Grimoire Illusionatus (PFRPG)

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Grimoire Illusionatus (PFRPG)
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Grimoire Illusionatus grants a Will save for disbelief!

Do this grimoire's 82 illusion spells deceive you? Shroud those nearby in your guise, tease reality away from your enemies and fool victims into stepping through a dream realm of your device!

These spells appear to be overflowing with imaginative interaction and have been thoroughly playtested.

Design Goals:

  • Embellish illusion's emphasis on imagination and player skill rather than brute optimization.
  • Include spells with concrete ramificiations as a contingency for players with strict GM's.
  • Offer widely applicable low-level spells that enable illusionists to be illusionists all day long.

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Subscribe at dreadfox.com for $3.99 during the month of April, 2012 and get Grimoire Illusionatus for free.

Grimoire Illusionatus Tips are also freely available. We encourage you to check them out for a glimpse at what you can expect in this Grimoire (as well as a few tricks to optimize it, if you've already purchased it).


Preview: A browser-based preview of Grimoire Illusionatus (works best in Internet Explorer - unless you're an advanced Chrome/Firefox user that has disabled the browsers' PDF viewers).

Design Spoils: Coming Soon (2 are finished, only 3 more to go...)

Playtest Changelog: Check out the changes that were inspired by the public playtests.

Spoilers:

Adele's Corridor:

Adele's Corridor
School illusion (glamer); Level bard 3, magus 3, sorcerer/wizard 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one creature
Duration 1 round/level
Saving Throw Will partial; Spell Resistance yes

Reality draws away from a creature lost in Adele’s corridor. The subject treats all spaces as if they were an additional 1d4 x 10 feet away. When the subject moves, they move in place until this distance has been traversed, provoking attacks of opportunity as normal.
Creatures not affected by Adele’s corridor perceive the subject normally.
A creature that successfully saves against this spell is affected until the start of their next turn.
If the subject is hit by a melee attack from an adjacent creature, this spell ends.

Least Image:

Least Image
School illusion (figment); Level bard 0, inquisitor 0, magus 0, sorcerer/wizard 0, summoner 0, witch 0
Components V, S
Range 5 ft.
Effect visual figment up to 1 sq. inch/level
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no

This spell functions like silent image, except that the figment is very small and so crude that creatures inherently recognize it as an illusion.
Because a least image makes no attempt to conceal its illusory nature, it does not grant a save and never appears as a translucent outline.

Persona Refraction:

Persona Refraction
School illusion (glamer); Level bard 4, magus 4, paladin 3, sorcerer/wizard 4
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one creature/level, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart
Duration 1 minute (D)
Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes

Subjects affected by this spell seem to adopt your appearance, voice and mannerisms. Make a Disguise check with a +10 bonus. For the duration of this spell, subjects appear as if making a Disguise check to emulate you, using the result of your check in place of their own Disguise check.
Creatures interacting with a subject of this spell may attempt a Will save to disbelieve it, although each subject requires independent interaction and a separate save. Creatures that are familiar with you see through a subject’s disguise if that subject endeavors anything that is drastically out of character for you.

Testament of Faith:

Testament of Faith
School illusion (pattern); Level cleric 9
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, DF
Range personal
Area 30-ft.-radius emanation centered on you
Duration 10 minutes/level (D)

This spell emits an aura of radiant light appropriate to your deity, but it does not have any effects unless you can convince a creature that it does. The aura will grant a single +5 sacred bonus (or profane bonus if your deity is evil) to creatures that believe its effects are real. This bonus may apply to attack rolls, damage rolls, AC, CMB, CMD, initiative checks, caster level checks, an ability score, a saving throw or a skill. The aura is capable of granting different bonuses to different creatures, so long as the creatures continue to believe that it does. Each time that a creature casts doubt upon one of the aura’s bonuses, every bonus that the aura bestows is decreased by 1.
If any player other than the caster or the DM asks to see this spell or takes it upon themselves to look this spell up, the caster’s deity marks that player’s character as an apostate. An apostate cannot benefit from any of the caster’s spells or abilities except for atonement until it has undergone an atonement spell (which must be financed by the apostate).

How to navigate the PDF:
Click the name of a spell to travel directly to that spell's description.
Click a class to travel to that class's spell list.


Well, I have a softspot for illusions, so let's see what this has...

Adherent Flanker...I like that it's a touch range.

Double Voice seems very powerful, especially with the note about the verbal component, and no save at all, despite others interacting with it. You can effectively simulate Silent Spell with this, by making the verbal components of spells be the hidden layer and no one would be the wiser.

Depalate is weird in that it really breaks the main point of extracts. False Hope is weird too, because alchemists get it, but it's useless without Infusion.

Conceal Passage should be a Glamer, since a figment can't do that.

I like Gambler's Fortune, nice and simple.

