Benign transposition

[Belgarath345]

My sorcerer picked up Benign Transposition spell and I have a small question concerning it.

Lets say our party rogue scouts ahead and are ambushed. The next hit will kill him. I want to switch him with our fighter but lets say that for some reason he cant hear me so I cant tell him whats about to happen.
Does he know that it is a friendly spell being cast?
And is he automatically considered willing considering that It's a bennificial spell?
If he was unconsius he would automatically be considered willing I believe but I just dont know if the same applies when he is up and running and does not know whats about to happen.

Thanks in advance

[bjoern]

We have had this exact same issue before.
The way we handle it is to use tactics in battle. After several battles, we have reused the same tactics several times. At some point the party begins to know what the others are going to in certain situations. For example, the rogue knows that when he goes ahead, that the caster has got his back and will port him out of there if things go sideways. So the whole time, the rogue knows that a transposition is coming from his support teammate

[Boost]

My sorcerer picked up Benign Transposition spell and I have a small question concerning it.

Lets say our party rogue scouts ahead and are ambushed. The next hit will kill him. I want to switch him with our fighter but lets say that for some reason he cant hear me so I cant tell him whats about to happen.

First, the range on Benign Transposition is only 100' + 10'/level, so you're probably within 200 feet of him. From 200 feet he can definitely hear you shout at him. But let's say he's temporarily deafened or there's some major background noise and the rogue fails a listen check.


Does he know that it is a friendly spell being cast?

Technically, he would need to make a Spellcraft check to know anything about the spell being cast on him. If he had cross class ranks in Spellcraft he could identify the spell as Benign Transposition, realize it's you casting it (because he knows you have that spell and you can assume the PCs discussed the strategic value of its use). Otherwise, knowing it's "friendly" would be a question of perception... is he surrounded by enemy melee warriors? Then he knows none of the enemies are casting the spell. Is there an enemy caster in front of him? Well, he can see the enemy caster didn't move his hands or chant, so odds are that's not who is casting it. If I were the rogue in question, my "gut" would tell me this is a friendly effect. Whereas if I saw an enemy in front of me wave his hands at me while speaking gobbledegook and then I felt a magical tingling on my body, I'd resist because I'm guessing the enemy is the one affecting me.

If I were the DM in this situation and there were any doubt, I might call for a Sense Motive check for him to guess that none of his opponents are currently trying to harm him with a spell.



And is he automatically considered willing considering that It's a bennificial spell?

No, because "beneficial" can mean a lot of things. There's plenty of situations in which someone wouldn't want to be teleported, even if it's for their own safety. Such as if instead of the rogue it were the paladin and he refused to back down from the fight, or he insisted on holding off the foes in order to give his allies more time to escape. In that case he might not be willing to let a friend take his place in the middle of all that danger.

Beyond all that, you can simply have your sorcerer say to the rogue, "If you're in danger I'll be casting a spell to teleport you out, so be ready for it." Then the rogue WILL know that it's you, because you told him before he started scouting, and therefore he'll be willing.