D&D 5E Is it right for WoTC to moralize us in an adventure module?

[Maxperson]

So no matter what creative idea the players come up with to mimic the tattoo, you'll say "No, that doesn't work"? That seems to be the implication here.

That isn't true. We know that 10 minutes in front of the tattoo studying it or practicing it and a successful arcana check will work. And we know that if prisoner 13 tells them an illusion will work, they will know. And I've brought up the Keen Mind feat as a different way to know and I wouldn't even require the arcana check since it's perfect recall. And there might be other ways I haven't thought of. Heck, they're 4th level, so a Detect Thoughts might work.

However, the party does not KNOW illusion will work, and the party does now KNOW if drawing it will work. That lack of knowledge means that the smart party will stay to negotiate or get KNOWLEDGE a different way, because leaving and having to come back weeks later if their assumption fails will almost surely mean they have no further access to prisoner 13.

If that's the implication, it's a completely false one.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Is that a fair inference to make? Or would it not be better to engage directly with what the poster actually wrote?


How do you know that for sure? If you don't know for sure, why don't you just ask from a place of curiosity and fact-finding?

I did ask and I also said "seems to be". So... ok?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

That isn't true. We know that 10 minutes in front of the tattoo studying it or practicing it and a successful arcana check will work. And we know that if prisoner 13 tells them an illusion will work, they will know. And I've brought up the Keen Mind feat as a different way to know and I wouldn't even require the arcana check since it's perfect recall. And there might be other ways I haven't thought of. Heck, they're 4th level, so a Detect Thoughts might work.

However, the party does not KNOW illusion will work, and the party does now KNOW if drawing it will work. That lack of knowledge means that the smart party will stay to negotiate or get KNOWLEDGE a different way, because leaving and having to come back weeks later if their assumption fails will almost surely mean they have no further access to prisoner 13.

If that's the implication, it's a completely false one.

Re: Illusion or drawing
That's what ability checks are for?

 

[Maxperson]

Re: Illusion or drawing
That's what ability checks are for?

What ability check will tell you the absolute answers to those from a glance?

 

[Stormonu]

What ability check will tell you the absolute answers to those from a glance?

If it's important enough to succeed or fail the quest, I would hope the DM has the sense to provide that information with a successful ability check.

 

[Maxperson]

If it's important enough to succeed or fail the quest, I would hope the DM has the sense to provide that information with a successful ability check.

Again. WHAT ability check? Can you glance at the tattoo and know that illusion would work? Can you glance at the tattoo and know that the hand it's attached to doesn't have to be there?

 

[dragoner]

Don't buy the module francis

 

[Swarmkeeper]

What ability check will tell you the absolute answers to those from a glance?

I see the disconnect.

I'm not talking about an Ability Check to KNOW for certain an illusory or drawn tattoo would work. I'm talking about an Ability Check to try an Illusory or drawn tattoo to see if it would actually work. The dice make the decision if they work or not or if they work but with a consequence (success with a setback). Or would you, as DM, simply use Auto-Fail if the players wished to try that route?

 

[Maxperson]

I see the disconnect.

I'm not talking about an Ability Check to KNOW for certain an illusory or drawn tattoo would work. I'm talking about an Ability Check to try an Illusory or drawn tattoo to see if it would actually work.

Okay. And I'm not saying that it couldn't work. I'm saying that if they leave the prison and go check, and their guess was wrong, they'd be unable to come back weeks later as the same workers that just up and vanished without a word OR as guests to the prison. It would be too suspicious. They'd have ruined their chances at getting the correct info.

The smart party will stay and get the accurate information somehow BEFORE they leave, not go off of a guess and an ability check.

 

[Steampunkette]

Are you even reading what I'm typing here? What if..................you need to PHYSICALLY press the tattoo to the vault to open it? No illusion that the party can cast will be able to do that.

Also, you're wrong about the tattoo. The inks have physicality. The skin has physicality and for all the party knows it takes both.

That is not necessarily true. It might require permanent inks. Or special arcane inks that the party doesn't have. Or...

Is there some part of "Only the DM knows that" that you are not understanding from what I am saying here? I've said that three times now and you keep bringing it back up as if it changes something. There is no way for the party to know that by looking at the tattoo.

He doesn't have that spell, because he's too low level. There's a reason why I said "that the party can cast." You seem to have missed this at the top of the first page. "An Adventure for 4th-Level Characters" But hell, even if the group was 9th level and could cast creation, you cannot create a tattoo with it.

That's not a tattoo. Not that 4th level PCs can cast that spell, either.

Wait?! You're actually arguing that because there are two illusions that specify that they have physicality, that the rest of the illusions which specify that they do not have physicality have physicality?

Here is what a 4th level PC can cast.

Minor Illusion(cantrip): "Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion, because things can pass through it."
Disguise Self(1st lvl): "The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection." - so that isn't physical at all.
Illusory Script(1st lvl): - Doesn't specify physical or not, so according to Crawford it is not. Also doesn't make tattoos. It's writing.
Invisibility(2nd lvl): - Not capable of making tattoos. Has no physicality in any case.
Mirror Image(2nd lvl): - Same as above.
Phantasmal Force(2nd lvl): - Same as above.

No illusion spell castable by a 4th level group(even if you have a caster that can cast them in the first place, can take the place of a tattoo that needs to be there physically.

Bunches of stuff that all comes down to "Use an Arcana check (at most) to know it would work"

The players may INFER that there's a whole bunch of stuff that's needed. But the DM Knows that the Illusion works. And if the illusion would work in this situation, it should probably work in similar situations irrespective of additional inferences players may make but characters would know better...

Because they're trained in Arcana. If the DM is unwilling to communicate this kind of thing to the players, that's on the DM. Not the writer.

Also the Creation and stuff was me showing how you're wrong that illusion is "Never" tactile. Not "These are the spells they could use!" In fact I gave an explicit "Even if it required a physical key"

And no. A tattoo has no physicality in the sense of TANGIBILITY. If I use disguise self to have tiefling-red skin, no amount of touching it will reveal that my skin is actually white. Because the COLOR has no physicality.

It's just light.