See Invisibility

[kreynolds]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: See Invisibility

If you are aware of it, your definition of True Seeing not allowing you to perceive the illusion must be false. How can you be aware of something that you cannot perceive?

Simple. Hallucinatory Terrain allows a disbelief Will save. If your True Seeing completely pierces the illusion, rendering it useless against you, how can it possibly effect you? It can't. An illusion, such as Hallucinatory Terrain, which is a glamer, tricks your senses into believing something is there that is not. True Seeing allows you to see beyond this lie. How can a spell such as this affect you in any way if your senses automatically recognize it to be false? Simple. It can't.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I can't belive I'm even coming near this one, but...

The "tangible" aspects of an illusion rely on you beliving it is real. If you can see it is not, you don't bump into it. It is no longer real. Otherwise you would need FIVE saves to get past it. You get one save anytime it is interacted with, and if you suceed, the spell is seen through.

True seeing allows you to see that which is hidden. If it were any more complicated than that, it would be in the description. There are other more complicated spells in the book that do get explained to death, and that do have such loopholes filled in their very description. I don't think that I, at the time of this writing no less, am the first to come up with the idea of lenses of true seeing, (with my luck the idea is well publicized, ). If that spell worked the way you are arguing that it does, you would ALWAYS FAIL every save vs. every illusion, in fact, you would get no save.

This is just like the Phased Arrow argument. To use it, you do not need to know someones name, just where they are. Likewise, with See Invisibility or True Seeing, you are aware of deceptions, both the fact that there was a deception, and what lies under it. This game was not written by lawyers, for lawyers, so the description should not be put through such verbal gymnastics.

They let you see through illusions. Simple. Easy. Less than complex.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

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With True Seeing, you automatically see all illusions, shapechanged creatures and objects, polymorphed creatures and objects, etc, etc, etc, as they truly are. That's pretty damn powerful, so there must be something to offset that power.

Well, yes there is an offset. You need to spend a a 6th level spell slot to get this spell if you are a wizard. That's one less chain lightning to throw at your enemies.

Why would you pester your players with such a dubious interpretation? And more importantly, why must there be an offset?

AFAIAC, any divination spell that allows you to see past an illusion also gives you the knowledge of the existence of the illusion itself. Or of the transmution in polymorph case.

Otherwise, it leads to ridiculous situation.

How about this one; A colossal red dragon is polymorphed into a noble and visits a tavern. A wizard with true seeing sees his true form. What does he see? A dragon that is bigger than the tavern? Does the wizard sees himself inside the belly of the dragon?

 

[KarinsDad]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: See Invisibility

Simple. Hallucinatory Terrain allows a disbelief Will save. If your True Seeing completely pierces the illusion, rendering it useless against you, how can it possibly effect you? It can't. An illusion, such as Hallucinatory Terrain, which is a glamer, tricks your senses into believing something is there that is not. True Seeing allows you to see beyond this lie. How can a spell such as this affect you in any way if your senses automatically recognize it to be false? Simple. It can't.

Either you are being stubborn (take a deep breathe, that wasn't an insult), or you aren't getting it. I'll try one more time.

True Seeing either works your way, or my way, or some other person's way. Let's consider just yours and mine.

Yours: True Seeing pierces the illusion, but you are unaware that it did this.

Mine: True Seeing pierces the illusion, but you are aware that it did this.

So far, so good.

Now, the question comes up, what does pierces the illusion mean?

Every word in the True Seeing spell indicates that it only pierces the visual portion of the illusion. So, if an opponent puts up an illusion with no visual portion, say an Invisible Dire Bear that smells real bad and roars real loud, True Seeing would do nothing for you against that illusion.

You could try to argue against this, but I cannot see (pun intended) how you could be successful based on the description of True Seeing in the book. For now in the discussion, we'll assume that True Seeing only affects the visual portion and we'll discuss further on whether this is true.

Now, with your interpretation of True Seeing, you are unaware of the visual portion of the Mirage Arcana. It just does not exist for you at all. But, the other illusion components must exist for you since True Seeing does not pierce them.

In my interpretation of True Seeing, I am aware of the visual portion of the Mirage Arcana. It exists for me, but I know it is an illusion. Since I know the illusion is there and exists, I automatically save against the other portions of it because I have knowledge of its existance as an illusion.

But since in your interpretation, you do NOT know that the visual portion exists as an illusion (you cannot see it at all), you also do not know that the other portions of it exists as an illusion. Hence, you must make your will save to figure out that they are illusions.

The only possible counter to this point is your belief that True Seeing pierces the entire illusion.

But, you haven't yet substantiated that in any way. We cannot discuss that possibility unless you explain why it is so. So far, you are just saying that it is so. But, the book does not state that.

So, the question boils down to:

Why does True Seeing pierce the entire illusion in your interpretation when it only talks about visual elements in the spell description?

 

[kreynolds]

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But, you haven't yet substantiated that in any way. We cannot discuss that possibility unless you explain why it is so. So far, you are just saying that it is so. But, the book does not state that.

I already did. Answer this question; What happens when you succeed at a disbelief saving throw against an illusion?

Why does True Seeing pierce the entire illusion in your interpretation when it only talks about visual elements in the spell description?

Say you have the illusion of a brick wall that has visual and tactile properties. Now, being an illusion, you get a disbelief saving throw when you interact with it. By your rationale, if a blind man walks up to the wall and succeeds at a disbelief save when he touches it, the wall would still be there and he still couldn't pass through it. Why? Because he couldn't see it. He saved against one part of the illusion, but not the other? Thin.

