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Kayerloth wrote: It does, however, say it needs to be "clearly viewed as it is being cast" and "incurs the same penalties as a Perception skill check for distance, poor conditions, and other factors". For me this strongly suggests some of those 'other factors' are the metamagic used as well as Stealth factors. Rules/Guidelines are for those specific factors (metamagic) are non-existant. In my case, I treat the "other factors" as things that affect line of sight to the caster. So, you're not going to identify something being cast on the other side of an opaque fog or solid wall because you have no line of sight to the caster. Similarly, poor visibility because of weather or the caster being a long way away could stop you from identifying the spell.
As for components... Well, I see it like this:
Creatures can gesture to cast spells even if they're not humanoid. They may have tendrils instead of hands, for example, so their movements might not necessarily resemble those of humanoids in any way. There clearly can't be any universal somatic components everyone can recognize regardless of species, including among species they've never even heard of before, but we can still identify what they're casting. So identifying spells based on somatic components makes no sense.
Creatures can speak to cast magic in any language they know. Nothing in the rules (or any setting flavor I've seen) says there's a universal language of magic that all casters can use. If the "sounds" of magic aren't universal, but we can still identify spells without knowing the language someone is using, then identifying spells based on verbal components makes no sense.
Not all spells have material or focus components, so that can't be it, either. For that matter, some spells (like psychic spells) can be cast with completely different components, so there's nothing unique there, either.
This is why I believe metamagic has no impact whatsoever on identifying spells (unless you've got some kind of "Hidden Spell" effect going, I guess). Removing the components doesn't matter for identification because components were never part of said identification. ...Mind you, I think it's a pretty common house rule that removing the components makes it harder or maybe even impossible to counterspell normally, but that's a house rule not actually supported by the rules text. XD Manifestations are really the only way the general rule "you can identify any spell as it's being cast" works. The rules should be clearer about this.
You've made some excellent points regarding why components (V,S,M) have no effect on identifying a spell as it is cast. Going to think about it for a bit.
How about a newly researched spell, would that qualify as an "other factor" that isn't related to visual or other sense based condition? Granted that is a rare circumstance (until the player is the using it to their benefit)
I don't think a newly researched spell qualifies as an "other factor" for identification. There's nothing in the rules text that states player-researched spells are any harder to identify and counterspell - you can identify (and, more importantly, counter) magic even if you're seeing it for the first time and have never so much as heard of the spell.
I like to think of it as casters being engineers studying a mechanical device, like something with lots of pistons and cogs. They may not have seen the device before, but since they understand how each part of the device works, they can effectively deduce how it's meant to work through observation... and where to shove in a pipe to make the whole thing grind to a halt. For magic, the parts of the machine are the casting manifestation, and sufficient magical training or innate awareness (i.e. ranks in Spellcraft, explicitly used for checks involving "the technical art of casting a spell") makes it possible to understand what you're seeing.
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blahpers wrote: pauljathome wrote: born_of_fire wrote: Worst FAQ ever In vague fairness, the rules make TOTAL sense for an intrigue based campaign where you don't want Charm person et. al. to be the uber spell it easily could be.
If I was running an Intrigue based campaign using Pathfinder rules I'd very happily adopt just about everything in Ultimate Intrigue.
The mistake Paizo made was making those rules the default for all campaigns.
Especially for PFS :-(. Debatable. In an intrigue-based campaign, I'd want such spells to be subtle even more. It isn't as though the idea of subtle spellcasting in intrigue-based games hasn't been playtested to death in previous editions, and as far as I can tell it hasn't been detrimental to the experience. Obviously, tastes vary. But Ulltimate Intrigue BOTH makes a spellcaster with no particular investment fairly noticeable AND gives ways for spell casters to invest in being particularly subtle.
And opponents have a means of getting by my subtlety. Its not autometic
Which I like.
As an enchanter I have the option of investing in being subtle or not and it will affect game play substantially.
My problem is that I think that investment is just too high if the campaign is NOT intrigue based.
Now, whether Pathfinder is the right game engine for an Intrigue based camapaign is a whole different kettle of fish. But I don't blame Paizo for having its products cater to those who answer that question with "yes" :-)
GM Rednal wrote: I don't think a newly researched spell qualifies as an "other factor" for identification. There's nothing in the rules text that states player-researched spells are any harder to identify and counterspell - you can identify (and, more importantly, counter) magic even if you're seeing it for the first time and have never so much as heard of the spell.
I like to think of it as casters being engineers studying a mechanical device, like something with lots of pistons and cogs. They may not have seen the device before, but since they understand how each part of the device works, they can effectively deduce how it's meant to work through observation... and where to shove in a pipe to make the whole thing grind to a halt. For magic, the parts of the machine are the casting manifestation, and sufficient magical training or innate awareness (i.e. ranks in Spellcraft, explicitly used for checks involving "the technical art of casting a spell") makes it possible to understand what you're seeing.
Some of the following is just thinking out loud.
And that's where the whole thing starts to lose me. It makes no intuitive sense (your logic does given the starting point) that a spell that is very common and often seen by a caster would be as easy to ID as one that only a handful of casters may have seen (the creator and perhaps a few assistants or associates). It does make a certain sense that to counter the spell you don't need to fully understand its inner and complete workings. Your engineeer, to carry on with the analogy, knows that he sees pistons and while not really knowing what the machine does, does know that generally stopping moving parts like pistons is a good way to foul up a machine and keep it from working. The problem is he still doen't know if the machine is supposed to move wheels to go down the road, rocket into the air flying or launch something across the river all rather different outcomes i.e. is a Glyph with a Fireball, a Wall of Fire or Fire Shield. Sure they are all Element (Fire) spells but ... . It strikes me as a better explanation as to how Dispel Magic would be used to unravel the spell (either thru countering or just plain dispelling it after the fact)
Part of my issue I think is they are shoe horning an explanation in that initially no one bothered to account for. It was just handwaved basically that somehow the spell could be identified but no real attempt was made to explain how. You made a Spellcraft check and you knew without any explanation how it worked to ID the spell, at least sufficiently to counter it. And this explanation is using a reason that never really existed until manifestations became a thing (beyond a very nebulous idea represented primarily by artwork). And therefore butts up against all sorts of preconceived notions on how things work or don't work. And the term 'other factors' is about as vague as it gets when it comes to a rule.
"other factors" I feel is just a way they thought off to leave some breathing room for different situations, abilities, and GM discretion.
Also, I feel that the difference before and now, is that there is a better picture of what's happening when a spell is cast. Before it was up to players/gm usually resulting in, "bam X happened"; Now its settled that its always, "after *insert fluff* X happens". People can still ignore the description (fluff), but it's clear there is one.
As for identification, I always assumed Spellcraft was basically checking your knowledge of how magic moves. The fact that the DC increases with spell level signified the difficulty in knowing how high level spells work. While ranks is you getting a better understanding of magic, so high level characters can easily understand what the magic will do.
Spell storing weapons, and the spite spell let you get around the manifestations since the casting occurs earlier than the activation. Making them work, is an exercise for the adventurer.
Any way to delay the spell by making it a charge in an item that you activate rather than a spell you cast should work.
/cevah
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