Interpreting Illusion saves

[MarkB]

So wait.. Even if the character fails their save, the player can just act like they passed it anyway? That doesn't seem fair somehow...

J from Three Haligonians

A successful Will save to disbelieve lets you see through the illusion completely - it instantly reverts to nothing more than a vague, transparent outline in your perspective.

If you fail the save, that doesn't happen. But that doesn't snatch control of your character's decisions from your hands - the illusion appears, to him, to be perfectly solid and real, but if he trusts the judgement and honesty of his friends sufficiently, he can attempt to act as though it isn't there.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

But that doesn't snatch control of your character's decisions from your hands - the illusion appears, to him, to be perfectly solid and real, but if he trusts the judgement and honesty of his friends sufficiently, he can attempt to act as though it isn't there.

And in these types of games, you really need to be careful about playing an illusion-using character b/c you'll find them near useless.

 

[Fieari]

My group personally has fun roleplaying that the saves actually represent their characters' beliefs, such that if they fail the save, that means they still believe the illusion is real, and make up whatever justification they need to in order to explain their belief. This is a house rule, but a fun one. When pixies were messing with the party on a mountain path with the mountain to the left and a cliff to the right, the pixies made an illusion that the path CURVED (into the mountain, not into the crevasse; they weren't evil, just playful) instead of going straight. There was one player with an abysmal will save, and when he couldn't follow the path (yet failed the save) was convinced that there was an invisible wall of force in place. It didn't help that the illusion was sufficient that when his fellow party members made their saves and walked off what SEEMED to be the edge of the cliff, the guy that failed the save saw his friends falling off the cliff, and then climbing back up when they returned.

The key to this encounter though was that the PLAYERS were enjoying themselves and having fun, which is the real key. Every time he'd fail his save AGAIN (because he was getting LOTS of chances for interaction) he'd come up with another rational to explain his fervent belief in the illusion, ("you guys are nuts, or must have been magically charmed into saying that this is an illusion!") everyone would laugh and then puzzle out a new way to give him a new saving throw. Good fun in all.

Talk to your group if you want to establish this as a house rule. It would work both ways, of course, so in your advantage, and against you when in the hands of the enemy. We enjoyed it, but YMMV.

 

[blargney the second]

That sounds like a lot of fun, Fieari!

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Use Your Illusion

Figments are good for causing distraction and worry in opponents, which can be of great use in combat, particularly with something strong and relatively stupid, where denying it even 1 round of attacks while your allies attack can be a most valuable use of a spell.

There was a Rules of the Game column on the Wizards site where it was suggested, much as someone pointed out here, that the idea of "interaction" be extended to include taking a standard action to study something carefully, usually with it having to be in close range.

As others have stated, it's up to the DM to determine whether a certain type of interaction makes it impossible to fail a save, or provides a hefty penalty for believability (or penalty for lack of believability). This means that the player would do well to specify the qualities of the illusion in a way that increases believability. For instance, illusory opponents can be made to specifically miss on every attack (even if a near miss) to avoid triggering a save when a blow should have landed. In many cases a good choice is a translucent opponent, for instance one made to look like a ghost. If the illusion is of a creature that is believable as something incorporeal, then if an opponent lands a hit on the "ghost" the DM may grant a penalty to the save for believability (or if normally inclined to make the save automatic with a "corporeal-seeming" illusion, at least allow a normal save). Be careful with that example, however, as someone may have a ghosttouch weapon or, as happened to me once, the opponents decided that since they couldn't hope to hit incorporeal creatures with much success, they decided to more or less ignore my illusory allies even though they believed in them.

In the case of an illusion that looks like a Blade Barrier type effect, you might tell the DM that you want to make sure that the density of blades is such that it looks difficult but not impossible to leap through unscathed. The downside is that may encourage an effort where you'd rather maximize the chance that the foe stays back and doesn't try to cross, but the upside is that the foe, if he fails the save, may more realistically believe he made it through and not dismiss the illusion out of hand. The relative value of keeping the foe on the other side and keeping the foe believing the illusion of course depends on the situation, so both strategies have their place.

Here are a list of some things I've made illusions of in combat with my Illusionist/Druid:

* A wall of water that tricked magmins into spending precious time going around it so that we could catch up and clobber them before they disappeared into a magma flow.
* Ghosts and apparitions of various kinds (see above)
* An illusion of my animal companion or an ally so that the opponent is worried about what is real and what is illusory
* An illusory hedge that my allies knew was fake and could fire through with arrows while opponents had to make saves to realize it was an illusion and see through it to target us.
* Various things that seemed extra tasty or vulnerable to the foe so it would be encouraged to waste time attacking the illusion instead of me

The main benefit, in the end, is to make opponents waste time. The more you play D&D and higher level your campaigns become, the more you realize that time (i.e. rounds in combat) is the most precious resource of all. The question eventually becomes not "What can I do that's useful?" but rather "What's the the most useful thing I can do this round knowing that the opponent is going to do the most useful thing it can this round and the fight probably won't last more than 5-10 rounds?" Sometimes, a Figment is a poor choice, but in other cases the best use of my time is to make my opponent waste his (while my Dire Wolf animal companion chomps and trips him, of course).

Cheers,
MC

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Perhaps you should try the shadow conjuration spells? They allow a quasi-real illusion that actually does damage(though not as much as a real spell) if you fail the save to disbelieve it.

They are like a fraction of a real spell and can imitate just about any other spell from a fireball to a summoning.

 

[Li Shenron]

I use minor image to make a blade barrier seem to appear around me. As I understand it, an attacker assumes it real until he interacts with it. So he gets no save until he tries to cross my foreboding barrier. If someone gets real brave and tries, he gets a save. If he makes it, obviously he knows it’s not real. If he doesn't make the save what happens? He takes no damage, so he knows the blades do not hurt him. I don't see how "disbelieving" is any different from "believing" at this point.

** I'm not sure if this is a rules question or a general RPG question. The rule is no damge, but what I'm more concerned with is how the case of failed save, no damage taken is played out. What is the character thinking then? **

I think it's quite simple...

If the character tries to walk through the barrier, he is probably trying to avoid the blades like they were real*. On a failed ST to disbelieve, he's just going to think that he took no damage because he avoided the blades successfully.

It could happen that the player saw himself rolling very low on the ST, and thought that it was a Reflex ST to avoid damage, and then having a metagame epiphany and realize that he couldn't really have avoided damage with such low ST roll. It's not terribly metagaming anyway, and you can easily say that the character might have realized he was clumsy against the blade and actually saw some blades hitting him and passing through. He still cannot SEE the illusion, but maybe he's going to try and pass through it voluntarily failling the next "Reflex" ST, this time getting incontrovertible truth that there is no barrier.

It just means that sometimes a big failure against an illusion can reveal the illusion itself, hence being more beneficial than a "success". I don't see this being a problem, it's like someone falling down into a pit of illusionary lava because he failed him jump, and getting proof that he wouldn't have got if he jumped better.

Think of the scenario like in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, when Indy walks the invisible bridge "by faith".