 

[nharwell]

I have to say that, as a gamemaster, it would never have occurred to me to try to screw my players with such a strange and narrow interpretation of these spells. I suspect that if I ran my games that way, I soon would not have any players left...

 

[kreynolds]

I have to say that, as a gamemaster, it would never have occurred to me to try to screw my players with such a strange and narrow interpretation of these spells.

Seeing as how there are multiple interpretations on this thread, it might help for you to point to which one you aren't happy with.

 

[Will]

Odd. It would never have occurred to me to make See Invisibility not actually indicate 'that guy over there's invisible'.

Maybe it's 'thin', but I vote with 'you don't loose information with a divination spell'.

 

[kreynolds]

Maybe it's 'thin', but I vote with 'you don't loose information with a divination spell'.

You need to read the thread more carefully. I never said that See Invisibility actually revealing invisible targets was thin. Not once. Not ever.

What I did say, however, is that See Invisibility does not allow you to see through the invisibile creature or object, as if they were translucent. KarinsDad's argument against that is what I called thin.

 

[KarinsDad]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: See Invisibility

I already did.

Well, pretend that I missed it because quite frankly, I have no idea of what you are talking about with regard to this. Spell it out in simple English for me as opposed to avoiding the question.

Why does True Seeing pierce the entire illusion in your interpretation when it only talks about visual elements in the spell description?

This is the pertinent question that must be answered by you in order for you to validate your position.

Otherwise, your entire position revolves around "because it does". That's not good enough to gain you credibility on this topic. See Silence Spell below.

Answer this question; What happens when you succeed at a disbelief saving throw against an illusion?

The illusion exists for you, but you know that it is an illusion and are not significantly affected by it.

But, True Seeing does not state that it does this. It states that it allows you to see through illusions. It does not state that other elements of the illusion do not exist for you. If you cannot understand the difference after I have explained it several times, I cannot help you to do that.

These are two different, but similar, game mechanics. If you think they are the same, that is where you are misunderstanding.

Say you have the illusion of a brick wall that has visual and tactile properties. Now, being an illusion, you get a disbelief saving throw when you interact with it. By your rationale, if a blind man walks up to the wall and succeeds at a disbelief save when he touches it, the wall would still be there and he still couldn't pass through it. Why? Because he couldn't see it. He saved against one part of the illusion, but not the other? Thin.

Totally false.

Ok, now I am starting to understand why you have a problem with this. No wonder you think my position is thin. You are still are not understanding it, otherwise you would have not posted this silly incorrect example since my position does not indicate that at all.

Let's take the blind man example.

You are equating the True Seeing spell negating the entire illusion.

I am equating the True Seeing spell negating only the visual portion of the illusion.

If the blind man walks up to it, he disbelieves the entire illusion if he disbelieves any portion of it. Why? Because he made his will save. That is how illusions work. Game Mechanic #1.

But, the True Seeing spell does not give you automatic disbelief UNLESS it lets you know that there is actually an illusion there. Game Mechanic #2.

Since your claim is that you have no clue that an illusion is there, why would the spell help you to save against the illusion? You are not immune to the illusion, you just do not SEE the visual portion of it. Effectively, you are ONLY immune to the visible portion of the illusion. That does not mean that you are immune to the entire spell.

Within a Silence spell, you are ONLY immune to the audio portion of the illusion. That does not mean that you are immune to the entire spell. The Silence spell only allows you to not hear the illusion. True Seeing only allows you to not see the illusion.

The blind man does not see the illusion either, but he still has to make a will save. Ditto for the guy with True Seeing IF and only IF True Seeing does not inform him of the illusion. Both of these are Game Mechanic #1. They both have to make their save.

In this case, there is no difference between a blind guy and the guy with True Seeing.

For the guy with True Seeing where it does inform him of the illusion, he automatically saves. Game Mechanic #2.


Special caveat on this. When you get into the details of this, there is one element that must be taken into consideration:

The DM might give you a bonus to your save against the touch and hearing portions of an illusion since you know you have True Seeing up and cannot see what is making the noise. But, in many cases, that's all he should do. It should not necessarily be automatic, but there are rare circumstances where it should.

Example 1, the entire party sees the illusion of the Troll standing at the edge of the forest.

The character with True Seeing sees the edge of the forest, but he still thinks the Troll growls are real unless he makes a will save. The DM might give him no bonus to this save since he doesn't see a creature, but the creature could be concealed in the woods and the True Seeing spell would not affect that.

Example 2, the entire party sees the illusion of the Troll standing 100 feet away on a wide open plain.

The character with True Seeing still thinks the Troll growls are real unless he makes a will save. The DM might give him a considerable +5 bonus to this save since he doesn't see a creature standing there, but the creature could be hiding in a hole or something in the grass and the True Seeing spell would not affect that.

Example 3, the entire party sees the illusion of the Troll flying above them.

The character with True Seeing sees nothing in the air, but he still hears the Troll growls unless he makes a will save. The DM might make the save automatic since there is no way for a creature to be invisible and flying in the air without the True Seeing showing the normal creature. Hence, it must be an illusion.


Example 2 would be the most typical case. Usually, there are not a lot of places to hide or no place to hide. Hence, it should typically fall somewhere in between. So, the DM should often give a bonus to the save of some amount.