And this is the issue with Silvery Barbs. It doesn't trigger on an perceivable in-game event, it triggers on real world meta knowledge which the character would never have and AFAIK it is the only reaction spell that does so. Shield triggers on "you are hit by an attack", Absorb Elements on "you take ... damage", Soul Cage on "a humanoid dies", Hellish Rebuke on "being damage by a creature" and the rest are the same. All have a bit more words than I CBA to type but they all refer to in-game events that the character can see or feel while SB doesn't.
That's not remotely true. Success on most rolls is absolutely perceptible by a character. Characters don't need to know what an attack roll is to know what succeeding on an attack roll looks like. Taking damage means something very different in rules terms than it does within the fiction of the game. A character would not feel themselves taking damage in the in-fiction sense until they're below half health. There is zero difference between "takes damage" and "succeeds on an attack roll" in terms of whether or not a character can perceive the event, at least within that language itself. The specific situation may lead to some difference.
The original question is about how casting a spell using Subtle Spell interacts with Silvery Barbs.
The answer is -- it doesn't.
Agreed, they use completely separate concepts for how they work.
RAW ... I agree ... there is no interaction because SB relies on metagame knowledge and not character knowledge.
However, consider a situation in which a team mate casts a suble charm person on the BBEG in order to avoid counterspell. The BBEG can't perceive the casting but neither can the team mates of the caster. Charm person has no visible effect. The target may have no idea they have been charmed while the effect is in place. However, similarly, the rest of the caster's party also doesn't know whether the target was charmed or not from an in game character perspective until something happens to indicate whether the charm was effective or not.
So from a character and NPC perspective, the only one who knows a spell was cast is the subtle spell caster and they may not even know if the spell was effective (except perhaps due to not needing to concentrate on the spell).
How does any other character in the party know that they could cast SB since the BBEG succeeded on their saving throw when the character has no idea that a spell was even cast, let alone the result of the spell?
In order for SB to work, all the players must be informed that the BBEG succeeded on a save against charm even though only one character might be aware a spell was even cast, just so the players would have the opportunity to have their character cast SB and try to change the result even though the character has no way, in game, to have this knowledge.
This is really the fundamental issue with the way SB is written, it implicitly assumes that the characters are aware of everything that the player knows in terms of game mechanics in order to allow for the SB trigger to occur.
To make the situation even worse, for DMs that do not share all their die rolls with the players, perhaps because they prefer the players to have some uncertainty about the to hit modifiers/AC and other game mechanics applicable to the NPCs, then it is quite possible for the players to not have access to all of the metagame knowledge needed to effectively use SB. Critical hits for example are a meta game concept - it is a hit that is particularly effective but the characters do not know that until AFTER the damage has been assigned not when the critical hit is rolled. The characters might know that a hit has been scored but not how effective it might be until after the damage is resolved. So, cherry picking critical hits for the application of SB also relies on information that is available to the player but not necessarily to the character.
RAW ... SB simply uses a meta game trigger that forces the DM to share all successful die rolls with the players so they can choose when to cast SB in response to a successful roll. Since the main application of SB is to turn success into failure, it is usually used against the NPCs rather than other PCs and thus triggering it requires the DM to share all to hit die rolls, ability checks and saving throw results for every NPC with the players so that Silvery Barbs can be triggered. SB forces a particular style of play and also forces the DM to share metagame knowledge that the characters would be unaware of. This is really the fundamental issue and problem with SB, it's use is predicated on a level of player knowledge that may not be compatible with how every DM runs their game. It is also predicated on the player knowledge being used to direct character actions even when there is no in game indication that such a trigger might have occurred ... the character, RAW, can still choose to cast SB out of the blue for no other reason than "a being on a higher plane" knows something the character does not.
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I don't think anyone here is arguing about the RAW in this situation - the trigger is pretty simply defined. The problem is that the trigger is one that the player knows about, not the character which has implications for in game continuity and requires suspension of disbelief when the character chooses to use SB without any in game indication that the use is justified. RAW it's fine, in game it can sometimes make no sense at all. In addition, mechanically, the use of SB requires the DM to share the results of every attack roll, save, and ability check with the players, even when the DM might not want to share that information if only to allow for some uncertainty on the players part in terms of whether their tactic worked or not.
