Detect Magic and Illusion Spells

[Elethiomel]

The solution is of course to plaster illusions everywhere.

It's the BBEG's lair. If the BBEG can cast Illusory Wall, the BBEG can cast it regularly. Layer illuson on every segment of wall, floor, and cieling, and put something you don't want to touch behind most of them (perhaps a very weak contact poison or acid, thorns, whatever - just so long as someone trailing their hand along the wall to find the illusory segments is going to regret it after a short while). Problem solved.

Until the party brings out their collection of 10' poles and trail those along the walls.

 

[javcs]

Until the party brings out their collection of 10' poles and trail those along the walls.

But it's just an illusory wall over an actual wall (the illusion of course, looks like the actual wall). And there would have to be traps that get triggered by the dragging a pole across the wall.

 

[frankthedm]

What if the character is a 2nd level Warlock and can use Detect Magic at will, as often as she likes?

Then that is a problem with the warlock, not the spell system.

 

[Jack Simth]

Until the party brings out their collection of 10' poles and trail those along the walls.

Yeah. But then it's no longer Detect Magic that's breaking the illusions, and you've effectively countered the spell. Ye Olde 10-foot pole does the same thing if you're rubbing it along the walls anyway and there's only a single illusory section.

Oh, and you're rubbing it on the floor, and the cieling, and several sections of the same wall (low wall), and they totally miss the door that's flush with the wall....

The point of the excersize of spamming the illusion is force them to not treat any particular section as special, called out by the fact that there's illusion magic there of a sufficient strength to hide something important.

It's pricy (but as traps have their own, seperate CR, it doesn't affect the CR of the BBEG, and so you can, as a DM, spend the xp on the trap at no cost - other than giving the PC's experience for overcoming it), but what's really fun is illusions of pits to go with illusions of floors - Permanencied Invisibility will do the job quite nicely, as Invisibility can targets objects, and be made permanent on objects. Dig a pit, put invisible flooring over it (or better, you get a 20x20 pit, with an invisible 5x15 bridge on one side; or even an invisible 5x10 platform on one side). You put the illusion of solid ground over the "far" half (with "far" being defined by which direction invaders - or adventurers - will be coming from), have an invisible platform that actually needs to be hit to cross (*safely*), and cover the entire area with some amount of illusion - empty air (you're not covering anything) for no other reason than to have the entire section radiate illusion magic. A few easy five-foot jumps if you know where the platform's hiding, an apparently moderate 10 foot jump if you don't know about the far side illusion, and a difficult 20 foot jump if you need to be on the "safe side" of things.

Of course, traps are best when used in conjunction with something else - a scattering of small traps - even just 10 foot covered pits, 1d6 damage - in the BBEG's lair work wonders for tactical manuevers. Simply because they prevent people from closing freely.

 

[Destil]

Not necessarily.
...You alter an item’s aura so that it registers to detect spells (and spells with similar capabilities) as though it were nonmagical, or a magic item of a kind you specify, or the subject of a spell you specify.If the illusion is a square of flooring covering the empty space of a pit trap, what object do you target with Magic Aura?

-Hyp.

Humm... good point. As a DM I'd allow it on the floor around the edge of the pit, and I was assuming for some reason that the illusion in question was fixed on an object already.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Humm... good point. As a DM I'd allow it on the floor around the edge of the pit, and I was assuming for some reason that the illusion in question was fixed on an object already.

If it's a Glamer, sure - most Glamers change the appearance something that already exists. If it's a Figment, it's probably its own entity, with no connection to an object.

-Hyp.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Someone casts detect magic.

That round, at some point (I suppose the DM can play with this, the spell doesn't say he can't), the DM says to the player "Your character detects the presence of magical auras within the area he's selected."

The next round, at some point, the DM spends a few minutes counting all the magical auras in the area (if the party has lots of magic items and they're in the area, this could take a while), and, if the illusion is the most powerful says something like "Your character detects a moderately strong aura of power emanating from at least one of the magical auras."

At this point, hopefully, the hardcore permanent illusion is backed up with a monster that cleans up as the party stands around waiting for the caster to give them some feedback.

Dave

 

[Daedrova]

Another idea/solution:

SRD
[from the text desription of detect magic]:
Magical areas, multiple types of magic, or strong local magical emanations may distort or conceal weaker auras.