04-25-2021, 05:27 PM | #21 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: Cast out of HTH
There is a lot of room for latitude in how you want illusions to function in your game. If you want to really restrict what they can do and have them be a 'buggy' technology that breaks down in unusual situations, then you might latch onto statements like the one above re. weapons dropped in HTH. If you like your illusions to be a bit more free-form and contingent on the creator's will, then you might ignore the discussion about dropping weapons.
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04-25-2021, 05:44 PM | #22 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Cast out of HTH
I just got it from a literal reading of the text.
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I always thought there were some dubious consequences. An illusion of a fire would surely have disconnected parts, because thats how fires are. In that case, your one-hex limitation has something going for it. I thought we had discussed this somewhere on the forum, but it's hard to search for, since the forum software ignores "HTH". Here's a post by Axly discussing what happens when an illusion drops his weapon. I'd say it agrees with my interpretation, but I think that I read his post when trying to come up with my own rule clarification, so the agreement goes the other way round. A somewhat more relevant post by Nils Lindeberg, which is about initiating HTH. Quote:
(All that said, of course I agree with Lars. Illusion is one of the many, many ways that the details are left to the GM to fill in as he sees fit.) Last edited by phiwum; 04-25-2021 at 06:14 PM. |
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04-26-2021, 12:36 PM | #23 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Cast out of HTH
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Though there's a third option. Read further down ITL138, as it has a couple of bits about illusions gaining the reality that they have through others' belief in them, including the casting mage. It states a couple of times that illusions can't do impossible things. That is, just can't do them at all in the first place, not do them and disappear or maybe get disbelieved. Players that like that option would presumably wind up with two pinned figures, as neither one of them could escape to the next hex over. (That scenario also highlights one of the problems with a literal interpretation here -- figures don't normally appear out of nowhere, as that's impossible in and of itself. So illusions can't appear, if we're being that literal. If we read it as "impossible except for magic, because magic is real", then a lot of impossible things are possible if someone just happened to be casting the right spell, including one figure sliding over into the next hex because for all the observers know, someone happened to research a Blink Other Insubstantially spell. Or there's the problem of casting an illusionary chimera which works fine on the Cidri native, but he's standing right next to a human from a far region of Cidri or just a mundane dimension where chimeras are purely mythological, and so impossible. It's probably easier in practice to go with "impossible things happening grant disbelief" -- in the last case, just for the mundane human -- rather than "impossible things simply can't happen".) |
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04-26-2021, 01:36 PM | #24 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Cast out of HTH
Oh, I didn't think we were disagreeing much. I thought your comment that this kind of abuse could lead to shifting a duplicating illusion through walls was a pretty compelling reason not to let the illusion shift in the pinned figure case. That was pretty clever.
I was just pointing out alternative views on what happens when an illusion is forced to do the impossible. With HTH, it can be a pickle, since the illusion has to drop his halberd and fall to the ground, but illusions can't be split in two. Each GM is left to figger out what to do then and it's bound to come up sooner or later. |
04-26-2021, 03:43 PM | #25 | ||
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Cast out of HTH
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Creatures appearing out of thin air is like something real (Summon Myrmidon, etc). And a standing figure splitting in two and stepping apart is a specific trick illusions can do. It's also something that only happens with images and illusions, and it also gives away that one of them is an image or illusion - you just don't know which one. If the GM lets you do it to a figure in HTH, you also know it's an illusion, since an image would vanish on touch. |
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04-29-2021, 12:08 PM | #26 | |
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: Cast out of HTH
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And that raises a question: what happens when several wizards cast Shock Shield on someone (or the same wizard several times successively, maintaining each one)? 1 die damage for each spell? |
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04-29-2021, 12:20 PM | #27 | ||
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: Cast out of HTH
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04-29-2021, 04:40 PM | #29 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Cast out of HTH
Zot's right that the text says it behaves just like the real thing and the real thing causes permanent damage to inanimate stuff. But I can understand Henry's reluctance to read it like that, since that makes it so different from every other illusion that one can cast.
Still, I have to go with zot's literal reading on this. The text isn't really ambiguous, I think. So, Illusion gives you a free fire spell that has double the ST cost and can be disbelieved. |
04-29-2021, 10:22 PM | #30 |
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Cast out of HTH
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.
I still think mindless things (slimes, zombies) should not be affected by illusionary fires, ropes, etc |
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