Harmful Spells

[*Neethanial]

Out of the books, certain spells are categorized as "harmless" (It shows up in parentheses next to Spell Resistance). Here's the problem, Bless is harmless, except against an Athar (Or anyone else who takes issue with your specific god blessing them), just as an example.
So, which spells would people actually consider harmless? Non-lethal? There are a couple of pacifist casters on the server, after all. Which spells ignore the pvp rules and potentially force people into unwanted conflict without warning. Let's discuss.

[*Strawberry Jam]

Well mind blank and psychic surgery are both set as hostile, so you never know. :blink:

[*Sinlinara]

As a spellcaster who neither uses Divine or Arcane spellcasting, I would like to advertise the use of Agnostic Blessings to my Atharan non-friends. :D Same goes for Shield of Faith, which is an interesting infusion for Artificers to have access to even if for all intents and purposes all it does is turn a Ring or Cloak into a Cloak/Ring of Deflection.

[*rapsam2003]

I would say Aid is harmless.

Whether an Athar takes offense to it, that's a RP choice. Even for Athar who dislike being blessed or "aided" by spells flowing from a divine source, those spells don't harm anything but their pride. Also, some Athar are likely to take the moderate stance of "divine spells all come from the same source, the Great Unknown, anyway".

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Good rule of thumbs: if you're in a situation where things are getting heated, don't cast anything on the opposition without asking permission for it IC out loud and giving them a chance to respond.

That'll get you through most situations. I don't think it's a good idea to get a ruleplaying guideline to avoid PvP while still being able to cast spells at the opposition in such a situation. For one, it'll lead to awkward scenarios where you cast X spell and then blow raspberries how it's not an automatic consent OOC, and technically could do it over and over again simply to aggravate the opposition without response. On the other side, people should be judicious in seeking excuses to attack as well. You don't need to express hostility via game mechanical fighting, you can roleplay slapping them IC to cancel their spell as well and then roleplay the situation out without hacking people to pieces.

If I were to really have to consider what most of my characters would consider "hostile spell", that'd be anything which would put them into an unadvantageous position. That's fairly broad term, but I'm not going to go through all the hundreds of spells just for this. Although as mentioned before, if they don't like: a) the person, b) magic (your type of magic or magic in general)... then those are easy to consider "hostile" from the perspective of a character.

Lets say a scenario where a character is "Allergic to Magic" they dropped to alchemy concoction when they were child and now magic gives them a rash... or whatever. They'd definitely find any and all magic rather distasteful or hostile, but any player taking such a route should use it as a roleplaying chance, not a chance to kick the snot out of people.

[*Godolia il Magus]

Harmless, by etymology, is equivalent to "innocent", literally: one who is not doing harm. There are some things in D&D which are intrinsically harmless, like clerical cures or blessings, they could however be considered an attempt to pick a fight. If a character is using - in good faith - an intrinsic harmless mean (spell or anything else), but the character who receives it says to stop with it, and the "offender" keeps using that mean, it can be considered harming for sure. Like in real life, words cannot harm people by principle, but if I use them to persecute, slander etc. they can be considered like harms.

As a general rule, if a character says to stop with something, even if it is the most intrinsically innocent thing in the universe, if that thing is annoying that character in some way, it must be considered as an offense if the offender keeps using that something.

So, concluding, if someone tries - for instance - to cure me while I don't want to be touched (and even less cured) and I express that feeling, and the person ignores it, it can be considered a just reason for character versus character roleplay, like subsequent intimidations made in front of the offender, or even phisical violence.

However, given that this can easily degenerate into player vs player (rather than characters), I'd say to make things clear in tell and to be in peace, rather than transferring frustration from real life to the game.

[*Neethanial]

So it's quickly looking like it's situational, up to the perspective of the target of the spell based on the moment's events. Reasonable.

[*FiveWhats]

(harmless)

The spell is usually beneficial, not harmful, but a targeted creature can attempt a saving throw if it desires.

That's from the SRD. Harmless spells can still be used offensively and reduce person is one that specifically can disadvantage someone. It's annoying to go through every spell and make a rule for them so just thinking about it as the situation demands seems like the best possible method.

[*Strawberry Jam]

Well yes it seems often you need a written prenuptial contract before exchanging uh ... magic vows?

[*MimiFearthegn]

What Mr. Otyugh said.

Keep RP'ed conflict to rolls and emotes. This has the added bonus of everyone knowing what was cast and how to respond.