Voluntarily failing saves when spellcasters lie

[SlagMortar]

And I'm quite certain a rejuvenating effect would feel differently from a harmful one

This is campaign specific and not a general rule as far as I know. Life saving surgery is certainly painful. Fantasy healing magic is not always pleasant, in the Wheel of Time for example. I doubt someone in that world would realize they were being hurt instead of healed quickly enough for it to matter.

 

[cheshire_grin]

An interesting question is whether an enemy caster could ready a harmful spell and cast it when a Fighter gives up his saving throw for an Enlarge Person by his ally. I could see an adjudication both ways on that.

I don't know about saving throws, but the description for Spell Resistance states that lowering it is a standard action, and SR remains down until just before the character's next turn, so this tactic would work against creatures with SR.

I could see a DM ruling going either way with saves, though.

 

[Zurai]

For the recognition of the gestures and verbal component, I would leave that for a spellcraft check.

That defeats the purpose. It's easy enough to handwave the spellcraft into a sense motive in this specific circumstance by saying that spellcasting gestures and so on are unique to the individual - so the cleric always casts Cure Light Wounds the same way, but a different cleric casts it differently. That way the fighter can reasonably be familiar with the way his friend casts the spell, without having the foggiest idea whether that other cleric is casting the same spell.

 

[Maldor]

clerics must desplay thier divine focus when casting i think even a fighter is going to notic thats not the holy syboal of palor or whoever.

 

[Hypersmurf]

clerics must desplay thier divine focus when casting i think even a fighter is going to notic thats not the holy syboal of palor or whoever.

Yes and no; the holy symbol is only required for spells with a DF component.

Both Cure X Wounds and Slay Living have only verbal and somatic components; the divine focus is not required.

-Hyp.

 

[UltimaGabe]

I disagree with the absolute requirement that a Fighter must have Spellcraft to identify spells he's familiar with. Yes, you need spellcraft to identify a spell. And yes, Spellcraft is a trained-only skill. However, spells have visible and audible components in most cases- yes, they're assumed to be quite complex and difficult to decipher (hence the skill ranks needed to do so)- but it's also assumed, in my opinion, that if a caster casts a spell once, the components are the same as if he cast it another time. (Otherwise identifying a spell would be near impossible in most cases.)

Now, think of it this way- what Fighter has even a single rank in Spellcraft in most campaigns? Almost none of them. (Who's got the skill points for it?) So does that mean that when the party Cleric casts Cure Light Wounds on him for the fourtieth time since they started adventuring, he's still completely oblivious to the spell? I mean, by the rules, yes. But who's going to rule it that way? Who's going to say to the player, "No, you still don't recognize this spell being cast. True, you've heard and seen it countless times. But you don't have any ranks in spellcraft, so you don't know if he's casting the familiar-looking and -sounding Cure Light Wounds, or if he's casting Meteor Swarm. Sucks to you."

After a certain point, you have to be lenient when it comes to trained-only skills. Spellcraft being a good example.

 

[Arkhandus]

This is campaign specific and not a general rule as far as I know. Life saving surgery is certainly painful. Fantasy healing magic is not always pleasant, in the Wheel of Time for example. I doubt someone in that world would realize they were being hurt instead of healed quickly enough for it to matter.

Cure spells channel positive energy in D&D, though, which very specifically is a force that creates life, rejuvenates living creatures, and gives a kind of warm feeling or buzz from the raw vital energy it instills. And Cure spells remove nonlethal damage at the same time as normal damage, so they obviously relieve pain.

Very little that channels positive energy even has a chance of harming living creatures (any significant pain would be represented as nonlethal damage, or other penalties), and those that do are like cancer-inducing stuff that overloads flesh with positive energy to the point of burning or bursting cells/tissues.

I would find it very difficult to believe that healing spells 'hurt' or feel malicious when first applied (unless you're undead), unless they caused some nonlethal damage when applied, and thus had some chance of rendering the character unconscious for a moment before the healing finishes (which would cause them to become helpless or lose an action, at least for a moment).

Flavor or not, D&D Cure spells channel positive energy, which is accompanied by a revitalizing warmth or buzzing feeling, just as D&D Inflict spells channel negative energy, which is accompanied by a cold-as-a-corpse feeling or a sickly feeling.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Flavor or not, D&D Cure spells channel positive energy, which is accompanied by a revitalizing warmth or buzzing feeling, just as D&D Inflict spells channel negative energy, which is accompanied by a cold-as-a-corpse feeling or a sickly feeling.

Sure. But the saving throw precedes the buzzing or sickly feeling.

You can't retroactively elect to change your mind after the spell has already taken effect.

-Hyp.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Er... the various Cure spells are [harmless].

You can tell from the Saving Throw and SR lines:

Saving Throw: Will half (harmless); see text
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless); see text

-Hyp.

err, damn. that's why I don't play clerics. In fact, I cut out most of the spells and got my group to play Iron Heroes instead for a change..

 

[Jhaelen]

I disagree with the absolute requirement that a Fighter must have Spellcraft to identify spells he's familiar with. Yes, you need spellcraft to identify a spell.

But the fighter doesn't have to identify the spell. He just has to notice that something is different about this particular casting than the one hundred times he's received a cure spell before.
I'd say it will be fairly easy to notice that 'something' is different.

Also, as has been pointed out, the fighter has to voluntarily give up his saving throw. So, if the DM asks the fighter's player if he wants to do so, I'm pretty sure he won't do it. This is such an obvious hint that something is wrong that I cannot imagine anyone not realizing it.