The goal of this thread is to try to come up with some kind of standardized guidelines or rules for dealing with illusions. Yeah, I know that’s a big ugly can o’ worms, but bear with me…illusions should be a fun way for the players to be creative, but most DM’s dislike them because of the headaches they cause, in large part because the DM doesn’t know how to figure out when to allow his NPC’s to disbelieve them in a way that doesn’t overpower the game and short-circuit his plans, or underpower the illusions and disappoint the players. With a standardized set of guidelines, maybe they can become a fun and balanced part of the game.
All of the following is just a suggested starting point, I’d like everyone’s feedback and make this a “community” effort. Once the dust settles, I’ll summarize the majority opinion.
I’m more concerned with Figments right now, so if you’re more knowledgeable about Glamers, Shadows, etc., please speak up if they would act significantly different under the guidelines suggested here.
The relevant portions of the RAW are :
1. Creatures encountering an illusion usually do not receive saving throws to recognize it as illusory until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion.
2. A character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throw.
3. If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus.
This leaves us with 3 important questions :
1. HOW or WHEN can a creature justify wanting to "study it carefully"?
2. WHAT constitutes "interaction"?
3. WHAT constitutes "proof"?
This first post is unavoidably long because of all the definitions, justifications, and examples, so now that you’ve seen the questions you can skip to the end of this post for the summary if you wish.
First off, I cannot praise enough Skip Williams’ discussions on illusions at
Part 1, basic definitions
Part 2, saving throws
Part 3, interacting, automatic disbelief
Part 4, Figments and Shadows
And at
Disbelief, under Saving Throws
Given his credentials, I will take his ideas, examples, and suggestions as RAW, especially since as far as I can tell 99% of the descriptions for dealing with illusions in D&D 3.5 are the same in Pathfinder.
BEING TOLD IT’S AN ILLUSION
Before we proceed any further, I’d like to address the issue of being told the image is an illusion. RAW specifically says that only if someone who has already disbelieved tells you it’s an illusion can you save again, and at +4. Most people extrapolate that (and reasonably so) to : if the caster tells you it’s an illusion, you get another save at +4. This bugs me.
Why should the statement/suggestion that what you’re looking at is an illusion have more “weight” when coming from someone who has disbelieved than from someone who hasn’t? Aren’t they really just planting the idea, and allowing you to reconsider? Neither person is offering any “proof”, so why should it make a difference?
On the other hand, if you’re told by the person who created the illusion (and who probably did it right in front of you) that it’s not real, why don’t you automatically disbelieve? Even Skip says at one point, “If the caster points out the illusions [to others],…the DM might want to waive the saving throws and assume disbelief to save time”.
So in the following, I’m going to abandon the “retry at +4” option completely. If someone tells you that it’s an illusion, that gives you a reason to study it carefully. But if the caster tells you it’s an illusion, you automatically disbelieve. This is just what makes sense to me – if the vast majority of opinion prefers to keep those things the way they are, I’ll concede the point (especially if you can give me reasons why).
CAREFUL STUDY
First off, there’s no standard definition of how long “careful study” takes. While some forum posts seem to indicate that people think that a Standard action is about right, it could also be justified as a Move action according to the RAW for Perception (“Intentionally searching for stimulus is a Move action”). What's your opinion - Standard action or Move action?
Something I’ve never seen discussed is whether it provokes an AoO – it does require your focused attention, so that’s a good argument “for”. But in the heat of a battle, provoking an AoO can be a major disincentive to trying to disbelieve if you think there’s illusions around. What’s your opinion on whether careful study should provoke an AoO?
It’s pretty clear that merely looking at or hearing an illusion does not constitute careful study. And PC’s can’t declare that they’re always studying everything carefully, so neither can the NPC’s.
The main problem with careful study is that there’s no standard way to define when a character (PC or NPC) should have a REASON to do it. So I would like to propose the concept (taken from law-enforcement, BTW) of “reasonable suspicion” : if by only observing, you can state anything that seems to be wrong, any specific reason why what you see couldn't be real, then you can study it carefully. Note that “observing” can include any of your long-distance senses (excluding touch), not just sight.
