Illusions: damage and mimicing other spells

[OberonViking]

When a PC fails a Will save or three (or more) when in combat with an Orc figment created from Minor Image, how do you handle the damage caused?

I've been running Crypt of the Everflame with my kids, and two of them were 'killed' by the illusionary orcs. I chose to treat the damage as non-lethal damage, though the text says:

If the save is failed, the character believes
the wounds caused by the attacking
orcs. Once all of the characters have
disbelieved or all of the orcs are slain,
both the orcs and the wounds caused
by them disappear.

I think this is fine for a first level adventure, but I am currently playing a 3rd level Wizard whose specialty school is illusion. What happens to my foes when they are hit by my Figments? What happens in a few levels when I cast Minor Image to 'summon' a dire wolf, and the enemy fails their Will save again and again?
I know that Figments are:

unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. Figments and glamers cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding foes, but useless for attacking them directly.

But, what if the enemy is 'killed' by my illusory wolf, and they 'die' believing it to be real? What happens then?
This is where I think that the damage should be tallied as non-lethal damage, and the victim will regain consciousness according to the rules of non-lethal damage.

And how would you handle using Minor Image to mimic another spell. Here's my thoughts on some specific spells, what do you think?

Obscuring Mist, level 1, This should work as well as the original spell, though it now has a Will save.

Stumble Gap, level 1, This should work as well as the original spell, though the Reflex save becomes a Will save.

Glitterdust, level 2, Yes, a good choice. The Figment is a layer of glittering dust that blinds creatures and outlines invisible ones. A failed Will save should definitely blind a creature, but I don’t think it will negate the magic of Invisibility. If your GM is particularly flexible, perhaps the NPCs who are invisible might believe that they no longer are…?

Web, level 2, Fail your Will save and you believe you are stuck in the Web. Try to break free (and you get to make another Will save. If a GM were to use this illusion against her players she should roll the saves in secret so that the players don’t realise that it is a Will not a reflex save.

Create Pit, level 2, Beautiful. Can you think of a better use for an illusion? You manipulate the battlefield and the spell in such a manner that no-one wants to interact with it, therefor there is no need for a will save.

Stinking Cloud, level 3 - sure a Will save to disbelieve, but if you fail that, do you have to make a Fort save as well?
Other good spells to imitate would be Spiked Pit and Acid Pit, Wall of Stone. This is just from looking at the Conjuration (creation) list.

What are your thoughts on these ideas, both specifically and generally?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Caveat: I don't play Pathfinder, but I've played a 3.5 illusionist for four years.

As per the RAW, figments don't cause damage. Period. But as you've noted, you don't have to cause damage to affect your opponents. You can cause them to avoid you, to flee the scene or think that you pose no threat.

I've used Silent Illusion to work as a functional invisibility spell by recreating an existing wall a foot further in than it really is, and standing between the illusory and real walls. It has the advantage of not requiring any sound to work and is plausible enough -- there's really a wall there! -- that it's unlikely to be interacted with or doubted.

Where you run into problems are when you want illusions to be interacted with.

A fog cloud? Sure, that's not really a problem -- although it requires creating the illusion all the way through believably, not just an outer shell. I'd say that its save is merited. If the save is made, the illusionist didn't create an illusion with sufficient foggy depths.

Glitterdust's effects are magical. An illusion can't detect invisible people and all the illusionist can create is an illusory cloud of motes. At best, I'd have illusory creatures roll a save with a big bonus (improved slightly if the illusionist announces "and now I'll expose that invisible fiend" or something, and the caster recognizes it as an alleged glitterdust spell). Honestly, it's not a great use of an illusion, in my opinion.

An illusory web works better as a barrier than people would avoid than as something they'd interact with, since that's when they'll get that Will save.

Yeah, creating a pit is a classic illusion, for the reasons you outline. It doesn't need to be a special spell, though -- whenever I see those in rulebooks, it's clear to me the author doesn't use a lot of illusions in their game -- since that's easily created with the most basic illusion spells available.

A stinking cloud is just a green cloud of fog in illusory form, unless your illusion spell has an olfactory component (most don't) and the subject recognizes what it's supposed to be. Bad use of an illusion.

The keys to good illusions, IMO, are plausibility -- is it something that could reasonably be expected to appears? -- and that the victim won't want to interact with it, and thus test it. A spiked pit illusion or a floor full of caltrops are ideal illusions, as is a slumbering guard dog, increasing the number of melee fighters with illusory reinforcements, a dragon in flight silhouetted against the sun, or a flight of arrows cresting a hill and (so far) missing the target.

As for the module you cite, I wouldn't have had the orcs cause damage, since that's not how figments work. But you can handwave that and just say it's some specialized effect that works in a different way -- maybe it's a conjuration spell that creates orc-shaped effects, rather than an actual illusion spell.

 

[paradox42]

@Whizbang, there is in PF a Conjuration spell called Create Pit- it's in the APG. Unlike an illusion, it creates a real pit that you can really fall in to and hurt yourself. Level 2. There's a whole series of them, Create Pit is just the lowest one. Those are what the OP is referring to there (Spiked Pit is another).

That said, I have to agree with Whizbang's assessments of the effects he mentioned in his post- a Figment Glitterdust won't be able to do more than blind them. Stinking Cloud would just be a Fog Cloud that happens to be icky colors. Minor Image can't create any sensory component besides visual (and some incoherent sounds), so it certainly can't mimic the smell of the Stinking Cloud (which is obviously what requires the Fort save).

With regard to the orcs, though, I think the best way to handle it is indeed to use nonlethal damage- at least until they wake up from it. At that point, it'll be quite clear the damage was fake all along, so all the damage should go away at once. And of course, if they make their saves, they take no damage in the first place, but you knew that.

Illusion is one of the most powerful schools of magic, despite its inability to cause real damage- the extreme flexibility of the basic spells are the key reason why. You just have to know how to use it. Lots of people overlook and dismiss it as a result.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

@Whizbang, there is in PF a Conjuration spell called Create Pit- it's in the APG. Unlike an illusion, it creates a real pit that you can really fall in to and hurt yourself. Level 2. There's a whole series of them, Create Pit is just the lowest one. Those are what the OP is referring to there (Spiked Pit is another).

Conjurers are just wizards who couldn't make it as illusionists.