That means that the characters that fail the saving throw don't know anything is amiss. If you roleplay the character as having a hunch that it's not real then you are acting like something is amiss. Which is bad roleplaying since the character doesn't realize anything is amiss.
They did know something was amiss, though, the missing kama. Edited to add - and, if they knew the kama was missing and all still failed their will saves, I would think a potential magic item/treasure would be enough to warrant an additional search of the body, which would again fail the tactile/touch element of the spell.
Additionally, I would think beheading the vampire's corpse and burning it would qualify as "interacting" per the SRD. Since the two mentioned illusion spells (programmed & permanent image) do NOT have tactile/touch elements to them, I would give the PCs huge bonuses to their interaction will saves ("You go to strike the vampire, and your stake passes right through it's body like it is still in gaseous form, though the body in front of you looks solid enough.")
Heck, just being close enough to open the coffin would be close enough to interact, as the opener is within melee range, unless you use a 10 foot long crowbar as a lever while everybody else is hiding around a corner.
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Last edited by NewJeffCT; 21st June 2009 at 03:08 AM..
Reason: more info
With the failed saving throw the cleric is now convinced that he was in error about it being an illusion.
Any argument by the player to the contrary is moot. That is the point of the saving throw - to reflect how the PC perceives things.
He had a momentary thought that it was an illusion, but the saving throw (which reflects how he interprets this thought) indicated that he was "mistaken".
I disagree.
Casting detect magic will tell him there's an illusion in the coffin. He doesn't know what exactly it is, what it is covering up, but he does know there's an illusion. Failing a saving throw against the illusion doesn't make him think there's no illusion; it will make him think that the illusion must be something other than the body itself. There are many illusion spells that hide things, change things' appearance, or otherwise make things seem different than what they are. "My spell reveals an illusion in that coffin but the body is real enough. Maybe it was changed to look like the vampire - or maybe his weapon had a concealing illusion cast upon it." is a perfectly acceptable answer, for example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by irdeggman
Mistake on the DM's part.
The "only" reason the PC is casting detect magic is becasue the player still believes it is an illusion while the PC does not.
Absolutely meta-gaming, IMO.
He's casting detect magic because his friend said "I don't think this is the real body."
Assuming it is not the real body is perfectly legitimate from the available evidence. If it had been a different body made to look like the vampire and left there as a decoy, it would have been an equally legitimate assumption, will save or no. Sure, he still believes that there was a body in that coffin (since he failed his will save), but he's no longer sure who that body belonged to, or what *else* might be in that coffin.
An illusion is not more compelling than the real thing.
Casting detect magic will tell him there's an illusion in the coffin. He doesn't know what exactly it is, what it is covering up, but he does know there's an illusion. Failing a saving throw against the illusion doesn't make him think there's no illusion; it will make him think that the illusion must be something other than the body itself. There are many illusion spells that hide things, change things' appearance, or otherwise make things seem different than what they are. "My spell reveals an illusion in that coffin but the body is real enough. Maybe it was changed to look like the vampire - or maybe his weapon had a concealing illusion cast upon it." is a perfectly acceptable answer, for example.
Right but the "reason" he had it cast was total metagaming due to ignoring the result of the saving throw.
Quote:
He's casting detect magic because his friend said "I don't think this is the real body."
After failing his saving throw to determine if it was an illusion. Which was prompted becasue he noticed the missing kama.
Now once he failed his save - he has no reason to doubt the illusion therefore the statement that he doesn't think this is the real body is total metagaming. The PC is now convinced (as reflected by the result of the saving throw) that the illusion is real.
Quote:
Assuming it is not the real body is perfectly legitimate from the available evidence. If it had been a different body made to look like the vampire and left there as a decoy, it would have been an equally legitimate assumption, will save or no. Sure, he still believes that there was a body in that coffin (since he failed his will save), but he's no longer sure who that body belonged to, or what *else* might be in that coffin.
An illusion is not more compelling than the real thing.
Which was why he go the saving throw in the first place. He had some doubt as to whether the illusion was real due to noticing the missing kama.
They did know something was amiss, though, the missing kama. Edited to add - and, if they knew the kama was missing and all still failed their will saves, I would think a potential magic item/treasure would be enough to warrant an additional search of the body, which would again fail the tactile/touch element of the spell.
Did they or did only the one PC who noticed it and thus got to make the saving throw?
The OPs posts are not clear on how this transpired.
If the player said that he noticed the missing kama and didn't have his PC tell everyone then the other PCs did not know it.
How did the PC know the kama was missing in the first place?
Spot checks are the normal method of determining if something like this is noticed. The OP did not specify how this information came to the PC. Did everyone get to make a spot check and only the 1 PC made it?