But since magic can do a lot of things (including creating things out of thin air and making things intangible), and most people probably don't know everything it can or can't do, the reason must be very specific, and reasonably within the character’s knowledge and experience. Some examples of reasonable suspicion :
*Person : "I've been in this room many times before, now it's smaller than it should be" (because an illusory wall is hiding the PC’s) or "…and there was never a bookshelf there before"
*Person : “I saw him go into this room, followed him immediately, and there’s no doors or windows, and he’s gone” (maybe he's behind an illusory wall, or maybe the illusory wall is hiding a door)
*Animal : "that thing doesn't smell like it should" (a Silent Image of a creature has no smell)
*Arrows are coming out of that boulder or thru that wall (this is not “proof”, because magic can do many strange things)
*You approach a Silent Image or Minor Image of a Wall of Flames, but don’t feel any heat coming from them (this is “observation”, it wouldn’t be “interaction” unless you entered the area of the flames)
It’s possible that the observer might need a Knowledge check of some sort to justify the reason :
*Knowledgeable person or spellcaster : “wait a minute, he just cast a 6th level spell from a wand!” (Knowledge/Arcana)
*A creature isn’t giving off some kind of always-on, at-a-distance effect (heat, fear, stench, etc.) that you know it should be (Knowledge/whatever’s-appropriate-for-the-creature)
These Knowledge checks can come in handy to separate extensive player knowledge from their PC knowledge for determining "reasonable suspicion", especially for low-level PC's. Likewise, they can serve as a guide to the DM for determining when his NPC’s can justify careful study, especially when they are low-INT creatures.
To keep things fair, DM’s must be careful to not allow their NPC’s saving throws unless there’s justifiable reasonable suspicion. As Skip points out, most creatures would pass right by illusions that are already in place without giving them a second thought, unless they were on alert for intruders, chasing the PC’s, or searching the room anyway, etc. (excluding the situations given above as examples). But even most animals or low-INT humanoids (like Orcs) might not consider having a floor of pointed sticks or a wall of stone suddenly appear from nowhere while they’re chasing the PC’s as being unusual – after all, that’s what magic does. Such creatures would just deal with what’s in front of them, and would often not even get a saving throw (barring the specific circumstances of the situation that might provide reasonable suspicion).
On the other hand, careful study might also just happen naturally, as Skip points out using the illusion of a guard walking around in a room. A PC might decide to watch the guard’s movements to determine the best way of sneaking past him – well, now he’s carefully studying the image. Or, a PC might want to check the insignia on the guard’s uniform to determine his rank or whatever – again, the PC must carefully study the image to do that. So DM’s must be careful to notice when careful study “unintentionally” happens.
INTERACTION
The problem with “interaction” is in defining what it is. Skip says, “As a rule of thumb, a creature interacts with something upon attacking it, studying it [handled above], touching it, talking to it, targeting it with a spell, or doing something else that one might do with a real creature or object.” Note that if the illusion reacts to your action correctly, you only get a saving throw (we’ll come back to this hair-splitting point later in “Proof”).
But interaction works both ways – if the illusion of a monster or NPC attempts to attack you (whether or not it hits; but if it’s a Figment and it would hit, see “Proof” below), touch you, talk to you, or target you with a spell, it is interacting with you, and so you get a saving throw. But now what if a caster creates an illusion of a large monster in order to Intimidate you without attacking you? So how about this : if the illusion tries to influence your behavior in any way, it is also “interacting” with you.
It is said (and correctly so) that just looking at an illusion should not be reason enough to get a saving throw to disbelieve it, because just looking is not the same as careful study. But consider an illusion of a chair vs. an illusion of a pile of GP. The illusion of the chair does not “tempt” you to go over and sit on it – so no save just from looking at it. But even tho it’s just sitting there, not doing anything, the illusion of the pile of gold will tempt most intelligent creatures to go over to it. So I would argue that the “trying to influence you” rule kicks in here, and the creature gets a saving throw before they change what they’re doing (chasing you, guarding their post, etc.).
