In a home brew game I'm planning, I've constructed a set of laws within certain cities that prohibit the use of specific spell schools - Divination and Enchantment are outlawed outright, with Conjuration (Calling), (Summoning), (Teleportation), Evocation, and Necromancy banned from public areas and buildings, and all of the above, plus Illusion and Transmutation (Polymorph) banned from federal grounds and buildings.
Spellcraft offers a DC 15+[spell level] to identify a specific spell being cast, but I want to come up with an alternate use, which would just identify the spell school (this is operating under the assumption that the tell-tale signs of spells being cast would include school-specific signs as well). It would make sense to me that common guards would be able to make these checks at least semi-reliably (maybe they all have a trait that makes Spellcraft a trained skill as part of their training). I'm here to find some guidance on this.
So let's say a common, 1st level guard has that Spellcraft as a trained skill Trait, and put 1 Rank into Spellcraft, with a 10 Int, giving him a +4 on his Spellcraft checks. I was thinking a flat DC 10 to identify the spell school, and maybe DC 12-13 to identify a subschool. This would give this guard a 70% chance to identify a spell school, and a 55-60% chance to identify a subschool. This seems pretty unreliable, but DC 10 also seems pretty generous. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice for this?
Why not just require all arcane spellcasters to register? Your laws are also too technical, when they should be banning activities not mechanics.
i.e. it should be unlawful to raise undead, teleport, or become invisible, because an inventive mage may get around the intended ban by using different schools to achieve the same effects or close enough not to matter.
If it looks like a forbidden spell, that should be enough for a guard, even if he can't identify it.
DC 10+spell level, but illusion spells use the full DC of 15+spell level if the caster wants to fake another school. (Failure by five or less IDs it as the chosen school; success IDs the spell as normal.) Subschool should require full identification since that narrows things down a lot. Evidence can be presented in the form of the effect, after all.
Most guards aren't all that great at IDing spells, but any time at least three guards are required somewhere, at least one is a specialist. (Higher Int and Skill Focus.)
Unless this is E6, many guards will be a higher level.
Oh, and I think elves get +2 to IDing spells, so include a few in the city watch.
These laws include Divine and Psychic casters as well. And the intention is to take judgement out of a common guard's hands - the Divination spell didn't LOOK forbidden, but it turns out he was using it to spy on the Mayor, and gleaned confidential information that put the locals in danger.
Also, inventive Mages most likely had a hand or two in writing these laws, and would have wanted such loopholes left in for their own benefit. I'm not looking for an alternate system, just input on the one I have.
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These laws include Divine and Psychic casters as well. And the intention is to take judgement out of a common guard's hands - the Divination spell didn't LOOK forbidden, but it turns out he was using it to spy on the Mayor, and gleaned confidential information that put the locals in danger.
Also, inventive Mages most likely had a hand or two in writing these laws, and would have wanted such loopholes left in for their own benefit. I'm not looking for an alternate system, just input on the one I have.
The loopholes you leave are called licensing. Licensing can have several levels or be simply very hard to get without connections.
DC 10+spell level, but illusion spells use the full DC of 15+spell level if the caster wants to fake another school. (Failure by five or less IDs it as the chosen school; success IDs the spell as normal.) Subschool should require full identification since that narrows things down a lot. Evidence can be presented in the form of the effect, after all.
Most guards aren't all that great at IDing spells, but any time at least three guards are required somewhere, at least one is a specialist. (Higher Int and Skill Focus.)
Unless this is E6, many guards will be a higher level.
Oh, and I think elves get +2 to IDing spells, so include a few in the city watch.
Hmm, I appreciate what you're going for with the Illusion caveat, and I do really like it, but I think I need to meditate on it. I don't think the full DC should be needed for a subschool. Did the perp cast Dimension Door, or Greater Teleport? The authority's next move to peruse him changes drastically based on their conclusion. The subschool leaves out a lot of important info vs. the specific spell, so I don't think it should be the same DC.
I like the idea of having a few specialists sprinkled throughout the city, that makes me feel better about scaling the DC based on spell level, like you suggested.
For subschool, it's more that the court should accept "conjuration plus disappearance". Don't add in more numbers to worry about.
Basically if a guard can't identify a spell, he'll simply assume it's forbidden magic and act appropriately.
So let's say a common, 1st level guard has that Spellcraft as a trained skill Trait, and put 1 Rank into Spellcraft, with a 10 Int, giving him a +4 on his Spellcraft checks. I was thinking a flat DC 10 to identify the spell school, and maybe DC 12-13 to identify a subschool. This would give this guard a 70% chance to identify a spell school, and a 55-60% chance to identify a subschool. This seems pretty unreliable, but DC 10 also seems pretty generous. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice for this?DC 10 + spell level to identify the school is what I'd suggest. Rarer spells (higher level spells) shouldn't be as readily identifiable as they are much more complex.
The guards can take 10 in non-stress environments. That's a 100% chance to identify the school with a single rank in Spellcraft.
Even if you didn't use take 10, a 70% chance goes to a 91% chance with two guards and a 97% chance with 3 guards. I'm not sure why you'd need it this reliable. Even at 70%, the PCs aren't likely to take a chance.
Also, you could consider an alarm spell variant that detects errant casting in sensitive areas.
I'll definitely consider that Alarm variant, and see what I can come up with, thanks. I think scaling the DC with the spell level is a good idea.
QuidEst: Fair point, I guess as long as you saw the effect after identifying the school, it's pretty easy to make the connection.
Since Illusion is one of the schools you have the least restriction on, have you considered the Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration spells? They're absolutely Illusion spells, but they also replicate the effects of Evocation and Conjuration spells that are more heavily restricted.
