Fantasy Trip Illusions

[Keysh]

After having reviewed the discussion of Illusions in In the Labyrinth (esp. pp.138-139 of the current PDF draft), I think some of the confusion can be avoided by paying attention to a couple of things:

1. Illusions (of animate beings) cannot affect inanimate objects, nor can they affect organisms with IQ or 0 or 1 (such as slimes and plants).

p.139: "An illusion cannot affect any inanimate object; its effects are wholly mental, and are the product of the wizard’s mind and the minds of those who see the illusion."

"Since an illusion cannot affect an inanimate object, it can never open doors, fetch drinks, spring traps, etc."

p.138: "a being with an IQ of 0 or 1 (which includes plants and most kinds of slime) has so little mind that it cannot be fooled. Thus, it cannot see the illusion and cannot affect or be affected by it."

2. (Almost all) Illusions of inanimate objects are intangible.

p.139: "At any rate, most inanimate illusions are quite intangible. (If you come to an illusion of a bridge, your foot will go right through it (though the bridge won’t vanish until you disbelieve). An illusion of a flying carpet won’t take you anywhere. And so on." [emphasis added]

So:
You cannot walk across an illusory bridge, and an illusory lid or board will not stop a torch from falling into a barrel of gunpowder.

Similarly, illusory cats will not mess up litterboxes (let alone leave behind illusory evidence of their presence). A real cat will find its urination goes right through an illusory litterbox, leaving behind a puddle on the floor (and if there's a slope, you might notice the urine running downhill out from under the Illusion of the litterbox).

Could an illusory person/animal/monster push their way through a crowd of people, or a herd of sheep? Yes. Could it push its way through heavy undergrowth? No.

Rather than complaining that these represent defects in the perfection of an Illusion, I think a better approach is to realize that this is one of the limitations of Illusions: sometimes they behave in such a way as to reveal that they are Illusions. (Most obviously, if your foot goes through an illusory bridge!)

[Keysh]

[Continuation of my previous post:]
Now, there is still the problem of specifically listed exceptions to the foregoing: illusory fire, wall, and shadow (along with Rope) are described as acting like their "real" equivalents, even though they are effectively inanimate objects. (To step outside the game for a moment, this means they act like the equivalent Wizard spells, since that makes them useful and interesting in the context of a Wizard game.) Also, "weapons" are listed as having real effects; the example is given of an illusory spear, which could be used like a real spear.

My partial solution for this would be to suggest that illusory fire and wall affect animate beings with IQ greater than 1, but do not affect other things. So an Illusion of a wall will stop an animal or person from moving through it, but not a thrown object (or a slime, or branches blown by the wind, or rain and snow, etc.). An illusory fire will not cause a tree or piece of paper to burn. An illusory spear will not punch through a thin wall the way a real spear would, an illusory axe placed atop an open barrel of gunpowder would not prevent a torch from falling inside, and so forth.

The in-game justification for this is a bit harder to come up with, unless maybe you argue that the Illusion spell has specific specializations for imitations of Fire, Wall, and Rope (and hand-held weapons) which allow them to have extra effects.


(Also, p.138 says that "an illusory pool will drown you", which really doesn't make sense in this context. [There's no Pool of Water spell, for starters.] I have to consider this brief bit of text an error that should be ignored.)

[RobW]

Thank you for these observations. Did you notice whether there is still a reference to an illusion leaving a person hacked to bits inside their untouched armor? I tried a few searches in the new Wizard and ITL but didn't see it.

[Keysh]

Originally Posted by RobW

Thank you for these observations. Did you notice whether there is still a reference to an illusion leaving a person hacked to bits inside their untouched armor? I tried a few searches in the new Wizard and ITL but didn't see it.

Yup, it's there in ITL, on p.139:

If you are killed by an illusion, your armor and clothes will seem to be hacked; wounds will appear on your body, and blood will flow. But after the fight is over and the attacking illusion is gone, all the apparent injury to your gear will vanish – and there you’ll lie, hacked to bits inside your undamaged armor – a victim of the wizard’s cunning and your own imagination.

(You should be able to find it by searching the PDF for "hacked". In the Table of Contents, it's in the "Creations" subsection.)

[RobW]

Thanks!

I agree with you, the death by drowning in an illusory pool doesn't really make sense. For me, neither does being hacked up inside your armor. In these cases, the illusion is having physical effects on the beholder. These examples don't fit for me with the quote on p 139, "its effects are wholly mental". I can accept that if a figure believes they are being stabbed that could damage them. But there's no way that my belief I'm being stabbed could actually open up wounds in my body. Is there?

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by RobW

But there's no way that my belief I'm being stabbed could actually open up wounds in my body. Is there?

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmata

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Keysh

Could an illusory person/animal/monster push their way through a crowd of people, or a herd of sheep? Yes. Could it push its way through heavy undergrowth? No.

I think an illusion would be slowed by heavy undergrowth as if it were real, but if a real figure could push through, so could the illusion. After the illusion passed, though, the undergrowth would just show not signs of having been pushed through. No?

Otherwise, I would think that any surface that should show disturbance when an illusion passes over it (e.g. a puddle, or dust, grass or leaves or snow or almost anything but a hard clean surface) would not seem to react and so give away the illusion.

[hcobb]

I summon an illusion bodyguard to take a bullet for me.

As long as I believe it I'll be fine!

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

I summon an illusion bodyguard to take a bullet for me.

As long as I believe it I'll be fine!

Unless someone else disbelieves it. ;-)

[Keysh]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I think an illusion would be slowed by heavy undergrowth as if it were real, but if a real figure could push through, so could the illusion. After the illusion passed, though, the undergrowth would just show not signs of having been pushed through. No?

Then why can't they open (and close) doors? Where does one draw the line? (And part of my argument is that the RAW statement about "plants cannot be affected by illusions" -- because plants have IQ 0 or 1 -- implies "illusions cannot push plants aside".)

Originally Posted by Skarg

Otherwise, I would think that any surface that should show disturbance when an illusion passes over it (e.g. a puddle, or dust, grass or leaves or snow or almost anything but a hard clean surface) would not seem to react and so give away the illusion.

In most combat situations, it's unlikely someone would have the chance to notice things like that. More generally, I'd argue that "things giving away the illusion" is simply part of the limitations of illusions. They're not capable of being perfectly believable under all circumstances.

You could, I suppose, argue that that kind of "visual chrome" would be akin to the illusory cuts and holes in armor and clothing produced by an illusion's attack (though one could argue the latter is produced partly by the mind of the victim, so puddles and dust can't produce ancillary illusions).