Again important information is missing in the tale.
As written it totally reads as metagaming and not PC knowledge.
True, if one PC noticed the missing kama and did not convey that info to the rest of the party, the rest of the party is metagaming by acting like it is an illusion.
And, as I said in my post above, by interacting with the body in the coffin by attempting to behead it and burn it, everybody there should have gotten Will saves to disbelieve... and, since the illusion has no touch/tactile component, it should either be an auto-fail for the illusion, or else have given the PCs a huge will save bonus.
__________________ "Who's more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows him?" - Obi Wan Kenobi
Yep, the illusion would have been detected automatically, no save necessary, upon trying to "behead" it, since the weapon would go right through it (and the head would remain in place, unless the vampire was controlling the illusion to react properly, which is hardly possible at that point... and even then you would notice, that the weapon sliced through air).
Once you have such a proof, that it is not real, you automatically notice, that it is an illusion.
Same with an illusory wall; if you lean against it and fall through, you just know it's not real.
For that trick to work, it would have to be some sort of shadow illusion, that is quasi-real.
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Thanee
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True, if one PC noticed the missing kama and did not convey that info to the rest of the party, the rest of the party is metagaming by acting like it is an illusion.
And, as I said in my post above, by interacting with the body in the coffin by attempting to behead it and burn it, everybody there should have gotten Will saves to disbelieve... and, since the illusion has no touch/tactile component, it should either be an auto-fail for the illusion, or else have given the PCs a huge will save bonus.
I agree that the DM handled the illusion wrong - based on what information we have been given.
But I was commenting on how the PCs went about things - not with what should have been done via the DM in the first place.
Once the PCs failed their save (whether or not there should have even been one in the first place) the players acted metagaming-wise period.
Again all of this is based on what little information we have been given.
They did know something was amiss, though, the missing kama. Edited to add - and, if they knew the kama was missing and all still failed their will saves, I would think a potential magic item/treasure would be enough to warrant an additional search of the body, which would again fail the tactile/touch element of the spell.
I agree with that and mentioned the same thing earlier in the thread. As long as they did things to find the kama rather than things to disprove the illusion. Though if the actions they took to find the kama lead to them disproving the kama than win-win.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NewJeffCT
Additionally, I would think beheading the vampire's corpse and burning it would qualify as "interacting" per the SRD. Since the two mentioned illusion spells (programmed & permanent image) do NOT have tactile/touch elements to them, I would give the PCs huge bonuses to their interaction will saves ("You go to strike the vampire, and your stake passes right through it's body like it is still in gaseous form, though the body in front of you looks solid enough.")
I agree with this and earlier in the thread I pointed out that decapitating the illusion and it not reacting to it would prove it was an illusion. You do not need a saving throw to disbelief an illusion if you have proof. But at a least it would provide a +4 to the save.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NewJeffCT
Heck, just being close enough to open the coffin would be close enough to interact, as the opener is within melee range, unless you use a 10 foot long crowbar as a lever while everybody else is hiding around a corner.
Agreed. My argument isn't about whether they are interacting with the illusion, my argument is what about how a player should have their character react when then fail their saving throw against the illusion. Which comes after the interacting part.
[/i]Agreed. My argument isn't about whether they are interacting with the illusion, my argument is what about how a player should have their character react when then fail their saving throw against the illusion. Which comes after the interacting part.
I know there should have been no save needed the second we tried to decapitate and burn the corpse, as our swords would just pass through it. Our DM says that if you interact with an illusion the way the illusion expects you to, you get no save and its all believable. I have a hard time arguing with him since the module put this illusion there to fool us into thinking we had killed the vampire. It would not be a very good trick if the illusion went away the second we touched it.
And after 3 pages of posts, I am still not getting the “out of character” and “metagaming” arguments. Our DM says you only get a save when you have reason to disbelieve; interaction gives you nothing. So by the time we started saying that something was wrong, we had already decapitated and burned this body. We felt the head cut off, we saw the body burn to dust. Every bit of physical evidence that the players and their PCs had said that the body was real. Yet, despite all that, we didn’t completely believe the corpse was real based on our own intuition. No one even really brought up illusion until the DM said “make a disbelieve check” We were all just thinking it was a dummy corpse.
It just seems a little overpowered the way the DM is running it. We just completed that dungeon and we left that vampire room never to return. Because now that we have failed our Will saves, we will never go back and never truly destroy that vampire.
Our DM says you only get a save when you have reason to disbelieve; interaction gives you nothing.
This is the heart of your problem: the DM has changed the rules.
