman, and even the layman can get the jist of what's going on if they feel the hostile tingle while they see someone looking back at them and casting a spell.
A headache is not a hostile force. That verbage aloen makes intent pretty clear.
So maybe they know it's not a headache then, but that doesn't mean they know it was a spell. It could just as easily have been a possessing ghost or any other number of monsters with non-spell abilities that attack the mind, body, or spirit.
I agree that does not make it a spell, but they do know it was something very bad(beyond headache level).
A headache is not a hostile force. That verbage aloen makes intent pretty clear.So maybe they know it's not a headache then, but that doesn't mean they know it was a spell. It could just as easily have been a possessing ghost or any other number of monsters with non-spell abilities that attack the mind, body, or spirit.
My only thing against that is no of those sorts of saves state you have any sort of 'feeling' or knowledge about what just happened. Only saves from spells have that language (and specifically only the ones with non-visual clues as to having happened).
It depends a bit on how your DM plays it. I like to give PC’s a general idea of what the spell does. In the case of charm person, I’d say you feel an unusual amount of goodwill towards a given NPC, before shaking the feeling off and remembering that he’s a jerk.
Regardless of specifics, you should know that some sort of force tried to overcome your mind, but only if you make the save.
Oh I'm sure the verbiage about non-visible spells apply to non-visible effects too.
It really isn't any different than reasoning that non-spell effects from the same source don't stack (such as a pair of defending weapons) even though the rules for same effects not stacking only seem to appear in the magic chapter too.
People can't have their cake and eat it too.
No -- it's pretty clear that it's saves versus spells. The words quite clearly state that. It isn't a matter of where the words are it's a matter of what they actually say -- I did quote them for a reason.
RAW it does say spells. I am willingly to FAQ it though because not too many people play it that way, and either a large portion of the community needs to know they are doing it wrong, or we need errata.
If they mark it as "no reply needed" I will take that as the RAW standing.