Illusions, Zombies, and Golems

[juliaromero]

If someone believes an illusion is real and "hit" it, couldn't you make a case they they would "stop themselves" unconsciously to support the illusion idea and thus not have their weapon swing through it? A sort self-fullfilling idea ...

I mean otherwise doesn't this make illusionary wall the most useless spell in the world? "I search the wall that I totally believe is there for secrete doors" "Your hands pass right through it ... no save, you now know for sure it's an illusion".

 

[Hypersmurf]

I mean otherwise doesn't this make illusionary wall the most useless spell in the world? "I search the wall that I totally believe is there for secrete doors" "Your hands pass right through it ... no save, you now know for sure it's an illusion".

That's why you put it somewhere people are less likely to search for secret doors...

-Hyp.

 

[juliaromero]

So basically, you can have the most powerful illusionist in the world, with an impossibly high DC, who casts some super high level illusion of a horrifying red dragon and then some kid throws a stone at it and it goes right through it and everyone automatically understands immediately that it's an illusion?

 

[Darklone]

Right. Cause your superpowerful illusionist would be clever enough to build an illusion noone will interact with that easily.

 

[AuraSeer]

So basically, you can have the most powerful illusionist in the world, with an impossibly high DC, who casts some super high level illusion of a horrifying red dragon and then some kid throws a stone at it and it goes right through it and everyone automatically understands immediately that it's an illusion?

Not necessarily. These people live in a magical world, and bizarre stuff happens all the time. It could be a real dragon under the influence of a displacement spell, or some other magical defense. In my campaign, if someone were in a position to notice that the rock went straight through without being dodged or magically deflected, I'd probably require a Spot check at a rather high DC.

The illusionist would be smarter if he avoided the whole possibility of interaction in the first place. A dragon flying overhead still has intimidation value, and nobody gets to disbelieve at all.

 

[juliaromero]

The specific situation where this came up in my campagin was actually in Dragon Star. The PC's were got in an ambush in a starship hanger by some intelligent robots. The robots were also tapped into all the cameras in the hanger and so were able to see most of what was going on everywhere and were everyone was hiding. They also had automatic weapons.

The situation looked bleak until the illusionist cast some 7th level image (can't remember the exact spell) and made a giant red dragon flying over them and attakcing them. He had a great DC and they had sucky will saves so they totally believed it. Then the problems came up. They started firing at it with automatic weapons. The illusionist tried to have it look like the dragon had some sort of DR that worked like fast healing, but it was hard when so many bullets would so clearly be going through it (even if they couldn't see this from below, the cameras would let them notice this).

Anway, I made some spot ruling that worked ok but that I wasn't overly thrilled with. I wanted to get some more general feedback since similar situations are going to come up repeatedly in this adventure to make sure I was being overly hard on the character.

Oh, and it wasn't the armed robots who were monitoring the cameras ... there was a tactical unit who did that and gave tactical instructions to the armed robots to direct them more effectively, though they were independtly intelligent themselves, if not very imaginative.

 

[Particle_Man]

Well, I would say that the "firing" robots get their will save, once, when the bullets go through the dragon, and the "tactical" robots also get a will save. If they all fail the will save, then your illusionist pulled off the trick of having the dragon seem to heal bullet wounds and dodge bullets. No more save for the robots unless your illusionist does something stupid and tries to have the dragon "land" on them or something.

If the "firing" robots make their save, they would stop firing, unless ordered to do so again. If the "tactical" robots make their save, they would order the "firing" robots to stop firing and the "firing" robots would stop firing. Note that any robot making a save would give all other robots in the communication link with that robot a bonus save. But I assume only the one.

Does that help? What I was unable to answer was whether the "bonus" saves from communication might give your robots dozens of saves, so long as at least one robot in the communication link makes the save in each iteration of saves. But I think that it is simpler and fits the rules better to save only one bonus save from communication (after that, they think that the other robots are the ones that are deluded). Mind you, if the tactical ones give the other ones orders that the other ones have to follow, then it doesn't matter much what the "firing" robots believe.