TL;DR RAW, SB triggers on metagame knowledge and has no interaction with subtle spell or any other game mechanics. This just causes some possible issues with logic, continuity and character knowledge that can make no sense from a narrative perspective because the player is using metagame knowledge to have the character take actions that the character would have no in game reason to take.
So, including SB in a game just means that the players need access to the die rolls and success or failure information of all the NPCs so that they can choose when the character can use the spell - whether that makes any logical sense or not. However, it works fine RAW.
The original question is about how casting a spell using Subtle Spell interacts with Silvery Barbs.
The answer is -- it doesn't.
Agreed, they use completely separate concepts for how they work.
RAW ... I agree ... there is no interaction because SB relies on metagame knowledge and not character knowledge.
I agree with a lot of what you've just said about the Silvery Barbs spell. But this is not the reason why there is no interaction between Subtle Spell and Silvery Barbs. See my previous post -- Subtle Spell affects the casting of the spell and Silvery Barbs cannot be cast in response to the casting of a spell. It's two separate game mechanics.
As an easy example, consider the spell Magic Missile. Silvery Barbs cannot do anything about Magic Missile. This is because Magic Missile's effect does not require an attack roll or an ability check or a saving throw, and those are the only events which can trigger the casting of Silvery Barbs. Silvery Barbs is effective against a lot of other spells because the spell's effect requires dice rolls.
Note that it does not matter if you use Subtle Spell to cast Magic Missile or not. Likewise, it also does not matter if you use Subtle Spell to cast any other spell. Silvery Barbs only cares about dice rolls. Using Subtle Spell does not require and also does not prevent the usage of dice rolls because it only impacts the casting of the spell, not the spell's effect.
That's not remotely true. Success on most rolls is absolutely perceptible by a character. Characters don't need to know what an attack roll is to know what succeeding on an attack roll looks like.
You might just view this as a distinction without a difference, but what characters would perceive is not success or failure on a roll. It's the effects of success or failure on a roll
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That's not remotely true. Success on most rolls is absolutely perceptible by a character. Characters don't need to know what an attack roll is to know what succeeding on an attack roll looks like.
You might just view this as a distinction without a difference, but what characters would perceive is not success or failure on a roll. It's the effects of success or failure on a roll
That's not true at all. A hit is not the effect of a successful attack roll. A hit is a successful attack roll. A damage roll is the effect of a successful attack roll. If you try to maintain this sort of hard barrier between the mechanics and the fiction, a lot of effects are going to break down.
That's not remotely true. Success on most rolls is absolutely perceptible by a character. Characters don't need to know what an attack roll is to know what succeeding on an attack roll looks like.
You might just view this as a distinction without a difference, but what characters would perceive is not success or failure on a roll. It's the effects of success or failure on a roll
And success on Dex and Str checks and saves would very often be perceptible, but 100% not on Con, Wis, Int, Cha checks and saves. How do you know whether that NPC was able to suss out the history of the artifact? Or to get a feeling on whether or not you are being genuine? You don't, unless you have Silvery Barbs in your spell list. Then you know all!
No, you do not know all. You always only know what the GM tells you.
That's not true at all. A hit is not the effect of a successful attack roll. A hit is a successful attack roll
No, that's simply flat out wrong. You are very much confusing the meal for the menu there, I'm afraid. When a character hits a zombie with a sword, no dice are involved within the reality of the game world
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
That's not true at all. A hit is not the effect of a successful attack roll. A hit is a successful attack roll
No, that's simply flat out wrong. You are very much confusing the meal for the menu there, I'm afraid. When a character hits a zombie with a sword, no dice are involved within the reality of the game world
You've excised the relevant part of my comment here; if you continue to pretend that the "reality of the game world" is somehow walled off from the game that we are playing, that there is no interaction between the fiction and the mechanics, then any attempt to understand the rules fails. The text of the game consistently, throughout its body, mixes the mechanics with the imaginary action the mechanics are modeling. The game treats them as one and the same. You want to pretend they are distinct things, but the foundational request that a roleplaying game makes of you is to imagine that they are the same.
