Illusions of missile spells

[doublefish]

I'm hoping to get thoughts on how to deal with Illusions of "missile" spells, specifically magic fist, lightning bolt and fireball. To start with, do others allow illusions of these spells?

If so, how do you determine (for instance) the difference between a 1d6 lightning bolt and a 4d6 lightning bolt? Are FPs the same? Do you require higher skills levels for greater damage amounts?

If an opponent disbelieves an illusionary lightning bolt, do you give bonuses to disbelieve future lightining bolts from the same character? allow for automatic disbelieving?

[mister frau blucher]

Hey, Doublefish, welcome to our boards!

A good question!

But I don't allow illusions of these spells. Primarily for the reasons you cite - difficult to judge and potentially game-breaking.

The in-game rationale for not allowing illusions of these spells comes from the description of Illusions in the LAW text, with two reasons: First, images/illusions are defined as "objects." I suppose we could quibble with whether objects have physical substance only rather than being composed of kinetic energy like the magic fist, fireball and lightning bolt. But I do think that the definition of "object" would not include these kinetic forces.

But secondly, and perhaps more authoritatively, illusions are described (at the end of the paragragh on Illusions) as Static; Kinetic magic is Dynamic. Since Illusions are Static they cannot duplicate Dynamic objects like a Fireball.

So by definition, you really can't create Illusory Lighting bolts or other kinetic spells.

Now our rules are a toolkit, so you can rule however you like, but if you want to avoid the headaches you describe above, I reccomend sticking to the text here and let it define the situation for you.

Hope this helps, Doublefish!

[nukesnipe]

Hmmm... How did I used to do this....

Illusions of bows and arrows are pretty straight forward: cast one illusion of the bow, and a second of the arrow. You then use the illusionary bow to "shoot" the illusionary arrow. If the target has no reason to suspect your fiendishness, the arrow would do damage appropriate to its type. Of course, it would take three turns to actually shoot the first arrow:one to conjur up the bow; a second to conjure up the arrow; and, a third to shoot the arrow. After the bow was conjured, you could "shoot" an arrow every other turn, which was usually the give away for this tactic.

If your target had a reason to suspect your conjured up weapons (such as he saw you conjure up the bow out of thin air, or your abnormal rate of fire), you could give him a chance to disbelieve the bow or the arrow.

I guess it would work in a similar fashion for missile spells, but I'm not sure how you'd give the target the opportunity to disbelieve the spell. As for "upping" the power of the missile spell, I'd consider each "die" of damage and the next step up in the size of an illusion: 1-hex illusion = 1 die; 4-hex illusion = 2 die; and, 7-hex illusion = 3 die.

I use illusionary ropes all the time (heh, heh, heh...)

Just my two cents.

Scott

[nukesnipe]

I've been thinking, which probably explains the headache....

The only way you could create an illusion of a spell is if the spell had some sort of physical manifestation that the target will recognize. After all, it's all in his head...

Given that, the illusion of a Magic Fist would not be possible as it is purely kinetic energy - no physical manifestion. A fireball would be possible, and one could argue that the strenth put into the spell "convinces" the target of the "strength" of the illusionary fireball. Ditto for Lightening, if one visualized that spell as a bolt of lightning being shot across the field.

Also, casting an invisibility spell on an illusion should dispell the illusion as it should no longer exist if the target cannot see it.

Regards,

Scott

[doublefish]

Thanks All. Now that Mister Frau Blucher has pointed it out, its obviously clear that under the standard LAW rules illusions are static.

Because I was wondering if I had lost my marbles, and because I understand TFT is the primarly starting point for the LAW rules, I went back and looked at the Wizard rules re: illusions. The good news ;-) is that I haven't lost my mind.

In TFT, illusions are not static. In fact, they give various examples, such as an illusionary thrown spear. While I understand why the LAW rules only allow for static illusions, I'm inclined to allow more, as long as I can do so without losing game balance!

I agree with nukesnipe that for a standard weapon, damage would be appropriate to the weapon. Of course, its more difficult with missile spells. I think I'm going to play around with a variation on what nukesnipe has suggest re: 1-hex, 4-dex, etc.

