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Old 07-09-2019, 11:02 AM   #61
MikMod
 
Join Date: May 2019
Default Re: Using an Illusion's Senses

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Originally Posted by Tywyll View Post
Also I think that once a meeting occurred in an army camp/captain's tent, you would kill any birds/rats/squirrels that happened to come into your tent. Heck, you would probably spend a moment to attempt to disbelieve everyone present, as a reasonable precaution.
And the ants, beetles, moths? The fleas on your dog?

Scout is limited. Image is actually, in my opinion, much more powerful as a scout, if you believe that an image can know things about the world that the wizard doesn't.
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Old 07-09-2019, 11:17 AM   #62
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Using an Illusion's Senses

I think it's correct that original basic Wizard needs images and illusions to be able to see around shadows and walls to retain simplicity and playability and to avoid walls and shadows seeming even less useful in arena combat than they are.

i.e. A simple pocket game is not about to have rules for that. It doesn't even include hidden movement for Invisibility the way the advanced rules do.

I also think it's a significantly different situation in campaign games, where the ability to send small animals around as spies could be very significant, and even just sending something up in the air to get eyes in the sky is a huge ability that clever players can/will take huge advantage of unless the GM's game somehow lacks situations where it makes any difference. Or unless the GM interprets seeing through illusions in a limiting way, and also limits / omits the Scout spell.

I think it'd be interesting to hear from Steve why he let Scout summon bats but not birds. I expect it's not just flavor but that bats are more or less blind, limiting the degree to which world situations can be trivially made transparent by a flying scout. (Unless illusions of eagles that can give a great bird's eye view were a thing, in which case doesn't Illusion really seem better than Scout for practically all purposes?)

I think that the need to not worry about melee situations where the wizard can't see foes at all times, could be handled by the notion mentioned above where once the foes see the illusion, the foe's senses are brought into the magic of the illusion. There would still be some details to work out about how all that specifically works in all situations to make a comprehensive and consistent system out of it.

I also think it's a good point that Illusion would already be one of the best spells even if it only let you fight things.

For my own desires as a GM and even as a player in an open-world campaign game, I think it'd be important to me to not have to worry about easy flying magic scouts at all the time. It seems far too annoying and dystopian to me to have to try to be concerned about observation by squirrels, rats and birds all the time.

Last edited by Skarg; 07-09-2019 at 11:22 AM.
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Old 07-13-2019, 05:15 AM   #63
RobW
 
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Default Re: Using an Illusion's Senses

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I think that the need to not worry about melee situations where the wizard can't see foes at all times, could be handled by the notion mentioned above where once the foes see the illusion, the foe's senses are brought into the magic of the illusion. There would still be some details to work out about how all that specifically works in all situations to make a comprehensive and consistent system out of it.
There's some discussion of this idea and some tricky scenarios in the second half of this thread What are the senses of a wolf image or illusion?
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Old 07-13-2019, 05:29 AM   #64
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Default Re: Using an Illusion's Senses

I think at some point every group wrestles with a decision, are illusions a purely mental phenomenon, existing only in the minds of the observers, or do they have a physical reality as well.

The rules basically discuss illusions as mental, but then a few throw-away lines, eg about your body being hacked to pieces by an illusion, which obviously can't be done by your nervous system.

If you go with illusions as purely mental, then there's no way they can be scouts. You're out of luck if there's nothing in anyone's heads about what's actually behind the door.

If you go with illusions as scouts, then you're saying illusions have some existence in the real world. They can observe things that are outside the minds of the makers/observers.

I think it's possible to put together something coherent with illusions as purely mental phenom. Even easier but completely OP is to say illusions have a real physical existence (eg an illusory raft would keep you afloat). A story where illusions have some limited physical properties (eg can serve as scouts) gets very difficult.
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Old 08-03-2019, 01:08 PM   #65
KevinJ
 
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Default Re: Using an Illusion's Senses

Images are trash because if they touch anything they vanish. Illusions are trash because they cannot interact with material objects (i.e. doors, tent flaps, poison vials, military plans). Illusions are not good scouts in a military sense. They are good for drawing the attention of a room full of orcs and getting them to chase the illusion into your ambush.
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