It might be tempting to add that using Skills against illusions always constitutes interaction, but Skip gives a counter-example here. Sneaking past that illusory guard from before does not really interact with it, since it doesn’t know what’s going on around it – the PC would roll, and the DM would roll, and the PC would just automatically win! The PC didn’t really do anything that would affect the illusion. On the other hand, if the player rolled a 1 on his Stealth, and the guard didn't react to him, that might provide reasonable suspicion…
PROOF
Skip points out that proof generally means “the illusion fails to function as a real object would” – I’m going to word this as “you interact with it, and it doesn’t act like it should”. If your hand passes thru the wall or door or boulder in front of you, you automatically disbelieve. Some other situations :
*Your arrow or sword goes thru the image of a creature you’re attacking (note that if the image was that of a wraith or shadow, you’d get a saving throw for interacting, but you’d expect a normal weapon to pass thru it, so you would not automatically disbelieve)
*A Gust of Wind cast at an illusory fog does not blow it away
*A Figment takes a swing at you and would hit, but its sword/paw/whatever passes right thru you
Something not addressed in the RAW (or even any forums that I’ve been able to find) is : what happens if you witness such an interaction? If the “retry at +4” rule was still around, that might be a good option, but I’m going to suggest instead that that constitutes a reason to carefully study the image and then roll as usual. That actually fits in quite well with the definition of reasonable suspicion – you observe it not acting correctly.
It’s VERY IMPORTANT to note that “not acting like it should” only allows you careful observation if you’re observing the illusion, while it allows you immediate disbelief (proof) if you are interacting with the illusion.
A common situation that comes up in forum threads is : what if a spellcaster sees you casting the illusion, and makes a successful Spellcraft check? In such a case their disbelief is also automatic, since they have proof you were casting an illusion spell.
SO TO SUMMARIZE
You get a saving throw when you can JUSTIFY “careful study” (a Standard/Move action that does/does not provoke an AoO) which happens when :
*There’s reasonable suspicion (possibly with Knowledge checks) = if by only observing, you can state anything that seems to be wrong, any specific reason why what you see couldn't be real
*You witness an interaction not acting like it should
*Someone other than the caster tells you it’s an illusion
You get a saving throw when you and the illusion “interact” which happens when :
*You attack it, touch it, talk to it, cast a spell at or on it, etc. and it reacts as the real thing would
*It attempts to attack you, touch you, talk to you, or appears to cast a spell at or on you, etc.
*It tries to influence your behavior in any way (intimidate, tempt, distract, etc.)
Note that any time any of the above conditions occur, the observer gets another saving throw
You get automatic disbelief when presented with “proof” which includes :
*You interact with it, and it doesn't act like it should
*Being told by the caster it’s an illusion
*Being a spellcaster and making a Spellcraft check to identify the spell as it is cast
That's it! Note that 6 of these 9 guidelines have already been suggested by RAW, Skip, or general forum consensus.
What do you think? Especially about whether "careful study" should be a Standard or Move action, and whether or not it should provoke an AoO?
All of the following is just a suggested starting point, I’d like everyone’s feedback and make this a “community” effort. Once the dust settles, I’ll summarize the majority opinion.
I’m more concerned with Figments right now, so if you’re more knowledgeable about Glamers, Shadows, etc., please speak up if they would act significantly different under the guidelines suggested here.
The relevant portions of the RAW are :
1. Creatures encountering an illusion usually do not receive saving throws to recognize it as illusory until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion.
2. A character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throw.
3. If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus.
This leaves us with 3 important questions :
1. HOW or WHEN can a creature justify wanting to "study it carefully"?
2. WHAT constitutes "interaction"?
3. WHAT constitutes "proof"?
This first post is unavoidably long because of all the definitions, justifications, and examples, so now that you’ve seen the questions you can skip to the end of this post for the summary if you wish.
First off, I cannot praise enough Skip Williams’ discussions on illusions at
Part 1, basic definitions
Part 2, saving throws
Part 3, interacting, automatic disbelief
Part 4, Figments and Shadows
And at
Disbelief, under Saving Throws
Given his credentials, I will take his ideas, examples, and suggestions as RAW, especially since as far as I can tell 99% of the descriptions for dealing with illusions in D&D 3.5 are the same in Pathfinder.
BEING TOLD IT’S AN ILLUSION
Before we proceed any further, I’d like to address the issue of being told the image is an illusion. RAW specifically says that only if someone who has already disbelieved tells you it’s an illusion can you save again, and at +4. Most people extrapolate that (and reasonably so) to : if the caster tells you it’s an illusion, you get another save at +4. This bugs me.
Why should the statement/suggestion that what you’re looking at is an illusion have more “weight” when coming from someone who has disbelieved than from someone who hasn’t? Aren’t they really just planting the idea, and allowing you to reconsider? Neither person is offering any “proof”, so why should it make a difference?
