I want to believe

[Flatus Maximus]

Remember that the DM’s ruling is that interaction does not give an automatic save. And that an illusion appears real in every way if you interact with it in the way it expects you to.

The DM gets to decide what "interaction" means. Some DMs would have granted you a save the moment the illusion came into view; others, like your DM, wouldn't grant a save until you did something that the illusion's caster did not anticipate. I try to encourage in my players the creative use of illusions, so I'm somewhere in the middle. ::shrug::

 

[Bercilac]

What game are we playing here?

There are two classes of argument posted so far:

1. The characters, having failed a save, believe the illusion. The players are bound by the characters, and must not attempt to reverse their fate.

2. The characters, while not immediately perceiving an "illusion" per se, can still deduce that something is amiss, and will go to all ends to test their reality, eventually pulling a thread that unravels the entire narrative...

Both assume that the rules act as an intermediary between the players and the DM, to determine who "wins" the encounter. I think this is entirely missing the point of D&D. The game, at least when you're slaying the vampire and looking for his magical weapon, is about looting tombs. Under the circumstances, I would expect characters to tear apart a crypt to find a weapon. Are these characters "realistic?" No. They're psychotic. But that's what you get when you play D&D: a bunch of guys who always do the right thing, and the right thing always happens to be killing a bunch of folks and taking their stuff.

The DM's role is not to "beat" the party. If the party, having burned the "body," discover the treasure isn't there, they may never learn anything about that body's nature. But they're sure as hell going to trash the place anyway looking for treasure.

The DM seemed to be worried that in doing so they would discover that the body was an illusion, and that the vampire was still alive and, presumably, nearby. Tough luck for the vampire, not for the game, or for the DM. Who cares if it's metagaming? Who cares what's a mind-affecting illusion, a phantasm, or a glamour (this GM is obviously using extreme house rules anyway, so those arguments are moot)? You don't need to justify the character's acting in a strange fashion in the pursuit of treasure, even if a normal person would NEVER EVER EVER act that way. Because they're not normal people: they're heroes. It's not meta-game, it's the game.

 

[aboyd]

That made absolutely no sense.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

I think I have a solution for this problem in later games. I am going to suggest that the DM not give us a Will save for an illusion under any condition. That way, we can be suspicious of whatever we want without everyone screaming about metagaming.

The whole argument on metagaming is completely ridiculous. Its entirely bases around the idea that we had out of character information because we know we rolled a Will save. If the DM had never called for a Will save we would figured the body a fake and continued to search the coffin the way we intended. Since there would have been no Will save there could be no out of character knowlege about a Will save.

So I am going to suggest to the group that we all agree to fail all Will saves against illusions automatically. That way, when we suspect something to be fake, we don’t hear ridiculous accusations of metagaming. We won’t be using out of character knowledge of a Will save because there will be no Will save.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

I think I have a solution for this problem in later games....

I see the logic--Why even roll a Will save when you aren't going to abide by the outcome anyway?--Brilliant! Essentially, as Bercilac suggested, play as if there is no difference between the game and the metagame. As long as your DM is cool with it, I think this will work well for your group.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

Let me pose a question to all the people who still think its metagaming. When we first got the hunch the body was fake, how do you think we arrived at that conclusion? The entire metagaming argument only has one wobbly leg to stand on, the fact that we knew that a Will save had been made. But at the point where we said the corpse was fake, there had been no Will save.

No one has argued the case for metagaming without bringing up the fact that we knew out of character that we had made Will saves. So if we concluded the corpse was a fake before any Will save was called for, it invalidates the entire argument.

Lets pause the game right after we said the corpse was fake and right before the Will save was called for. At this exact junction in time, us metagaming is “IMPOSSIBLE”. We knew nothing about this module, and had no indication of any kind that the corpse was an illusion. We, as players, had no knowledge whatsoever. So where does this “out of character knowledge” come from? Are people honestly trying to argue that we used knowledge we didn’t have. Wow, we must be psychic or something.

 

[Elethiomel]

This thread has given me a lot to think about regarding illusions. As the consensus in this thread stands, the outcome is binary:
- Will save is successful. You see straight through the illusion.
- Will save is failed. You are utterly convinced that the illusion is real.