 

[Zaruthustran]

If someone believes an illusion is real and "hit" it, couldn't you make a case they they would "stop themselves" unconsciously to support the illusion idea and thus not have their weapon swing through it? A sort self-fullfilling idea ...

Hi, I'll repeat this part from my SRD quote above. It's important:

"Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment. (It is not a personalized mental impression.)"

Figments are images. They're not mind-influencing effects at all. Think of them like holograms, like from the various Star Trek shows.

If someone believes an illusion is real and hits it (no quotes needed for "hit", since the AC of a figment is 10 + size modifier) then they get either a save (because they interacted with it) or the DM can rule that hitting an illusion with a melee weapon simply counts as proof that it isn't real.

The kind of illusion you seem to be talking about, where the subject's mind works to reinforce the illusion, is something like a phantasm, or glamer, or pattern. Very different from a figment.

I mean otherwise doesn't this make illusionary wall the most useless spell in the world? "I search the wall that I totally believe is there for secrete doors" "Your hands pass right through it ... no save, you now know for sure it's an illusion".

Illusionary wall is great. It works for the same reason that pointing an unloaded gun at someone and yelling "FREEZE!" works just as well as pointing a loaded a gun at someone and yelling "FREEZE!". The subject believes in something that is false, and adjusts behavior: the subject sees a wall, and so walks right by the branch in the corridor covered by the illusion / the subject believes he will be shot, and so puts his arms up in response to the unloaded gun.

To continue: if the subject puts his arm right through the illusionary wall, he'll have a pretty good idea that it's fake / if the gunman pulls the trigger and the unloaded gun merely goes "click", the held up person has a pretty good idea that the gun is unloaded.

I mean, what other way could you adjudicate a figment? The fake wall does not exist, and figments are not mind-affecting spells.

So basically, you can have the most powerful illusionist in the world, with an impossibly high DC, who casts some super high level illusion of a horrifying red dragon and then some kid throws a stone at it and it goes right through it and everyone automatically understands immediately that it's an illusion?

The type of "super high level illusion" is critically important. If it's a figment then yes, the kid that threw the stone would get a will save at least (an impossibly high will save, but a will save). Those who merely are observing (and not interacting) would not get a save at all, unless maybe if they made Spot checks to notice the stone going right through the dragon.

But, yeah, if an illusionist (even the most powerful one in the world) makes a figment of a dragon, and then observers of the that figment are presented with proof that it's not real (like if, say, a guard tower or avalanche topples right through the figment) then no save is needed. It's clear the dragon is fake. (again, smart illusionists make figments of incorporeal creatures).

Read the SRD or PHB section on illusions and this will all be clear. Here's a link:
http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/MagicOverview.rtf

-z

 

[Zaruthustran]

The situation looked bleak until the illusionist cast some 7th level image (can't remember the exact spell) and made a giant red dragon flying over them and attakcing them. He had a great DC and they had sucky will saves so they totally believed it. Then the problems came up. They started firing at it with automatic weapons. The illusionist tried to have it look like the dragon had some sort of DR that worked like fast healing, but it was hard when so many bullets would so clearly be going through it (even if they couldn't see this from below, the cameras would let them notice this).

For this example you'd give each robot that interacted with the illusion (fired at it) roll a Will save. That's it.

Automatic weapons are by their nature inaccurate, so it's likely that no one would notice the bullets going through the dragon because:

1) The dragon blocks view of what's behind it
2) Mass automatic weapons fire produces extremely chaotic ricochets and impacts everywhere around the target
3) Anyone who has fired a gun in real life can tell you of times when they were 100% sure they hit a target, only to realize later they were way off.

If you wanted, you could give some kind of circumstance bonus for each successive round of interaction. Circumstance bonuses are a DM's best friend. If one robot finally makes his Will save and announces "That dragon is fake!" then all the other robots get a +4 bonus on their saves:

"If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus."

Also note that even if you "believe" the illusion, creatures are free to attack any enemy. A robot could fail his save but just decide to trust his buddy and ignore the dragon. Figments are not mind-affecting; they are eye, ear, taste bud, and skin-affecting.

-z