On the other hand, if you’re told by the person who created the illusion (and who probably did it right in front of you) that it’s not real, why don’t you automatically disbelieve? Even Skip says at one point, “If the caster points out the illusions [to others],…the DM might want to waive the saving throws and assume disbelief to save time”.
So in the following, I’m going to abandon the “retry at +4” option completely. If someone tells you that it’s an illusion, that gives you a reason to study it carefully. But if the caster tells you it’s an illusion, you automatically disbelieve. This is just what makes sense to me – if the vast majority of opinion prefers to keep those things the way they are, I’ll concede the point (especially if you can give me reasons why).
CAREFUL STUDY
First off, there’s no standard definition of how long “careful study” takes. While some forum posts seem to indicate that people think that a Standard action is about right, it could also be justified as a Move action according to the RAW for Perception (“Intentionally searching for stimulus is a Move action”). What's your opinion - Standard action or Move action?
Something I’ve never seen discussed is whether it provokes an AoO – it does require your focused attention, so that’s a good argument “for”. But in the heat of a battle, provoking an AoO can be a major disincentive to trying to disbelieve if you think there’s illusions around. What’s your opinion on whether careful study should provoke an AoO?
It’s pretty clear that merely looking at or hearing an illusion does not constitute careful study. And PC’s can’t declare that they’re always studying everything carefully, so neither can the NPC’s.
The main problem with careful study is that there’s no standard way to define when a character (PC or NPC) should have a REASON to do it. So I would like to propose the concept (taken from law-enforcement, BTW) of “reasonable suspicion” : if by only observing, you can state anything that seems to be wrong, any specific reason why what you see couldn't be real, then you can study it carefully. Note that “observing” can include any of your long-distance senses (excluding touch), not just sight.
But since magic can do a lot of things (including creating things out of thin air and making things intangible), and most people probably don't know everything it can or can't do, the reason must be very specific, and reasonably within the character’s knowledge and experience. Some examples of reasonable suspicion :
*Person : "I've been in this room many times before, now it's smaller than it should be" (because an illusory wall is hiding the PC’s) or "…and there was never a bookshelf there before"
*Person : “I saw him go into this room, followed him immediately, and there’s no doors or windows, and he’s gone” (maybe he's behind an illusory wall, or maybe the illusory wall is hiding a door)
*Animal : "that thing doesn't smell like it should" (a Silent Image of a creature has no smell)
*Arrows are coming out of that boulder or thru that wall (this is not “proof”, because magic can do many strange things)
*You approach a Silent Image or Minor Image of a Wall of Flames, but don’t feel any heat coming from them (this is “observation”, it wouldn’t be “interaction” unless you entered the area of the flames)
It’s possible that the observer might need a Knowledge check of some sort to justify the reason :
*Knowledgeable person or spellcaster : “wait a minute, he just cast a 6th level spell from a wand!” (Knowledge/Arcana)
*A creature isn’t giving off some kind of always-on, at-a-distance effect (heat, fear, stench, etc.) that you know it should be (Knowledge/whatever’s-appropriate-for-the-creature)
These Knowledge checks can come in handy to separate extensive player knowledge from their PC knowledge for determining "reasonable suspicion", especially for low-level PC's. Likewise, they can serve as a guide to the DM for determining when his NPC’s can justify careful study, especially when they are low-INT creatures.
To keep things fair, DM’s must be careful to not allow their NPC’s saving throws unless there’s justifiable reasonable suspicion. As Skip points out, most creatures would pass right by illusions that are already in place without giving them a second thought, unless they were on alert for intruders, chasing the PC’s, or searching the room anyway, etc. (excluding the situations given above as examples). But even most animals or low-INT humanoids (like Orcs) might not consider having a floor of pointed sticks or a wall of stone suddenly appear from nowhere while they’re chasing the PC’s as being unusual – after all, that’s what magic does. Such creatures would just deal with what’s in front of them, and would often not even get a saving throw (barring the specific circumstances of the situation that might provide reasonable suspicion).
On the other hand, careful study might also just happen naturally, as Skip points out using the illusion of a guard walking around in a room. A PC might decide to watch the guard’s movements to determine the best way of sneaking past him – well, now he’s carefully studying the image. Or, a PC might want to check the insignia on the guard’s uniform to determine his rank or whatever – again, the PC must carefully study the image to do that. So DM’s must be careful to notice when careful study “unintentionally” happens.
