If a target passes a save vs spells like suggestion, charm, or dominate, does the target know theory were targeted by a spell?
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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.
Also, unless special and dedicated precations were taken by the Spellcaster, it is obvious that you were just casting *something*.
V components are clearly "spelltalk"
S components are clearly "magic moves"
Now anyone who can count 1 and 1 together will get that you just tried to bewitch him.
Hostility will likely ensure.
If you have spellcraft you are almost guaranteed to know who cast it and what they cast (provided you can see them).
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Also, unless special and dedicated precations were taken by the Spellcaster, it is obvious that you were just casting *something*.
V components are clearly "spelltalk"
S components are clearly "magic moves"Now anyone who can count 1 and 1 together will get that you just tried to bewitch him.
Hostility will likely ensure.
Don't forget that Psychic spells have neither V or S components.
There's a lot of ways around V & S components. As ShieldLawrence stated, they aren't required for psychics.
I was trying to use suggestion to keep people from outbidding me at an auction. GM said if they pass their save, they automatically know who tried to cast on them. I disagreed but wasn't sure. We play by the book, so if I can point it out to him, it will affect future rulings.
Thanx for the help guys!
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Don't forget that Psychic spells have neither V or S components.Also, unless special and dedicated precations were taken by the Spellcaster, it is obvious that you were just casting *something*.
V components are clearly "spelltalk"
S components are clearly "magic moves"Now anyone who can count 1 and 1 together will get that you just tried to bewitch him.
Hostility will likely ensure.
There's a lot of ways around V & S components. As ShieldLawrence stated, they aren't required for psychics.
I was trying to use suggestion to keep people from outbidding me at an auction. GM said if they pass their save, they automatically know who tried to cast on them. I disagreed but wasn't sure. We play by the book, so if I can point it out to him, it will affect future rulings.
Thanx for the help guys!
And it don't matter at all if your spell lack V, S or M components.
RAW spellcasting is can be perceived unless you have a specific ability concealing it.Every time a spell is cast you can make a spellcraft check with the appropriate penalties for perception. RAW there aren't modifiers to that check because the spell is till, silent and without materials.
We would all like to get a official ruling and explanation for that but you can find a few posts by devs sating that RAW it is automatically perceived.
Edit: citation
Hey there Everybody,
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.
Back to the topic at hand, since the rules are silent here, I think it is well within the GMs purview to impose a penalty to the Spellcraft check to identify a spell without components (V, S, M). Since there is no real increase for spells with just one, I would guess that this penalty is not very large, perhaps only as much as -4.
This is, of course, up to your GM to adjudicate.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo PublishingEdit: I should also note that I also agree with James, that a strict reading of the rules says you can make the check, without penalty, regardless of the spell's components.
Form here
To me, "obvious physical effects" definitely means something like a person shrinking, or fire eminating from a person's hand.
Also, spellcraft says you have to be able to clearly see the spell as it's being cast, meaning a blind person can not make the check. I've always assumed you also could not make the check on still spells, but that last part might be just me
You can definitely make the check on still spells.
Unless you have a special ability, like Spellsong for Bards, everyone knows when you cast a spell. Spell casting is super obvious, and its supposed to be.
Now, if you were hidden (possibly using invisibility) from the person you were casting the spell on, you might not be identified as the spell caster. But if they can see you, they know you cast a spell. They don't necessarily know that you in particular cast the spell on them, but they know they just made a save against a spell and the saw you casting a spell.
They're probably going to assume you did it.
And if I were the GM, I would probably tell you that such an action is against the law and that the guards would try to arrest you for your attempt to magically influence auction.
Also, see Jason's quote where he says that even spells that don't have physical effects on an individual still have "noticeable elements". If you look in the books most spell casters shown casting a spell have some magical energy manifesting around them when they do so. That happens when you character casts a spell.
In the case of Suggestion, you're also speaking directly to them (you're giving them a suggestion, after all), so it should be fairly obvious, even to a person without Spellcraft, that you were trying to magically compel them.
This has puzzled me.
Suggestion only has a verbal component. Is the idea here that the caster says the magic words and then says the suggested course of action or is more of a "Jedi mind trick"* thing - where the magic is IN the words themselves?
