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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 2:42PM
#1
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Date Joined:
May 10, 2011
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During a test, the wizard descided he was going to be crafty with Phantasmal force using it against my big baddy. They filled the room with phantasmal magma (9x9x6). Baddie fails the Will save. The descripton of phantasmal goes as such:
"The illusion includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli, though these are evident only to the creature." Well the sensation of 700-1300°C and the sensation of your body melting seemed like it would send the person into shock if not outright kill them. Since at this point it was equally lethal for him to be knocked unconsious as be dead out right I let it kill him, partially because I didn't see it coming when the Wizard cast it and I didn't think it was fair to penalize the player for simply following the rar.
My question is how would you guys deal with this situation? On one hand I feel its sort of against the intent of the spell and on the other hand I'm not sure how to fairly combat the abuse of it.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:15PM
#2
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- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
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"On a successful save, the spell ends. On a failed save, the creature rationalizes any illogical events prompted by the phantasm."
"If the phantasm is an illusory creature, it can attack the chosen creature each round on your turn if you so choose. It automatically deals 1d6 psychic damage."
So what I would rule is the villain feels like he is burning, takes 1d6 psychic damage, as if the magma were a creature, uses his actions to keep making saves, rather than attacking the PCs, and rationalizes why he is not being burned. ("Thanks you, Lord Vecna, for protecting me!" or "The witch said I would not be defeated so easily -- I did not realize until now how right she was" or "I-- I-- I'm immune to fire! Mwa ha ha! I am even more bad-ass than I previously thought!" or "Aaaugh! I'm burning! help me! help me!")
He keeps taking damage and making saves (thought I would rule that the scenario is so bizarre that he must get advantage on future saves) until he saves or he is reduced to zero hp, at whcih point, shock overwhelms him and he dies of a massive coronary (assuming his species can die of such things).
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:21PM
#3
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During a test, the wizard descided he was going to be crafty with Phantasmal force using it against my big baddy. They filled the room with phantasmal magma (9x9x6). Baddie fails the Will save. The descripton of phantasmal goes as such:
"The illusion includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli, though these are evident only to the creature." Well the sensation of 700-1300°C and the sensation of your body melting seemed like it would send the person into shock if not outright kill them. Since at this point it was equally lethal for him to be knocked unconsious as be dead out right I let it kill him, partially because I didn't see it coming when the Wizard cast it and I didn't think it was fair to penalize the player for simply following the rar.
My question is how would you guys deal with this situation? On one hand I feel its sort of against the intent of the spell and on the other hand I'm not sure how to fairly combat the abuse of it.
It would entirely depend on the actual crafting of the illusion. Did he spend a couple of rounds having a source appear, and the magma start pouring out of said source? Or did he just 'pop' it in there? If the latter, a SERIOUS bonus to saves would have been called for simply because the illusion didn't lend itself to believability. Also, I'm not sure why it would be 'lethal' for him (unless you mean because the party would kill him), but you should have ruled it as knockout because precedent (ie, now they will expect lethal illusions to actually kill, as that was the established precedent, unless of course you go over this with them and inform them that was an oversight and not intended as precedent).
Illusions as one-shot kills/KO's are powerful and can certainly be done...but they're often ridiculously difficult to do in a single round when believability is taken into account.
Naturally, this is just my opinion.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:23PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Mar 25, 2007
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I like Wrecan's take on this. The spell is still very useful but not an insta-win
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:24PM
#5
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During a test, the wizard descided he was going to be crafty with Phantasmal force using it against my big baddy. They filled the room with phantasmal magma (9x9x6). Baddie fails the Will save. The descripton of phantasmal goes as such:
"The illusion includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli, though these are evident only to the creature." Well the sensation of 700-1300°C and the sensation of your body melting seemed like it would send the person into shock if not outright kill them. Since at this point it was equally lethal for him to be knocked unconsious as be dead out right I let it kill him, partially because I didn't see it coming when the Wizard cast it and I didn't think it was fair to penalize the player for simply following the rar.
My question is how would you guys deal with this situation? On one hand I feel its sort of against the intent of the spell and on the other hand I'm not sure how to fairly combat the abuse of it.
As people can "die" in their dreams without suffering any adverse effect I would simply rule that the creature thinks it dies, realizes it does not, then wonder why he happens to be waste deep in magma that isn't actually doing anything to him. Then probably realize the enemy wizard had somehting to do with it...
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:35PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 10, 2011
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Anjelika just to clarify yeah, he was by himself and the group already had the intent to kill him before hand.
I guess I got caught up with the "believeablity" being baked into the WP test and so it seemed arbitrary to me how the player described it (at the time). I figured if the baddy completely believed he was now enveloped in magma the 'why' had little meaning.
Thanks for the feedback guys It's given me good insight on how I'll probably handle in in the future. You guys are great!