Most of the time in a game where an attack roll or saving throw may trigger silvery barbsits perceivable because the target either can be seen attacking a PC or making a saving throw against a PC effect.
Most of the time in a game where an attack roll or saving throw may trigger silvery barbsits perceivable because the target either can be seen attacking a PC or making a saving throw against a PC effect.
The rest are corner cases.
How do you see someone making a saving throw against Charm Person? And how do you see whether they succeeded or not (aside from them doing something uncharacteristic on their next turn, when it is too late for SB)?
And success on Dex and Str checks and saves would very often be perceptible, but 100% not on Con, Wis, Int, Cha checks and saves. How do you know whether that NPC was able to suss out the history of the artifact? Or to get a feeling on whether or not you are being genuine? You don't, unless you have Silvery Barbs in your spell list. Then you know all!
No, you do not know all. You always only know what the GM tells you.
So you are in favor of house ruling Silvery Barbs because it is poorly written?
I think in theory, it would be a lot cleaner if it said "when you see a creature succeed" instead of "when a creature you can see succeeds." But I think that, in practice, it's fine as-is. Nothing about it obligates a GM to share with the player any information they don't think the character would reasonably have access to, and a GM stopping to announce every successful roll would create a very un-fun gameplay experience, so as I said earlier, what I expect most GMs to do is to just not tell players things their characters wouldn't know and move on with their lives. And within that paradigm, the actual play experience is basically identical to the suggested rewording of the trigger, while remaining 100% in alignment with the rules. No house rule is required for it to be both functional and fun.
@ArntItheBest These trigger are part of corner case. Most of the time Silvery Barbs is cast by a PC on a monster to make it reroll a successful attack roll or saving throw. In your example chances are one party member is trying to charm said monster and the party knows.
@ArntItheBest These trigger are part of corner case. Most of the time Silvery Barbs is cast by a PC on a monster to make it reroll a successful attack roll or saving throw. In your example chances are one party member is trying to charm said monster and the party knows.
But how do you perceive a success versus a failure on the vast majority of Con, Int, Wis, and Cha saves? Those are not corner cases! How do you tell that a target has succeeded on a Con save against Contagion? Only the caster would be able to even know what they are looking for.
What is the indication that a target succeeded against Divine Word? You don't know their number of hit points. There would only be an indication that they failed if they were below 20, no chance to see if they succeeded. How do you know that Geas took effect until the target's next turn?
These are not corner cases; these are probably one of the biggest uses of Silvery Barbs outside of negating a crit. And the DM refusing to tell the player whether a roll was a success or failure is going to seriously hamper their ability to use the spell, at which point they might ask to be able to retcon to a different spell.
The problem with Silvery Barbs is that it necessarily either makes a caster omnipotent within 60 feet (RAW) or is virtually unusable (Homebrew). It is a badly written spell that RAW is broken beyond belief.
And success on Dex and Str checks and saves would very often be perceptible, but 100% not on Con, Wis, Int, Cha checks and saves. How do you know whether that NPC was able to suss out the history of the artifact? Or to get a feeling on whether or not you are being genuine? You don't, unless you have Silvery Barbs in your spell list. Then you know all!
No, you do not know all. You always only know what the GM tells you.
So you are in favor of house ruling Silvery Barbs because it is poorly written?
I think in theory, it would be a lot cleaner if it said "when you see a creature succeed" instead of "when a creature you can see succeeds." But I think that, in practice, it's fine as-is. Nothing about it obligates a GM to share with the player any information they don't think the character would reasonably have access to, and a GM stopping to announce every successful roll would create a very un-fun gameplay experience, so as I said earlier, what I expect most GMs to do is to just not tell players things their characters wouldn't know and move on with their lives. And within that paradigm, the actual play experience is basically identical to the suggested rewording of the trigger, while remaining 100% in alignment with the rules. No house rule is required for it to be both functional and fun.
You say how you would house rule it so that you don't have to house rule it? Having Silvery Barbs prepared or know allows the caster to know the result of every attack, check, or save roll of every creature they can see within 60 ft.
