Strength of Sensory Signatures

All sorts of conditions may influence the obviousness of a spell; a lightning bolt may be reduced to a dim, distant flash in a deep fog, but the crack of the thunderbolt will still be quite audible! The number of creatures affected by a spell can be used as a rough measure of the strength of a sensory signature, as shown in Table 40 : Sensory Signatures.

For example, a fireball normally affects a 20-foot radius, so it would be considered a huge signature detectable at a range of 500 feet under good visibility conditions. On the other hand, polymorph other affects only one target, so it would be a medium signature spotted at a range of 50 feet. Obviously, the DM has a great deal of latitude here; spells break the rules of the game, and many defy classification.

If the visibility is poor, the ranges listed above could be reduced by as much as 50 to 75 percent. However, simple darkness may not conceal spells with brilliant or fiery effects; if anything, a fireball or lightning bolt is even more visible at nighttime than it is in daylight!

Spells can usually be heard or smelled at half the range they can be seen and felt at one-tenth the visibility range. The roar of a fireball normally carries for 250 feet or so, even if the blast itself is out of sight around a corner or behind a hill. A deafened character who isn’t looking at the blast can still feel the heat of the fireball from as far as 50 feet away. However, sound and smells may not propagate in a perfect circle from the spell’s targeting point—if there’s a strong wind blowing, the faint stench of a stinking cloud may be noticeable a mile or more downwind, while stone walls and large areas of still water may reflect or bounce sounds to several times their normal carrying distance.

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