| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Knowledge:Arcana gives the following usages:
Identify auras while using detect magic
Identify a spell effect that is in place
Identify materials manufactured by magic
The latter 2 don't say 'while using detect magic'.
Does that mean that you automatically should roll these when you see any spell effect?
Even if you don't know it's a spell effect, such as an illusion or shadow conjuration?
If these automatically work without detect magic, then illusions and shadow conjurations are really knocked down a notch.
Should these only be used when the viewer KNOWS they are looking at a spell effect?
There are also cases where they may not know per se, but should be able to recognize that a visible effect is one created by a specific spell, just like you can recognize that a stone carving is dwarven.
But if the spell effect doesn't inherently appear as a spell effect, and illusions and shadow conjurations are supposed to appear just like normal things, then that would apply to those... thoughts???
For an illusion or such, they would have to know it's an illusion. Otherwise they believe the illusion, which would keep them from thinking about using the skill, they wouldn't have any reason to 'look at it' in such a way. After they 'disbelieve' successfully they could then roll to find out exactly which spell was used to create the effect they disbelieved.
The skill has never given examples of being used in such a way as far as I've seen in npc write ups. It is a knowledge skill, not some sort of arcane perception check versus a school of magic. For it to work like that there would be some sort of wording saying 'you may use this skill instead of a Will save when making rolls versus Illusions ect.' as per grapple and escape artist.