(3.5) Listen Check questions

[Claudius Maximus]

I was wondering if anyone had any insights on how to handle listen checks under the following situations:

Magical flight - Does this make any kind of sound? I figure that magical flight is silent, and you'd only hear air resistance. How would you handle detecting someone under the effects of a Fly spell with listen?

Casting a spell - If casting a spell with a verbal component involves speaking, what's the listen check to hear someone casting a spell? Is it possible to whisper?

If there are rules for these, please tell me where I can find them. If there are none, then feel free to suggest something you feel makes sense.

[ericgrau]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverv...htm#components
(Magic Overview => spell descriptions => components)

Verbal (V)
A verbal component is a spoken incantation. To provide a verbal component, you must be able to speak in a strong voice. A silence spell or a gag spoils the incantation (and thus the spell). A spellcaster who has been deafened has a 20% chance to spoil any spell with a verbal component that he or she tries to cast.

The listen DC to hear someone talking is 0. To make out what he's saying, the DC is 10. A spellcraft check DC 15 + spell level identifies a spell being cast if you can hear the verbal component or see the somatic component. A lot of people would still realize it's some kind of spell being cast even if they don't know which one.

To cast a spell without being heard you'd need the silent spell feat, the bard spell zone of silence or a silence spell cast between you and the listener (but not on top of you).

I found no special rules given for magical flight, so technically you'd have to make a move silently check as normal since flight is just another form of movement. Even an owl who glides with famous silence without flapping merely gets a bonus to his move silently checks (see monster manuall). Conceptually stuff jangles and clinks, you make wooshing noises, you make breathing noises, etc. In fact, I'd say you make a lot more noise than an aerodynamic bird in glide mode (they don't flap when they want to quietly catch prey). I could understand the DM giving an ad hoc bonus to move silently checks, but by no means are you completely silent if you're flying magically. Also remember there's a -1 penalty to listen checks per 10 feet of distance, so that helps.

[Chronos]

Flight (magical or otherwise) would also negate a variety of circumstance penalties to Move Silently: You don't care about dry leaves on the forest floor if you're not on the forest floor. And you might even be able to talk your DM into a circumstance bonus of +2 or so. But you're still wearing clothes that swish, possibly jewelry or other items that jangle, you're still breathing, etc., so it certainly wouldn't give you total silence.

[elonin]

Not that logic applies to dnd but to the extent that it does the owl using winged flight would have the woosh of it's wings. Magical flight or levitation doesn't necessarily involve sound on it's own. That said there are other possible sources of noise.