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Old 04-30-2021, 06:52 AM   #31
phiwum
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
Default Re: Cast out of HTH

Axly, you have a good point about Rope.

If we think about the text that gives special powers to Rope, Wall, Fire, Shadow and hand-held weapons, it seems that it's intended to keep other inanimate illusions from being too useful. An illusion of a ladder doesn't allow you to climb and an illusory bridge is just a trap.

Maybe that passage was supposed to primarily limit the effects of illusions of inanimate objects but carve out an exception just for a few, so that they can be used as expected. I'm still not positive what that means for illusory fires burning paper, but I don't like the idea of them burning mindless critters. It's a little hard to say you can burn a slime corpse but not a slime, but you know, it's the aqua vitae that isn't fooled or something.
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Old 04-30-2021, 11:06 AM   #32
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Default Re: Cast out of HTH

These exceptional just-like-real illusions (fire, shadow, etc) and this bit of text: "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" -- were lifted straight out of Advanced Wizard, and have bugged me for 40 years now

cuz my mind can't hack me to bits

aaannd, if the illusion depends on the power of my mind as an observer can it actually kill me? Wouldn't it cease to affect me once I am unconscious?

checkmate SJ
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Old 04-30-2021, 11:30 AM   #33
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Default Re: Cast out of HTH

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Originally Posted by RobW View Post
aaannd, if the illusion depends on the power of my mind as an observer can it actually kill me? Wouldn't it cease to affect me once I am unconscious?
Yet another victim who died of terrifying nightmares?

A wizard did it.

Yep.
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Old 04-30-2021, 11:54 AM   #34
phiwum
 
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Originally Posted by RobW View Post
These exceptional just-like-real illusions (fire, shadow, etc) and this bit of text: "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" -- were lifted straight out of Advanced Wizard, and have bugged me for 40 years now

cuz my mind can't hack me to bits

aaannd, if the illusion depends on the power of my mind as an observer can it actually kill me? Wouldn't it cease to affect me once I am unconscious?

checkmate SJ
I do kinda like the paradoxical nature of illusions. In a world chock full of magic, perhaps some natural magical ability does give your mind the power to inflict physical injuries on you.

Cidri humans and such ain't Earth humans. Your mind can't hack you to bits because you are an inferior kind of human.

Last edited by phiwum; 04-30-2021 at 12:08 PM.
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Old 05-01-2021, 08:08 AM   #35
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: Cast out of HTH

I like to think of illusions as the magical equivalent of a technology that works even when you are not exactly sure how, and in the face of arguments from people who insist they must be something they are not. They are like magical Machine Learning algorithms.

And you can't checkmate Steve by 'begging the question'; who says illusions only hurt you because your mind made it happen?
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Old 05-01-2021, 12:53 PM   #36
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Cast out of HTH

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Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip View Post
This would mean there is almost no reason to learn the rope spell. Rope and illusion both cost 2. The only difference being the illusion rope may be disbelieved.
The fewer wizards learn Rope, the more people will expect a magic rope to be an illusion, and disbelieve them.

Friends who have no better action may try to disbelieve ropes. And someone with little or no remaining adjDX due to a rope will start disbelieving it instead, meaning a rope illusion will only hold someone helpless for long, if it doesn't occur to them to try to disbelieve it.
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Old 05-01-2021, 01:18 PM   #37
phiwum
 
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Default Re: Cast out of HTH

Man, that's a good point, Skarg. Once your DX is low, you might as well try disbelieving. I don't know that my players are clever enough to realize that, but I hope my NPCs are. Now.

So an illusory rope really isn't as good as a real magical rope.
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Old 05-01-2021, 01:28 PM   #38
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: Cast out of HTH

I like the fact that images and illusions can be used to mimic effects of other spells. It raises the question of whether magic is 'real' or just deception - a major theme in lots of fantasy fiction (e.g., the Conan stories). We, the players, are omniscient and so we understand it is both - a fire or a gargoyle or tangling rope might be a real creation or might be an illusion that can hurt you or might be a phantasm that hurts you only if you respond to it. But most of the characters don't know that.
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Old 05-01-2021, 03:12 PM   #39
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Originally Posted by phiwum View Post
Your mind can't hack you to bits because you are an inferior kind of human.
Well, very happy to be inferior if that's what it means to be superior
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Old 05-01-2021, 03:28 PM   #40
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The fewer wizards learn Rope, the more people will expect a magic rope to be an illusion, and disbelieve them.
Should be the case but unclear whether Bayesian reasoning is a thing in Cidri
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