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:37PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Feb 12, 2009
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During a test, the wizard descided he was going to be crafty with Phantasmal force using it against my big baddy. They filled the room with phantasmal magma (9x9x6). Baddie fails the Will save. The descripton of phantasmal goes as such:
"The illusion includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli, though these are evident only to the creature." Well the sensation of 700-1300°C and the sensation of your body melting seemed like it would send the person into shock if not outright kill them. Since at this point it was equally lethal for him to be knocked unconsious as be dead out right I let it kill him, partially because I didn't see it coming when the Wizard cast it and I didn't think it was fair to penalize the player for simply following the rar.
My question is how would you guys deal with this situation? On one hand I feel its sort of against the intent of the spell and on the other hand I'm not sure how to fairly combat the abuse of it.
As people can "die" in their dreams without suffering any adverse effect I would simply rule that the creature thinks it dies, realizes it does not, then wonder why he happens to be waste deep in magma that isn't actually doing anything to him. Then probably realize the enemy wizard had somehting to do with it...
Rulings like this are why illusionist builds are so undervalued.
I go with wrecan's ruling do the 1d6 of damage each round and he tries to rationalize why the fire isn't burning him as hard as it should be. He still needs to pass a wisdom save to figure out nothings actually happening to him. Though if random things appear I say the wizard being singled out is entirely fine thats who I'd single out if **** just starts appearing out of nowhere. Though if the illusionist does the illusion intelligently and has it appear in a normal manner (having the monster enter from another room bursting through a door and then attacking the guy rather than just poofing into exsistance) then I won't have the NPC draw the connecting lines till after he disbelieves the illusion.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:45PM
#8
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During a test, the wizard descided he was going to be crafty with Phantasmal force using it against my big baddy. They filled the room with phantasmal magma (9x9x6). Baddie fails the Will save. The descripton of phantasmal goes as such:
"The illusion includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli, though these are evident only to the creature." Well the sensation of 700-1300°C and the sensation of your body melting seemed like it would send the person into shock if not outright kill them. Since at this point it was equally lethal for him to be knocked unconsious as be dead out right I let it kill him, partially because I didn't see it coming when the Wizard cast it and I didn't think it was fair to penalize the player for simply following the rar.
My question is how would you guys deal with this situation? On one hand I feel its sort of against the intent of the spell and on the other hand I'm not sure how to fairly combat the abuse of it.
As people can "die" in their dreams without suffering any adverse effect I would simply rule that the creature thinks it dies, realizes it does not, then wonder why he happens to be waste deep in magma that isn't actually doing anything to him. Then probably realize the enemy wizard had somehting to do with it...
Rulings like this are why illusionist builds are so undervalued.
I go with wrecan's ruling do the 1d6 of damage each round and he tries to rationalize why the fire isn't burning him as hard as it should be. He still needs to pass a wisdom save to figure out nothings actually happening to him. Though if random things appear I say the wizard being singled out is entirely fine thats who I'd single out if **** just starts appearing out of nowhere. Though if the illusionist does the illusion intelligently and has it appear in a normal manner (having the monster enter from another room bursting through a door and then attacking the guy rather than just poofing into exsistance) then I won't have the NPC draw the connecting lines till after he disbelieves the illusion.
The reason I say to rule like I do is because I have been an illusionist that f***ed with the DM so badly I eventually had to change characters. Between the charm and illusion spells in 3e and earlier editions you can end pretty much any fight on round 1. I understand how broken such spells can be made to be by an intelligent play. As such, it makes far more sense for such spells to be restricted in brokenness.
An illusion that summons a river of magma to make your foes weary of crossing is fine. But as soon as the illusion touches them, they should realize they arent dead, thus effectively neutralizing the illusion.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:50PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2010
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It is probably better to sub-divide illusion spells into mind effecting that place a condition on the target like daze, stun, or confusion, and have a second category for quasi-real force or shadow for damaging type effects. Otherwise illusions tend to be weak or overpowered depending on DM interpretation.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 3:53PM
#10
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@Lord_Grimskull: Ahh, okay. Thank you. Illusions have long been the biggest point of adjudication in D&D. Very seldom has any source really put much concrete down about how to adjudicate them, but the key itself is believability. I see that others like Wrecan's answer, and I'm sure it would work just fine too, but I think there is extreme devaluation to an illusionist done if the maximum damage he can present with an illusion is 1d6/round regardless of how well-crafted the illusion is. Consider the case of a hideout near a volcano. The illusionist, unseen, makes a crack appear in the wall. Then magma slowly begins to pour out, and the extreme heat that goes along with it. Then suddenly, a huge chunk of the wall breaks/melts out, and the stream thickens until the room itself is filling. A very well-crafted, well-placed (because situationally the room is near a volcano!), and non-instantaneous illusion...with a maximum damage if it's believed of 1d6? No, this is the kind of situation that, to me, should give the big pay-off. Illusions themselves shouldn't be capped, but the sheer amount of work put into doing them well enough to gain that payoff makes it difficult to achieve. The monster illusion is presented as an alternative for a more 'spontaneous' illusion with a quicker response time, and as such is capped in how much damage it can do. If you go for the big payoff early...you suffer in the form of bonuses to disbelieve/see it for an illusion. At any rate, those are just some further thoughts on the topic. Whichever method you come up with though, remember at the very least that believability is -everything-. Happy gaming. 
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