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Old 07-14-2020, 06:12 PM   #21
zot
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
I seem to remember a ruling from Steve about wizards using senses from a creation that the wizard didn't have, like sonar, but I don't remember what he said about it :(.
Found it:

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Originally Posted by Steve Jackson View Post
I am willing to edit the base rules to say that a wizard can use all his summoned creature's senses - if I do that, what blows up in my face? Tentatively: Its other senses are also available, though the wizard will not understand everything that a rat smells or a bat hears!
Skarg will have a field day with the "will not understand everything" part :).

EDIT: not bashing Skarg here at all; I can just imagine him making weird noises for the players to try to interpret, as he is so into role playing vérité...

Last edited by zot; 07-14-2020 at 06:17 PM.
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Old 07-14-2020, 10:50 PM   #22
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

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Originally Posted by JohnPaulB View Post
Just a couple of questions.
a) Does the someone need to be at least IQ7 or humanoid or even sentient?
b) If you sent an illusion around the corner to see if there was a guard dog, which might be IQ 6, would that be enough to trigger the trap (make the dog bark?)
c) If the Fly Illusion goes around a corner and is not in LOS of the caster, does it fly blind until someone notices it, then full multi-faceted eye vision kicks in?
d) If yes on "c", then you would at least know that something is in that hallway.
So, I've played with a variety of ways to handle this, including yes requiring IQ 7. What I'd do/say/suggest currently is:

a) No, they only need to be IQ 2, BUT what the wizard will perceive will have the detail and logical information that the minds which notice the illusion have. And their reduced IQ may reduce the chances they do notice.

Even IQ 7 may just let the illusionist perceive a very unobservant view. The IQ 6 dog will let him see the dog's understanding of what the illusion could see. And dogs and other non-humans don't think about spaces the same way humans do, so the illusionist might miss or misinterpret what he sees through his illusion's eyes, because it's like seeing into the dog's understanding of the places the wizard hasn't seen himself.

b) The dog will have its normal chances to see it and bark.

c) For the fly going around the corner where the wizard can't see, I house-rule that the illusion needs to be noticed by something with IQ 2+ in order to go into space the wizard doesn't know is open to move through.

d) Well you can move the illusion into view of the hallway, and see if anything with IQ 2+ notices it from the hallway.


As for the physical effects of illusionary fires and walls, that's an exception to the usual absence of actual physical effects of other types of illusions, except on the bodies of creatures believing the illusion. But yes, they do involve a real magical knot of force.
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Old 07-14-2020, 11:04 PM   #23
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

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Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
Are illusions seen by persons the caster is unaware of?
I played with a reinvention of illusions where no, and in fact the illusionist would cast the illusion deliberately onto subjects' minds. However I think it requires a lot of divergence from TFT illusions as written to have them not be seen by people the caster is unaware of. There are several interesting ways one could re-develop illusions so that they didn't see them, but it would have important effects that aren't described anywhere in TFT RAW, which would need to be developed.
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Old 07-14-2020, 11:17 PM   #24
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
What about an image of a mosquito? Images are not connected with belief at all...
I've played Images two main ways recently, neither RAW, mainly because I don't like easy scouting by Image/Illusion, as I already detailed in post #10 above.

Option #1: I just say that images don't let the wizard see through their eyes.

Option #2: I do let wizards see through their eyes, but I house rule that images are just like weak illusions that can't affect anything and vanish when touched, but can be disbelieved. Our original groups played this way a lot. I can't remember if we had a reason (though I can now think of some), or if we just misread/forgot the rules.
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Old 07-15-2020, 05:56 AM   #25
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

Yes, Summon creatures, Images and Illusions can be scouts and the wizard can see through their eyes.

From ITL pg 137 bottom left it says, "A wizard can see through the eyes of the summoned beings, images, or illusions brought by his Creation spells. If he has Mage Sight, his creations have it too."

But a limitation to this already mentioned above is this quote, from Summon Scout spell on ITL pg 20:

"Caster can see through its eyes. Its other senses are also available, though the wizard will not understand everything that a rat smells or a bat hears, and may interpret those senses as vision!"

Basically Image and Summon Scout each can give you a scout at 1 ST per minute cost. The image's downside being fragile to the touch. The image spell's upside is that it can be used for more than just scouts.

Illusion and Image scouts cannot open doors or manipulate the physical world. A summoned scout rat may be able to gnaw on a cord or obstacle or maybe even take something small. For example, used to steal a magic ring or the theft of one coin at a time. :-)

Last edited by Axly Suregrip; 07-15-2020 at 06:05 AM.
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Old 07-15-2020, 10:17 AM   #26
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

Thanks for tracing down those additional references - it hadn't occurred to me to go back through the rules for all creation spells to find more concrete statements about this subject. In any case, this material, plus what is said on p. 139, would seem to settle the case for RAW letting you use illusions (and images) as effect 'perception' scouts (even if they can't trip trip wires, etc.). Of course those of you who don't like it are free to house rule it away, but I'm convinced that my players are working creatively within the rules on the page rather than twisting them to change their intent.
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Old 07-15-2020, 01:12 PM   #27
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

Here's my list of all the mentions and how I resolve command and control of creations:

https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#CRUD
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Old 07-15-2020, 03:21 PM   #28
Anomylous
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

My group has always used illusions of birds of prey, bats, and such as scouts. But if that were a fully valid and intended use of the Illusion spell, then why does Summon Scout exist now? Illusion was pretty overpowered as it stood, anyway. So, mostly based on other people's thoughts on this forum, this is my interpretation:

Since an Illusion is the product of the wizard's mind, and of the minds of its observers, there are two cases when using one as a scout:
1) No observer. In this case, the illusion's eyes (etc.) will show exactly what the wizard (subconsciously) expects to see - which may be very different from what's actually there!
2) Observer (any figure capable of perceiving an illusion, IQ >2). In this case, the illusion's eyes will show the wizard the observer, plus whatever else is in the observer's perception. But if the observer is well-concealed, to the WIZARD's senses were s/he there in person, then the illusion will accurately report the observer's surroundings, but not the presence of the observer! I.e. a illusory bat can't "see" an Invisible figure with sonar.

And an Image would follow the same rules - except that, absent an observer, an Illusion could walk right through whatever walls etc. exist in reality, all the while painting a completely false picture for its casting wizard, where an Image would soon collide with something the wizard wasn't aware of, and vanish. (Side note: I'm picking up Skarg's house rule that Images can be disbelieved, too; that seems eminently logical to me.)

The above makes images and illusions pretty useless as scouts, unless you already know there are observers in the place you're scouting. A summoned scout's advantage is that it has a real, physical existence, and can therefore perceive and interact with other real, physical objects directly, and relay those perceptions.
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Old 07-15-2020, 05:59 PM   #29
zot
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

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Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip View Post
Basically Image and Summon Scout each can give you a scout at 1 ST per minute cost. The image's downside being fragile to the touch. The image spell's upside is that it can be used for more than just scouts.
Images and illusions cost double to renew if they're outside mega-megahex range so an image scout would most likely cost 2 ST since it's probably outside that range when you want to renew it.
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Old 07-15-2020, 09:12 PM   #30
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: Illusions as scouts?

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
Images and illusions cost double to renew if they're outside mega-megahex range so an image scout would most likely cost 2 ST since it's probably outside that range when you want to renew it.
Thank you Zot. That gives the Summon Scout a useful advantage when scouting wide areas, like with a bird.
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