Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 destati Jun 22, 2015 16:50:35	So more fun with illusions. This is my frist time GMing and my party just hit level 3. I have three differnt party members that use illusions and they have all just picked up this spell. The only part I have a question on is this, "The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC." based on how they have argued this spell they dont think an enemy would every try and investigate. As an example let say they create a large octopus monster that holds the enemy. They say the enemy would not ever roll an investigation as they would always use there acton to try and escape. I was thinking I would have the enemy roll investigation when trying to escape the illusion. If this is not true what is the point of the investigation check?  PHANTASMAL FORCE Duration: Concentration. up to I minute Voucraft an illusion that takes root in the mind of a creature that you can see within range. The target must make an Intelligence saving throw. On a failed save, you create a phantasmal object, creature. or other visiblephenomenon of your choice that is no larger than alO-foot cube and that is perceivable only to the targetfor the duration. This spell has no effect on undeadar constructs. The phantasm includes sound, temperature. and other stimuli, also evident only to the creature. The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If the check succeeds, the target realizes that the phantasm is an illusion, and the spell ends. While a target is affected by the spell, the target treats the phantasm as if it were real. The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm. For example. a target attempting to walk across a phantasmal bridge that spans a chasm falls once it steps anta the bridge. ]f the target survives the fali, it still believes that the bridge exists and comes up with some other explanation for its fall-it was pushed, it slipped, ar a strong wind might have knocked it off. An affected target is so convinced of the phantasm's reality that it can even take damage from the illusion. A phantasm created to appear as a creature can attack the target. Similarly. a phantasm created to appear as tire. a pool of acid. ar lava can burn the target. Each round on your turn. the phantasm can deal Id6 psychic damage to the target if it is in the phantasm's area ar within 5 feet of the phantasm, provided that the illusion is of a creature ar hazard that could logically deal damage. such as by attacking. The target perceives the damage as a type appropriate to the illusion.
#2 Macv12 Jun 22, 2015 18:22:43	My rule of thumb is that any action spent to interact with the illusion directly counts as "investigating" it. So if it's a wall that you think you're touching, or an enemy you think you're grappling, you're directly probing it and have a chance to notice something's "off." Otherwise, yes, almost nothing would ever think "I wonder if this object is a phantasm" and investigate for signs of that. My favorite example is an illusory Pit Fiend. Who would ever pull out their pipe and cap and go poking and prodding that to make sure it's real?   But, if the illusion is one that makes the target run away or do something other than interact with it, no check. That's an intelligent and powerful use of the spell. Say you make a phantasmal wall. Kicking the wall and trying to break through it isn't the creature intentionally "investigating" it, but spending an action interacting with the illusion like that means they have a good chance of noticing something fishy and seeing through it. But if they spend an action to Dash around it, oops! No interaction, no investigation, no check.   If you give out checks too easily, the illusion won't last long, and it only affects one target anyway. The whole point of using it is that it's persistent, and intelligent use of it can render an enemy useless. Keep in mind that a wizard could have cast Scorching Ray, Enlarge/Reduce, or Hold Person with that same slot. Especially Hold Person. At the same time, PF is way more useful out-of-combat. PF the keys to your cell; the guard thinks he locked you in and pocketed them, a feat only possible with Phantasmal Force because it fools every sense. So PF doesn't need to duplicate the effect of Hold Person, just be comparable.   But also tailor it to the players. If they're really bad at improvising illusions that will steal enemy actions, and/or you play the enemies as always reacting in a way that equates to an investigation check, they probably won't enjoy using the spell. So having the enemies never make checks unless they have a good and specific reason to expect trickery might be better. Remember, the target already had to fail a save against the spell. I like illusions to reward clever use of the situation, but also think it's important not to make it so much work, or so hit-or-miss, that it's not worth being an illusionist.
#3 destati Jun 22, 2015 18:38:49	Thank you for the responce. That is exsactly how i think this spell should work. Award creative uses. Instead of incasing an enemy in a block of cement for a minute every time.
#4 Byakugan01 Jun 23, 2015 6:05:46	I cringed when one of my players took the spell.   I was already going to 'interpret' the spell to to not be able to inflict status effects, but thankfully the player that took the spell never uses it.     This spell is one of the big 3 broken 2nd level spells.  Phantasmal force, suggestion, and find steed.  I cant believe they took a year to do eratta and they didn't include these in the fixes. Ugh!
