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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Afrodyte" data-source="post: 1916230" data-attributes="member: 8713">As I'm creating the setting for my campaign, I've come against a problem when it comes to (surprise, surprise) magic.  By and large the magic in the setting is subtle magic.  By subtle magic, I mean magic that more or less replicates naturally occuring things.  Most of the time a casual onlooker witnessing a spell's effect, provided they didn't witness the actual casting of the spell, would not know that a spell has been cast at all.  The caster would simply be a person who is lucky, skillful, more physically adept, or more mentally astute than she first appears.I think that subtle magic spells would grant bonuses to skills, saves, attacks, and attributes; influence a target's mind; and replicate otherwise natural or humanly possible occurences.  Overt magic, though, is clearly the result of magic.  Things that come out of nowhere or don't act like they would naturally (like glowing or floating in air) is a property of overt magic.The problem, of course, is that even low-level PHB spells are generally overt.  In addition, since I reorganize spells according to theme rather than school, it gets even more difficult.  Granted, fire magic is not going to be subtle by a long shot, but there should be more than what's there.  So, here are the specific questions:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What is a good way to mechanically represent the difference between subtle and overt magic?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How should the advantages and disadvantages of subtle and overt magic be represented?  I've thought about giving subtle magic higher DCs for recognizing and resisting them with the requirement that they have to work alongside what people would characterize as natural.  But that might not be the best way.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What about conditions that could change an overt spell to a subtle spell, and vice versa?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What are some guidelines I should follow for creating more subtle spells, particularly with determing what level they would be?</li> </ul></blockquote>

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