thedmstrikes
Explorer
The internet ate my first reply, so I apologize if it double posts...
I do not think you will find anything in the books covering this, other than a passage about how a caster can embelish their spell effects for personalization (like having red magic missiles, etc.). Spells and spell like effecs that have no visual component to them are a DM story driven event. You as the DM decide how the effect will look when it occurs. There are two schools of thought when it comes to this, full disclosure (meaning everyone knows what is going on all the time) and the mysterious rolls (dice are rolled by the DM and or players and then he looks up and says (insert effect here)). If you have full disclosure, than that truly gives the effect away if it worked or not. Some people use this to speed their games along. If you take the mysterious dice rolls technique, then you decide what the bad guy will do if he also knows what spell was cast. Does he play along and try something sneaky, or ignore it all together? This is where the extra dice rolling comes into play. First, the save. Second a skill check. Third, does he play along or ignore the info. He ignores, games moves on and he shows no visual effect to anyone. He wants to be sneaky and he gives the same response as if it worked, like an I just seen a ghost look. More dice are rolled and anyone that knows what spell was cast on him and can see his reaction can join the spell caster in an opposed skill check to sense his motive. Anyone that sees through it can shout out of turn something short like "he's faking it" or something similar. That is supported in the turn order by RAW. Similarly, the caster can shout what he just did in the hopes his allies will use the information accordingly, like if they discussed these kinds of battle options ahead of time.
I do not think you will find anything in the books covering this, other than a passage about how a caster can embelish their spell effects for personalization (like having red magic missiles, etc.). Spells and spell like effecs that have no visual component to them are a DM story driven event. You as the DM decide how the effect will look when it occurs. There are two schools of thought when it comes to this, full disclosure (meaning everyone knows what is going on all the time) and the mysterious rolls (dice are rolled by the DM and or players and then he looks up and says (insert effect here)). If you have full disclosure, than that truly gives the effect away if it worked or not. Some people use this to speed their games along. If you take the mysterious dice rolls technique, then you decide what the bad guy will do if he also knows what spell was cast. Does he play along and try something sneaky, or ignore it all together? This is where the extra dice rolling comes into play. First, the save. Second a skill check. Third, does he play along or ignore the info. He ignores, games moves on and he shows no visual effect to anyone. He wants to be sneaky and he gives the same response as if it worked, like an I just seen a ghost look. More dice are rolled and anyone that knows what spell was cast on him and can see his reaction can join the spell caster in an opposed skill check to sense his motive. Anyone that sees through it can shout out of turn something short like "he's faking it" or something similar. That is supported in the turn order by RAW. Similarly, the caster can shout what he just did in the hopes his allies will use the information accordingly, like if they discussed these kinds of battle options ahead of time.
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