This may seem a bit nerdy/picky, but what do spells actually look or sound like?
For example, let's take greater teleport (or teleport, or dimension door, etc.)
When the caster teleports, he disappears in one spot and reappears in another. When he disappears, he leaves a him-shaped void in the air that would be instantly filled by the surrounding air. Likewise, the air in the space he appears in would be forced out of the way very, very fast.
Both of these phenomena would be as loud as (and sound a great deal like) a gunshot, probably forcing adjacent creatures to save versus temporary deafness.
Since this isn't in the rules for the spell, the teleport probably makes a far lesser sound, if it makes any sound at all.
Similarly, does mage armor appear visible? Perhaps making the caster seem shiny? If you hit it with a weapon, does it make a hum or a clang? Because if it is visible, it provides a means of judging who has magical protection up even without ranks in Spellcraft, and if it makes a sound when hit as if it were made of metal, then backstabbing a guard with mage armor would give away your position.
And does spellcasting usually make weird runes float in the air around the caster's hand? Because that would kind of suck for invisible casters, since even if the glowing runes were invisible, the light from the runes can't be hidden and would give them away in the dark.
And it can't be completely and utterly arbitrary whether a caster's hands glow, or if one's dimension door goes crack while another's goes whoosh, because if there were no rhyme or reason to the whole deal, even being learned in Spellcraft wouldn't let you identify it, because it could potentially be totally unique to each caster.
Ive always thought of it as up to the player/GM to decide things like this as long as it didn't affect the mechanics of the spell itself. Allows for a bit of RP customizing.......
- cleric of Abadar casts bless and the air is briefly filled with the smells and sounds of a busy city's street market
- arcane archer casts magic missile, the missiles look like little arrows
- fire mage casts teleport and it looks like he bursts into flames and disappears.
etc etc etc. your final comment about spellcraft is certainly valid if its only the visual affect youre using to identify the casting.....but since the V/M/S components are the same I've always believed you could add this type of flavor without it having a real effect on the nature of casting and the spell: "Looks weird, but I think that was a form of Dim Door".
Meaning a water mage cannot cast a fireball as a "ice ball" without an ability like Versatile Evocation, but he could make the flames visually blue and leave the scent of saltwater behind...........
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Except for spells that specifically talk about visual and sound effects, the rulebook says nothing about what a spell effect looks or sounds like.
In my homebrew game, I have told my players that every spell has some sort of visual or audible effect. This could be as simple as a shimmering aura around the casters hands, or a whoosh and flash from flaming spells, etc.
It can be whatever you want so long as there are no mechanical modifications, like the "ice mage/ice ball" that Deylinarr mentioned or something where the spell looks like another spell in order to try and fool spellcraft checks to identify the spell.
I let the players describe their spells within reason so long as it doesn't change the basic nature of the spell.
This may seem a bit nerdy/picky, but what do spells actually look or sound like?
Whatever you want them to. That's pure flavor text.
My favorite thing about Table top RPGs is being able to talk about them as if they really happened.
"So, we had to get across this ravine, right? And there was a bridge with a lever on the other side. We said we could throw the goblin we captured and see if he makes it. He said 'you said you wouldn't kill me,' and I said, 'we wouldn't; the fall would.'"
That is what RPG is about, for me. So the flavor is very important. But when you add flavor as a GM you are going to impact the PCs in ways you might not have thought of.
Such as the sound barrier being broken when you teleport in. If you have a teleport that isn't accurate but you are close, then everyone will hear you come in. Even a mile away. The PCs will use that (and so should the NPCs). But, you could be swapping with the space you are going to. So, if you shift to the plane of earth and a lump of rock could be left where you were. Then, your companions could use them as improvised weapons. PCs are crazy man.
I think it's great. Who cares about game mechanics if you create lasting memories. But you can feel when it is just making it not fun for people. Avoid that.
My brother, a sports wizard (in real life), is not nerdy. But, I convinced him to play DnD. One time I didn't say were on the body his arrow hit, and he was so disappointed. I just gave him the damage amount.
If they are just playing for stats, min-max, hack-and-slash, then by all means. Leave it. But, for real role-playing, think about it for each campaign and try different things.
The books are more like guidelines than actual rules...when playing at home.