I want to believe

[Dross]

Lets try to clear a couple of things up. first lets get the order of actions strait (I'll parse out the original post) and Moff_Tarkin can adjust for any errors.

Upon opening the coffin we find the body and decapitate/burn it.

One of the PCs noticed the magical kama the vampire attacked us with was not in the coffin, at which point he said, “I think something funny is going on.”

He got a chance to disbelieve.

He failed his save but still figured something was screwy so he asked the cleric to do a detect magic to determine if there was any illusion or trickery at work.

For me the DM handled the situation poorly, and probable needs to spend some time explaining exactly what illusions can/can't do, even writing it down if need be. Be that as it may I'll ask (and re-ask) some Q's.

What other trickery are you talking about? This is the only post I've seen you make that refers to trickery, everything else is to combat the illusion (unless I've missed it)

What is the usual method to determine that something is an illusion, only Detect Magic? Is this the only thing that works? How?

At what point would players/PC accept the scene as the real thing? Finding the Kama somewhere else?

In post 37 you stated that you understand illusions can "provide a flanking bonus to a PC". My Q's: How? At what stage could someone disbelieve. Is this based on the RAW, or on how things are handled by the DM?

What is your definition of metagaming? (mine, FWIW is: to use out of Character or player knowledge for an unfair advantage to the PC or party. Or ask: How and why would my PC know this?)

As it stands, while adjustments need to be made for the nature of illusions in this game, the only thought/reason given by you for detect magic is illusion.

Is it your standard practice to detect magic at any stage you think that something is screwy. If so the DM is in error here, if not then there is a greater chance of you metagaming.

I wonder if any of the party use illusions, seeing that they appear so powerful.

 

[Bercilac]

Metagame shmetagame

I really don't believe there's such a thing as metagaming. There's the players. The characters are just sets of objectives they agree to adopt. Of course, the same sheet can mean different objectives to different players. One player looks at an ogre fighter and says "Great, this game I'm playing the tank and squishing the opposition;" another says "Great, this game I'm roleplaying a big stupid lug who's easily deceived." They'll play the same sheet in different ways. No one is "bound" by the character.

It all depends what people want out of their game. "Metagaming" is just an accusation that someone makes when another player wants something else. While I wouldn't deny it's a problem, I wouldn't say it's a problem of behaviour so much as differing expectations.

 

[Foxworthy]

Let me pose a question to all the people who still think its metagaming.

Ok.

When we first got the hunch the body was fake, how do you think we arrived at that conclusion? The entire metagaming argument only has one wobbly leg to stand on, the fact that we knew that a Will save had been made. But at the point where we said the corpse was fake, there had been no Will save.

No one has argued the case for metagaming without bringing up the fact that we knew out of character that we had made Will saves. So if we concluded the corpse was a fake before any Will save was called for, it invalidates the entire argument.

No it doesn't, but it's 100% clear that you don't understand the argument.

Lets pause the game right after we said the corpse was fake and right before the Will save was called for. At this exact junction in time, us metagaming is “IMPOSSIBLE”. We knew nothing about this module, and had no indication of any kind that the corpse was an illusion. We, as players, had no knowledge whatsoever. So where does this “out of character knowledge” come from? Are people honestly trying to argue that we used knowledge we didn’t have. Wow, we must be psychic or something.

The argument of metagaming comes after this point. You obviously had no indication that the corpse was an illusion before you made the save, merely that it was a fake corpse.

You started believeing that the corpse was an illusion after you failed a disbelief check.

That's the metagaming. You used the failed disbelief check as the trigger for thinking the corpse was an illusion because you freely admit that you didn't believe the corpse was an illusion till you got that check.

I'm going to make this as clear as possible for you.

You should have ROLEPLAYED your character as someone who thinks the corpse is fake but doesn't think an illusion is the cause. You didn't you decide to METAGAME that illusion was the reason the body was fake because you failed a disbelief check.

No one is saying you shouldn't have been able to investigate the body further, they are just syaing it was bad roleplaying and metagaming to tell another player to cast detect magic to reveal it as an illusion. If you had told them to cast detect magic to see if the kama was invisible, or if the body was under the effects of gentle repose you would have been fine.

Your DM most likely cut off all investigation because you couldn't seperate that because you knew it was an illusion that your character didn't. You took actions based on what you knew, not what your character knew.

Your DM probably felt cheated, since what you did was the equivilant of not writing down the damage you've taken to hit points.

- Will save is successful. You see straight through the illusion.

Yeah the illusion is revealed to be an illusion but it's still there as a translucent outline. For a figment or phantasm at least.

- Will save is failed. You are utterly convinced that the illusion is real.

No, your convinced that nothing is amiss [in regards to it being an illusion] So you can still believe it's fake, not just as a result of illusion.

