D&D 1E How do you play an illusionist?

[James Gasik]

Are we talking about bards' magical pants surprise again?

No no, the Assassin's ability to brew poisons.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

No no, the Assassin's ability to brew poisons.

Bingo! One of my favorite bizarro-world 1e rules. You, sir, win the internetz as far as I am concerned today.

That was always a real ... whiskey tango foxtrot moment. One of the key abilities of the class was an ability that the player was not supposed to know about.

I have to admit, when people today complain about "trap options" or features that are hidden ... well, they don't know how good they have it.

 

[James Gasik]

Bingo! One of my favorite bizarro-world 1e rules. You, sir, win the internetz as far as I am concerned today.

That was always a real ... whiskey tango foxtrot moment. One of the key abilities of the class was an ability that the player was not supposed to know about.

I have to admit, when people today complain about "trap options" or features that are hidden ... well, they don't know how good they have it.

It's even worse than that! If you ask the DM about being able to brew poisons, you then get to research the ability (because apparently you know, no Assassin in your guild will tell you about this stuff) at a cost in time and gold and then, only if you're the right level do you succeed, which the DM is obligated not to tell you about in advance!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Always wanted to play an Illusionist/Assassin, but never got the chance. The above-mentioned Ftr/Ill gnome was the last Illusionist I got to play in those early editions.

And after 3.X was unveiled, my mages were almost always specialists…but I favored Transmuters, Evokers and Diviners.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

Honestly, my favorite model for illusions is from the video game Master of Magic

Illusionary constructs that have tons of immunities.and do psychic damage

How it looks is where the creativity lies.

Now it can be rated like any other monster or trap.

 

[Mannahnin]

I do have to admit I like the 5e approach (I know, I can't believe I'm saying this either) where you need to interact with an illusion and make an Intelligence (Investigation) check against the save DC. Though that does bring with it the quirk that characters lacking sufficient Intelligence can simply fail to ever see through an illusion...

This is a consequence of one of the key flaws in the 5E saving throw system. That it's so dependent on ability scores and on proficiency. Being higher level doesn't help you at all unless you have the right proficiency.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This is a consequence of one of the key flaws in the 5E saving throw system. That it's so dependent on ability scores and on proficiency. Being higher level doesn't help you at all unless you have the right proficiency.

Say what you will about the tenets of High Gygaxian Verbiage Infused Subsystems, but at least it had an ethos that gave us better saving throws.

 

[James Gasik]

Say what you will about the tenets of High Gygaxian Verbiage Infused Subsystems, but at least it had an ethos that gave us better saving throws.

It's kind of a wash, yeah, saving throws do get better and better over time, and being unable to make a saving throw is impossible- but that does relegate a huge swathe of spells to basically being unusable because of "save negates". Ways to impose penalties to saves are few and far between, and ways to get bonuses to saves are plentiful.

Now some might feel this is a good thing, to make casters more balanced, but all it really does is narrow spell choices to those things that can reliably do something in a world of crazy good saving throws on monsters and magic resistance being handed out like candy, lol.

Personally, I think "pass/fail" was a bad system for spells. Degrees of success so that spells have a wider band of possibilities- a bad save can turn you to stone, most people are simply slowed, really resistant ones might take a movement hit, etc..

Illusions, in particular, I think would benefit from such a system, with how well (or not) you save determining how long (if ever) it takes for a creature to realize that the illusion isn't real.

 

[Lanefan]

It's kind of a wash, yeah, saving throws do get better and better over time, and being unable to make a saving throw is impossible- but that does relegate a huge swathe of spells to basically being unusable because of "save negates". Ways to impose penalties to saves are few and far between, and ways to get bonuses to saves are plentiful.

Unless you have it that a 1 always fails....

 

[James Gasik]

Unless you have it that a 1 always fails....

Even if a 1 always fails, that doesn't really help. It's perfectly cromulent for a high-level Fighter to not even be fazed by a Red Dragon's -11 AC, but . Heck, it's possible (scarab of protection) to be able to save against spells that don't even have a saving throw!

Meanwhile, facing that same dragon, a spellcaster has (on top of 65% Magic Resistance, mind), base saves of:

Paralyze/Poison/Death Magic: 3, Rod/Staff/Wand: 5, Petrification/Polymorph: 4, Breath Weapon: 4, and Spells: 6.

So that's a 35% chance to have a 25% of being able to get a spell that doesn't fall in the previous categories to affect a dragon (assuming the DM didn't give their dragon any magic items to use, because why wouldn't they?).

Now sure, maybe Wizards aren't meant to fight Dragons, and I'll grant that this intersection of high Hit Dice, best save progression, and high Magic Resistance is pretty much the worst thing ever, lol.

At least until 3e gave us AC's beyond 32 and 50% miss chances, that is (brrr).