It would not “Hear the sound of battle” because a battle includes a lot of loud noises, not just someone talking or yelling.
The description of the verbal component states you have to speak in a strong voice. Which means you cannot whisper. A strong voice does not mean you are yelling, it just means you are speaking clearly and loud enough to be heard. Hearing the details of a conversation is a DC 0. That means not only do you hear the sound of the conversation, but you also hear it well enough to understand it. Noticing a visible creature is also a DC 0 perception roll. To just hear that someone using a verbal component without necessarily understanding what they are saying would be about the same DC as noticing a visible creature. Therefore, the DC to notice a verbal component would be 0.
I agree, casting a spell probably isn't the same as "sounds of battle" it's not as loud. But it is louder than regular speaking (IMO).
"Hear the details of a conversation" is a DC 0, and I think this is the highest the DC should be. Possibly lower (between 0 and -10) but we'll assume 0.
I slightly disagree with Mysterious Stranger that we can confidently say the DC is 0 and not lower, as I personally believe "in a strong voice" is louder than conversation, but we lack enough details to further explore and so we can that the DC is at it's highest a 0, but possibly between 0 and -10.
Keep in mind you also need to factor in distance and interposed objects.
The end result being that on average you can hear a spell caster in the open (no walls or doors) form like 100ft away on just by virtue of an average roll on a d20. If you invest in perception you will hear spell casters from even further, or through walls and doors.
A strong voice isn't yelling but it is a voice meant to be heard, as the leading guy during a conference. Considering the Perception modifiers I would give a DC of -2 or lower (favorable conditions give a -2 modifier to the DC).
That seems reasonable to me
You can hear conversation without being able to understand it. The DC 0 perception roll is to understand the conversation not just to hear it. The DC to hear that someone is having a conversation without being able to understand it is going to be even lower.
The question was “what is the DC to hear someone casting a spell”. It seems to me that hearing someone speak in a loud voice without being able to hear the details of what he is saying is about as easy as seeing someone standing in the room. The DC to spot a visible creature that is not trying to hide is 0.
I'm confused, in your first paragraph you say the DC should be lower than zero. Then in the second you say it should be zero. Which is it?
There are potentially two different answers here.
1. The DC to hear someone who happens to be casting a spell at the time
2. The DC to hear the words of the spell being cast by someone
The defined DC 0 case is to hear words in a conversation. The agreed too extreme is sounds of a battle at a DC of -10.
The verbal component of a spell seems to be agreed to be louder than a conversation and so applying the -2 favourable condition modifier seems reasonable.
Not having to pick out the words in a conversation also seems favourable so a -2 condition modifier would apply there too.
The answer to 1 above, would be a DC -4 check as both favourable condition modifiers apply. The answer to 2 would be a DC-2 check as only the first modifier applies.
Strong voice does not always mean louder. It can also be deepening your tone to emphasize your meaning. I remember an episode of star trek deep space nine where Sisko was reprimanding Warf who had disobeyed an order. He told Warf “Don’t do that again” in a slow deep tone. He did not raise his voice but there was no mistaking how serious he was. Too me that qualifies as speaking in a strong voice.
I think we also need to be on the same page as to what hearing someone cast a spell means. If we are talking about hearing that someone is speaking without being able to understand them that should be less than 0. If we are talking about someone being able to hear the incantation and understand enough to recognize it is a spell and to get a spell craft roll to identify the spell it should be 0.
I think for the purposes of this discussion most of us are talking about noticing someone is casting by hearing them speak, not necessarily being able to understand or comprehend what they're saying.
Most characters probably don't have the requisite skills to be able to recognize/identify the spell being cast in the first place and so probably don't care about understanding it.
The DC to hear a conversation is 0, so I'd say the DC of a spell being cast is 0 + 1/10 per 1ft away. So, if the caster is 30 ft away, it's a DC: 3 to hear it. If the caster is 100ft away, it's a DC: 10 to hear it.
Modify the DC as necessary for Distracted +5 (such as combat), Favorable/Unfavorable conditions -2/+2 (windy, rainy, etc.), Terrible Conditions +5 (is there a dragon or a lion roaring nearby), through Closed Door +5, or through a Wall +10/ft thickness, etc.
