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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bungus" data-source="post: 4836456" data-attributes="member: 82452">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.</blockquote>

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