I want to believe

[irdeggman]

Will you please post what level/class/race (other pertenant info on each PC) and what experience the PCs have had with vampires in the past?

{I have a feeling that might help support an argument one way or another in this case.}

Again, pretty much no one is disputing that your DM was acting improperly based on the information we are being given - we are only saying that 2 wrongs don't make a right and this is a rules forum.

Failing a save against an illusion pretty much leaves you convinced that it is not an illusion but in fact real - continuing to try to prove it is an illusion goes against any logical argument that a player is using only PC knowledge and not player knowledge.

 

[Jhaelen]

People are trying to write off the missing kama as a minor detail, but that was a major clue. [...] The missing kama caused us to believe the corpse was a decoy, and that we should try to find the real one.

I agree. That's why I said, this is where your DM made a mistake.

If as a DM I give that kind of clue, I expect the players to have their characters act on it. But there are two ways to play it out:

1. The players yell in unison 'disbelief!' and consequently get a saving throw to detect the illusion. If they fail their save, they'll be convinced, they were mistaken. My players know, not to argue in that case, they'll play their characters as if they believed the illusion to be real even if they themselves don't believe it for a second.

2. The players describe their actions in minute detail, i.e. they're trying to get around the save with clever roleplaying or at least get a bonus on their saves. As a DM I tend to reward good roleplaying which is why I sometimes let them succeed in such way without resorting to dice rolling.
The approach isn't without its risks though: exceptionally bad roleplaying can lead to automatic failure!

Both ways are fine for me, but not every DM would be fine with both approaches.

What is not fine for me, is initially going for one option and then, after failing, going for the other option as if nothing had happened. That's one of the few ways to behave that will get me VERY angry.

 

[irdeggman]

How did that one PC (and only that one PC) notice the missing kama?

Was it a result of a Spot check or did the DM just say to the one player that his PC noticed it?

Did that PC notify the other PCs of the missing kama?

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

Here is how the conversation went down.

Player 1: We decapitate the corpse
Player 2: Be sure to burn it as well.
DM: Ok, you decapitate the body and burn it.
Player 1: Wait, where was that kama he was using?
DM: Its not if the coffin
Player 1: Hold on, I think this body is a fake
DM: Everyone make a save. (we all roll) It looks real to you.
Player 3: What if this is the real body and the one we fought was fake?
DM: evereone make a save. (we all roll) The wounds feel pretty real.
Player 1: Hey, do a detect magic and search the coffin.

 

[ST]

I really don't think this is a rules issue, so much as it is a social contract issue within the group. Specifically, "How do we deal with situations where the GM wants to deny us some avenue of action, because he doesn't feel that it's plausible."

As such, I don't think you can resolve it with the rules alone. You can get a 'canonical ruling', but that doesn't necessarily overrule how a given GM or table will handle it.

What it looks like to me is that the real issue was the GM is all "Man, this is a clever trick and I don't want them to spoil it, so I can do a big dramatic reveal that the vampire is still alive later", and that is what the conversation really revolved around. The varoius mechanics of whatever illusion spell was used to set up the situation is a justification after-the-fact for him wanting to get what he wants. It's all too easy for the GM to cause issues in a game by blocking in order to 'save a surprise' or whatever, and I think that's kind of just railroading. I try not to have a strong agenda or pre-planned idea of where the game play will go; I want to go with what the players come up with.

Illusions aren't charm spells, as far as I understand it, so the GM going into "This seems non-suspicious to you" doesn't seem to fit for me. I'd run that kind of situation as having the illusion affect what results you get when you examine things. "It seems right to you" is back-dooring in stuff that'd usually only come up with a compulsion spell or something. The player should have the last word on what they think and feel, even if the GM is altering the 'sensory data' the PC gets.

As to whether it makes illusions unbalanced or not powerful enough, eh, I can't summon up the energy to care about that. When handling mechanics by the book butts up against an actual disagreement at the game table, the latter is all I worry about, we can rationalize the mechanics once we get an outcome we're all comfortable with.

Each group will handle this kind of thing differently, so YMMV of course.

 

[irdeggman]

So everyone failed 2 different saving throws to determine if it was an illusion and then still didn't believe it?

Note that how you described it here is completely different than how your original post had it.

If you had actually laid it out the way it was originally we might be talking different things now.

How much experience have the PCs had with vampires before?

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

The missing kama was the tip off that this body wasn’t real. That little fact makes a big difference. Throughout many fantasy stories, heroes have always uncovered deception by seeing minor details like that. The illusionist makes 4 copies of himself to confuse the heroes. But one crafty hero shouts to his friends, “Look, that one has blue eyes and the other have brown”. In any case, the missing kama caused us to believe the body was fake. Not just suspicious, we knew something was up and were going to investigate that coffin.