Perhaps this is one of the loopholes mages have left in the laws, but... Well, if a bunch of peasants died in a Shadow Evocation Fireball, I'd expect a straight up revolt if the perpetrator was let go because Illusion magic isn't illegal in public.
Spell schools don't hurt people, spellcasters do.
Since Illusion is one of the schools you have the least restriction on, have you considered the Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration spells? They're absolutely Illusion spells, but they also replicate the effects of Evocation and Conjuration spells that are more heavily restricted.
Perhaps this is one of the loopholes mages have left in the laws, but... Well, if a bunch of peasants died in a Shadow Evocation Fireball, I'd expect a straight up revolt if the perpetrator was let go because Illusion magic isn't illegal in public.
Braining someone to death with a hammer is still illegal even though posessing and using hammers themselves, are not.
Presumably these laws don't replace conventional laws that would outlaw murder no matter what the means used.
There are ways to identify the school without having actual knowledge.
Runeward tattoos give a +1 to saves against a specific school of magic, and allows you to detect magic against that specific school. So if you put a trio of guards, each having a different tattoo corresponding to enchantment, divination, and nercomancy... they can each easily just look out for the school they are keyed to. No knowledge check required- if the tattoo dings anything at all, you know it is that tattoo's school.
The tattoos are 1,000 per pop though. Maybe less if you have a state registered magical tattoo artist... but still, it is a noticable chunk when you considered low level grunt guards. Captains and investigators should obviously always have at least one such tattoo. It does have the additional advantage of boosting saves, so it isn't wasted, even if you can mass attack knowledge checks for schools.
Since Illusion is one of the schools you have the least restriction on, have you considered the Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration spells? They're absolutely Illusion spells, but they also replicate the effects of Evocation and Conjuration spells that are more heavily restricted.
Perhaps this is one of the loopholes mages have left in the laws, but... Well, if a bunch of peasants died in a Shadow Evocation Fireball, I'd expect a straight up revolt if the perpetrator was let go because Illusion magic isn't illegal in public.
Braining someone to death with a hammer is still illegal even though posessing and using hammers themselves, are not.
Presumably these laws don't replace conventional laws that would outlaw murder no matter what the means used.
Correct, murder is still illegal, regardless of the weapon used. There would most likely be additional charges if the weapon was also illegal on its own, such as Evocation in a public area, but murder's a pretty big first course, and I think any caster who thought themselves clever for mauling their wife's lover with Shadow Conjuration will be very disappointed when he's still arrested.
Lemeres: Nice find, that will come in handy, thanks.
You might want to consider banning Evocation except for spells with the [light] descriptor. Banning the Light cantrip is kind of mean. :-p
thinking about it, you might want to classify spells based on number of affected creatures.
So class I spells would be single target- maybe a problem if you are shooting lightning or something, but ultimately it is similar to just using a bow or sword in the murder department. So, excluding potential added damage from setting firsts and the like, these would not be too troublesome beyond their general effect.
Class II spells can affect multiple targets. This includes small scale AoEs, or spells that can just hit more than 1 creature (scorching ray is an example- high level versions can send rays at different targets).
Class III spells would are straight high tactical AoEs. Fireballs and stone calls- ability to affect perhaps dozens of people with a single casting.
These classifications are not exclusive to blasting, of course. Mass charm person is far more dangerous than charm person, obviously- that could get up to 40 people to suddenly riot, and they would be relatively innocent for their acts.
You might want to consider banning Evocation except for spells with the [light] descriptor. Banning the Light cantrip is kind of mean. :-p
Haha I didn't include it in this post, but the exception to these laws are cantrips, Orisons, and Knacks, which are really no problem, as far as I can tell.
Lemeres: I like the thought, but that might be getting a bit too complicated. If an authority figure who happens to be good at identifying spells is nearby a player who's casting a particularly potent Divination or Enchantment spell (like Mass Charm Person), that will certainly increase the severity of the crime, but I think I'll play that factor by ear.
Is there some reason guards cant carry a custom magic item that identifies the school of a spell being cast and observed by the wearer/user of that item? If a city/kingdom is going through the amount of trouble required to manage this regulation surely they could provide tools to aid the process?
Another option is to add a regional trait -
PlaceLandia City Guard. A guard of Placelandia is trained in regulating magic. He gains a +2 trait bonus to spellcraft checks to identify the subschool of magic of a spell being cast, but not the spell itself (IE your reduced dc of identifying the school, not the spell). In addition spellcraft is always a class skill.
Lemeres: I like the thought, but that might be getting a bit too complicated. If an authority figure who happens to be good at identifying spells is nearby a player who's casting a particularly potent Divination or Enchantment spell (like Mass Charm Person), that will certainly increase the severity of the crime, but I think I'll play that factor by ear.
Yeah... it usually comes up with big obvious stuff like evocations. Mostly, it will make it far more severe if you shoot fireballs in the middle of the market place, scorching dozens of civilians.
I might even count mass buffs if they end up being class III- since that means you are affecting enough people to cover several squads- pretty bad for rebellions and riots. Maybe casting such a spell wouldn't be a crime itself, but it would be an aggravating factor for other crimes (...such as rebellion and rioting), since you are enabling a lot of people to commit crimes.
Of course, maybe I am getting far too deep into this since I am currently studying law, and I can see the various considerations with various types of spells when they are used irresponsibly or criminally.
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I get the feeling most courts will be more than a little displeased if the defendant could just get up and Acid Splash the district attorney's face.
I bet he'd be of two minds about it.