Does the caster know if sending worked?

[frankthedm]

My epic level alienist uses sending like a 13-year-old girl uses her cell phone: she 'calls' anyone she's interested in talking to, all the time.

Anyone or anyThing?

 

[Joshua Randall]

I don't have any additional rules insight, but count me in with those who rule that you don't know if your sending succeeded or not. It's much cooler that way.

[sblock=obligatory IMC example]The PCs decide to cast sending to one of their old NPC allies, a paladin. What they don't know is that the paladin has recently been turned into a vampire blackguard. So, when the PCs cast the sending, the ex-paladin simply chooses not to respond. They get worried and go to check up on him....

If you let the PCs know that the sending worked but didn't elicit a response, then you remove the possibility for something devious like the above.[/sblock]

 

[Henry]

Using Sending as Prank phone calls or Arcane Telemarketing is just so evil that I may have to use it the next time I play an Eberron campaign.

 

[hong]

Using Sending as Prank phone calls or Arcane Telemarketing is just so evil that I may have to use it the next time I play an Eberron campaign.

Hm. Now, the question is whether sending also tells the recipient your number...?

 

[moritheil]

My take on a non-reply is that you know the spell worked, but that the receipient didn't reply. If dead isn't receipient considered an object so the spell fails?

No; the recipient has passed on to another plane and may be a petitioner.

Mind you, these are my thoughts from the rules, not backed up by the RAW, AFAIK

Uh, your thoughts from the rules aren't backed up by the rules as written?

 

[TYPO5478]

Ah, but you've missed one important point here: speak with dead is actually a sort of misnomer. You are not speaking with the soul of the deceased, you are simply talking to a corpse. All this spell does is extract information that is basically "stored" in the dead body of a creature. Vastly different; far less powerful. (Seriously, this spell is way more crappy than people think.) I can't think of any other D&D spell allows direct contact with dead people (short of maybe wish or miracle) - that's not to say there isn't one, but there's nothing in core I'm pretty sure. Why would this one?

Nothing in core that allows direct contact with dead people? How about planar binding or planar ally? Granted, neither of those spells would force the called creature to converse with you, but neither does sending. Since lesser planar binding, a 5th level wizard spell, could call souls of the dead from the outer planes, why shouldn't sending, another 5th level spell, be able to at least contact them?

At any rate, contacting dead people with sending isn't really what concerns me. We're getting away from the original question I had regarding sending (possibly because I didn't make it clear enough what the question was). Sending has in its spell description a failure rate specifically associated with cross-planar contact; presumably there is no potential for failure if the caster and subject are on the same plane. The original question (which I neglected to enunciate) was, "If sending fails because of planar interference, will the caster know that's why it failed or will he still think it succeeded?" That led to the larger question, "Does the caster know why he didn't receive a reply to sending: because the target didn't want to reply or because the target didn't receive the sending in the first place? Can the caster ever be sure sending worked if he didn't receive a reply?"

Of course, all of that leads to the even-more-general question, "Does a caster ever really know why his spell failed?" Suppose a wizard casts hold person on a silver dragon who has assumed the form of an elf. Would the wizard know that his spell failed because the target was invalid and not because the elf made his save? Or would he just know the spell failed and not know why?

 

[moritheil]

Or would he just know the spell failed and not know why?

That's how I tend to adjucate spell failures.

Mind you, that infuriates people who think they have a right to know the specifics of their spells. I DMed an evoker who sent a ball lightning out of her line of sight into a room with psion-killers in it (she stood down the hallway; the door was open and she commanded the ball to go into the room.) She wanted to know if the ball lightning winked out due to being dispelled or due to hitting something and failing to overcome its SR. I ruled that she didn't get to know.

A 45-minute argument resulted from this.

 

[evilbob]

Nothing in core that allows direct contact with dead people? How about planar binding or planar ally?

Ehh, this seems a bit shakey to me. I hear your arguement but I'm not sure the spell is intended to work that way, either. (Can you really pay a few hundred gold to call grandpa back to the material plane and trap him there?) In any case, yes: not task at hand.

Of course, all of that leads to the even-more-general question, "Does a caster ever really know why his spell failed?"

Actually, I have to agree with moritheil: pretty much, no. Even the "saving throw" entry says that on a failed saving throw, you "know the spell has failed." It doesn't necessarily imply "you know it was the saving throw that failed, and not something else." In fact, it can probably be assumed a caster wouldn't know if a spell failed to SR, saving throw, invalid target, or "DM says: I just hate you." Although presumably seeing the DM make a few rolls would imply one or the other...

But then again, I guess the text doesn't NOT imply that, either. I guess this is really a DM's call, since it is neither stated nor refuted anywhere that I can find, and either side of the discussion can use the abiguity to their case.

 

[TYPO5478]

Or would he just know the spell failed and not know why?

That's how I tend to adjudicate spell failures.

Actually, I have to agree with moritheil: pretty much, no.

So both of you agree that, in terms of the original question, the caster would know sending failed, he just wouldn't know why?

 

[evilbob]

So both of you agree that, in terms of the original question, the caster would know sending failed, he just wouldn't know why?

No, sorry for being unclear: I was saying I would agree the caster wouldn't know why a spell failed. Still not sure about whether or not it failed, though.

Although, I'm thinking a good HR for both situations might just be "line of sight." If a wizard can see a spell he's casting affect something, he knows if it worked - and if not, why not. If he cannot see it, he can't tell either if it worked or why it did/didn't. This makes for a simple rule that is easy to remember and seems pretty fair - and quite frankly reflects the way I've usually done it anyway (and that means knowing if sending works is conditional on where the recipient is - either in line of sight or not).

Edit: Some spells may be intrinsically easy enough to deduce if they failed and why, however - scrying comes to mind.