Sepia Snake Sigil on a shield...

[Banecrow]

Ok so I have a player who wants to inscribe on his shield text stating the names of his fallen enemies or some battle hymn. Now add to that he wants to have Sepia Snake Sigil then cast on his shield.....As a player I started giggling over the implications. As a GM I have no idea on how to rule if people seeing it in combat read it or not thus activating the Snake Sigil.

The book states that when anyone reads the text containing the symbol the speia snake sigil springs into being. It does NOT say they have to read the WHOLE text.

Thoughts? Ideas? Or maybe some fair rules mechanics I can use. If I allow something like this you can dam well bet that I will use the same thing against them at some point. =)

[Hjolmaer]

I'm going to go with "no" on this one. Lifting from the PRD (don't have my core book handy), the spell specifically states that the text must be deliberately read:

PRD wrote:

Simply seeing the enspelled text is not sufficient to trigger the spell; the subject must deliberately read it.

So, he could go ahead and have the spell applied to his shield. Might make a random thief regret his decision, but very few creatures (or very few sane creatures) would stop in the middle of a fight to read what an opponent scratched into his shield.

[VRMH]

The question then is: how much reading is reading? Considering the text needs to be at least 25 words, I'd say the target will have to read a dozen or so words before the spell triggers. That's just not going to happen in battle.

[demur]

So when he is in town walking around with it on his back and it triggers on a villager who glanced at and read the text on his shield...

[Vycamros Chandler]

This is a really clever idea. I know that I struggle not reading things. If I'm watching an anime with both English dubbing and subtitles I rarely can keep from reading the subtitles. But in the heat of battle against someone who is actively trying to slay you I'm not sure you'd be so inclined to start reading their shield. It feels really flavorful but I agree with Hjolmaer that it wouldn't get read often.

I can envision a situation, though, with two standing armies face-to-face on a battlefield about to clash and one soldier happens to read the opposing soldier's shield causing the spell to activate.

[Mirrel the Marvelous]

Good against enemy Bards who use Knowledge: Nobility to find out who they are fighting!

[VRMH]

How large is a shield anyway, surface-wise? With a minimum of 25 words (or complex characters; depending on the writing system) we could determine how large each word is and so determine how easy/hard they'd be to read in the first place.

[Gauss]

I would state it is a standard or move action in order to read it and thus must be intentionally performed. Better be careful in cities though as curious people will read it and trigger it.

- Gauss