Willing Recipients

[Infiniti2000]

I'm looking for opinions, fact, and/or past links on the subject of "willing" recipients to spells. I'm not particularly interested in a discussion on (harmless) spells unless you think it's relevant. Basically, my sorcerer uses benign transposition and the DM was wondering how would my party member know to declare herself willing? Could an invisible enemy wizard be near and use benign transposition and then, sans metagaming, would the party member be willing? Is it reasonable to assume, for example, that allies are always willing? What about summoned monsters?

Basically, how do you (or would you) adjudicate this in a game? Since I don't think there are any relevant rules besides the following and I think there's little RAW basis for any standpoint, I'm also quite interested in opinions. So, please no bickering about others' opinions on this.

Some spells restrict you to willing targets only. Declaring yourself as a willing target is something that can be done at any time (even if you’re flat-footed or it isn’t your turn). Unconscious creatures are automatically considered willing, but a character who is conscious but immobile or helpless (such as one who is bound, cowering, grappling, paralyzed, pinned, or stunned) is not automatically willing.

Thanks!

 

[Arkhandus]

No, allies wouldn't always be willing. You could, for example, try zapping them with a Disintegrate, and they're sure not going to just blindly accept whatever the wierd green ray does to them, on the foolish assumption that you're just a completely trustworthy comrade trying to place a buffing spell on them that somehow involves getting zapped by a wierd green ray..... How are they to know that your beneficent spells are not actually harmful or deceptive ones, like Detect Thoughts or Ghoul Touch or whatever?

If an ally has any reason to feel suspicious of you, then they may choose not to be willing subjects of your spells when they feel like it. Adventurers are often opportunistic folks, after all. Surely not all of them are trustworthy.

'Summoned' creatures would certainly be 'willing' towards any spells their summoner casts, since they're inherantly subserviant to the summoner (whereas 'called' creatures would be more like other allies, not automatically willing). If the summoner commands their summoned creatures to accept the magic of the summoner's allies, then the summoned creatures would be 'willing' towards any spells the summoner's allies cast on them.

 

[MarkB]

"Willing" would be a conscious decision, albeit a split-second one: The character knows a spell is being cast upon him, would generally know who's casting it if the caster is in view, and makes a decision whether or not to resist it.

How informed this decision is will be up to the players. As a free action, the caster can tell the subject what spell he's casting, or simply tell him it's a beneficial spell and not to resist. For spells cast on PCs by PCs, that's all you need.

When the spell is being cast upon an NPC, if it really is beneficial you could have him make a Sense Motive check vs. DC0, with circumstance modifiers based upon how likely he thinks it is that the caster would use a benevolent spell upon him. If it is not a beneficial spell, that Sense Motive check will be opposed by the caster's Bluff check, again with appropriate modifiers.

 

[Brace Cormaeril]

I always shout, "hey, allied PC, here comes a benevolent spell!" just before I cast it.

Some folks at my table wanted to talk about tingly feelings from the direction of the guys wiggling his fingers, but I was like "Dude, whatever, google enworld."

If you cast a spell on someone, especially on the first date, they have to be willing. Otherwise, they get a savings throw, if offered by the spell. Basically, no means no.

 

[Pinotage]

Given that talking in combat is a free action, I've always assumed that the spellcasting PC just calls out to his comrade, and then allows the Benign Transposition to take place. In other words, the PC just asks the other PC whether they're willing. At the same time I've always had my PCs using Benign Transposition clearly indicate to their allies that they have the spell prepared, and that they should prepare themselves if she asks the question about whether they want the spellcaster to use it.

Pinotage

 

[Torin Ironfist]

Other than the summon creature bit, anyone can be willing or unwilling to receive any spell. Most groups assume its communicated in some form, or just don't think about in game as the player sits at the table and says to the DM "ok i'm casting cat's grace on player X." For those that want to roleplay it out, or for DMs that really want their PCs to get specific, or any other reason i suppose... Other than your characters speaking any time up to just before the time of casting about the spell being cast, coming up with some signal that its being cast if the communication is nonverbal, or barring that, short of a spellcraft check, a PC or NPC does not know what the spell is, and must make the decision based on their own observations in game (no metagaming!!) whether or not the spell may be beneficial and whether to try and resist it or not.

*edit* sorry by any spell i mean any spell that is viable to be cast on another of course.

 

[Bad Paper]

I tend to go by the much simpler "most beneficial" rule, which is that whatever is most beneficial to the player at that moment, works, unless stated otherwise.

Naturally, I can try to trick them, but I have to explicitly trick them. Otherwise they get all whiny.