Illusionist's Soiree is pretty sweet too.

Least Image is really cool.

I'm very iffy about Perfect Image. At least it's a Figment though.

Shadow Image is a very inspired idea. I love it. Although the shadow subschool might have some unintended consequences. Like making a creature that makes attacks, and have them do damage.

Missive Illusion is nifty too.

With how many effects the Image spells can have, I'm pretty happy that so few of these spells can be done with other illusions, although a few of them seem like Prestidigitation could do them too.


You make some great points, Cheapy!

Illusion is our favorite school because it rewards player skill and immersion/imagination as opposed to optimization. We worked hard to fill this grimoire with spells that continue that trend.

Double Voice is probably the strongest spell in this PDF because it scales sheerly on the basis of player wit as opposed to saving throw DC. It's not a super-effective silent spell replacement because you have to speak to hide your words (useless when silenced) and casting a Double Voiced spell with a somatic component will still be obvious. It is mainly a facilitator for miscommunication. Facilitate miscommunication in your favor with cunning and you can make all sorts of good things happen.

Conceal Passage is a figment because it creates an image to overlap a doorway/window instead of changing the way the doorway/window looks. "You can craft a figment to fit in with its surroundings or to conceal something." It functions this way for balance reasons, as people that expect a door where there is no longer a door are liable to touch the surface where the door used to be (which grants automatic disbelief; a glamer might not depending on what part of the glamered object is touched).

Great catch on Shadow Image! Dealing damage with that spell never even occurred to us. It is both a figment and shadow spell... I'll do some research this weekend and see if we need to clarify anything.


My reason for why it wouldn't work was from this 3.5 FAQ, and since AFAIK the figment text wasn't changed, it should still hold:

Quote:

A party wishes to hide in a dungeon room just beyond an archway.

You cannot use a figment to make the archway look like an unbroken wall. You can, however, use a figment to make the archway look like it has been bricked up; the edges of the bricked area will conform to the archway. You also could use a figment to create an illusory door that fills the doorway. You could even include hinges for the door (set atop the frame of the arch) and a big lock.

I can see some wiggle room though...

I think Shadow Image will be tricky, as any shadow spell can have real effects.

Maybe just add text that says "The darkness is a shadow effect, but the figment itself is not."


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I am a huge fan of Skip Williams' 3.5 illusion FAQ, but I have always thought that Part Four's 1st example needed a little editor love. Behavior defined as impossible in the 1st example is actually quite possible according to behavior defined in the 3rd example.

The Examples:

  • 1st Example: "You cannot use a figment to make the archway look like an unbroken wall. You can, however, use a figment to make the archway look like it has been bricked up; the edges of the bricked area will conform to the archway. You also could use a figment to create an illusory door that fills the doorway. You could even include hinges for the door (set atop the frame of the arch) and a big lock."

  • 3rd Example: "A figment can't make the party look like they aren't there. It can, however, make them a place to hide. You could use a figment spell to make an illusory house, a grove of trees (with leafy branches for concealment), or even a hill or big rock. The party will be concealed so long as the characters stay underneath the illusion."

    What You Cannot Do:

  • Change the archway's appearance. X cannot look like Y because of a figment. I believe this is the primary message of the 1st example.

  • Use Silent Image to conceal the archway from creatures on the other side as if it were a perfect continuation of the wall . This limitation stems from line of effect and duration issues; it has nothing to do with a figment's capabilities.

    What You Can Do:

  • Make one side of the archway seem like a continuation of the wall by placing a figment of the wall, minus the archway, a fraction of an inch in front of the actual wall. You would need a high caster level (area) and would have to stay on the superimpoised side of the wall (line of effect) to do this with Silent Image (duration = concentration), but it is possible according to the behavior defined in the 3rd example.

  • [With Dreadfox Games' Grimoire Illusionatus!] Conceal the archway behind a permanent figment by casting Conceal Passage. Conceal Passage has a permanent duration to help the caster get around the whole (possibly) line of effect and (definitely) devoting a standard action to a figment for the rest of eternity issues that Silent Image would incur as compensation for the specificity of its use. It also has a component cost to temper permanent figment spam.

    Edit: I am actually not certain that you need line of effect to continue concentrating on a spell with a duration of concentration. Does anyone have a reference to rules regarding this?


  • Updated to clarify Shadow Image's inability to deal damage, threaten squares or provide flanking.

    Thanks for the catch, Cheapy!


    Reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine. Cheers!

    Contributor

    Free Preview PDF now available!

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

    Hmm another one where your rating is not showing up except on the review it's self. Normally ones with reviews have star ratings under the product name.


    Yeah, and especially a pity with Illusionatus - this one is gold.

    Contributor

    Dark_Mistress, Endzeitgeist: Thanks for bringing the weirdness to our attention. We've got a fix in the works. :)

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