Now, if he has made all of these rule changes clear to the players in advance of the encounter, that's fine; everyone is on notice that illusions in this DM's world are much more powerful than they are in others. But if he hasn't done so, it's perfectly understandable why his players are (1) reacting in ways he doesn't appreciate/expect/permit and (2) feeling cheated.
In any event, it's now clear that only the DM can fix the problem (whatever he may decide "the problem" is, exactly).
I know there should have been no save needed the second we tried to decapitate and burn the corpse, as our swords would just pass through it. Our DM says that if you interact with an illusion the way the illusion expects you to, you get no save and its all believable. I have a hard time arguing with him since the module put this illusion there to fool us into thinking we had killed the vampire. It would not be a very good trick if the illusion went away the second we touched it.
And after 3 pages of posts, I am still not getting the “out of character” and “metagaming” arguments. Our DM says you only get a save when you have reason to disbelieve; interaction gives you nothing. So by the time we started saying that something was wrong, we had already decapitated and burned this body. We felt the head cut off, we saw the body burn to dust. Every bit of physical evidence that the players and their PCs had said that the body was real. Yet, despite all that, we didn’t completely believe the corpse was real based on our own intuition. No one even really brought up illusion until the DM said “make a disbelieve check” We were all just thinking it was a dummy corpse.
It just seems a little overpowered the way the DM is running it. We just completed that dungeon and we left that vampire room never to return. Because now that we have failed our Will saves, we will never go back and never truly destroy that vampire.
If you are feeling the head after it was decapitated, then it was not a permanent image or programmed image. A permanent or programmed image is not designed to fool anybody up close for a long time.
Interacting is any sort of interaction - be it combat, talking, casting a spell on it, etc. That sort of spell in a coffin should be designed to fool a careless onlooker ("ok, it needs to stay in its coffin for 2 more hours, lets move on to the next room and come back later to finish it off...") or to slow down pursuers for a round or three so it can make good its escape to its real coffin.
And, unless the vampire is there hidden and pulling the illusion's strings, how can it know if you will stake it through the heart, chop off its head, douse it with Holy Water, or what. What if you decided to knock over the coffin & dump the body onto the floor instead? A permanent image is a static effect, though it can be moved if the vampire is concentrating on it. A programmed image only functions after a trigger (opening the coffin?) and will do one function per the spell. Would the vampire have the programmed image react to its neck being touched? What happens if you also pour holy water on the image first? Or, toss cloves of garlic, or smack it with your Holy Symbol? Heck, I've known a PC or two in my 30 years of gaming that would then stand over the beheaded corpse and urinate on it.
It seems to me the DM thinks illusions are far more powerful than they really are. Even level 7 Project Image does not create a tangible image, though a projected image can interact with the PCs if controlled by the vampire. And, a projected image needs line of sight to function. If you swing your weapon at an illusion like a projected, permanent or programmed image, it will pass through the image. If your DM does not rule that an automatic failure, then the PC should at least be able to realize something unusual is up with the corpse. And, even before the weapon swing, the swinging PC is close enough to get a Will save to disbelieve.
I know there should have been no save needed the second we tried to decapitate and burn the corpse, as our swords would just pass through it. Our DM says that if you interact with an illusion the way the illusion expects you to, you get no save and its all believable. I have a hard time arguing with him since the module put this illusion there to fool us into thinking we had killed the vampire. It would not be a very good trick if the illusion went away the second we touched it.
which module was this, by the way? could it have been a Shadow Conjuration instead?
And after 3 pages of posts, I am still not getting the “out of character” and “metagaming” arguments.
Let's never mind for the moment that the DM didn't handle things well....
Now, re-read the paragraph in which the above quote rests. You talk about what your characters do, then: "Yet, despite all that, we didn’t completely believe the corpse was real based on our own intuition." Why would your characters do all that they did if they didn't believe the illusion was real? The "we" and "our intuition" here can only refer to the players, since it is clear by their actions that the characters believe the illusion is real. In short, you shift back and forth between what you, the player, think/feel/believe, and what your character thinks/feels/believes. This is commonly referred to as "metagaming."
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I understand our DM misinterprets how illusions work. In a previous module we facesd an illusionary pit trap that came right before a real pit trap covered by an illusionary floor. The illusionary pit trap was just a basic spell, like a figment of some kind. The idea, obviously, is that you would think the illusion was real then jump over it into the real pit trap. Stepping on the illusionary pit trap should give you “proof” that’s its not real as you wouldn’t fall in.
Our DM ruled that the one guy who actually fell into the illusionary pit trap actually believed he fell down into it and then took a large amount of illusionary damage. Then he and everyone else in the party believed he was actually lying injured at the bottom of a 20-foot pit trap. It made for a interesting physics argument when we threw a rope down to a guy who was actually sitting right there on the ground.
