Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 suin_bahhar_02 Dec 10, 2008 7:30:23	How would a wizard in an Illusionist academy give a lecture on explaining the inner workings of the glamer Invisibility? What kind of energies are tapped from the weave? Does it relate to the ethereal? What does invisibility foil, how does it do that, and how does one foil its use? Why the eyelash and gum arabic components?
#2 lord_karsus Dec 10, 2008 10:34:32	-The Weave is manipulated such that the caster (or individual he/she casts the spell on) is surrounded by a field that makes the caster (or individual he/she casts the spell on) transparent, causing light and to pass through them, causing them to fade from view in the normal spectrum.
#3 suin_bahhar_02 Dec 10, 2008 12:21:14	Transparancy. Agreed. When an illusionist casts Invisibility in a field where the strands of the weave are made visible the proces would look like he outlines a closefitting suit with the weave, which actualy is the glamored field that lets light through. The motions would include grabbing the eyelash, pressing it into the arabic gum and handwaving the subject from head till toe while incanting a sentance including the draconic word for obfuscate. Eyelash is expended by the weave because of its peculiar quality of splitting light. The arabic gum is the catalist for the consumation by the invisible blueflames of the weave.
#4 Stigger Dec 10, 2008 12:37:15	What if it was using the eyelash to "trap" the vision of those around the caster in the gum, and not actually causing the caster to become transparent, simply impossible to see, since he was still quite visible, just impossible to notice, because to your own mind, he simply wasn't there? Not that its necessarily the case here, I'm just tossing that one out to see what you make of it.
#5 lord_karsus Dec 10, 2008 12:41:59	-I've always ignored the "stupid" material components for spells, houseruling them out completely unless they are expensive components, like the diamond for Identify, for example.
#6 suin_bahhar_02 Dec 10, 2008 13:02:32	Trapping sight into the gum might work and is the way The Invisible Art's Invisibility manifests. Its a mindeffecting manifestation in psionics. Its a glamer in the arcane arts. So catching the sight into the gum fails to explain how the casting, after expending the gum and eyelash, bends the vision of secondary onlookers. I always liked the esotheric feel magic got from spell components. Emphasing spellcasting in D&D is still fantasy hokey magic, using incomprehensible physics and unexpecting alchemy.
#7 lord_karsus Dec 10, 2008 13:23:13	-Verbal and somatic components, I use as is, but material components (in bat guano, gum arabic, eyelashes, string, butterfly wings, etc.) I never appreciated. Material components for other things (rings for Shield Other, diamonds for Identify), those I like.
#8 Stigger Dec 10, 2008 18:05:22	Its called resonance my dear LK... could explain that failure of yours a few centuries back if you're not familiar. :P :D
#9 lord_karsus Dec 10, 2008 20:51:30	-I had Eschew Materials, and the epic version of Eschew Materials, don't worry.
#10 Stigger Dec 11, 2008 8:34:05	Ignore Material Components... Not inspiring much confidence there. :P
#11 rinonalyrna_fathomlin Dec 11, 2008 10:08:01	The material components are all based on the real life (and yes, hokey) concept of sympathetic magic. That said, I agree that some things are rather stupid as some of the components seem to have little to do with the actual effect of the spell.
#12 lord_karsus Dec 11, 2008 11:10:50	Ignore Material Components... Not inspiring much confidence there. :P -Yup, that's the one. Now, where did I put that Gold Dragon gizzard...
#13 Stigger Dec 11, 2008 11:21:59	Hokey? Not that hokey really... well, no more hokey than anything else in modern conceptions of RL magic anyway. Associative reasoning and all that... makes a certain amount of sense as a concept, though not so much when it comes to the actual associations people tend to make. With enough time and effort, one could associate anything with anything else if they get bent enough in their thinking.
#14 suin_bahhar_02 Dec 11, 2008 12:31:49	Sounds a bit like modern homeopathy. Drink this brew of may-flowers and feel vital! Placebo's are modern spellcomponents! ;) So what did you guys think of the eyelash as a bender of light in the physics of invisibility magic? When one squints and looks through eyelashes some blindspots can be imagined. Thus the imitative effect of the eyelash gets amplified through the weave to make a field a few inch from the subject which passes light through.
#15 lord_karsus Dec 11, 2008 13:39:36	-That works well...Some spell components for certain spells, though, I don't think much sense can be made of them. A lot of them are pretty out there.
#16 Stigger Dec 11, 2008 17:03:07	Eyelashes are also meant to keep dust and the like out of the eyes, and have a certain element of 'filter' to them, so that could work as well. Gum could have the elastic properties in mind to bend the light around the caster... lots of ways it could be reasoned out really.
