Cast at lower DC

[Pumpkin]

Let's say I'm an illusionnist, can I cast a spell at 1 DC on purpose, so the evil guys automatically succeed on their check.

One use would be to hide a door with a purposely bad illusion, so my opponents runs in my trap.

Another would be to stack illusions so even if my nemesis know I'm using illusions, I could fool him with another one, or even use double bluff.

So are there any rules for this ?

 

[Pielorinho]

Interesting idea. I don't know if there are particular rules, but I think I'd rule it this way:
1) Casting with a DC lower than the minimum possible to cast the spell would probably be impossible (e.g., for a 1st level spell, the lowest DC you could have would be 11; for second-level, it'd be 13, etc.). You can't get sloppier than that without leading to total spell failure.
2) For illusions, however, a purposefully bad illusion would be fine. In this case, a successful Will save might show folks that it was designed to be bad; a failed will save just makes it an obvious illusion. Ultimately you're still using the illusion to trick someone, and it seems fair to give them a save to avoid being tricked.

 

[Salthorae]

I think the point is however that he wants the illusion to "look good", i.e. be appropriate, but be SUPER easy to see through...

I would say NO, RAW there isn't a way to do that. Because DC is based on static things like 10+Spell level+ Stat Mod, and you can't make yourself less intelligent or wise or charismatic for casting a spell...

At the same time I would recommend developing a custom feat that allows you to reduce the DC of spells cast by your character. Kind of like a reverse Spell Focus, that should probably allow you to get a bigger negative.

First would be something like, Spell Diffusion (opposite of Focus): You can choose to make your spells easier to resist, spells cast using this feat have a -2 on their DC.

Then you could have a feat tree... Spell Diffusion, Improved Spell Diffusion, Greater Spell Diffusion.

Alternately you could make it a Metamagic feat with a similar name that does something to the effect of: Choose a higher level spell slot for this spell, the spell then takes up a spell slot of that level. For each level higher than the normal spell level of the spell effected by this metamagic feat, you can decrease the save DC by a like amount. I.e. If you take a 1st Level Silent Image and memorize it in a 5th level slot, you could gain a -4 on the DC.

or something like that. The reason I say "higher" spell slot is I wouldn't want people using the feat to memorize a meteor swarm in a first level slot at only a -8 to the save DC... etc. too abuseable that way.

But RAW, I don't know of a way to do it, outside of house rules. You can lower Caster Level of a spell, but that doesn't affect DC at all.

 

[BriarMonkey]

If I were GMing, I'd allow it, even though there are zero rules for it.

But, I'd tweak the saving throw a little. For instance, if you wanted to cast that illusion with a DC of 1, I'd say "Sure, go ahead." Then when the bad guys showed up, if they beat the save by, say, 5 or more, I'd clue them in to something was amiss - but unless they had spellcraft or something, they wouldn't know what really. If they beat it by 10 or more, they'd figure that the illusion was purposefully made easy.

So yeah. No extra feats or the like, just alter the perception from the other side.

 

[Pielorinho]

I think the point is however that he wants the illusion to "look good", i.e. be appropriate, but be SUPER easy to see through...

Right, I get that. So the caster simply makes the illusion a "translucent outline," so it appears to all viewers as though they'd made their will save against it. But if they actually make their will save against it, they notice something about it that indicates it was designed that way.

 

[Salthorae]

Right, I get that. So the caster simply makes the illusion a "translucent outline," so it appears to all viewers as though they'd made their will save against it. But if they actually make their will save against it, they notice something about it that indicates it was designed that way.

Sure you can do that. I guess I was thinking about from an actual meta-game perspective and describing the room and such.

You could totally make an illusion look like an illusion but I was just thinking it would ping the players weird if you auto described a saved will save and then had them make a save. Or if you went the other route and had them save before you describe it (which would be before they interact with it and are allowed a save) it should ping them as odd too.

So i was trying to propose a solution that would allow you to make the save much easier to make AND have them make the save at the appropriate time

 

[mach1.9pants]

DM says yes but I have never seen rules for it.

 

[Pielorinho]

Sure you can do that. I guess I was thinking about from an actual meta-game perspective and describing the room and such.

You could totally make an illusion look like an illusion but I was just thinking it would ping the players weird if you auto described a saved will save and then had them make a save. Or if you went the other route and had them save before you describe it (which would be before they interact with it and are allowed a save) it should ping them as odd too.

So i was trying to propose a solution that would allow you to make the save much easier to make AND have them make the save at the appropriate time

There's two likely cases in which this would arise: PCs vs. NPCs, and NPCs vs. PCs. (There's also PCs vs. PCs, but that's pretty unlikely, and you can extrapolate your own dang solution for that one ).

The OP describes a PC wizard fooling NPCs. In this case, nobody gets their weird-meter pinged by the description of the save, since the NPCs don't have any idea of the save in the first place. The player describes what the illusion does, the GM rolls the save, and the NPCs react accordingly. My solution was designed for this situation.

An NPC wizard could also try to fool PCs with such an illusion. In this case, you're right, the weird-meter gets a ping. However, whenever an NPC is using illusion magic, I figure the GM ought to be rolling the saves secretly anyway: otherwise, the mere fact of rolling the saves is going to clue the players in that something is up. These rolls should be part of the general background noise of GMs rolling dice and cackling to themselves.

Does that make sense?

 

[N'raac]

An NPC wizard could also try to fool PCs with such an illusion. In this case, you're right, the weird-meter gets a ping. However, whenever an NPC is using illusion magic, I figure the GM ought to be rolling the saves secretly anyway: otherwise, the mere fact of rolling the saves is going to clue the players in that something is up. These rolls should be part of the general background noise of GMs rolling dice and cackling to themselves.

Another approach some GM's like is to have all the players make a number of d20 rolls which they then jot down. Whenever a secret roll is made, the GM takes the next advance roll and applies that result.

This deals with those players who get whiny about not being allowed to roll all the dice for their character.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If I were GMing, I'd allow it, even though there are zero rules for it.

But, I'd tweak the saving throw a little. For instance, if you wanted to cast that illusion with a DC of 1, I'd say "Sure, go ahead." Then when the bad guys showed up, if they beat the save by, say, 5 or more, I'd clue them in to something was amiss - but unless they had spellcraft or something, they wouldn't know what really. If they beat it by 10 or more, they'd figure that the illusion was purposefully made easy.

So yeah. No extra feats or the like, just alter the perception from the other side.

I would do it slightly differently. You can craft an illusion of a failed illusion--there's no DC involved at all to see it as failed. Your approach to really good saves makes sense.