*I know technically, the Jedi mind trick has both V and S but you know what I mean.
In the case of Suggestion, you're also speaking directly to them (you're giving them a suggestion, after all), so it should be fairly obvious, even to a person without Spellcraft, that you were trying to magically compel them.This has puzzled me.
Suggestion only has a verbal component. Is the idea here that the caster says the magic words and then says the suggested course of action or is more of a "Jedi mind trick"* thing - where the magic is IN the words themselves?
*I know technically, the Jedi mind trick has both V and S but you know what I mean.
The suggestion and verbal components are separate things.
You start casting the spell speaking in some magical cant with your snake's tongue and honeycomb in hand (material components) and when the power of the spell is invoked you speak your suggestion in a language the target would understand (spell is language dependent). Even if you remove the verbal and material components, you still have to give the directions to the target in a language they can understand.
@Claxon The rules specifically state that if you fail a save, you do not automatically know who tried to cast the spell on you. To me, that says pretty clearly that everyone does not know you just tried to cast a spell. Youd have to pass a spellcraft, correct? Furthermore, since spellcraft states that you have to clearly see the spell as its being cast, why would they be allowed a spellcraft check if you had bypassed v and s components?
You don't automatically know who tried to cast it on you by simply succeeding on the save.
You have an error in that you said "fail a save".
Regardless, the thing with spell casting is that if you can been seen, it's obvious that you've cast a spell.
Greater invisibility will allow you to cast a spell, without being seen, and then the target who saved successfully would have no idea. But if they can see you, they can tell you cast a spell.
Now, they may not know for certain that it was you, but they probably have a very good idea that it was, considering they know they just succeeded on a save.
Automatically knowing would be without any other observations or information that Bob the Wizard just cast a spell on you. But what I'm referring to isn't that. What I'm referring to is that spell casting is obvious (you observe Bob casting a spell because spell casting is obvious) and when you know someone targeted you with a spell, you reason out that it was probably Bob.
Spellcraft is only to identify what spell Bob tried to cast.
And per discussion with the devs, removing verbal and somatic components doesn't actually increase the DC to identify the spell cast. Though they did suggest as a house rule that it would be reasonable to increase the DC by 2 for each component removed. But again, that is only to identify which spell they cast, not that a spell was cast. Even when you remove all components from a spell, the spell manifest magical energy around you, go look at pictures of people casting spells in any of the Paizo books, there is magical energy swarming around them.
Basically, if they can see you they know you cast a spell and they know they succeeded on a save. They don't know automatically, but it doesn't take much deductive skills to make an astute guess about who did it.
As an example, look at the feat Spellsong for Bards.
That allows them to conceal their spell casting. Without such an ability, spell casting is obvious.
My bad, I meant passed a save. Thanx for the correction. But where in the rules does it say that, if you can be seen casting a spell, its obvious? What your saying all makes sense, but I'd like to see that one claim for myself.
Edit* Spellsong does do what you say, and is obviously a specific rule trumping a general rule. Good call, thanx!
My bad, I meant passed a save. Thanx for the correction. But where in the rules does it say that, if you can be seen casting a spell, its obvious? What your saying all makes sense, but I'd like to see that one claim for myself.
If I had a nickle for every time somebody asked that question...
@CampinCarl
It's both smart and wise to ask for the source.
Not that. The question about how obvious spellcasting is. It's brought up way too often. People never search for previous threads about it. It has already been discussed in excruciating detail.
My bad, I meant passed a save. Thanx for the correction. But where in the rules does it say that, if you can be seen casting a spell, its obvious? What your saying all makes sense, but I'd like to see that one claim for myself.
Edit* Spellsong does do what you say, and is obviously a specific rule trumping a general rule. Good call, thanx!
It's been made clear from many threads and discussions with devs that it's obvious, though it actually unclear that it is such in the rule books.
Which leads to the very confusion in this thread.
@Claxon Yeah but the Spellsong feat itself clears it up. If it were not as you say, the feat would have no need to exist. Thanx again for your input!
No problem, glad to be of help.