Illusion Trap
 

1. The scenario is that the wizard has a small head start and runs up to a bend in the corridor which is two hexes wide.
2. She casts Shadow in one of these hexes.
3. She casts an illusion of an octopus with three spears in the shadow hex
4. She casts Mage Sight on herself then runs off

A few turns later some guards reach this Illusion Trap and face the following:

1. If they shoot into the shadow from a distance at the unseen illusion their shots are at -6 DX vs a dodging target.
2. If they run up next to the shadow hex the Octopus counter is placed on the board, engages them to a stop, and does a triple set vs charge of adjDX 17 for 2d6 on each attack. This strikes first and the guards can't disbelieve because they moved more than one hex.
3. If they stop two hexes away they get triple jabbed and most likely fall over.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

You're using a loophole to create an effectively invisible illusion. That violates the intent of the spell.

I vote 'NO' to whole premise.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

An illusory octopus is hard to beat and one you can't see until it's too late is harder still.

The primary reason not to make every illusion an octopus is that the opponent is very likely to try to disbelieve. The shadow hex does a good job to mitigate that.

The tricky bit is the use of Mage Sight. If I cast Mage Sight on myself, do I get the effect when viewing through the eyes of the octopus? If there's a rule to that effect, I don't recall it.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

It my be an undesirable outcome, but I don't see that there's any rule which forbids this strategy. I'd be loath to rule against a player who does this.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Compare the penalties for attacking from and into a Shadow hex given on ITL 21 with the ones described on ITL 105 and ITL 139. It looks to me like the info on p.105 needs to be added to the ITL errata, since it lists the penalty to attack into a Shadow hex as -6, whereas the others list -4.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

I'm shocked, Henry, that you didn't maximize the threat. Three spears?

An octopus has ST 20. He can wield a pike axe with one "hand", per raw, so the charge damage would be 3d+2 rather than 2d or 2d+1.

Mind you, the use of polearms set to receive a charge is one place I would put my foot down. The polearm should be visible outside the shadow hex, so at least I'd let the pursuers recognize the danger before they are engaged, whether it says so in the rules or not.

Of course, a pike axe or three sticking out of a shadow hex is likely to give the pursuers some pause, so if the wizard just wants to get away, this would do it.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

1) The rules explicitly forbid casting INVISIBILITY on top of an illusion. This sets a particular tone for the spell's intent IMO.
2) This use-case prevents all viewers from attempting to disbelieve the illusion (you can't disbelieve something you can't see). This circumvents a key balancing factor for illusions.
3) ITL pg 139 describes illusions as "...its effects are wholly mental, and are the product of the wizard’s mind and the minds of those who see the illusion." While I accept that not everyone may have the same strict interpretation of this language that I do, there's something inherently wrong with allowing 'unseen' illusions IMO.

I like clever thinking as much as the next guy, but Henry's proposal just seems like an attempt to abuse the rules.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

The spears are each being used as 1-handed. Thus three of them. So, if you want a pike axe, it would replace two spears. So, one pike axe and one spear will give you less damage over all during the charge, unless the target has armor. After the charge, the pike and spear is better than the three spears. Either has its advantages.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

I also would allow it.

Using shadow to put other creation spells into it is a key function of this spell.

A wizard can create an illusion before others enter a room. Someone else seeing the illusion is not a prerequisite.

They will become aware of its presence in the shadow hex as soon as they are adjacent to it, just as if it was a real person/octopus in the shadow. Once aware, they may disbelieve, even if all they see is tentacles wrapped around spears jabbing/attacking out.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

If your ST is 3 higher than the ST required to wield a 2-handed weapon, it can be wielded with one-hand.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Good point. Thank you for the reminder.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

That rule does not apply to the octopi, see Hexagram #2, page 17, lower right corner.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Pages 15 through 18 of that Hexagram gives some good info about octopi additional to ITL. Thanks for mentioning it.

This particular reference to which you point is below.

It does not definitively prohibit the wielding of a 2-handed weapons with one hand when ST is 3 greater than the minimum to wield it. It only says to not get used to it. This allows a substantial amount of room for a GM to apply that rule. If the intention was for it to be prohibited for octopi, it should have been stated as such. As stated, it has some wiggle room for application.

As a result of this, I would at least allow weapons with a one or two-hand wielding option to have the two handed damage (bastard swords and spears). One could argue that some ocotpi could wield two-handed weapons with one hand under certain conditions or even shorter periods of time. This would be more justifiable if the ST is greater or above the typical of 20. Perhaps, one could invoke the Classic TFT for this rule to be 10 ST greater than minimum to wield.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Too bad that explicit language didn't make it into the Bestiary. However Bestiary describes how their high ST reflects overall toughness, not brute strength AND that octopi can wield three 1-handed weapons with no penalty. Given that the largest weapon's ST requisite is 16 and that this is more than 3 points lower than an average octopus's ST, one could reasonably expect the description to explicitly mention that an octopus can wield three 2-handed weapons at no DX penalty, if that were an actual possibility. But since it doesn't, one has to conclude that they can't.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Thanks. Should've known there was a reason you didn't go for maximum impact.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Speaking of Octopi in general, I'm having trouble finding octopi images for making Roll20 tokens. There are only the two counters or so that TFT has had available. There are almost no images that I can find that have octopi wielding weapons. Lots of octopi images but none with weapons.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

To Octopi your time see
http://w23.sjgames.com/products/card...07-monsters-ii
and
https://warehouse23.com/products/foes-octopi
Or talk to any Degenerative Automated Interpolation art thief.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Throughout all of my TFT campaigns, we never played an Octopi ever except for (as I recall) a couple of encounters in one of the Death Tests? They just never appealed overmuch to me or any of my players.

Different strokes, I reckon.

Ferret

Re: Illusion Trap
 

I'm looking to have a population of such intelligent monsters and not as PCs. They are formidable foes.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

.......... Thanks.

Re: Illusion Trap
 

Oh I should think so! We just didn't have players who gravitated towards them at all.

We had a halfling, and an Overman (adaptation from a Lawrence Watt-Evans series of novels), and everybody else was human.


Ferret

Re: Illusion Trap
 

There was much variety in our Classic TFT days. We had mostly humans but there were a few elves, dwarves, Centaurs, Giants, Half-Giants, Reptile Men, Gargoyles as PCs. Usually when someone wanted to experiment with having a PC as such a race. No one ever asked about having an octopus as a PC. I suppose that you could but they are classified in ITL intelligent monsters so, most didn't even think about it.