#5 mellored Jun 23, 2015 6:16:29	As a rule of thumb, I let illusions fool someone once.
(Reply to #2) Lilika	Macv12 wrote:
#7 Byakugan01 Jun 23, 2015 19:05:32	pit fiends arent the problem. adamantine vats filled with acid are the problem...nothing in the actual spells prevents the illusion from incapacitating/blinding/restraining/grappling/petrifying people....all things that should be well beyond a 2nd level spell's capabilities.  Extremely badly designed spell.
(Reply to #7) Lilika	Byakugan01 wrote:
#9 Byakugan01 Jun 23, 2015 20:41:56	and if they see and feel acid and adamantine surrounding them....can they take move actions if they believe they are encased in a small box?  Can they see anyone or anything other than the acid they see and 'feel' burning their eyeballs?  They would actually start drowning unless they started holding their breath.   Im playing devils advocate because I already decided to permanently misinterpret how the spell is worded.  I am not 'allowed' to have house rules in AL...but I am allowed to make a 'ruling' over and over again.  go fig.   That does not change the need for them to FIX the spell by giving it reasonable limits.
#10 Lilika Jun 23, 2015 21:04:36	The problem is this, spells like phantasmal force are known, people know that novice illusionist can cast illusions that simulate sensations.  In short they know that someone could cast phantasmal force on them, so if the effect is out of place in their current situation they will try to investigate it.   When I was pondering this spell, I thought it could be really cool if I could think of just the right thing at the right time to be plausible to who I was casting it on, so that they wouldn't just realize that a magically appearing pit fiend or tub of acid was an illusion and try to disbelieve it.   Now even with a very conservative implimentation of the spell, it does create a nice size illusionary effect for one character, and if you are very creative it could be very effective.  I personally feel that you need to make the illusionary effect plausible unless you want them rolling investigation on it every turn.   All that said, even with the conservative reading of the spell, it could be very effective to take one low int creature out of the picture while doing a small amount of damage to them.
#11 Macv12 Jun 23, 2015 21:08:22	This also implies that enemies should occasionally waste their actions "investigating" things like walls of flame and giant spider webs, which are the real results of spells you cast. If they never stop to check those out, they shouldn't stop to examine the illusions you make, either.   If the players were fighting an unknown magic-user villain, who concurred a large high-level demon out of a circle, or called a dragon, would you expect them to spend actions checking the thing out? Instead of fighting? Or running away? If it's something they think can kill them immediately, they're probably not going to take the risk. The point is not that the illusion seems far-fetched, it's that the risk of examining it and hoping it's fake, versus wasting time examining it instead of protecting yourself if it's real, is not worth taking.   Also, the natural response to disbelieve is covered by the WIS save. You could give advantage on that save depending on the illusion, but failing that save means the target was already fooled. Taking further actions to investigate might be called for if you made a wall where the target's house used to be, but investigation while in immediate danger I would imagine to be almost non-existent.
#12 Lilika Jun 23, 2015 22:52:21	In my mind, in a world where low lvl bards, wizards, tricksters, warlocks and sorcerers (emphasis on low level) can cast illusions at will, people are going to be very skeptical of them.  If I'm going to make an illusion it better be believable.  My rule would be if it is more likely that an illusion was cast than a high level demon or dragon was actually summoned, I would assume illusion, because I wouldn't want to be swindled.   Now if you are creative, with a believable effect, such as a not very obvious rope bridge, or plank over a spike trap, or bear in a forest, or their boss (that you have seen before) telling them to retreat, or stuff way more creative than this, then it could work.    I just don't think non plausible effects will be believed.  It should be pretty well known that this spell exist and a lot more people can cast this spell, than spells that magically summon pit fiends, dragons, and pools of acid out of no where.   People hate to be fooled more than anything else.   Edit-I am merely talking about creatures using investigation when something is more likely to be an illusion than an actual effect.  I am not suggesting that the spell won't work if it isn't plausible, just that the creature will roll investigation, rather than run at first sight, or flail around in a fake pool of acid instead of investigating.
