I want to believe

[Vegepygmy]

Our DM says you only get a save when you have reason to disbelieve; interaction gives you nothing.

This is the heart of your problem: the DM has changed the rules.

Now, if he has made all of these rule changes clear to the players in advance of the encounter, that's fine; everyone is on notice that illusions in this DM's world are much more powerful than they are in others. But if he hasn't done so, it's perfectly understandable why his players are (1) reacting in ways he doesn't appreciate/expect/permit and (2) feeling cheated.

In any event, it's now clear that only the DM can fix the problem (whatever he may decide "the problem" is, exactly).

 

[Thanee]

Just make an illusionist next time.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Bungus]

I know there should have been no save needed the second we tried to decapitate and burn the corpse, as our swords would just pass through it. Our DM says that if you interact with an illusion the way the illusion expects you to, you get no save and its all believable. I have a hard time arguing with him since the module put this illusion there to fool us into thinking we had killed the vampire. It would not be a very good trick if the illusion went away the second we touched it.

And after 3 pages of posts, I am still not getting the “out of character” and “metagaming” arguments. Our DM says you only get a save when you have reason to disbelieve; interaction gives you nothing. So by the time we started saying that something was wrong, we had already decapitated and burned this body. We felt the head cut off, we saw the body burn to dust. Every bit of physical evidence that the players and their PCs had said that the body was real. Yet, despite all that, we didn’t completely believe the corpse was real based on our own intuition. No one even really brought up illusion until the DM said “make a disbelieve check” We were all just thinking it was a dummy corpse.

It just seems a little overpowered the way the DM is running it. We just completed that dungeon and we left that vampire room never to return. Because now that we have failed our Will saves, we will never go back and never truly destroy that vampire.

If you are feeling the head after it was decapitated, then it was not a permanent image or programmed image. A permanent or programmed image is not designed to fool anybody up close for a long time.

Interacting is any sort of interaction - be it combat, talking, casting a spell on it, etc. That sort of spell in a coffin should be designed to fool a careless onlooker ("ok, it needs to stay in its coffin for 2 more hours, lets move on to the next room and come back later to finish it off...") or to slow down pursuers for a round or three so it can make good its escape to its real coffin.

And, unless the vampire is there hidden and pulling the illusion's strings, how can it know if you will stake it through the heart, chop off its head, douse it with Holy Water, or what. What if you decided to knock over the coffin & dump the body onto the floor instead? A permanent image is a static effect, though it can be moved if the vampire is concentrating on it. A programmed image only functions after a trigger (opening the coffin?) and will do one function per the spell. Would the vampire have the programmed image react to its neck being touched? What happens if you also pour holy water on the image first? Or, toss cloves of garlic, or smack it with your Holy Symbol? Heck, I've known a PC or two in my 30 years of gaming that would then stand over the beheaded corpse and urinate on it.

It seems to me the DM thinks illusions are far more powerful than they really are. Even level 7 Project Image does not create a tangible image, though a projected image can interact with the PCs if controlled by the vampire. And, a projected image needs line of sight to function. If you swing your weapon at an illusion like a projected, permanent or programmed image, it will pass through the image. If your DM does not rule that an automatic failure, then the PC should at least be able to realize something unusual is up with the corpse. And, even before the weapon swing, the swinging PC is close enough to get a Will save to disbelieve.

 

[Bungus]

I know there should have been no save needed the second we tried to decapitate and burn the corpse, as our swords would just pass through it. Our DM says that if you interact with an illusion the way the illusion expects you to, you get no save and its all believable. I have a hard time arguing with him since the module put this illusion there to fool us into thinking we had killed the vampire. It would not be a very good trick if the illusion went away the second we touched it.

which module was this, by the way? could it have been a Shadow Conjuration instead?

 

[Flatus Maximus]

And after 3 pages of posts, I am still not getting the “out of character” and “metagaming” arguments.

Let's never mind for the moment that the DM didn't handle things well....

Now, re-read the paragraph in which the above quote rests. You talk about what your characters do, then: "Yet, despite all that, we didn’t completely believe the corpse was real based on our own intuition." Why would your characters do all that they did if they didn't believe the illusion was real? The "we" and "our intuition" here can only refer to the players, since it is clear by their actions that the characters believe the illusion is real. In short, you shift back and forth between what you, the player, think/feel/believe, and what your character thinks/feels/believes. This is commonly referred to as "metagaming."

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

I understand our DM misinterprets how illusions work. In a previous module we facesd an illusionary pit trap that came right before a real pit trap covered by an illusionary floor. The illusionary pit trap was just a basic spell, like a figment of some kind. The idea, obviously, is that you would think the illusion was real then jump over it into the real pit trap. Stepping on the illusionary pit trap should give you “proof” that’s its not real as you wouldn’t fall in.

