Divine Spellcraft vs Arcane Spellcraft

[RUMBLETiGER]

Cure Light Wounds is a Conjuration spell. My understanding of the flavor of spell schools and a Wizard's ability to specialize in them suggests some familiarity with a spell style, even if it's not on one's list.

If said Wizard had a prohibited school, I could see houseruling that he might not be able to identify spells of that school, or increasing the DC to do so.

If one is going to Houserule, I could see possibly increasing the DC to succeed on identifying a spell, etc. by some static or variable-by-level amount for the opposing discipline. If you've developed the skill to study magic, you should be rewarded by actually being able to do so.

And, as Dandu has cleverly pointed out, sometimes the same spell spans both disciplines. What does one do then?

 

[Jimlock]

"Vaxis, that priest just obscured our vision with some sort of misty cloud. Can you tell what spell that was?"

"No, good Sir Froderic, but he appears to be shooting us with ancient Faerunian laser beams. Let me cast Obscuring Mist to provide concealment for our position."

And, as Dandu has cleverly pointed out, sometimes the same spell spans both disciplines. What does one do then?

Perhaps it would help if we made a parallel with languages. Two distinct and very different languages with incompatible structures, philosophy and general feel. A simple paradigm would be a language from the far east (say Japanese) compared to a western one (say English). This is how different (perhaps even more!!) I see the two types of magic.

I would like to reply to the example given above (same spell), with the following simple example:

1-An empty room, one door, one Japanese captain, one Japanese soldier.
The captain speaks a phrase, and then the soldiers walks out of the door.

2--An empty room, one door, one English captain, one English soldier.
The captain speaks a phrase, and then the soldiers walks out of the door.

Both phrases have the same effect (same spell). That doesn't mean that an english observer would understand the Japanese captain, just because the soldier walked out of the door. The observer might figure it out (or something relevant) AFTER the order is spoken, by the soldier's action, but there is no way (unless he speks japanese) that he 'd know what the order means prior to the action.

So sure... same spells exist in both worlds... just as there is "hello" in every language in the world...

 

[Dandu]

Yes, without having put skill points into Speak Language, I imagine it would be hard for an Englishman to understand Japanese.

If only there was some skill that allowed a spellcaster to become more familiar with magic and spells.

If only.

 

[Jimlock]

If only you could understand that there are people who enjoy differentiating (largely) arcane from divine in their game.

If only.

 

[Dandu]

I'm sure that there are. And I'm sure there are people who assign female PCs a penalty to Strength, who forbid lance wielding paladins from using the lance while standing still (as historically, lances were too heavy to wield in melee combat when the horse was not moving), who have extensive crit-fail tables which can result in a training session against dummies with no survivors, and who perform a wide variety of other practices that enhance the flavor and realism of their game.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've always houseruled it that Spellcraft (Arcane) and Spellcraft (Divine) were separate skills.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

What if an individual wanted to better understand magic? Couldn't a Wizard study about Divine magic without investing the time to master it?

What happens to a non-caster that takes levels in Spellcraft? Can they understand any of it?

 

[Dandu]

What if an individual wanted to better understand magic? Couldn't a Wizard study about Divine magic without investing the time to master it?

What happens to a non-caster that takes levels in Spellcraft? Can they understand any of it?

Non-spellcasters should not be able to understand either arcane or divine spells as they can cast neither. That is why Mage Slayer requires them to have 2 ranks in Spellcraft.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Perhaps it would help if we made a parallel with languages. Two distinct and very different languages with incompatible structures, philosophy and general feel. A simple paradigm would be a language from the far east (say Japanese) compared to a western one (say English). This is how different (perhaps even more!!) I see the two types of magic.

I would like to reply to the example given above (same spell), with the following simple example:

1-An empty room, one door, one Japanese captain, one Japanese soldier.
The captain speaks a phrase, and then the soldiers walks out of the door.

2--An empty room, one door, one English captain, one English soldier.
The captain speaks a phrase, and then the soldiers walks out of the door.

Both phrases have the same effect (same spell). That doesn't mean that an english observer would understand the Japanese captain, just because the soldier walked out of the door. The observer might figure it out (or something relevant) AFTER the order is spoken, by the soldier's action, but there is no way (unless he speks japanese) that he 'd know what the order means prior to the action.

So sure... same spells exist in both worlds... just as there is "hello" in every language in the world...

I think the difference between your analogy and Dandu's example is that Using spellcraft to identify the effect of a spell would be like the Japanese Captain and the English Captain each pulling out a rifle and the other being able to say "Whoa, that's a Rifle!"

Identifying a spell effect after it's cast should be doable regardless of it's magic source.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If only you could understand that there are people who enjoy differentiating (largely) arcane from divine in their game.

I like the arcane vs divine divide...but consider Spellcraft as one unified skill. If I were so inclined as to make things more difficult to ID across spell sources- which I'm not- I'd only go so far as to say that a Divine caster IDing an Arcane spell suffered a -5 penalty to the roll. And vice versa.

I'm not making PCs burn skill points twice on Spellcraft.