My own illusion rules:
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Illusion (4th level Sorcery spell)
This spell has the power to create that which is not real to fool the senses of weaker minds into believing something that is not there, be it a creature with wicked fangs and claws bearing down on them, a pit that disappears into darkness and blocks their way or the sound of movement and muted conversation from behind a door to an empty room. These effects, collectively, are known as illusions. More than mere fabrications of light, illusions fool all of the senses – a hand in the dark can feel an illusory wall as easily as the eye could see it in the light.
Illusions do not speed towards a target and need to be evaded, nor can the effect be shrugged off with an effort of will, they must instead be disbelieved. But characters do not go about mistrusting their own senses, they must first identify some flaw in what they are experiencing – maybe the creature is not moving how a creature of that type should move; maybe its claws are not making the correct noises as they scrape the cold stone floor; maybe its shadow does not quite align with the prevailing light source, etc.
To resist being duped by an illusion, the character pits his Perception against an illusion’s Stealth score. The Stealth score of an illusion created by this spell is equal to 3 plus the caster’s Illusioncraft skill (if any). If the character resisting the illusion has the Illusioncraft skill, he may add his ranks in this skill to his Perception score too. Additional circumstantial modifiers may apply – for example, if the character had walked the corridor earlier and a pit was not there, or the magicker is creating an illusion of a creature it has kept as a pet for a while and knows its ways and sounds thoroughly, etc.
The GM should make this check in secret to ensure the players’ suspicions are not aroused. However, if the roll is made, the GM can advise the player that his character gets the feeling that “something is wrong”. If the character does not notice anything, though, he must act as if the illusion were real (and his senses will continue to fool him – if he drops a real stone down an illusory pit, he will see the stone fall and fail to hear that it hit the ground in front of him, hearing and seeing instead what he is expecting to see and hear, not what is actually there).
Knowing that there is something wrong does not mean the character can put his finger on what it is and forcing his mind to ignore his own senses will be a challenge for most characters (especially those non-magickers that decided putting a low score in Psychic Talent did not really matter…). Disbelief at this stage is a Psychic Talent check against a difficulty of 12 plus the illusion’s Stealth score. The GM can add half the amount by which the character made his Perception roll to this check, to represent how obvious the flaw in the illusion is to the character.
Once an illusion has been disbelieved, he will begin to sense everything normally again and can communicate this information to others (although they may only believe him when he, for example, walks across the pit without falling!).
Example
The Plague Witch of Haven Wood is fleeing for her life from Sir Balin’s party and needs to create a distraction to enable her to evade her pursuers. Cresting a small hill, she pauses for a moment to survey the forest and decides an illusion of dense giant spider webs woven between the trees will give Sir Balin and his party pause. She casts her spell and runs off.
The Stealth score of the witch's illusion is 4 (her illusioncraft skill is 1). Sir Balin's party crest the hill and stop at the sight of the webs blocking their way. The GM makes a Perception roll on 2d10 for each of them in secret. The webs disturb only the Mystic, who thinks there is something wrong with their placement, or their shimmer or something, but cannot put his finger on it. He checks his Psychic Talent (13) against a difficulty of 16 (base of 12, plus the illusion’s Stealth score of 4), but only rolls a 2 on a d6.
Had the Mystic made his Perception check by 2 points or more, he would have seen through the illusion, but as it is he shrugs off his doubts, draws his knife and helps the others cut through the webs to continue their pursuit.
Illusions are a very flexible tool and no one set of rules is going to cover all eventualities. For example, a character believes a pit is real and attempts to jump across but falls short of the far edge. Obviously he does not fall, but how could he think that he did? And what do the other characters, who also believe there is a pit there, see?
Firstly, if a character tries something that makes it blatantly obvious that something is amiss (leaning on an illusory wall, crossing an illusory bridge, etc.), allow them to remake the Psychic Talent roll with an additional +5 bonus (as if they had made their Perception roll by 10). If they still fail that, the mind has entirely failed to interpret what its senses are telling it and it shuts down, effectively rendering the character unconscious for 2d6 minutes.
As for what the other characters see – if someone failed in his attempt to jump over a pit they thought was real, they would see that character plummet. Only if the jumping attempt caused the character to realise the illusion was not real could he act to break the spell the illusion still has over his companions.
Illusions cannot do damage directly – an illusory sword cannot impale a real person and cause real damage. However, when an illusion would otherwise cause damage, the character is allowed to make another Perception check. If this fails, the character takes damage, although those points are instantly healed when the illusion fades. However, there are many ways an illusion could hurt - if a rope tied around an illusory tree is used as an anchor for abseiling down a cliff-face – as soon as the character falls over the cliff with the rope tied around him, he will fall… Illusionists need to be clever to get the best results from their illusions and GMs need to think quickly to determine a fair way to determine the outcomes!
Illusions are ideal for Sorcerers that wish to harry an opponent without getting too close to a dangerous melee – creating illusory opponents to which the Defence score of his enemy must be split, throwing illusory javelins that the target may waste an Evasion test on evading, all of which can create an advantage to the rest of the Sorcerer’s party in combat.
Illusions cast with this spell can fill up to a single 5’x5’x5’ cube per rank of the Sorcerer, although there is no reason why they cannot be seen from much further away with the proviso that illusions do not emit light – an illusion of a fire could only shed light out to the edge of the area of the illusion, not farther. Illusions are also free to move around within this area (webs swaying in a breeze, an illusory javelin hurled unerringly accurately within range, etc.). Illusions are not intelligent, however, and if the sorcerer wants the illusion to adapt to changing circumstances (e.g., wind, fire, etc.), he must remain within line of sight of his illusion and use his movement action to adapt his illusion. Unfortunately, even when concentrating on updating the illusion, the control is insufficient to turn a moving creature invisible, nor can it mask other unpredictable movement, like the flames of a fire, etc.
For the duration of an illusion, the Sorcerer may not cast any other spells.
I should note that in my house rules, Perception is the higher stat (like Attack), not Stealth (which is equivalent to Defence), which is why Stealth scores of illusions above are so low - the starting values are different, to, so a Stealth of 4 is still quite a challenge to a lot of professions - feel free to adjust to suit your own rules
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I play tested these rules both in King Under the Forest (location 17) and Shadow on the Mist (location 10), both to good effect - they play better than they read and provide some use for the Psychic Talent ability score for non-magickers (I hate 'dump' stats...).
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