(Reply to #12) Macv12	Lilika wrote:
#14 Razintarr Jun 24, 2015 2:52:11	Because the spell says it takes an action to see through the phantasm, and because it states the victim can use that action but isn't obligated to, I'd say seeing through the illusion takes a conscious act. It's not an automatic response by being confronted with the phantasm.   If used on players, the way I like to see the spell work is to let them roll the save. And it they fail it, tell them to not mind the save but here's a tentacled horror stepping out of the shadow and attacking them. No doubt the players soon realise that only the targeted player can see this creature, and the other players will start yelling to him that there "is nothing there" and that he "needs to snap out of it". Or the players have seen many illusions in this gnome-ridden dungeon already, so that tentacled horror is probably just another one. Or they realise that that dragon's breath is doing very little damage (1d6 psychic) and start to question it because of that reason.    Same for enemies, I'd let them take the action to see through the illusion if they have any cause, like others warning them or a general alarm that there are wizards using illusions attacking.   Note that result of the action is not automatic either. For many monsters there is a very real chance that they don't make the check. To me that result would indicate that they may realise that they're dealing with an illusion on a conscious level, but can't convince their subconscious that the thing isn't real.  Also note that the spell plants the illusion in the victims brain, but it doesn't allow the caster to control the illusion from there. The caster can't even see the illusion for himself. A phantasm of an octopus trying to grapple the victim will grapple him throughout the duration, but it can't be changed midway to pull the victim away to a dark corner. The firebreathing dragon will breath fire on the victim every round of the duration and not switch to bite and claws. Nor can the caster state how the victim reacts to the illusion. The caster can create a phantasm of a medusa, but he can't state that the victim looked in it's eyes and now believes it got petrified. It's up to the mind of the victim to decide if he looked the medusa in the eye, or maybe avoided her gaze and now is keeping his eyes closed to avoid her gaze.    Also the spell has a clear limit when it comes to the phantasm causing damage, limiting it to 1d6 per round. That's not at all overpowered for a concentration spell. It's when the spell is used more creatively that it may become overpowered. The spell mentions the example of an illusionary bridge to trick the victim into falling of a cliff. But if there is such a terrain feature, other characters have equal opportunities of exploiting it. Fighters will start shoving, warlocks will eldritch blast the victim closer to the edge (with the right invocation), casters will use other spells to move the victim to the cliff. If others have the same possibilities, getting the same result (orc splattered on the bottom of the cliff) isn't overpowered.  Only problems I see is with phantasm that cause conditions, like the octopus grappling. Here it helps to realise it's the victims own mind creating these effect. The victim acts out what it thinks is happening to it. The victim doesn't move because it believes it can't move because it got grappled (and to an amused onlooker will be lying on the floor kicking at the air and yelling something about tentacles). This works well for the less severe conditions, like grappled and restrained. But the more severe conditions are harder. Sure, the victim may think he's dead because a big boulder fell on him, and lie motionless on the ground with his eyes closed because of it, but he still can hear everything around him, which can make him realise he's not actually dead. Same with petrified, the victim only acts like he's been turned to a statue by that medusa. Severe conditions are hard to apply and probably take special circumstances to work well.
#15 OoftaMeg Jun 24, 2015 8:18:48	I would rule that if you put a pit fiend into an illusionary adamantine vat of acid a few things would happen.   First, the fiend has no way of knowing the vat is made of adamantine.     Second, even if they did think it was made of adamantine they'd still try to break out ... people try to break out of restraints they could not possibly get out of all the time.   Third, they would get out of the vat because it can't stop their movement.  They would rationalize the fact that they got out of the vat because the acid ate away at the metal.   There may be some creative uses of the spell, this one would only stop the target for a single round.
#16 BobbyFlashlight Jul 16, 2015 8:35:17	What do you say about using Phantasmal Force to put manacles on an enemy, causing the restrained effect? Would the "stimuli" stated in the spell include resistance from the manacles?
#17 Yunru Jul 16, 2015 8:58:20	The nore subtle the effect the better. If manicles randomly appear on you, you're going to be suspicious. If you're opponents appear to be overwhelmed maybe not. My point is the more obvious the effect (considering its spontaneous appearancw), the more likely a creature is to make a check.
(Reply to #16) OoftaMeg	BobbyFlashlight wrote: