Question about enchantment-type spells

[Temperjoke]

So, hypothetical situation: Lets say you have a player who attempts to cast an enchantment-type spell on a fairly intelligent enemy (or even another player for the sake of argument). The enemy makes their save throw and resists being enchanted. However, the enemy chooses to pretend that the spell succeeded in an attempt to catch the caster off-guard. Outside of seeing the saving roll, or being told that the spell failed, would the caster have any way to actually know their spell failed? Assuming the enemy didn't raise suspicion in their attempt to pretend that the spell worked, I mean. For example Charm Person says that the enemy regards you as a "friendly acquaintance" so if the enemy recognized the spell (for argument's sake we'll assume that they're a magic-user who could recognize spells like that, I'm not as concerned about who could perform this way) and acted as a friendly acquaintance to feed false information, would the caster know their spell had failed to work, despite the enemy's actions?

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

This question isn't really answerable since we don't know how magic works. We only really know it's inputs and outputs; Magic is a black box mechanism. We have no idea how looks, sounds, tastes, smells or feels in practice. So whether a caster can tell somehow when their spell lands or not based on things other than the final mechanical effect is an unknown.

Obligatory: Ask your DM.

[Temperjoke]

Obligatory: Ask your DM.

Understandable, but as many people here are DMs, as well as more in the loop regarding rulings that have been made, not to mention how it was played in past editions, I thought I'd see what people thought. Not to mention, many times having resources that you can cite can help DMs with making rulings, like if they see it one way, but every other person talked to see it differently, they might decide to change their view.

[SharkForce]

the general rule throughout previous editions of D&D has been that you cannot fake it. whether you wish to treat that as precedence or use it as a basis for a ruling is up to you.

[Tanarii]

Is recognizing what spell is being cast even possible? Without an effect (since it's a failed spell), or a specific material component that is unique to the spell and seen, how would you know what spell was cast? Or is being cast? There's nothing to indicate that a given spell requires specific V or S components that are unique to the spell *and* common to every caster of the spell. There's nothing that even says a given caster casting a given spell uses the same S component when casting in conjunction with a focus that he uses in conjunction with an M component. And while Arcane allows you to recall lore about spells, there's nothing to indicate it lets you figure out which spell is being cast.

Just figuring that part out alone would be a "ask your DM" / campaign-setting specific question. Let alone the question of if you could fake the charmed status.

Edit: I'm going to start a separate thread for this topic, since you specified an assumption that it *is* possible to recognize the spell being cast.

[hymer]

the general rule throughout previous editions of D&D has been that you cannot fake it. whether you wish to treat that as precedence or use it as a basis for a ruling is up to you.

All of them, or are there specific ones you're referring to?

[Edenbeast]

I would say yes, it is possible. Considering the target gets advantage under unfavorable conditions (e.g. attacked by party members), he is well aware that someone tries to charm him/her. Unfortunately we don't get much information on how magic really works, but IMO the caster doesn't know if his spells fail. The result of a fireball is visible through either the targets burning, or jumping away in time. For other spells it is less clear, but I'd say that the only que a pc gets on whether his spell was cast successfully are the visible results, and not some mental link with the spell.
However, since the target is trying to deceive the players by pretending he was charmed, he does use Deception, so the players are allowed to roll for Insight to see trough his lie. You can do this all in secret behind your DM screen off course, just to keep things exciting.

[SharkForce]

All of them, or are there specific ones you're referring to?

they pretty much all ran from the same 2 spells, and iirc the 2 base spells (one was a charm, the other a dominate) both said you couldn't fool anyone into thinking you failed the save iirc. could be wrong though.

[smcmike]

Question 1 - does the target of the spell know he was targeted, and by what? If he saw the spell cast, this sounds like an arcana check, right?

Question 2 - do spellcasters (automatically) know if saves are made? Zone of Truth specifies otherwise, suggesting that the general rule is no.

Seems to me that it should be possible to pretend and play along, then, under the right circumstances.