Examples:
If you were in combat with a roaring dragon, and there is a caster 120 ft away from you casting a spell with a verbal component, the DC should be:
0 + 12distance + 5distracted(combat) + 5terribleconditions(dragon roaring) = 22 Perc DC, plus whatever other modifiers you deem appropriate
If you were sneaking up to a door and you're 25ft away from the door, and a caster begins to cast a spell with a verbal component on the other side of that door. (The caster is actually 30ft from you).
0 + 3distance + 5closeddoor = 8 Perc DC, plus whatever other modifiers you deem appropriate
I actually do have to agree with the DC0 claims… the reason being simple… just hearing the sound of someone speaking would be less than 0, but just hearing the sound of speech doesn’t mean you can tell the difference between “get behind me!” and “Avada Kedavra!” So to hear specifically “verbal spell components” would be the same as hearing details of a conversation. You are trying to pick out details, even if you may not know what they actually mean without a spellcraft check. Its no different than hearing a cryptic conversation and needing to roll linguistics to decipher it. You still have to meet that DC0 to hear the details before you can even attempt to determine what it means.
This base DC of 0 can further be modified as per usual perception rules.
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I actually do have to agree with the DC0 claims… the reason being simple… just hearing the sound of someone speaking would be less than 0, but just hearing the sound of speech doesn’t mean you can tell the difference between “get behind me!” and “Avada Kedavra!” So to hear specifically “verbal spell components” would be the same as hearing details of a conversation. You are trying to pick out details, even if you may not know what they actually mean without a spellcraft check. Its no different than hearing a cryptic conversation and needing to roll linguistics to decipher it. You still have to meet that DC0 to hear the details before you can even attempt to determine what it means.
This base DC of 0 can further be modified as per usual perception rules.
I think that the OP question is meant to be:
"Someone is casting a spell, how hard is hearing him?"not
"Someone is saying something, how hard is it to recognize that as the verbal components of a spell?"
The first version would have a base DC lower than 0, the second version would have a base DC of 0.
I actually do have to agree with the DC0 claims… the reason being simple… just hearing the sound of someone speaking would be less than 0, but just hearing the sound of speech doesn’t mean you can tell the difference between “get behind me!” and “Avada Kedavra!” So to hear specifically “verbal spell components” would be the same as hearing details of a conversation. You are trying to pick out details, even if you may not know what they actually mean without a spellcraft check. Its no different than hearing a cryptic conversation and needing to roll linguistics to decipher it. You still have to meet that DC0 to hear the details before you can even attempt to determine what it means.
This base DC of 0 can further be modified as per usual perception rules.
I think that the OP question is meant to be:
"Someone is casting a spell, how hard is hearing him?"
not
"Someone is saying something, how hard is it to recognize that as the verbal components of a spell?"The first version would have a base DC lower than 0, the second version would have a base DC of 0.
This is a good point; a regular conversation is roughly ~40-50 decibels, and a "forceful voice casting a spell" is probably closer to 65-80 decibels. It's probably about as loud as a vacuum cleaner tbh, because it's something akin to "EN FIEREO NOM BOSTRANOVA KHEM'KEZIMED" when you're doing a verbal component. I'd put the base DC for "hearing" a spell at DC: -5 and "recognizing the verbal components of the spell (and KNOWING that it's definitely a spell) at base DC: 0.
So if you failed the earlier example of 0 + 12distance +5distracted(combat) +5terribleconditions(dragon roaring) = 22 Perc DC by 5 or less, then I'd probably say "you definitely hear someone saying something from this direction, but you can't make out what exactly he's saying". Technically, this isn't RAW but that's how I'd handle this; it's still within the "loose guidelines" of the suggested Perc DC modifiers.
I actually do have to agree with the DC0 claims… the reason being simple… just hearing the sound of someone speaking would be less than 0, but just hearing the sound of speech doesn’t mean you can tell the difference between “get behind me!” and “Avada Kedavra!” So to hear specifically “verbal spell components” would be the same as hearing details of a conversation. You are trying to pick out details, even if you may not know what they actually mean without a spellcraft check. Its no different than hearing a cryptic conversation and needing to roll linguistics to decipher it. You still have to meet that DC0 to hear the details before you can even attempt to determine what it means.
This base DC of 0 can further be modified as per usual perception rules.