If I come up with something that I think is playable (and actually is!), I'll post it after the kinks have been worked out.

tx again

[klingor]

Hi,
In the original TFT, illusions had the power of what the believer expected. Illusions would be considered to have the minimum characteristics of that type, so that a fighter with broadsword and shield would be a Myrmidon. If, however, the illusion was of a specific character known to both caster and viewer, it would have the characteristics/attributes of that specific character, so that if someone was attacked by an illusion of eg Conan the Barbarian and knew from experience how strong and fast Conan was, he would assume that it was the real Conan. If the illusion, however, did not match the Conan he had seen in every detail, he would probably either automatically disbelieve it, or just treat it as another Myrmidon (12 12 8).
If you (as FM) apply this principle to each illusion cast, it gives you a rational basis to work from.
Hope this is useful
Colin

[Deleted]

it's obviously a perversion of the rules to allow illusion spells to act just like other spells. if allowed, the only spell you ever need is illusion! personally, i would say that illusions themselves cannot cause real damage only imaginary damage. if you are fighting an illusionary orc, you will believe he is actually doing damage to you. when you believe he has damaged you to a point of unconsciousness, you will be unconscious. you wake up a turn later and discover that you don't have a scratch on you and the orc is nowhere to be seen. so, i guess i would allow illusionary fireballs and lightning-bolts etc. and i would treat them just like the real versions but once the target disbelieves them (by rolling or losing consciousness) any damage they inflicted would be erased.

on the other hand, if i create an illusion of solid ground and it causes a gullible orc to walk off a cliff, the damage he received due to falling or the sudden de-acceleration at the end of the fall would be real

i think the above would be the most 'realistic' way of dealing with illusions like this but it may be a bit of a record-keeping chore (what damage is real and what is imaginary). perhaps a compromise would be to give the target an automatic disbelief roll everytime he is struck by illusionary forces. if he fails the disbelief, the damage of that attack is treated as real. if he passes, that particular illusionary force will no longer harm him.

edit: hmm, for the first time, i just noticed the heading blurb about illusions and images in the rules.

Illusion and images are imagined objects. Images disappear upon touch; illusions do damage until
disbelieved or killed. A character disbelieves an image or illusion by winning IQ against the caster.

apparently my thinking clashed with the rules. sorry for the wasted space of my post

[Deleted]

i guess saying that Image and Illusion are static spells and can only mimick other static spells is the easiest way of dealing with this. however, this would allow Illusions of Summoned Creatures, which would negate the need for those spells.

perhaps, i've been misinterpreting the definitions of Image and Illusion? basically, i've been thinking of Image as an inanimate, non-moving illusion and Illusion as an animate, moving illusion.

[mister frau blucher]

You can definitely have illusions (and images) of summoned creatures - this is an old tactic that goes back to Wizard. It is cheaper, but more vulnerable to high IQ types. You can create an illusion of a bear every turn, and the 14 IQ wizard can send it away every turn by disbelieving. But if he tries to disbelieve a summoned bear, he will be disapointed...This is why, when you bring on a summoned creature or illusion, you do not have to announce which it is, until disbelieved.

As far as the difference between images and illusions, they are the same but an illusion has substance while an image does not. An Image is purely light-based. An image of a bear and an illusion of a bear can both move. But the image will disappear upon touch; the illusion will not. The image cannot hurt you in any way; the illusion can kill you, and must be defeated as would a normal or summoned bear, or he may be disbelieved.

Hope this helps!

Bret

[Deleted]

thanks for clearing up image vs. illusion for me!

as far as illusion vs. summoned creature goes, i think you cracked open a deeper rift leading into the bowels of my misinterpreting hell

"You can create an illusion of a bear every turn"
I thought that an Illusion would exist until the end of the encounter or disbelieved...because Illusions are static spells and i thought that was part of the definition of static spells.
Oh wait, I think you were saying that the 14 IQ wizard was causing me to re-create the Illusion every turn.

[zot]

He means that you make ANOTHER bear each turn, filling up the map with bears. You can have more than one illusion operating at a time.

[zot]

@bret, don't forget that images are more than light -- they have sound, smell, etc., as well. In our old TFT days, this made images sometimes more useful than illusions, because they have objective reality. A loud image could wake someone up, for instance.

[mister frau blucher]

Jun 6, 2012 0:16:15 GMT -5 zot said:

@bret, don't forget that images are more than light -- they have sound, smell, etc., as well. In our old TFT days, this made images sometimes more useful than illusions, because they have objective reality. A loud image could wake someone up, for instance.

Right you are, zot. I got carried away by my own rhetoric!

I rarely use Images against opponents when playing, but they absolutely have their uses. I think the only time I put one in an adventure was Fire in the Streets, where you are confronted by images, illusions and real warriors and you need to fight/disbelieve your way through them.