I don't see this being all the possible outcomes any more. The rules say "A failed saving throw indicates that the character fails to notice something is amiss". This is an ambiguous statement with several possible interpretations. I now lean toward the following interpretation: This "something amiss" means something about the makeup of the illusion that reveals it clearly and unambiguously as illusory. After all, it causes the character to see right through the illusion directly after succeeding on the will save.

Consider the following scenario:
A high level party have just fought a lich. During the fight they expended all their True Seeing effects and so on. They have a cleric with a high enough Knowledge (religion) to know that they need to immediately find the lich's phylactery and destroy it or the lich will rise again and come after them.
During their search of the lich's lair they enter a room with an Illusory Substansive Wall (a spell created by the lich - it's like an Illusory Wall with a tactile component added, but it acts like other figments in that it becomes transparent to someone who succeeds their Will save). Searching this wall for traps, the rogue gets a Will save, and miraculously succeeds. The rogue says: "Hey, look, I can poke my hand right through this wall. It's an illusion!"

Behind this wall they find another wall. Now being suspicious of trickery they all study this wall carefully. Almost all of them fail their Will saves but the cleric makes it and exclaims "This is an illusion too! Look!" and again provides the party with proof that the illusion is not real.

Behind this wall they find another wall. They all fail their Will saves. It is unreasonable that they will not be suspicious that this wall is also an illusion even before a Will save is rolled. None of them see right through it, but I still think it is reasonable for them to suspect that it is an illusion - even if they all fail their saves.

No, this is not adequately covered by a bonus to Will saves. No, they are not using out-of-character knowledge - after all, they have just seen the result of a failed will save against an illusion that was later proved to be just that. The party's loremaster has plenty of ranks in both spellcraft and knowledge (arcana) and thus knows enough about the laws of magic to know that some times you cannot see through an illusion after examining it closely even though there is one there, plus there is ample proof in the loremaster's recent memory.

Thus I will rule in my games from now on that a failed will save against a non-mind-affecting illusion means that you do not pierce the illusion instantly... but it does not mean that you can't think it is an illusion. Furthermore I believe it is a valid interpretation of RAW and not a house rule.

 

[Elethiomel]

Let me pose a question to all the people who still think its metagaming. When we first got the hunch the body was fake, how do you think we arrived at that conclusion? The entire metagaming argument only has one wobbly leg to stand on, the fact that we knew that a Will save had been made. But at the point where we said the corpse was fake, there had been no Will save.

No one has argued the case for metagaming without bringing up the fact that we knew out of character that we had made Will saves. So if we concluded the corpse was a fake before any Will save was called for, it invalidates the entire argument.

No, it doesn't. The complaint comes from the description in the OP which says that the character who failed his will save immediately asked for a detect magic to be cast to check for illusions. You yourself said that the first clue you had that it was an illusion (rather than a fake body) was the failed will save.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

Before a Will save was even called for, we decided that the body was likely fake and that we would do an in depth investigation. Such an investigation would have included using detect magic, and searching the coffin very carefully for any secret openings. The DM calls for a Will save, and when we failed that Will save the DM says we cant continue with the investigation that we were planning on before we even knew their would be a Will save. How can failing a Will save against a simple illusion stop us from doing something we were determined to do before we even knew the DM was going to call for a Will save at all?

If my character is determined to do something, then a spell forces him to cease his actions, is that not a mind-affecting spell?

 

[aboyd]

Hmm. It seems you came here to get resounding vindication, not information. And when you didn't get what you wanted, it appears you now wish to debate everyone into submission to your viewpoint.

Look, you asked a rules question on the rules forum. You got the answer. If you don't like it, fine, write off the rules forum as nutjobs or whatever. But why all the banging your head against the wall? People here think you metagamed, and arguing with them isn't going to change their minds. Why is it so important to have a bunch of anonymous people on the Internet agree with you? Are you worried your DM might show up and feel vindicated?

I guess I fail to see the logic of debating further, so I'm just curious as to why you've made two more posts.