#17 Iluvrien Dec 11, 2008 17:45:35	I had always wondered if Invisibility didn't work by bending light rather than rendering someone transparent. By gathering the strands of the Weave a magic user would braid or construct a weave-cocoon. Light contacting the shell would travel along its fibres and be re-emitted on the far side. It might also suggest why certain actions would end the spell as the shell would shear or shatter and unravel. Oh well, just a thunk.
#18 rinonalyrna_fathomlin Dec 11, 2008 18:44:16	Hokey? Not that hokey really... well, no more hokey than anything else in modern conceptions of RL magic anyway. All right, replace "hokey" with "irrational". And of course, I don't believe a more "modern" take on the concept of RL magic would be any more rational.
#19 lord_karsus Dec 12, 2008 11:27:56	-They said the Force was a hokey religion...Look what happened there.
#20 rinonalyrna_fathomlin Dec 12, 2008 12:35:11	-They said the Force was a hokey religion...Look what happened there. You know what, I was actually thinking about that last night.
#21 Stigger Dec 12, 2008 13:35:45	Well, she does have a point there... most takes on magic tend to make it as being needlessly obtuse. Pseudointellectual eliticism taken to its obvious conclusion really... but that's probably not a discussion we need to get into. :D
#22 suin_bahhar_02 Dec 14, 2008 12:52:54	Being an illusion spell it could very well be just a light trick. A reflective surface in a "roundish pyramid form" that reflect its light upwards, against another horizontal mirror, and then downwards on the "cone" again makes the object under the cone invisible.
#23 suin_bahhar_02 Dec 14, 2008 12:59:55	Like so?
#24 haplo81 Dec 14, 2008 13:51:58	The problem with bending light or rendering the subject invisible is that it would also make the subject blind. Unless you're only bending light rays going outward from the subject and allowing rays coming in to pass- but even then it would have the side effect of effectively snuffing out any light source carried by the subject for the duration of the spell.
#25 lord_karsus Dec 15, 2008 0:03:09	The problem with bending light or rendering the subject invisible is that it would also make the subject blind. Unless you're only bending light rays going outward from the subject and allowing rays coming in to pass- but even then it would have the side effect of effectively snuffing out any light source carried by the subject for the duration of the spell. -Well, this is fantasy D&D physics, here. :P
#26 Stigger Dec 15, 2008 0:53:54	Which is why I prefer the "I'm not here" mental command version myself... though anything that defended against Mind-Affecting effects would negate it. Which is kind of funny to think of really... :D
#27 lord_karsus Dec 15, 2008 10:29:28	-Should I add into the conversation Infrainvisibility, so 2e spell converted into 3e in Elves of Faerûn?
#28 suin_bahhar_02 Dec 15, 2008 15:01:05	The Hide from Undead/Animals series of spells and Sanctuary do work with the fade from notice means, obscuring detection from certain types of creatures. Sanctuary can be a very tense way of overcoming an hostile obstacle, and I like that spell alot. The Hide from spells also stop scent and hearing. Perhaps the Invisibility spell works as a Hide from spell tailored to corporeal prime creatures foiling sight only by partially stepping into the spirit realm (making you visible to incorporeal and ethereal creatures only). Infrainvisibility works as a foil 'gainst darkvision? Or works against surface elves aswell making them fade from lowlight vision?
#29 lord_karsus Dec 15, 2008 15:39:17	-It hides the caster/target from infravision, but not vision in the normal spectrum.
#30 Stigger Dec 15, 2008 17:20:06	Kind of like a Ring of the Darkhidden... sort of.
#31 lord_karsus Dec 15, 2008 17:30:19	-That protects them from Darkvision, right? Yeah, same concept.
#32 Stigger Dec 15, 2008 17:32:57	Pretty much. 3e's nod to that old spell I guess, though I'd have preferred it in spell form myself. Not that I didn't come up with one anyway, but still.
#33 lord_karsus Dec 15, 2008 17:35:46	-Gotcha. I still have normal vision, Infravision and Darkvision all going concurrently.
#34 Stigger Dec 15, 2008 17:43:16	Don't see a problem with it myself... I kind of have to use infravision myself, my wife would kill me if I didn't. Have to differentiate between the thermographic version of it though, since it upsets her when I don't. Since I sleep next to her, I find it best not to upset her too much since she wakes up first usually. :D
#35 lord_karsus Dec 15, 2008 17:58:24	-Understood.
#36 lord_karsus Jan 04, 2009 13:13:17	-In a book I just finished, the author (who was claiming the book to be a true story, but it was, of course, not) mentioned that invisibility is attained by slowing down the activity of the brain and particles making up the body, to a point that others cannot perceive them.
#37 suin_bahhar_02 Jan 04, 2009 13:28:06	A bit like a zen like state. Feels good to me, as the earlier spell breaks upon going aggressive.
#38 lord_karsus Jan 04, 2009 13:58:12	-It was a book by a supposed Lama, T. Lobsang Rampa, who was outed as a fake, so, yes.