Worlds of Design: How Subtle is Your Sorcery?

Game designers of tabletop fantasy role-playing games know that spellcasting is a key part of both the game’s mechanics and the world setting. Which is why it’s important to understand a simple but critical concept in a fantasy world: the noticeability of spellcasting. Not many RPG rulesets explicitly state all the conditions for casting a spell. In particular, how much sound volume and movement does spellcasting involve?

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Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

How Much Blast to Your Cast?​

In my days as a Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master, I’ve always ruled that spellcasting requires a noticeable, obvious, effort. If there’s an oral component, it must be spoken loudly; the spell must be more or less proclaimed in a grandiose manner. It would rarely be mistaken for anything other than spellcasting.

Why rule this way? Because I don’t want spellcaster specialists to dominate play. It’s enough that they can blast the enemy into smithereens, let alone be sneaky in their actions! In a different set of rules that don’t enable spellcasters to dominate, there may be reasons to rule differently.

Contrast my ruling with a situation (game or fiction) where a spellcaster can twitch a finger or mutter something to cast a spell. The requirements of casting become very important in stealth. Can a spell be muttered or whispered so that stealth isn’t lost, how much chance is there for someone to notice the spellcasting? Think how much “stealth casting” increases “the power of magic.”

More importantly, a spell that can be cast without anyone noticing is a spell that can’t be easily detected. This makes the spell harder to disrupt as well as trace to who cast it.

Cloaked Conjurations​

Spells that can be concealed bring up important questions. Can the enemy who becomes aware of the casting react soon enough to stop it? D&D specifies casting time, but many games do not. Some games have implemented stopping opposing casting before it’s finished. The ways of counterspelling in older editions of D&D were a bit murky (chiefly revolving around dispel magic).

Even in games with established rulesets like Fifth Edition D&D, noticing and disrupting spells can be a little vague. For example, in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, page 85 “Perceiving a Caster at Work,” there's recommended rules about perceiving a spell being cast and what’s required for it to be perceptible, but the difficulty for the Perception check largely up to the DM. Which is why it's important for both game masters and players to be clear ahead of time of just what's involved in casting spells.

Who Cast That?​

A spell’s “noticeability” has two major parts, sound and vision, though I suppose in special cases there could be a smell associated with casting, or even a “feeling in the air." That is, you can hear a spell being cast, or you can see it being cast, or you can smell or feel it being cast. And you must then recognize that it’s a spell.

In other words, how well can casters disguise what they’re doing, so that it doesn’t appear to be casting? Do opponents/targets need to hear a spell in order to be affected? Spells that affect the opponent’s hearing or affect them through sound probably need to be heard by the target(s).

As we discussed in “How Lethal is Your Magic?” there are serious implications for characters who can be easily identified as spellcasters; spellcasters who can cast spells undetected are an even bigger concern for civilized societies. You could imagine a setting where spellcasters are required to wear certain clothing (think the magician’s pointy hat). This could be by law or by the “rules of magic,” or even hubris as caster's who wants other to know their power hold the item like a badge of honor. The caster might need an arcane focus like a staff; alternately it could be some piece of clothing that every caster is expected to have on their person.

And if an item is involved in casting, that surely extends to magic items that create spell effects. They may well need to be tagged or registered. Given the variability of magic items, some magical detection might be required upon entering certain areas—it’s one thing to peace knot your magic sword, it’s another when a handkerchief or a brooch can cast fireballs.

This has combat implications as well. In a battle, would opponents even recognize that someone was using a magic item? You might think that a wand of fireballs or lightning bolts would be easy to spot in use, but what about more subtle effects, especially ones where you don’t have to point at a target?

Implications of Incantations​

How spells are expressed—be it through sight, sound, or even smell—has wide-ranging implications for fantasy cultures and on the battlefield. Thinking about how your casters cast can change everything, from the complexity of your spell system to how polite society deals with pranksters and assassins. It’s important, but could amount to a lot of rules unless you make it quite simple, as I do.

Special thanks to my wife Sue always for asking the tough questions as I drafted this article.

Your Turn: How sneaky can spellcasters be in your games?
 

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Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio
IMC I hold that all spellcasting has a visual component that tends to glow (its focusing arcane energy which gives off a spark), it will also have a vocal (loud) and somatic component too as various tones, rhythms and movements are used to shape the 'arcanum'. Then theres things like using focus wands, rune casting rituals and blood sacrifices. The visuals are up to PC description - anything from a colourful aura, Dr Strange type circles to Wuxia hand gestures, Fulu Scrolls, Ritual dances to sacrificing a chicken.
When using skill based spell systems, I allow a range of skills to be used (eg Performance can be used for Bardic spellcasting) and metamagics can be used to remove the visual, audible, somatic and material components but these all make the skill check harder (whereas adding more components makes the skill check easier).

So default spellcasting is loud, bright and obvious, but as Spellcasters mature they can use metamagic to make it more subtle
 
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For me, in typical D&D-like games, magic is vulgar and obvious (except when a class feature or special rules says otherwise).

