Does the caster know if sending worked?

[TYPO5478]

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).

So how would that rule work with our silver dragon/elf? The wizard can see the elf, so if hold person didn't work, he should be able to tell why. Would a caster be able to visually tell the difference between a successful Will save and a well-disguised invalid target? Or would he receive the information through some sort of magical feedback?

 

[hong]

So how would that rule work with our silver dragon/elf? The wizard can see the elf, so if hold person didn't work, he should be able to tell why. Would a caster be able to visually tell the difference between a successful Will save and a well-disguised invalid target? Or would he receive the information through some sort of magical feedback?

Spellcraft check, DC handwaved is answer to all ills!

 

[Dross]

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.

Is a spell a failure if it has been dispelled? To me they are two different things.

Failure to me implies that the spell didn't work or overcome the target(for whatever reason, and you don't know why).

Dispell means that something has overcome the spell workings.

Why do you run it that way?

 

[moritheil]

Is a spell a failure if it has been dispelled? To me they are two different things.

Failure to me implies that the spell didn't work or overcome the target(for whatever reason, and you don't know why).

Dispell means that something has overcome the spell workings.

Why do you run it that way?

In that case? Because she didn't have line of effect to the spell effect, and also because it was frankly irrelevant - the psion killer dispels magic every round as a free action. There were four of them in the room. And the psion killer is also immune to spells (under psionic-magic transparency.)

It was basically a case of "anything I tell you is going to be misleading. Oh, and I'm not sure you should even get to know that your spell winked out at all, because you can't see the ball and don't have line of effect."

Her counter-argument was that wizards always know what's going on with their spells by default, which I simply could not find support for in the RAW. She asserted that as long as she wasn't on another plane, she should know. I countered that in this case planes don't matter - she could be on the ethereal and she would still know as long as she had line of effect and line of sight. But she didn't.