I don't see this being all the possible outcomes any more. The rules say "A failed saving throw indicates that the character fails to notice something is amiss". This is an ambiguous statement with several possible interpretations. I now lean toward the following interpretation: This "something amiss" means something about the makeup of the illusion that reveals it clearly and unambiguously as illusory. After all, it causes the character to see right through the illusion directly after succeeding on the will save.

A high level party have just fought a lich...

Behind this wall they find another wall. They all fail their Will saves. It is unreasonable that they will not be suspicious that this wall is also an illusion even before a Will save is rolled. None of them see right through it, but I still think it is reasonable for them to suspect that it is an illusion - even if they all fail their saves.

No, this is not adequately covered by a bonus to Will saves. No, they are not using out-of-character knowledge - after all, they have just seen the result of a failed will save against an illusion that was later proved to be just that. The party's loremaster has plenty of ranks in both spellcraft and knowledge (arcana) and thus knows enough about the laws of magic to know that some times you cannot see through an illusion after examining it closely even though there is one there, plus there is ample proof in the loremaster's recent memory.

Thus I will rule in my games from now on that a failed will save against a non-mind-affecting illusion means that you do not pierce the illusion instantly... but it does not mean that you can't think it is an illusion. Furthermore I believe it is a valid interpretation of RAW and not a house rule.

Not valid RAW at all. The noticed that nothing was amiss with the wall in regards to an illusion. That's what the characters believe, they can fully believe that something is wrong with the wall otherwise.

Unless the players go around checking every wall in the game world to see if they are illusions. Because it's perfectly possible that the lich created a pathway that leads to a dead end to delay or make the characters waste time. Or that a different wall was illusionary. For all we know one of the rooms could have had two illusionary walls and this room none as a more devious way of tricking the players.

That doesn't rule out detect magic though, because for all the players know it could be a wall of stone blocking their way that they could dispell and even the loremaster knows that not all walls are illusions.

Though frankly if the players wanted to take the easy route [which is what treating it like an illusion even though they failed] they could just throw a rock at the wall cause inanimate objects aren't effected by walls.

And if they encountered one wall why didn't they just cast detect magic and maintain it?

Really it seems like the players are acting in the worse possible way in order to support a viewpoint against a spell that is made specifically to support that viewport. I mean basing RAW on a spell that's not RAW and how players react to that is a bit odd.

If my character is determined to do something, then a spell forces him to cease his actions, is that not a mind-affecting spell?

No. Nothing in the rules say that only spells with the Mind Affecting descriptor can dictate actions. If you were playing a plant based character and someone cast command plants on you you'd still be subject to control even though it's not mind affecting.

Also, all illusion spells affect the mind. They mention that in the description of the illusion school. They just don't have the Mind Affecting descriptor because the game designers didn't want the spells that protect from Mind Affecting spells to protect against illusions.

It all depends what people want out of their game. "Metagaming" is just an accusation that someone makes when another player wants something else. While I wouldn't deny it's a problem, I wouldn't say it's a problem of behaviour so much as differing expectations.

No, metagaming is acting on out of character information in character. If a player reads a module ahead of time and reacts to everything becaus ehe knows it's coming, he's metagaming.

That has nothing to do with expectations.

Your equating metagaming to bad roleplaying, and while in this case both are true it's not always so.

You can metagame without being a bad roleplayer and you can roleplay badly without metagaming.

Some groups may be fine with people metagaming [and probably all groups allow a bit of it], but that doesn't change what it is or make it not exist.

 

[Elethiomel]

Not valid RAW at all. The noticed that nothing was amiss with the wall in regards to an illusion. That's what the characters believe, they can fully believe that something is wrong with the wall otherwise.

Maybe I was unclear. You certainly misinterpreted my argument. Let me rephrase it:
I do not belive that a failed will save versus an illusion utterly convinces someone that it is not an illusion. They merely do not insantly see it as a transparent outline (for a figment or phantasm). I do not believe that "notices nothing amiss" is so broad that someone is now utterly convinced of something they knew nothing about before they made the will save.

Unless the players go around checking every wall in the game world to see if they are illusions. Because it's perfectly possible that the lich created a pathway that leads to a dead end to delay or make the characters waste time. Or that a different wall was illusionary. For all we know one of the rooms could have had two illusionary walls and this room none as a more devious way of tricking the players.

Right, so rather than assume the simple result (this wall which is behind an illusory wall which is behind another illusory wall may also be illusory) they are forced to rationalise that possibility away. I don't believe that is the case, and I don't believe "notices nothing amiss" is a broad enough statement to enforce that.