I think our DM has a little problem with the power of human perception and mind over matter. I have had discussions with him in real life that draw the conclusion that his is the kind of person that believes in the year xxxx the world was flat because everyone thought it was flat. I have known people who think that way. I think its little disturbing myself, but people are entitled to follow their own philosophies.
Another PC presented the DM with an analogy, I don’t know what to make of it but I want to know what you guys would say. You have a cabinet full of illusionary food. You fail your will save so you believe the food to be real. You eat the food day after day. You don’t seem to gain any nourishment and you body is wasting away. Would you continue to eat the food or would you draw the conclusion that something was wrong with the food? The DM claims that if you failed your save to see the food was an illusion, then you would assume it was real and that the problem must have been with you. Then you would eat the food until you died.
Another PC presented the DM with an analogy, I don’t know what to make of it but I want to know what you guys would say. You have a cabinet full of illusionary food. You fail your will save so you believe the food to be real. You eat the food day after day. You don’t seem to gain any nourishment and you body is wasting away. Would you continue to eat the food or would you draw the conclusion that something was wrong with the food? The DM claims that if you failed your save to see the food was an illusion, then you would assume it was real and that the problem must have been with you. Then you would eat the food until you died.
As was mentioned before, the way out of this "paradox" is circumstance boni. Your character's unsatiated hunger might eventually lead him/her to believe that the food is an illusion. Eventually, you'd have to roll a 1 to continue to believe in the illusion.
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It’s not meta-gaming or “out of character” for us to believe the corpse wasn’t the real one. Let me try to simplify it for you.
Why do I, as a player, believe the corpse was a phony? I already suspect it’s a phony due to the missing kama. It looks in feels real but it could be a fake, and besides, I know from previous experiences that illusions can sometime look and feel totally real, but be totally fake.
Why does my PC believe the corpse is a phony despite failing his will save? He already suspects it’s a phony due to the missing kama. It looks in feels real but it could be a fake, and besides, He knows from previous experiences that illusions can sometime look and feel totally real, but be totally fake.
My PC has the exact same information, thought process, and reason for suspicion that I do. It really syncs up that way due to the minor detail that my PC “IS ME”. I know about illusions because of my previous encounters with them, so does my PC. I’m not drawing this information from some rulebook that doesn’t even exist in the PC’s world. I am drawing it from previous game experiences, the kind that this PC has lived through.
So what source of information am I the player drawing from that my PC doesn’t have access to?
I understand our DM misinterprets how illusions work. In a previous module we facesd an illusionary pit trap that came right before a real pit trap covered by an illusionary floor. The illusionary pit trap was just a basic spell, like a figment of some kind. The idea, obviously, is that you would think the illusion was real then jump over it into the real pit trap. Stepping on the illusionary pit trap should give you “proof” that’s its not real as you wouldn’t fall in.
Our DM ruled that the one guy who actually fell into the illusionary pit trap actually believed he fell down into it and then took a large amount of illusionary damage. Then he and everyone else in the party believed he was actually lying injured at the bottom of a 20-foot pit trap. It made for a interesting physics argument when we threw a rope down to a guy who was actually sitting right there on the ground.
I think our DM has a little problem with the power of human perception and mind over matter. I have had discussions with him in real life that draw the conclusion that his is the kind of person that believes in the year xxxx the world was flat because everyone thought it was flat. I have known people who think that way. I think its little disturbing myself, but people are entitled to follow their own philosophies.
Another PC presented the DM with an analogy, I don’t know what to make of it but I want to know what you guys would say. You have a cabinet full of illusionary food. You fail your will save so you believe the food to be real. You eat the food day after day. You don’t seem to gain any nourishment and you body is wasting away. Would you continue to eat the food or would you draw the conclusion that something was wrong with the food? The DM claims that if you failed your save to see the food was an illusion, then you would assume it was real and that the problem must have been with you. Then you would eat the food until you died.
Your DM is applying a double standard to the Illusion's effect, it seems.
If believing a trap is real makes you ACTUALLY fall into it and get injured... if the illusion is THAT powerful, the mind would also make the nourishment real, no? So you'd sustain yourself on the illusionary food, due to the extreme power of the illusion.
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No, you are most certainly not your PC. At least that much should be obvious....
And you failed your save -- the illusion doesn't just look and feel real, your PC actually thinks it's real.
BTW: There could be all sorts of reasons why the kama isn't in the coffin (the world of D&D is a magical and mysterious place, after all), hence "no kama in coffin" does not imply "the vampire isn't real." IMHO, using the kama as the basis of your character's suspicions (after having failed your save) sounds like thinly veiled metagaming.
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Last edited by Flatus Maximus; 21st June 2009 at 10:52 PM..
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