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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 9385887" data-attributes="member: 20323">There's a phenomenal article by Paul Kerr called "Forced Phantasmals" on page 110-149 of the Footprints #25 magazine (June 2021) hosted at <a href="https://www.dragonsfoot.org/files/pdf/FootprintsNo25.pdf" target="_blank">Dragonsfoot (pdf link).</a> It starts specifically looking at phantasmal force, but it transitions into a very deep dive into illusions more generally as they've been interpreted in various sources throughout D&D's history. It's a 39-page article so it's not a super fast read.He points out the problematic "mini-game" of disbelieving illusions existing in an ambiguous rules space, certain rulings that have nerfed the power of illusions. etc.His conclusion describes five approaches to illusions that GMs can use:KISS (closer to 0D&D) – limits the gotchas and power organically in the game logic, and the disbelief mini-game is removed and replaced with savesSimple Plus (Simplified AD&D) – adds in a little of the disbelief mini-game with certain illusion spells marked "Save: special" allow a disbelieve save if the player requests oneFull Meta (Traditional AD&D) – emphasizes the GM presenting illusions as puzzles with little hints that players can discover, which then gives them the prompting to request a disbelief saveFrankly Speaking (Official mid-AD&D rulings) – Frank Mentzer approaches illusions as a blend of purely mental and visual/auditory holograms. Similar to the Simple Plus disbelieve save, but Mentzer denies, delays, or modifies saves based on personal judgment...and sometimes requires the illusion to first be detected before it can be disbelieved.It’s All in Your Head (Late AD&D, Closer to 2e) – The late 1e / 1.5e interpretation seems to be that illusions are purely mental so that an illusion has no actual visual/auditory reality independent of the viewer's mind. Eventually this becomes 2e's illusions/phantasms that deal actual damage.</blockquote>

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