No. Nothing in the rules say that only spells with the Mind Affecting descriptor can dictate actions. If you were playing a plant based character and someone cast command plants on you you'd still be subject to control even though it's not mind affecting.

Dictating actions is a pretty broad interpretation of "notices nothing amiss". And control plants is a red herring because it is a spell specifically designed to get around a creature type that has immunity to mind-affecting spells.

Really it seems like the players are acting in the worse possible way in order to support a viewpoint against a spell that is made specifically to support that viewport. I mean basing RAW on a spell that's not RAW and how players react to that is a bit odd.

I'm not basing RAW on this example. It's an example made to illustrate why I think your interpretation is unreasonable.
They're saving their last detect magic for helping to ascertain whether a seemingly important item is the lich's phylactery or not.
I didn't make this clear but these illusory walls are 5 feet behind each other. I could concoct a more complicated example; I did it this way to keep it simple.

 

[Foxworthy]

Maybe I was unclear. You certainly misinterpreted my argument. Let me rephrase it:
I do not belive that a failed will save versus an illusion utterly convinces someone that it is not an illusion. They merely do not insantly see it as a transparent outline (for a figment or phantasm). I do not believe that "notices nothing amiss" is so broad that someone is now utterly convinced of something they knew nothing about before they made the will save.

I don't know what definition of amiss your using but the one I'm using means wrongly/incorrect.

So when they fail the check they believe they were wrong about it being an illusion. They believe it to not be an illusion.

That's why it's a disbelief check, to see if the character believes the illusion is real or if it's an illusion.

When they fail to disbelief, that means they believe.

Right, so rather than assume the simple result (this wall which is behind an illusory wall which is behind another illusory wall may also be illusory) they are forced to rationalise that possibility away. I don't believe that is the case, and I don't believe "notices nothing amiss" is a broad enough statement to enforce that.

First off as far as I can tell the spell you mentioned doesn't exist, so as far as I know by RAW that situation could never happen. It seems like nothing more than a strawman to try and punch holes in the game rules.

Well, if you stretch anything in the game that far than your going to have problems.

And nothing amiss is not broad when contain under the subtext of checking whether or not someone believes something.

The check is to see if a character disbelieves, you can ignore that if you want and just rule that the character disbelieves if the player disbelieve but why even bother rolling a saving throw if you aren't going to accept the results of a failure?

DnD is a roleplaying game, if you don't want to play the role that's fine but don't bitch at the game mechanics because they support someone playing a role seperate from the player themselves.

Dictating actions is a pretty broad interpretation of "notices nothing amiss". And control plants is a red herring because it is a spell specifically designed to get around a creature type that has immunity to mind-affecting spells.

Personally I don't think following the role of someone disbeliving is dicating actions, I was using the term that the poster used. Saying someone can't cast dispell magic to find an illusion that the character doesn't think is there isn't dicating actions. Just like tellign a character he can't fly without an item or spell that provides it isn't dicatating actions.

But I dare you to find one piece of RAW that says controlling a player is limited to effects with the Mind Affecting descriptor.

Because most descriptors have no game effect on their own. I've seen no evidence that Mind Affecting has a game effect that limits it to being the only thing that can 'dicate" actions.

Mind Affecting is just a descriptor, nothing more. It has no determination on what effects a spell can have.

What viewport?
I'm not basing RAW on this example. It's an example made to illustrate my why I think your interpretation is unreasonable.
They're saving their last detect magic for helping to ascertain whether a seemingly important item is the lich's phylactery or not.
I didn't make this clear but these illusory walls are 5 feet behind each other. I could concoct a more complicated example; I did it this way to keep it simple.

You made up a spell to be simple? And then you use a made up spell to try and prove a flaw in the game rules to be simple?

Sure.

The players will believe the wall is real because they failed the saving throw. Next time the GM should not make up a spell and put it ten times in a row in order to force the all PC's to fail the saving throw.

That's not RAW that's being a bad DM. The objective wasn't simple it was set up to gurantee the players failed. The DM made up a spell and put up as many walls as he could to screw the players into failing.

So no, your example is not RAW, but a vindictive DM trying to screw his players over.

 

[Elethiomel]

I don't know what definition of amiss your using but the one I'm using means wrongly/incorrect.

So when they fail the check they believe they were wrong about it being an illusion. They believe it to not be an illusion.

I'm using this definition of amiss in this case: "improper; wrong; faulty".
I don't know what definition of "notice" you're using but the one I'm using means "to perceive; become aware of": They don't notice that it is an illusion, because they notice nothing wrong about it. That does not mean other circumstances can't make them still suspect it is an illusion.

That's why it's a disbelief check, to see if the character believes the illusion is real or if it's an illusion.

When they fail to disbelief, that means they believe.

No, they just fail to disbelieve. It doesn't mean they utterly believe. There is such a thing as a state in-between.

