Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Captain Casualty 04-11-05, 09:52 AM	Been reading a thread about shadow evocation and the issue came up about volutarily failing a saving throw so as to get the benefits of the evocation. Quote: Shadow A shadow spell creates something that is partially real from extradimensional energy. Such illusions can have real effects. Damage dealt by a shadow illusion is real. Saving Throws and Illusions (Disbelief ) Creatures encountering an illusion usually do not receive saving throws to recognize it as illusory until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion. A successful saving throw against an illusion reveals it to be false, but a figment or phantasm remains as a translucent outline. A failed saving throw indicates that a character fails to notice something is amiss. A character faced with proof that an illusion isn’t real needs no saving throw. If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus. And finally, from later in the Magic section: Quote: Voluntarily Giving up a Saving Throw A creature can voluntarily forego a saving throw and willingly accept a spell’s result. Even a character with a special resistance to magic can suppress this quality. Presumably, then, you can voluntarily give up your disbelief saving throw unless presented with proof that the illusion is unreal. Which means you, and anyone else in the tiny hut, can happily accept it as real, and happily shelter within. Now whilst I feel that issue has been settled to my satisfaction (if not the OP's) it has raised another question in my mind. How do you convince someone not to check if its an illusion? it must be something like telling people not to think about elephants. "er guys i am going to make a hut appear ok? its real. Honestly. Dont check just believe me." My point is since you are making a concious effort to not check that something is real you must have some reason to not check - or to put it another way i do not check that my desk is real in the morning, why should I? About the only time i might is if somebody told me not to. this is probably arguing about angels on the head of a pin but very quickly my mind got sucked down this circle of paranoia. Comments please?
Santrilla 04-11-05, 10:52 AM	Houseruling out of my ears here, you could probably manage it via a bluff check. Caster: "This is a real magical hut. Honest." *bluff bluff* Party: "*shrug* 'Kay." It's difficult, because when it says "until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion" you could define interact in a number of ways. For the tiny hut example, that might be as simple as sitting under it, or it might be actively examining it and thinking 'it's like a tiny hut, but this guy's an illusionist, he can't cast evocations, and this is only made out of shadows, so it doesn't really exist-' at which point the hut pops out of existence for that party member and he has to stand out in the rain. I can see your problem with the idea of 'not thinking about something not being real'. It's something of a conundrum. But, like you say, it's something people do every day. People don't wake up with a cup of coffee and think 'how do I know if this cup of coffee is real?' (Unless they're Jean-Paul Sartre.) And it certainly is problematic working out how you would persuade someone to not think about something, because merely mentioning it makes them think about it. I'm reminded of a scene in a Discworld book where the characters are inside a magic lamp, being carried somewhere, and Rincewind is instructed not to think too hard about it because if he does then the universe will catch up and realise that they actually can't be inside the lamp, and will remedy the situation accordingly. But, like I said, an appropriately difficult bluff check might do it. You could just distract the other party members somehow- I reccomend running around naked. Party: "Hey, that's a particularly dark looking hut... I wonder if it's-" Caster: "Wheeee! I'm NEKKID!" Party: "... :eek: "
tarkin 04-11-05, 11:58 AM	There are lots of ways to do that. In general, the key is WHAT the illusion does. Often people fail to give good descriptions of illuisions. They say something like "I cast an illusion of a hut". That is like saying "I cut him with sword". It is a short hand description of a FAR more involved process. Just as someone can not negate your attack simply by saying "Just before his sword hits me, I step aside", you can not avoid the save just because you say "BULL CRAP, no way do I think a hut just appeared out of no where." Here are several ways to do it. 1) Copy the appeareance of one of Leomund's Huts, that the party has seen magically summoned before. 2) If in a forest, describe the spell's effect as causing several nearby trees to lean in, wrap around each other and sprout leaves, forming a nice hut. In a grassy plain, have the hut appear to grow out of the grass. 3) Have the Hut fall out of the sky with a loud THUD. 4) Have the illusion start by you reaching into your pack, removing a small toy house, then stating "Open Sesame" and having it grow to full size. 5) Have the Hut burst out of the ground, and have gross worms still in the walls. ------------------------- Illusions are the ultimate in pure description. So DESCRIBE them.
Montieth 04-13-05, 01:30 AM	One aspect was that if you'd be persuaded through an illusion to believe that you could walk across a bridge where none was, you'd think you were doing so until you struck the ground. Thus, your party members would suffer the effects of the lack of cover from your hut and suffer exposure as per their real exposure to rain and the environment, they just wouldn't be aware of such or the extent of their injury. There was a very good article on this in a dragon years ago (#85?). It was about illusory effects, both damage and beneficent magic. The essential conclusion of the article was that if you "fell" for an illusion of a cleric that cast healing magic upon you, then you were only mislead that you'd been healed when in fact you'd not been healed. Whereas, if you'd taken illusory damage, you'd in fact have taken damage by virtue on of the mind really expecting such. I'd have to go through my books to find it, but it seemed clear on the ultimate effects. I think it did say that an illusory cleric could in fact heal damage caused by an illusion, but not the real damage.