You cannot use SB at all if you don't know what your character doesn't know, as it is triggered 100% off of meta knowledge. Did that attack connect or were they able to block it with their shield? A character has no idea, as HP is an abstraction. In the instant that you have to make your reaction, you really wouldn't even be able to tell if a target failed on a Hold Person.
And success on Dex and Str checks and saves would very often be perceptible, but 100% not on Con, Wis, Int, Cha checks and saves. How do you know whether that NPC was able to suss out the history of the artifact? Or to get a feeling on whether or not you are being genuine? You don't, unless you have Silvery Barbs in your spell list. Then you know all!
No, you do not know all. You always only know what the GM tells you.
So you are in favor of house ruling Silvery Barbs because it is poorly written?
I think in theory, it would be a lot cleaner if it said "when you see a creature succeed" instead of "when a creature you can see succeeds." But I think that, in practice, it's fine as-is. Nothing about it obligates a GM to share with the player any information they don't think the character would reasonably have access to, and a GM stopping to announce every successful roll would create a very un-fun gameplay experience, so as I said earlier, what I expect most GMs to do is to just not tell players things their characters wouldn't know and move on with their lives. And within that paradigm, the actual play experience is basically identical to the suggested rewording of the trigger, while remaining 100% in alignment with the rules. No house rule is required for it to be both functional and fun.
You say how you would house rule it so that you don't have to house rule it? Having Silvery Barbs prepared or know allows the caster to know the result of every attack, check, or save roll of every creature they can see within 60 ft.
It's not a house rule. If you can provide any rules text to support the notion that the GM must inform players when the triggers of all their reactions are fulfilled, I'd love to see it.
ArntItheBest Most spell you described have perceivable effects and would be cast by a PC on a monster and rely on a metagame mechanic to be resolved, which the PC should know.
It's not a house rule. If you can provide any rules text to support the notion that the GM must inform players when the triggers of all their reactions are fulfilled, I'd love to see it.
A DM can choose to run their game however they like. No one disputes this. One of the problems with SB is that the trigger rests on knowledge that ONLY the DM can be guaranteed to know. Only the DM knows all the die rolls made by NPCs. Players may not and characters have no idea what a die roll is in the first place. Characters can only perceive effects.
A DM is under no obligation to tell the players ANY of the die rolls made by NPCs. They don't have to tell them when a critical hit is rolled, they don't have to tell them if a creature passed or failed a save. The characters learn whether this happens when a perceivable effect occurs. The player is informed that an attack hit when the DM says the attack hit and will cause damage. If there is no visible effect from a successful or failed saving throw, the DM doesn't have to tell the players whether the saving throw succeeded or failed. The players learn whether it was successful or not when visible consequences occur.
For example, a player casts Command on a creature to grovel. The effects of the Command spell do not occur until that creature's next turn. There is no indication whether that save was successful or not and the DM is under no obligation to inform the players.
EXCEPT, the trigger for Silvery Barbs is "which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw"
This trigger does not say "if the DM chooses to tell you" - SB can trigger on any appropriate die roll and if the spell is in play it is incumbent upon the DM to notify the player when the spell's trigger has been activated so that the player/character can choose to use it or not.
The DM can of course choose not to do so but this is effectively house ruling that the SB trigger is "which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw that the DM chooses to tell you" and not on every such die roll.
This is one of the fundamental problems with SB and its metagame trigger. The only person at the table who is guaranteed to know that SB can be cast is the DM. Is there any implied obligation for the DM to inform the player when the spell can be cast because the character is within range of a creature they can see that happens to succeed at something that is completely imperceptible in game?
P.S. My house rule is that Silvery Barbs is never available in any game I run :) .. this makes dealing with issues like this quite straight forward. :)
There's a minimum of game transparency expected. PC casting spells should be told if their target's saving throw succeed or fail, usually the spell's effect depends on it for result. Afterall, a saving throw is an instant response to a harmful effect and is almost never done by choice and usually it's specified in the PC's spell or feature the kind of saving throw the target must make and its effect in case of success or failure resulting from it.
Likewise most of the time when attacked, PC should also be told if said attack hit or miss since they suffer the consequences.