INTERACTION
The problem with “interaction” is in defining what it is. Skip says, “As a rule of thumb, a creature interacts with something upon attacking it, studying it [handled above], touching it, talking to it, targeting it with a spell, or doing something else that one might do with a real creature or object.” Note that if the illusion reacts to your action correctly, you only get a saving throw (we’ll come back to this hair-splitting point later in “Proof”).
But interaction works both ways – if the illusion of a monster or NPC attempts to attack you (whether or not it hits; but if it’s a Figment and it would hit, see “Proof” below), touch you, talk to you, or target you with a spell, it is interacting with you, and so you get a saving throw. But now what if a caster creates an illusion of a large monster in order to Intimidate you without attacking you? So how about this : if the illusion tries to influence your behavior in any way, it is also “interacting” with you.
It is said (and correctly so) that just looking at an illusion should not be reason enough to get a saving throw to disbelieve it, because just looking is not the same as careful study. But consider an illusion of a chair vs. an illusion of a pile of GP. The illusion of the chair does not “tempt” you to go over and sit on it – so no save just from looking at it. But even tho it’s just sitting there, not doing anything, the illusion of the pile of gold will tempt most intelligent creatures to go over to it. So I would argue that the “trying to influence you” rule kicks in here, and the creature gets a saving throw before they change what they’re doing (chasing you, guarding their post, etc.).
It might be tempting to add that using Skills against illusions always constitutes interaction, but Skip gives a counter-example here. Sneaking past that illusory guard from before does not really interact with it, since it doesn’t know what’s going on around it – the PC would roll, and the DM would roll, and the PC would just automatically win! The PC didn’t really do anything that would affect the illusion. On the other hand, if the player rolled a 1 on his Stealth, and the guard didn't react to him, that might provide reasonable suspicion…
PROOF
Skip points out that proof generally means “the illusion fails to function as a real object would” – I’m going to word this as “you interact with it, and it doesn’t act like it should”. If your hand passes thru the wall or door or boulder in front of you, you automatically disbelieve. Some other situations :
*Your arrow or sword goes thru the image of a creature you’re attacking (note that if the image was that of a wraith or shadow, you’d get a saving throw for interacting, but you’d expect a normal weapon to pass thru it, so you would not automatically disbelieve)
*A Gust of Wind cast at an illusory fog does not blow it away
*A Figment takes a swing at you and would hit, but its sword/paw/whatever passes right thru you
Something not addressed in the RAW (or even any forums that I’ve been able to find) is : what happens if you witness such an interaction? If the “retry at +4” rule was still around, that might be a good option, but I’m going to suggest instead that that constitutes a reason to carefully study the image and then roll as usual. That actually fits in quite well with the definition of reasonable suspicion – you observe it not acting correctly.
It’s VERY IMPORTANT to note that “not acting like it should” only allows you careful observation if you’re observing the illusion, while it allows you immediate disbelief (proof) if you are interacting with the illusion.
A common situation that comes up in forum threads is : what if a spellcaster sees you casting the illusion, and makes a successful Spellcraft check? In such a case their disbelief is also automatic, since they have proof you were casting an illusion spell.
SO TO SUMMARIZE
You get a saving throw when you can JUSTIFY “careful study” (a Standard/Move action that does/does not provoke an AoO) which happens when :
*There’s reasonable suspicion (possibly with Knowledge checks) = if by only observing, you can state anything that seems to be wrong, any specific reason why what you see couldn't be real
*You witness an interaction not acting like it should
*Someone other than the caster tells you it’s an illusion
You get a saving throw when you and the illusion “interact” which happens when :
*You attack it, touch it, talk to it, cast a spell at or on it, etc. and it reacts as the real thing would
*It attempts to attack you, touch you, talk to you, or appears to cast a spell at or on you, etc.
*It tries to influence your behavior in any way (intimidate, tempt, distract, etc.)
Note that any time any of the above conditions occur, the observer gets another saving throw
You get automatic disbelief when presented with “proof” which includes :
*You interact with it, and it doesn't act like it should
*Being told by the caster it’s an illusion
*Being a spellcaster and making a Spellcraft check to identify the spell as it is cast
That's it! Note that 6 of these 9 guidelines have already been suggested by RAW, Skip, or general forum consensus.
What do you think? Especially about whether "careful study" should be a Standard or Move action, and whether or not it should provoke an AoO?