Also gives me a cool opportunity to create magic items that allow "subtle and silent" spells.

Or to establish a villain's power. When everyone else in a setting has to yell their spell (EXPELLIARMUS!!) and the villain can do so without a word... it can have a chilling effect.
 

Casting spells in my game is often an obvious, loud action. One must align themselves with their element, gather the necessary arcane energy, condense the blood or whatever the spell description says. Powerful casters or those with powerful magic items may be able to cast their spells in a more subtle manner but that makes them scary.
If you want a "magic" that you can be far more stealthy while casting, you should give psionics a try, although most communities have laws banning the use of such powers.
 

I was thinking about this a few months ago. The component system can get so fiddly and as a DM I rarely check to see what spell components are, and I agree that making magic obvious and flashy is a good way to balance casters with non-casters. However a couple spells, especially illusion and enchantment need to be sneakily cast. I think better than the component system would be a standard set of rules for to cast a spell "you need to be holding your implement and be able to speak," and then certain spells like the Power Word spells tagged "verbal only" or absorb elements tagged "somatic only" And then with a standard perception check to notice the spell, but with two different tags like "subtle" which halves the DC or "Conspicuous" which doubles the DC. Not sure if I'd ever implement it, but was a fun thought experiment.
 

Special thanks to my wife Sue always for asking the tough questions as I drafted this article.
XP for Sue! (Suepuls?)

Game designers of tabletop fantasy role-playing games know that spellcasting is a key part of both the game’s mechanics and the world setting.
Whoops. My magic system is the fifth module, so I missed "key" by three or four modules!

A spell’s “noticeability” has two major parts, sound and vision, though I suppose in special cases there could be a smell associated with casting, or even a “feeling in the air." That is, you can hear a spell being cast, or you can see it being cast, or you can smell or feel it being cast. And you must then recognize that it’s a spell.
Hold on! This is inspired by Skyrim's shouting dragons . . . but what if spell effects are based primarily on sensing them?

So, you can't be affected by a verbal spell that you can't (couldn't) hear, and a visual spell can't affect any targets that you can't see? Then, a sneaky caster could whisper a spell, but only someone in "whisper range" would be affected by it.

Smell spells would be the go-to for indirect, quiet effects, and depend heavily on airflow. Touch spells would go through everything provided you could shake the ground hard enough.

This has potential, but I'm going let it fester a bit.
 

One of the things I had fun with when I played with my kids was writing an "in-game" scroll for each spell, and in which we clearly identified how each component of the spell worked. Harry Potter makes it a point of having verbal components and somatic gestures (and I guess the arcane focus always being a wand). When you dig into how D&D spells actually work, some of this very clearly shakes out -- say a word, make a gesture, and use a component. Where it gets tricky is what Lew talks about: what if the component is a powder and you're in a windy area or underwater? What if the gesture requires two hands when you have one hand occupied? What if the gesture requires a few fingers and your character is missing some of them? With spells like lightning bolt (an amber, crystal, or glass rod) and fireball (bat poop and sulfur). I'd be frisking every potential wizard for those two components alone!

Of course, D&D sets up a bit of a framework and then leaves it to the group to figure it out. And then, at least in my experience, most of us just ignore the components anyway.
 

I have it that most spells require audible talking (not shouting, but at least normal speaking volume) and very specific hand and-or body movements (which makes them easy to interrupt). A few spells - mostly illusions - can be cast more subtly, but there's still some sound and motion involved.

Device use may or may not be obvious depending on what the device is and what it does. Any kind of wand or staff will always be obvious; ditto any scroll or potion. Worn devices maybe not so much, unless a command word (rare) is needed. Others are case by case.

Also, for the OP, "casting time" particularly for combat spells has largely gone away in the WotC D&D editions; instead they almost all resolve at the same time (as in, on the same action or initiative count) as they are cast. This serves to make casters more powerful in two ways: they resolve faster/sooner within the round on average, and they are much harder to interrupt.
 

I typically run it that magical spells that require speaking have some sound to them, but it can be fairly soft and somatic components aren't necessarily exaggerated. A wizard might be able to stand behind a wall unseen and peer around the corner casting a spell against a couple of guards a short distance away without them noticing.
 

In my main homebrew, it's possible to do most cantrips without being heard or seen - a spellcaster can use them with Stealth without a problem, and generally unless they have obvious effects (such as Firebolt) or the caster is being flamboyant, someone has to be actively looking to spot them being cast. This can make prestidigitation, friends and guidance somewhat potent as they can be sneakily cast on targets to evade detection.

Leveled spells are pretty obvious; anyone who can physically see the caster can tell someone is making Somatic motions (though Arcana to identify the spell), Verbal spells can be whispered, spoken in normal tones or shouted, but they have to be clear enough to make the correct sound(s) - it's possible to use Stealth with them but that has to be an active choice to do so. Material components have to be presented (so they can't be hidden in a sleeve or such), so if someone knows what to look for, they can be outed.

This makes subtle spell fairly valuable for those who want to disguise their magic casting, such as charms.
 

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