Especially because PC have abilities often relying on metagame knowledge.
There may be corner case where its not appropriate but like i said, most of the time Silvery Barbs is cast by a PC on a NPC or monster as a result casting a spell at them or suffering an attack from them.
ArntItheBest Most spell you described have perceivable effects and would be cast by a PC on a monster and rely on a metagame mechanic to be resolved, which the PC should know.
Can you tell me what the perceivable effects are when the target succeeds on a save? That was my question.
ArntItheBest Most spell you described have perceivable effects and would be cast by a PC on a monster and rely on a metagame mechanic to be resolved, which the PC should know.
Can you tell me what the perceivable effects are when the target succeeds on a save? That was my question.
It's in the spell's description.
But before it occur, if reaction hinges on metagame to trigger, the caster must be told or he will never be able to use them.
That's not remotely true. Success on most rolls is absolutely perceptible by a character. Characters don't need to know what an attack roll is to know what succeeding on an attack roll looks like. Taking damage means something very different in rules terms than it does within the fiction of the game. A character would not feel themselves taking damage in the in-fiction sense until they're below half health. There is zero difference between "takes damage" and "succeeds on an attack roll" in terms of whether or not a character can perceive the event, at least within that language itself. The specific situation may lead to some difference.
RAW ... I agree ... there is no interaction because SB relies on metagame knowledge and not character knowledge.
However, consider a situation in which a team mate casts a suble charm person on the BBEG in order to avoid counterspell. The BBEG can't perceive the casting but neither can the team mates of the caster. Charm person has no visible effect. The target may have no idea they have been charmed while the effect is in place. However, similarly, the rest of the caster's party also doesn't know whether the target was charmed or not from an in game character perspective until something happens to indicate whether the charm was effective or not.
So from a character and NPC perspective, the only one who knows a spell was cast is the subtle spell caster and they may not even know if the spell was effective (except perhaps due to not needing to concentrate on the spell).
How does any other character in the party know that they could cast SB since the BBEG succeeded on their saving throw when the character has no idea that a spell was even cast, let alone the result of the spell?
In order for SB to work, all the players must be informed that the BBEG succeeded on a save against charm even though only one character might be aware a spell was even cast, just so the players would have the opportunity to have their character cast SB and try to change the result even though the character has no way, in game, to have this knowledge.
This is really the fundamental issue with the way SB is written, it implicitly assumes that the characters are aware of everything that the player knows in terms of game mechanics in order to allow for the SB trigger to occur.
To make the situation even worse, for DMs that do not share all their die rolls with the players, perhaps because they prefer the players to have some uncertainty about the to hit modifiers/AC and other game mechanics applicable to the NPCs, then it is quite possible for the players to not have access to all of the metagame knowledge needed to effectively use SB. Critical hits for example are a meta game concept - it is a hit that is particularly effective but the characters do not know that until AFTER the damage has been assigned not when the critical hit is rolled. The characters might know that a hit has been scored but not how effective it might be until after the damage is resolved. So, cherry picking critical hits for the application of SB also relies on information that is available to the player but not necessarily to the character.
RAW ... SB simply uses a meta game trigger that forces the DM to share all successful die rolls with the players so they can choose when to cast SB in response to a successful roll. Since the main application of SB is to turn success into failure, it is usually used against the NPCs rather than other PCs and thus triggering it requires the DM to share all to hit die rolls, ability checks and saving throw results for every NPC with the players so that Silvery Barbs can be triggered. SB forces a particular style of play and also forces the DM to share metagame knowledge that the characters would be unaware of. This is really the fundamental issue and problem with SB, it's use is predicated on a level of player knowledge that may not be compatible with how every DM runs their game. It is also predicated on the player knowledge being used to direct character actions even when there is no in game indication that such a trigger might have occurred ... the character, RAW, can still choose to cast SB out of the blue for no other reason than "a being on a higher plane" knows something the character does not.
