What is fun about illusions? Fooling the players or the PCs?

[Quickleaf]

As far as I can tell, it's just "hey a bone devil has major image on its spell list, let's see what happens." With a little work you could get the PCs expecting a pit fiend (this is a dimensional prison for creatures that crossed the pit fiend Bazgorca, and they might spy him through observing spheres in one of the torture rooms). But the adventure doesn't do that, it's a CR 9 encounter for levels 7-9. It's set in a bit of an illusion-friendly room, lined with magic mirrors that mock the bone devil by reflecting his image as a lemure, and give him a regenerating mirror image effect. But if the author knows the interaction rules, he probably intended it to be more of a tiny speed bump and less of a major deception. Goodman Games usually playtests and knows the rules, so they probably knew it wasn't going to be an effective tactic.

Huh, thematically the lemure image reflecting mirrors wouldn't mix well with the pit fiend major image. Or did you have something else in mind?

Btw, when quoting it's usually helpful to leave the username in there, since ENWorlders get notified when they're quoted.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The XP feature isn't working for me in IE or Firefox right now. So, you think it's important to have illusions that fool the players and fool all of them, so there's no save. But the question is, what's fun about that? I guess it's the fact that the players might figure it out, if they send an animal companion to root through the garbage or decide to brave the rot grubs. It's a good challenge. Or the combat might be more fun because of the surprise and scouting factor.

It depends on what you think is fun in the game. If it's just an endless progression of bags of XP and gold, you might as well be playing ProgressQuest, IMO.

Smart play ought to be rewarded just as often as good dice rolls and combing the Internet for "optimal builds" (also known as "how can I stack insufficiently play-tested WotC power creep?") before play begins.

If the players look at the map and think "you know, that wall really should be 20 feet back further than it is; that seems like it's worth investigation," they get rewarded with finding the treasure room behind the illusory wall.

If they assume that they'll never face anything that can actually kill them, they'll get bored. But part of learning when to run away is learning to judge if a threat is credible. Why is that bone devil dancing around in back while his presumed superior, the pit fiend, is attacking? By figuring out the illusion, they can advance in the adventure past a much less dangerous foe.

 

[Vegepygmy]

The point of illusion magic is that it's a well established thing in fantasy. Thus, it has a place in fantasy RPGs.

So how are illusions fun in fantasy?

In essentially the same way that they are in fantasy RPGs: they present difficulties and challenges for the heroes to overcome.

 

[GSHamster]

I think illusions work best when the players figure out that they are illusions. It gives the players a sense of victory, of besting a challenge, that is not a combat challenge. It's a little bit like a small puzzle.

For that reason, I'm not too happy with Will saves for disbelief. It reduces too much of it to a dice roll.

 

[Noumenon]

Huh, thematically the lemure image reflecting mirrors wouldn't mix well with the pit fiend major image. Or did you have something else in mind?

Btw, when quoting it's usually helpful to leave the username in there, since ENWorlders get notified when they're quoted.

I go both ways because the quote button quotes the whole post instead of quoting selected, and I usually post in short threads where I read all new posts instead of just those replying to me, but I can see your point.

The mirrors are kind of a mess. For one, bone devils have invisibility if it bothers him, for another they make the pit fiend illusion more detectable, for a third thing the adventure says they are not the source of the mirror image effect. Personally I think the room would be a lot more fun if it was a batch of normal-reflecting mirrors (visually neat effect, room full of bone devils) that also let you fight the mirror image effect by destroying them.

 

[Jimlock]

Illusions are the epitome of creativity. They can really put your mind at work,

and often help to make for very interesting encounters/situations.

...no matter who gets fooled (PCs, players... or even DMs!)

 

[Spatula]

I tried the illusionary minions tactic in 3e once, and it was reasonably successful. The players were against an aboleth, who had a few real minions and a bunch of illusionary ones. The players wasted several rounds trying to fight the fake minions before one of them made a Will save. Perhaps it was only effective because they had some bad luck, though.

Illusions aren't just weak because of the Will save aspect. In 3e at least, a spellcraft check will tell you what spell or school is being cast. "Oh, don't worry about whatever is about to happen. It's just an illusion."

I think the main use of illusions in combat is going to be to confuse, distract, and control the opposition. Creating an illusion of a monster to fight your foes is risky, because of the Will save aspect. But creating an illusion of a pit that your artillery can sit on the other side of, or walls to block enemy LOS, that sort of thing, is going to be effective because (as mentioned previously) the enemy has little reason to question their senses in those cases.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think the main use of illusions in combat is going to be to confuse, distract, and control the opposition. Creating an illusion of a monster to fight your foes is risky, because of the Will save aspect. But creating an illusion of a pit that your artillery can sit on the other side of, or walls to block enemy LOS, that sort of thing, is going to be effective because (as mentioned previously) the enemy has little reason to question their senses in those cases.

A whole line of illusion spells that do nothing but provide one-way cover would be a pretty good idea ...

 

[Thunderfoot]

Yeah, Will Saves pretty much ended really good illusions for me. Prior to 3e where illusions still had some "bite" it made things much different. Especially illusory traps.

My favorites included a 10' pit illusion in front of a real 10' pit with an illusion of the floor on it. Many thieves jumped over the illusion into spikey death.

The other was a variation on that theme. A real 10' pit with a low 5' wall suspended from the ceiling over the middle of it. Illusion of hallway beyond. Jump, smack, slide to your death.

Ah the good old days.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, Will Saves pretty much ended really good illusions for me. Prior to 3e where illusions still had some "bite" it made things much different. Especially illusory traps.

My favorites included a 10' pit illusion in front of a real 10' pit with an illusion of the floor on it. Many thieves jumped over the illusion into spikey death.

The other was a variation on that theme. A real 10' pit with a low 5' wall suspended from the ceiling over the middle of it. Illusion of hallway beyond. Jump, smack, slide to your death.

Ah the good old days.

Both of those traps still work just fine with Will saves. Characters are unlikely to discover the truth until too late. The second trap is especially good in that regard, since the way to interact with the illusion is to fall into the trap.

Per the RAW, characters don't get a Will save for just being in the vicinity of an illusion. (If you really wanted to do that for a character, it should probably be a gnome or an illusionist.)