illusions and counterspelling

[tleilaxu]

the scene: two wizards duking it out. One casts phantasmal killer (or some other illusion) on the other wizard.

At this point two things should happen. 1. the second wizard should make a spellcraft check to see if he recognizes the spell. 2. the wizard must also make a disbelief will save.

which goes first? it would seem the will save to me, because if he can identify the spell as an illusion before it happens then we wouldn't even need to disbelieve it. on the other hand half of the counterspelling's usefulness is gone if you've already disbelieved the spell...

 

[turtle]

i know someone can answer this

 

[Gromm]

Phantasmal killer is a bad example since its really more of an attack spell than say Permanent Image.
If you make a spell craft check on an illusion and know its an illusion you should be able to automatically make a save to disbelieve it since you have reason not to believe it. Of course the sneaky illusionist might actually have a friendly dragon who just stopped being invisible and really is attacking you, while the illusion is of something else. From a roleplaying point of view you can probably just ignore whatever illusion he created. After all he just cast an illusion. Just make a save every turn until you succeed and it goes away.


As far as the killer, you might not want to believe its real, but your mind wants to believe it. You could allow a save bonus for the Will half of the spell since you rationally know its not real, but that doesn't make you immune to it. Otherwise anyone who knows the effect of the spell should be immune- suddenly your worst fear appears out of nowhere, first thing you're thinking is "this isn't real"- which is mechanically the Will save.

 

[Henrix]

I think that the counterspell attempt should go before the save, as you are counterspelling while the other is casting the spell, before it is completed.

 

[gfunk]

This is one of the silly things I find about illusion in 3E. I mean, regardless of counterspelling, you can Spellcraft a spell that you see or hear being cast. Since most Sor/Wiz PCs max out their Spellcraft, it should be relatively easy to successfully identify illusion spells being cast. In some cases it doesn't help you (e.g. Color Spray, Invisibility), but in others it seems to negate the effect (e.g. PKiller, the "Image" spells).

I'm curious how you guys handle this. Do you treat Spellcraft, essentially, as an additonal Will save?

 

[Henrix]

I'm curious how you guys handle this. Do you treat Spellcraft, essentially, as an additonal Will save?

Absolutely not. A succesful Spellcraft check may allow the character to make a save.

I also do not allow Spellcraft checks willy nilly all the time.
They are, as I have said earlier, at best a free action, and so may only be taken when you are allowed to take another action.
That means that you generally have to have readied an action to be able to take your action while the caster is casting the spell.

 

[Rel]

I would not allow the Spellcraft check to supplant the Will save. I would give a +2 circumstance bonus on the save however (maybe +4 if they rolled a 20 on the check).

First of all, for balance reasons, letting Spellcraft trump illusions would be a bad idea IMO. Illusion is already among the weaker schools of magic and this would marginalize it even further.

But my main reasoning is that I don't think that a Will save represents simply knowing that something might be an illusion. I think it is more a matter of convincing yourself that it can't hurt you. For example, imagine walking on a narrow beam between two 20 story buildings. You are wearing a safety harness and there is no possible way you can fall. It still takes an act of will to make yourself step onto the beam.

Back to the rules applications, I would allow the same circumstance bonus to any party members who were told about the illusary nature of the spell. So if the party spellcaster calls out, "He's casting an illusion!", I'd give the bonus to the Will save to anybody within earshot.

 

[tleilaxu]

bump for more opinions...

 

[tleilaxu]

round 2