First off as far as I can tell the spell you mentioned doesn't exist, so as far as I know by RAW that situation could never happen. It seems like nothing more than a strawman to try and punch holes in the game rules.

The spell may not exist in the core books. Yet there are guidelines to research new spells in the core books. Would you say that a spell that follows these guidelines do not conform to RAW? But as I said below, let's forget my example.

And nothing amiss is not broad when contain under the subtext of checking whether or not someone believes something.

The check is to see if a character disbelieves, you can ignore that if you want and just rule that the character disbelieves if the player disbelieve but why even bother rolling a saving throw if you aren't going to accept the results of a failure?

DnD is a roleplaying game, if you don't want to play the role that's fine but don't bitch at the game mechanics because they support someone playing a role seperate from the player themselves.

What I am saying has nothing to do with metagaming. I should probably have forked it into its own thread so you didn't set up this strawman of my position so you could more easily seem to knock it down.

But I dare you to find one piece of RAW that says controlling a player is limited to effects with the Mind Affecting descriptor.

I dare you to find one piece of RAW that says falling rules are limited to planes and worlds that have gravity. It's assumed that you can't influence something's mind without using a mind-affecting effect, just as it is assumed that falling rules apply where there is gravity.

Because most descriptors have no game effect on their own. I've seen no evidence that Mind Affecting has a game effect that limits it to being the only thing that can 'dicate" actions.

Mind Affecting is just a descriptor, nothing more. It has no determination on what effects a spell can have.

Yet the "disbelief check" isn't just a name for a will save to notice something? There's nothing in the rules that say that failing the disbelief check means that you are utterly convinced that an illusion cannot be an illusion.

So no, your example is not RAW, but a vindictive DM trying to screw his players over.

Okay, let's forget my example and focus on what the rules actually say, since you are attacking the circumstances of what was meant to be a short example of how in-game knowledge can tell someone that something is probably an illusion even though they failed their will save.

 

[Foxworthy]

I dare you to find one piece of RAW that says falling rules are limited to planes and worlds that have gravity. It's assumed that you can't influence something's mind without using a mind-affecting effect, just as it is assumed that falling rules apply where there is gravity.

I've made my point and I'm not going to bother to argue with you about illusions anymore. Nothing will really come of it, but I'll take you up on your dare.

Planes :: d20srd.org

You'll notice under no gravity it mentions that people merely float in space. Since they are floating they can't fall.

You'll notice that the rules have different effects for different types of gravity as well when it comes to falling.

And it shouldn't be assumed that only mind affecting descriptor can effect someone's mind. Because that would mean only death descriptor effects could cause things to die. Or fire descriptor effects to cause things to burn.

Which holds no water what so ever, unless you believe that you ahve to have a water descriptor effect to have water at all.

 

[Elethiomel]

I've made my point and I'm not going to bother to argue with you about illusions anymore. Nothing will really come of it, but I'll take you up on your dare.

Yeah, you misrepresented several of my points and then knocked the strawman points down.

And it shouldn't be assumed that only mind affecting descriptor can effect someone's mind. Because that would mean only death descriptor effects could cause things to die. Or fire descriptor effects to cause things to burn.

OK, I concede the mind-affecting descriptor.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

No, they just fail to disbelieve. It doesn't mean they utterly believe. There is such a thing as a state in-between.

And what Will save roll result corresponds to this "state in-between"?

Look: D&D is, in large part, very binary -- you either hit with your attack or you miss, you're either caught in the blast area or you aren't, you're either dead or alive, etc., and you either fail your Will save or you don't. You might want there to be a state in-between (for a more realistic simulation?), but it's not there in the rules. The Will save handles the question, "Is what I see an illusion or is it real?" with a simple roll, like so many other questions in D&D.

Note that one can fail a Will save to disbelieve, and then later re-roll, perhaps with boni, or even auto-succeed because circumstances have changed -- c.f. the food illusion.

 

[Elethiomel]

And what Will save roll result corresponds to this "state in-between"?

No Will save roll. In character knowledge.

Look: D&D is, in large part, very binary -- you either hit with your attack or you miss, you're either caught in the blast area or you aren't, you're either dead or alive, etc., and you either fail your Will save or you don't. You might want there to be a state in-between (for a more realistic simulation?), but it's not there in the rules. The Will save handles the question, "Is what I see an illusion or is it real?" with a simple roll, like so many other questions in D&D.

No, it handles the question "do I see right through this illusion, or does it seem as real as everything else in the world on the surface?"

Note that one can fail a Will save to disbelieve, and then later re-roll, perhaps with boni, or even auto-succeed because circumstances have changed -- c.f. the food illusion.

Yeah, I know.