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I don't think anyone here is arguing about the RAW in this situation - the trigger is pretty simply defined. The problem is that the trigger is one that the player knows about, not the character which has implications for in game continuity and requires suspension of disbelief when the character chooses to use SB without any in game indication that the use is justified. RAW it's fine, in game it can sometimes make no sense at all. In addition, mechanically, the use of SB requires the DM to share the results of every attack roll, save, and ability check with the players, even when the DM might not want to share that information if only to allow for some uncertainty on the players part in terms of whether their tactic worked or not.
TL;DR RAW, SB triggers on metagame knowledge and has no interaction with subtle spell or any other game mechanics. This just causes some possible issues with logic, continuity and character knowledge that can make no sense from a narrative perspective because the player is using metagame knowledge to have the character take actions that the character would have no in game reason to take.
So, including SB in a game just means that the players need access to the die rolls and success or failure information of all the NPCs so that they can choose when the character can use the spell - whether that makes any logical sense or not. However, it works fine RAW.
I agree with a lot of what you've just said about the Silvery Barbs spell. But this is not the reason why there is no interaction between Subtle Spell and Silvery Barbs. See my previous post -- Subtle Spell affects the casting of the spell and Silvery Barbs cannot be cast in response to the casting of a spell. It's two separate game mechanics.
As an easy example, consider the spell Magic Missile. Silvery Barbs cannot do anything about Magic Missile. This is because Magic Missile's effect does not require an attack roll or an ability check or a saving throw, and those are the only events which can trigger the casting of Silvery Barbs. Silvery Barbs is effective against a lot of other spells because the spell's effect requires dice rolls.
Note that it does not matter if you use Subtle Spell to cast Magic Missile or not. Likewise, it also does not matter if you use Subtle Spell to cast any other spell. Silvery Barbs only cares about dice rolls. Using Subtle Spell does not require and also does not prevent the usage of dice rolls because it only impacts the casting of the spell, not the spell's effect.
You might just view this as a distinction without a difference, but what characters would perceive is not success or failure on a roll. It's the effects of success or failure on a roll
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
That's not true at all. A hit is not the effect of a successful attack roll. A hit is a successful attack roll. A damage roll is the effect of a successful attack roll. If you try to maintain this sort of hard barrier between the mechanics and the fiction, a lot of effects are going to break down.
No, you do not know all. You always only know what the GM tells you.
No, that's simply flat out wrong. You are very much confusing the meal for the menu there, I'm afraid. When a character hits a zombie with a sword, no dice are involved within the reality of the game world
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You've excised the relevant part of my comment here; if you continue to pretend that the "reality of the game world" is somehow walled off from the game that we are playing, that there is no interaction between the fiction and the mechanics, then any attempt to understand the rules fails. The text of the game consistently, throughout its body, mixes the mechanics with the imaginary action the mechanics are modeling. The game treats them as one and the same. You want to pretend they are distinct things, but the foundational request that a roleplaying game makes of you is to imagine that they are the same.
Most of the time in a game where an attack roll or saving throw may trigger silvery barbs its perceivable because the target either can be seen attacking a PC or making a saving throw against a PC effect.
The rest are corner cases.
How do you see someone making a saving throw against Charm Person? And how do you see whether they succeeded or not (aside from them doing something uncharacteristic on their next turn, when it is too late for SB)?
I think in theory, it would be a lot cleaner if it said "when you see a creature succeed" instead of "when a creature you can see succeeds." But I think that, in practice, it's fine as-is. Nothing about it obligates a GM to share with the player any information they don't think the character would reasonably have access to, and a GM stopping to announce every successful roll would create a very un-fun gameplay experience, so as I said earlier, what I expect most GMs to do is to just not tell players things their characters wouldn't know and move on with their lives. And within that paradigm, the actual play experience is basically identical to the suggested rewording of the trigger, while remaining 100% in alignment with the rules. No house rule is required for it to be both functional and fun.
@ArntItheBest These trigger are part of corner case. Most of the time Silvery Barbs is cast by a PC on a monster to make it reroll a successful attack roll or saving throw. In your example chances are one party member is trying to charm said monster and the party knows.
But how do you perceive a success versus a failure on the vast majority of Con, Int, Wis, and Cha saves? Those are not corner cases! How do you tell that a target has succeeded on a Con save against Contagion? Only the caster would be able to even know what they are looking for.
