I have a player in my group that claims that it's obvious to others (in game) when someone is using Detect Magic. Like glowing eyes obvious. He also says that Paladins can do their Detect Evil ability without detection. Is there anything, anywhere, that supports or refutes this? I guess that since Detect Magic needs at least six seconds of concentration to function and the Paladin ability only takes a move action, he could be using that to support his claim.
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From Jason Bulmahn on covert spellcasting:
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.
Casting a spell is noticable even without components because (1) lack of components doesn't penalize Spellcraft checks to ID a spell by RAW and (2) you still provoke an AoO for casting a spell with no components, which requires that opponents be able to identify the brief drop in your guard. These elements should only apply during casting, though, since spotting persistent magic without obvious effect (say, a Bull's Strength spell, but not Dancing Lights) requires Detect Magic.
The paladin's Detect Evil is a spell-like ability, which means that although it has no components, it is mostly like a spell (provokes AoO and maybe can be identified using spellcraft?) and thus probably would have whatever glowing eyes Detect Magic has if any, though like Detect Magic this should be a brief effect when the magic is invoked.
These things are heavily house-ruled though from what I can tell (and the post quoted above goes on to suggest a house-rule for no-components casting). Your player might have come from a table where spells were very obvious but SLA were totally stealthy. Or he/she might be thinking of Arcane Sight which explicitly gives you glowing eyes (and the fact that it explicitly says it gives you glowing eyes might imply that Detect Magic normally doesn't).
There, complicated things for you. :)
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I have a player in my group that claims that it's obvious to others (in game) when someone is using Detect Magic. Like glowing eyes obvious. He also says that Paladins can do their Detect Evil ability without detection. Is there anything, anywhere, that supports or refutes this? I guess that since Detect Magic needs at least six seconds of concentration to function and the Paladin ability only takes a move action, he could be using that to support his claim.
Well, let's see...
Component: V, S
So casting detect magic involves making hand gestures and speaking some magic words clearly and strongly.
As for paladins...
Detect Evil (Sp)
Spell-Like Abilities (Sp) Spell-like abilities are magical and work just like spells (though they are not spells and so have no verbal, somatic, focus, or material components).
So a paladin's detect evil (as opposed to someone just casting the spell) has no verbal, somatic, or other component. On the other hand, it does provoke AoOs.
Ah, I hadn't accounted for the somatic and verbal components. Thank you, Jiggy.