I say that I believe something, then the DM rolls a dice and says “no you don’t.” How is that not mind affecting, how is that valid DMing? If I am suspicious of someone, how can the DM roll a dice and then say “No your not.”

Due to the failed Will save, our senses tell us that this body isn’t an illusion, but not that it’s his real body. It was the situation under which we found the body (that is, without a kama) that made us believe the body was a decoy of some kind.

The people arguing on the metagaming side claim that we didn’t know the body was an illusion until we made Will saves. The truth is your absolutely right, unfortunately that actually helps prove my case. Nobody in the party thought the body was an illusion. After all, the DM said we decapitate and burn it just fine; had it been an illusion, our sword would have passed harmlessly through it. So, when we failed our Will save, the corpse appeared real to us. But that doesn’t change anything. We always assumed the corpse was real, (real as in not an illusion) we just thought it was a decoy.

 

[zendruid]

I still believe the DM took the wrong course of action in telling your party that they could not perform actions well within the rules of the game. Had I been DMing I would have awarded you XP for finding the ruse and defeating the monster.

The problem is you actually denied your party additional XP by not allowing the DM to have his way. If you rout the Vampire even if he doesn't "die" you still get XP for overcoming the encounter. If you later encouter the same Vampire and defeat him again you get the same ammount of XP again (adjusted for any levels gained between the initial encounter and the final one).

By your last description of the events he certainly had no grounds for forcing your characters to act in a way he deemed appropriate for plot continuity. The choice you face now is how to address your grievence with the DM, not whether you were justified in view or if he was "capable" of forcing you to act.

If you and/or the rest of the players agree and the DM disagrees you have two simple options.

1) Allow the DM to have his way so you can continue to play the game you enjoy.

2) Walk away from this group and find another.

Your call.

 

[irdeggman]

The missing kama was the tip off that this body wasn’t real. That little fact makes a big difference. Throughout many fantasy stories, heroes have always uncovered deception by seeing minor details like that. The illusionist makes 4 copies of himself to confuse the heroes. But one crafty hero shouts to his friends, “Look, that one has blue eyes and the other have brown”. In any case, the missing kama caused us to believe the body was fake. Not just suspicious, we knew something was up and were going to investigate that coffin.

Again you keep attemoting to insert literature and "real world" exampples in an attempt to jsuty your opinion on D&D rules and role-playing.

I say that I believe something, then the DM rolls a dice and says “no you don’t.” How is that not mind affecting, how is that valid DMing? If I am suspicious of someone, how can the DM roll a dice and then say “No your not.”

That is not mind affecting that is informing the player of informtion that the PC knows - even though the player keeps trying to say he knows something else instead.

The rules don't support you hypothesis here.

The entire point of saving throws and skill checks is to resolve actions.

The fact that a PC fails a saving throw for "disbelief" against an illusion means that he believes the illusion to be true - that is the RAW period, anything else is not according to the rules.

Due to the failed Will save, our senses tell us that this body isn’t an illusion, but not that it’s his real body. It was the situation under which we found the body (that is, without a kama) that made us believe the body was a decoy of some kind.

The people arguing on the metagaming side claim that we didn’t know the body was an illusion until we made Will saves. The truth is your absolutely right, unfortunately that actually helps prove my case. Nobody in the party thought the body was an illusion. After all, the DM said we decapitate and burn it just fine; had it been an illusion, our sword would have passed harmlessly through it. So, when we failed our Will save, the corpse appeared real to us. But that doesn’t change anything. We always assumed the corpse was real, (real as in not an illusion) we just thought it was a decoy.

Unfortunely you are mistaken when you say that those of us arguing metagaming are saying that you didn't know the body was an illusion until you made a will save - we are saying that because you failed a will save you believe it to not be an illusion. These are different concepts.

It was entirely possible to not have to make a saving throw at all - but the way the situation played out you did make one, in fact you made 2 and failed both times.

How may times should a PC make a saving throw before he believes something?

Now if you always thought it was real and not a decoy then why did you ask to use detect magic to determine if it was an illusion (as posted in the original post)?


All of your arguments lead one to the belief that saving throws should never be made since other circumstances always dicatate what the PC should be doing.

 

[Elethiomel]

The fact that a PC fails a saving throw for "disbelief" against an illusion means that he believes the illusion to be true - that is the RAW period, anything else is not according to the rules.

I disagree here, as posted previously in the thread.