Do different types of magic look different?

[SquareKnot]

I've been thinking a lot about the nature and appearance of magic lately. For role-play reasons, it's important for me to know the answer to the following question:

In the game, casting, for example, Negative Energy Ray as a sorcerer and as a cleric looks the same (same animation plays, same vfx, same sound effect). The same message appears in the server window, so even the metagaming player can't tell the difference. But can a character observe a spellcaster casting a spell and know whether the spell being cast is natural (sorcerer), learned (wizard), or divine (cleric)? What if the character was one of those types of casters? For example, could a wizard say that another spellcaster was definitely not using wizardly magic? What about someone with a high SpellCraft score?

If it is possible to know the difference, how would one go about RPing this? Do a spellcraft dicebag roll? Send a tell to the player, asking what branch of magic they use? Both?

Thanks

[miltonyorkcastle]

okay, I'm not a DM, but as I understand it, magic on Layonara is all the same, no matter who uses it, casts it, or whatever.  It's speculated as to whether it's governed or embodied by Lucinda, but the other god's tap into the same source that she controls.  With Divine magic, it is simply granted (hence the no spell failure, but needs prayer and somewhat limited in variety) whereas with Arcane, it is actually 'woven', or worked, to produce the effect (so, spell failure but with much greater variety and power), but the magic itself is the same. So, to answer your question, a certain spell, cast by any type of caster is still the same spell, so long as it produces the same effect.  As such, a caster could, by only using certain spells, in fact disguise himself as numerous types of casters (which would be a very interesting character to play).  Since the magic is the same, it should look, feel, smell, etc., the same, no matter who casts the spell.  Once again, that's just how I understand it.  I'm curious to see how I'm corrected when a DM sees this.

[D Blaze]

Well, a cleric would may say a special prayer,
a wizard might say a string of bizarre word, with hand motions.
all with the same effect

neverwinter nights can't really pull that off though.

Many spells cross various caster classes, but many are unique to a given class.
casting Mage Armor, Shield, Fireball are obviously arcane,
while healing spells or trying to turn undead easily mark a clerical type.

The Spellcraft roll is done at the time of casting, and lets you know (not necessarily what the caster is) but what the desired outcome they are trying to bring forth (the spell name). A higher spellcraft skill lets you identify what is happening more easily. Then you can take what you learn from there.

[Dorganath]

On a GM-led quest, pretty much anyone with half a point of Spellcraft can tell the difference between arcane and divine magic.  All magic on Layonara comes from the Weave.  Arcane casters channel it directly, divine casters have it "filtered" through their respecive deities (or "nature" for druids/rangers). 
  NWN however makes no distinction between the two types of magic EXCEPT when a particular spell does damage of type "Magical" or "Divine". Also spell failure due to armor doesn't affect divine casters at all.
  This is one of those game mechanics things that can be handled with a GM present but not during normal play.

[SquareKnot]

Right, it's the whole "caster of one kind trying to pretend to be another" theme that I'm interested in. That's what inspired the question.

And as to some spells making it obvious what the caster type is, first that would assume some extensive knowledge of the magical type. Does a typical farmer know that Fireball is only an arcane spell? Probably not. To a commoner, it would make some sense for a priest of Pyrtechon to have that ability. But a wizard might know that it's an arcane ability, or a cleric might know that no priest he'd ever seen could cast a fireball. Which was the other part of my question about casters of one type knowing whether a spell was one type or another. So how to play that knowledge? I was thinking that if a character started to get curious, a dicebag roll might persuade the player to reveal whether the spell was a certain type or not. It would have to be worked out in tells between the players, most likely.

Many spells cross various caster classes, but many are unique to a given class.
casting Mage Armor, Shield, Fireball are obviously arcane,
while healing spells or trying to turn undead easily mark a clerical type.

Except a bard can cast Cure Light Wounds as an arcane spell, and a cleric of Lucinda with Magic domain can cast Mage Armor

On a GM-led quest, pretty much anyone with half a point of Spellcraft can tell the difference between arcane and divine magic.  All magic on Layonara comes from the Weave.  Arcane casters channel it directly, divine casters have it "filtered" through their respecive deities (or "nature" for druids/rangers).

Drat. That's what I was afraid of. I was trying to pass off divine for arcane to someone who was a cleric and a wizard. Guess that probably wouldn't work.

Thanks everyone.

[Fiddle_Snuff]

In other servers I prefere to pretend I dont know any devine spells if im a mage or a sorcerer even if my spellcraft picks it up as what it is, so if someone casts Entropic Shield I play dumb because ive never odviously come across that spell in any arcane books or heard any wizards or sorcerers cast it before. Its sort of like when I hear someone speaking german, I can sorta tell its german becausse of its sound but ive no idea what it means or anything or even what contexts its in.

I dont suppose anyone would mind if I do that here? It just makes it easyer on me. I'll understand its not an arcane spell and I'll say 'its devine I know that but...' what it does is beyond me completly.