What is the indication that a target succeeded against Divine Word? You don't know their number of hit points. There would only be an indication that they failed if they were below 20, no chance to see if they succeeded. How do you know that Geas took effect until the target's next turn?
These are not corner cases; these are probably one of the biggest uses of Silvery Barbs outside of negating a crit. And the DM refusing to tell the player whether a roll was a success or failure is going to seriously hamper their ability to use the spell, at which point they might ask to be able to retcon to a different spell.
The problem with Silvery Barbs is that it necessarily either makes a caster omnipotent within 60 feet (RAW) or is virtually unusable (Homebrew). It is a badly written spell that RAW is broken beyond belief.
You say how you would house rule it so that you don't have to house rule it? Having Silvery Barbs prepared or know allows the caster to know the result of every attack, check, or save roll of every creature they can see within 60 ft.
You cannot use SB at all if you don't know what your character doesn't know, as it is triggered 100% off of meta knowledge. Did that attack connect or were they able to block it with their shield? A character has no idea, as HP is an abstraction. In the instant that you have to make your reaction, you really wouldn't even be able to tell if a target failed on a Hold Person.
It's not a house rule. If you can provide any rules text to support the notion that the GM must inform players when the triggers of all their reactions are fulfilled, I'd love to see it.
ArntItheBest Most spell you described have perceivable effects and would be cast by a PC on a monster and rely on a metagame mechanic to be resolved, which the PC should know.
A DM can choose to run their game however they like. No one disputes this. One of the problems with SB is that the trigger rests on knowledge that ONLY the DM can be guaranteed to know. Only the DM knows all the die rolls made by NPCs. Players may not and characters have no idea what a die roll is in the first place. Characters can only perceive effects.
A DM is under no obligation to tell the players ANY of the die rolls made by NPCs. They don't have to tell them when a critical hit is rolled, they don't have to tell them if a creature passed or failed a save. The characters learn whether this happens when a perceivable effect occurs. The player is informed that an attack hit when the DM says the attack hit and will cause damage. If there is no visible effect from a successful or failed saving throw, the DM doesn't have to tell the players whether the saving throw succeeded or failed. The players learn whether it was successful or not when visible consequences occur.
For example, a player casts Command on a creature to grovel. The effects of the Command spell do not occur until that creature's next turn. There is no indication whether that save was successful or not and the DM is under no obligation to inform the players.
EXCEPT, the trigger for Silvery Barbs is "which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw"
This trigger does not say "if the DM chooses to tell you" - SB can trigger on any appropriate die roll and if the spell is in play it is incumbent upon the DM to notify the player when the spell's trigger has been activated so that the player/character can choose to use it or not.
The DM can of course choose not to do so but this is effectively house ruling that the SB trigger is "which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw that the DM chooses to tell you" and not on every such die roll.
This is one of the fundamental problems with SB and its metagame trigger. The only person at the table who is guaranteed to know that SB can be cast is the DM. Is there any implied obligation for the DM to inform the player when the spell can be cast because the character is within range of a creature they can see that happens to succeed at something that is completely imperceptible in game?
P.S. My house rule is that Silvery Barbs is never available in any game I run :) .. this makes dealing with issues like this quite straight forward. :)
There's a minimum of game transparency expected. PC casting spells should be told if their target's saving throw succeed or fail, usually the spell's effect depends on it for result. Afterall, a saving throw is an instant response to a harmful effect and is almost never done by choice and usually it's specified in the PC's spell or feature the kind of saving throw the target must make and its effect in case of success or failure resulting from it.
Likewise most of the time when attacked, PC should also be told if said attack hit or miss since they suffer the consequences.
Especially because PC have abilities often relying on metagame knowledge.
There may be corner case where its not appropriate but like i said, most of the time Silvery Barbs is cast by a PC on a NPC or monster as a result casting a spell at them or suffering an attack from them.
Can you tell me what the perceivable effects are when the target succeeds on a save? That was my question.
It's in the spell's description.
But before it occur, if reaction hinges on metagame to trigger, the caster must be told or he will never be able to use them.
If DM isn't ready to commit to a certain level of game transparency they might as well just ban any effect relying on them to be used.