I think that the OP question is meant to be:
"Someone is casting a spell, how hard is hearing him?"
not
"Someone is saying something, how hard is it to recognize that as the verbal components of a spell?"The first version would have a base DC lower than 0, the second version would have a base DC of 0.
And I did say that, yes, simply hearing the sound of speech would be less than 0… but you wouldn’t be able to distinguish between “sound of casting a spell” and “sound of giving battlefield commands”… both are strongly intoned speech. So its kinda a meaningless DC… but yes, if you just want to “hear the sound of someone casting a spell” the DC is less than 0. But if you want to actually distinguish that the speech sounds you are hearing are verbal components, its a DC0 + a spellcraft check.
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And I did say that, yes, simply hearing the sound of speech would be less than 0… but you wouldn’t be able to distinguish between “sound of casting a spell” and “sound of giving battlefield commands”… both are strongly intoned speech. So its kinda a meaningless DC… but yes, if you just want to “hear the sound of someone casting a spell” the DC is less than 0. But if you want to actually distinguish that the speech sounds you are hearing are verbal components, its a DC0 + a spellcraft check.I actually do have to agree with the DC0 claims… the reason being simple… just hearing the sound of someone speaking would be less than 0, but just hearing the sound of speech doesn’t mean you can tell the difference between “get behind me!” and “Avada Kedavra!” So to hear specifically “verbal spell components” would be the same as hearing details of a conversation. You are trying to pick out details, even if you may not know what they actually mean without a spellcraft check. Its no different than hearing a cryptic conversation and needing to roll linguistics to decipher it. You still have to meet that DC0 to hear the details before you can even attempt to determine what it means.
This base DC of 0 can further be modified as per usual perception rules.
I think that the OP question is meant to be:
"Someone is casting a spell, how hard is hearing him?"
not
"Someone is saying something, how hard is it to recognize that as the verbal components of a spell?"The first version would have a base DC lower than 0, the second version would have a base DC of 0.
It all depends on why" the OP wants to know the DC.
If he asked the question because someone is stating an encounter by casting a spell and he wants to know how hard is to hear him (not knowing what he is doing, simply hearing him speaking), the DC should be less than 0.
If instead, it is because someone is casting a spell and he want to identify it, the DC to recognize the verbal components is 0.
I will also double up with a comment on "forceful" voice having nothing to do with loudness of what is spoken. Of course you still need to have something be audible at all (hence why silence doesn't work), but it being muffled or quieted short of total silence still will 100% allow a spell with verbal components to go off.
The first time a creature is struck by a weapon affected by this spell, it must succeed at a Will save (SR applies to this effect) or it becomes unable to make noise louder than a whisper (Perception DC 10 to hear) whether vocally or by other means for the duration of the effect. Because the creature can still whisper, this doesn’t interfere with verbal spell components. Whether it succeeds or fails its saving throw, the creature is immune to further effects from this casting of quieting weapons.
You can absolutely not speak loud and authoritatively and still cast spells. As long as your whispering is specific and clear (e.g. not murmured), the spell will work, so if you're trying to be stealthy, why not whisper all the time/even without having an ally cast a (somatic only) spell and then bonk you with his sap to make your later casting quieter?
The Quieting weapons case is a case of specific over general. The caster could be shouting the spell but the magic prevents it from producing more noise than a whisper. It doesn't mean that a whisper counts as a forceful voice.
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I agree with Hugo Rune. In my opinion, the Quieting Weapons spell is meant as a way to stop sentinels from shouting a warning and for quiet assassination. The writer didn't want it to become a Silence spell that can be used by an archer several times each round.
Normal spellcasting requires "a strong voice". Not clearly defined, but it doesn't sound like whispering. I see it mostly as a declamatory voice, where you speak clearly and with some force. After all, you are trying to be heard and listened to by magic.
I'm going to swim upstream on this one and say it absolutely is the DC for hearing a battle.
Just as the DC for hearing a battle involving two rogues and saps is -10, so too the DC for hearing a battle involving two earth-breakers is -10. Once again, the DC for a battle involving two casters lobbing magic missiles is -10.
That said, casting outside of combat... that could be argued to be quieter. But the rules say you "can't" conceal casting, so it's not unreasonable to stick to the -10.