Our DM ruled that the one guy who actually fell into the illusionary pit trap actually believed he fell down into it and then took a large amount of illusionary damage. Then he and everyone else in the party believed he was actually lying injured at the bottom of a 20-foot pit trap. It made for a interesting physics argument when we threw a rope down to a guy who was actually sitting right there on the ground.

I think our DM has a little problem with the power of human perception and mind over matter. I have had discussions with him in real life that draw the conclusion that his is the kind of person that believes in the year xxxx the world was flat because everyone thought it was flat. I have known people who think that way. I think its little disturbing myself, but people are entitled to follow their own philosophies.

Another PC presented the DM with an analogy, I don’t know what to make of it but I want to know what you guys would say. You have a cabinet full of illusionary food. You fail your will save so you believe the food to be real. You eat the food day after day. You don’t seem to gain any nourishment and you body is wasting away. Would you continue to eat the food or would you draw the conclusion that something was wrong with the food? The DM claims that if you failed your save to see the food was an illusion, then you would assume it was real and that the problem must have been with you. Then you would eat the food until you died.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Another PC presented the DM with an analogy, I don’t know what to make of it but I want to know what you guys would say. You have a cabinet full of illusionary food. You fail your will save so you believe the food to be real. You eat the food day after day. You don’t seem to gain any nourishment and you body is wasting away. Would you continue to eat the food or would you draw the conclusion that something was wrong with the food? The DM claims that if you failed your save to see the food was an illusion, then you would assume it was real and that the problem must have been with you. Then you would eat the food until you died.

As was mentioned before, the way out of this "paradox" is circumstance boni. Your character's unsatiated hunger might eventually lead him/her to believe that the food is an illusion. Eventually, you'd have to roll a 1 to continue to believe in the illusion.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

It’s not meta-gaming or “out of character” for us to believe the corpse wasn’t the real one. Let me try to simplify it for you.

Why do I, as a player, believe the corpse was a phony? I already suspect it’s a phony due to the missing kama. It looks in feels real but it could be a fake, and besides, I know from previous experiences that illusions can sometime look and feel totally real, but be totally fake.

Why does my PC believe the corpse is a phony despite failing his will save? He already suspects it’s a phony due to the missing kama. It looks in feels real but it could be a fake, and besides, He knows from previous experiences that illusions can sometime look and feel totally real, but be totally fake.

My PC has the exact same information, thought process, and reason for suspicion that I do. It really syncs up that way due to the minor detail that my PC “IS ME”. I know about illusions because of my previous encounters with them, so does my PC. I’m not drawing this information from some rulebook that doesn’t even exist in the PC’s world. I am drawing it from previous game experiences, the kind that this PC has lived through.

So what source of information am I the player drawing from that my PC doesn’t have access to?

 

[Theroc]

I understand our DM misinterprets how illusions work. In a previous module we facesd an illusionary pit trap that came right before a real pit trap covered by an illusionary floor. The illusionary pit trap was just a basic spell, like a figment of some kind. The idea, obviously, is that you would think the illusion was real then jump over it into the real pit trap. Stepping on the illusionary pit trap should give you “proof” that’s its not real as you wouldn’t fall in.

Our DM ruled that the one guy who actually fell into the illusionary pit trap actually believed he fell down into it and then took a large amount of illusionary damage. Then he and everyone else in the party believed he was actually lying injured at the bottom of a 20-foot pit trap. It made for a interesting physics argument when we threw a rope down to a guy who was actually sitting right there on the ground.

I think our DM has a little problem with the power of human perception and mind over matter. I have had discussions with him in real life that draw the conclusion that his is the kind of person that believes in the year xxxx the world was flat because everyone thought it was flat. I have known people who think that way. I think its little disturbing myself, but people are entitled to follow their own philosophies.

Another PC presented the DM with an analogy, I don’t know what to make of it but I want to know what you guys would say. You have a cabinet full of illusionary food. You fail your will save so you believe the food to be real. You eat the food day after day. You don’t seem to gain any nourishment and you body is wasting away. Would you continue to eat the food or would you draw the conclusion that something was wrong with the food? The DM claims that if you failed your save to see the food was an illusion, then you would assume it was real and that the problem must have been with you. Then you would eat the food until you died.

Your DM is applying a double standard to the Illusion's effect, it seems.

If believing a trap is real makes you ACTUALLY fall into it and get injured... if the illusion is THAT powerful, the mind would also make the nourishment real, no? So you'd sustain yourself on the illusionary food, due to the extreme power of the illusion.

That's my impression, at least.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

...

No, you are most certainly not your PC. At least that much should be obvious....

And you failed your save -- the illusion doesn't just look and feel real, your PC actually thinks it's real.

BTW: There could be all sorts of reasons why the kama isn't in the coffin (the world of D&D is a magical and mysterious place, after all), hence "no kama in coffin" does not imply "the vampire isn't real." IMHO, using the kama as the basis of your character's suspicions (after having failed your save) sounds like thinly veiled metagaming.