Illusion Stats
 

If you conjure an illusion of a warrior, what are their stats? Are they equal to a myrmidon? Are they simply equal to the real thing? What if the viewer has no idea what the real thing is capable of?

Simplicity sake it seems like they should just stat up as a myrmidon.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

Myrmidon is what I'd use.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

I use a 32-point warrior with basic weapon talents.

I personally don't use the rule about being able to get the full abilities of some superior hero, because (1) balance and (2) in my campaigns, people don't know the abilities of other figures.

One way I have sometimes handled it is to allow the appearance of a great hero, but the abilities in practice couldn't exceed a 32-point warrior, but could be weird in some unusual ways, such as:

Real hero: ST 14 DX 16(12) IQ 10 Fine magic 2-handed sword, fine plate, toughness

Hero illusion A: ST 14 DX 10 Plain 2-handed sword, no armor, no toughness

Hero illusion B: ST 14 DX 10(5) Plain 2-handed sword, plain plate, no toughness

Hero illusion C: ST 8 DX 16(11) 2-handed sword that does 1d-1, plain plate, no toughness

Hero illusion D: ST 14 DX 10 Plain 2-handed Sword, plate that stops no hits, no toughness

Hero illusion E: ST 12 DX 12 2-handed sword that does 2d, plate that stops no hits, no toughness

This allowed the illusion to behave in some ways like the actual hero, and convince people into treating the illusion like the hero, but not have it be so powerful.

It's interesting to me that this gives a "tell" when the illusion fails to perform as well as the hero in some way.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

ITL Legacy page 138
Since illusions are in part fed by the observers, an illusion will always act as the "average" type of the thing it is. An Illusion of a fighter will fight as a standard beginning fighter, with ST, DX, and IQ adding to 32. A wizard cannot create an illusion of a highly-experienced fighter unless it appears to be some powerful fighter known to the enemy.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

Thanks I actually found that last night!

My players fought the troll in DT and now wants to summon the troll. I told him he could, but that most intelligent beings would try to disbelieve since 'everyone' knows wizards can't summon trolls... Still might be good against animals though!

Re: Illusion Stats
 

I'm not familiar enough with the RAW to know about summoning a troll but I"m guessing they are somewhat in power between a gargoyle and a giant (or possibly between a giant and a 4-hex dragon?

If so, I'd rule that you can using whichever spell summons a creature that is closest to the stats of a troll.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

ST 40, Dx 11, IQ 8 (I think). 2d damage punch, no armor, but regenerate 1 hit a round. I'd put them at around Gargoyle strength if the player wanted to create a new spell to actually summon one (they are much stronger but do the same damage, don't have armor, and can fly...?). Though maybe giants?

Regardless, he didn't want a new spell, he just wanted to use 1 hex illusion to create one. Which is valid, but we all know there is no 'Summon Troll' spell so...

Re: Illusion Stats
 

Yeah, I guess that was my point.

I think Summon I, Summon II, Summon III, etc. spells would be better where each beast is in one of the categories so that you can choose which one within that category you summon. That way, you could also do an image/illusion of those without metagaming "Those can't be summoned therefore they are an image/illusion."

Re: Illusion Stats
 

Yeah, I floated that recommendation back when we were still debating rules ideas before the original Kickstarter. It got shot down by folks (mostly because they didn't like the title of the spell, I suspect -- though in at least one case it was the old "not invented here" issue on the part of the individual). Maybe they'll listen to you...

Re: Illusion Stats
 

I'm assuming you mean create a (one-hex) illusion of a troll, whereas Summon Troll would be a separate spell.

The rules state the "above average" illusion must be known to the enemy, not the caster, for it to work.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

I could see summoning a famous hero as a good way of creating a high powered illusion. I would simply say that only IQ 12 or greater figures would be capable of recognizing the visual cues that indicate that it is indeed the famous hero. Or, the fact that it is a celebrity gives everybody enough doubt to attempt to Disbelieve.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

I'm imagining a military unit with soldiers indoctrinated to believe that all legendary heroes are actually incompetent fighters with reputations inflated by bards and foolish rumors... so that if a foe conjures illusions of them, they get fought as lame opponents. ;-)

Re: Illusion Stats
 

There was an article published on this same sort of variant, by Metagaming's Ron Hopkins in their house magazine Interplay (no.5). It listed eight levels of summoning spells IQ 8 through IQ 20.

(Personally I kind of like the limited spells because of the limits, which I think help summoning (and image and illusion) spells from otherwise being even more versatile and powerful than they already are.)

Re: Illusion Stats
 

Personally I'm torn between these. On the one hand, I agree that limits prohibit summons and therefore illusions from getting out of hand. But on the other, having everyone cast summon wolf gets a bit old.

Re: Illusion Stats
 

A compromise is to reason that people may have researched other individual summoning spells, but that they each have to be found/researched and learned individually. So some people might have Summon Slime instead of Summon Wolf, etc.

If there are enough summon spells in common circulation, though, it can start to make it less clear what's an illusion, and illusions tend to be cheap and cost per hex, so the more summons variety there is by whatever means, the more effective illusions start to be (or the more counters to illusions are needed, either from more people choosing to disbelieve more things more often, or from other house rules that might tweak down the effectiveness of illusions).