Illusory Wall is a 4th level Illusion spell that like most Figment spells offers a Will save to disbelieve once you interact with the spell effect, but in the description of the spell it states "Touch or a probing search reveals the true nature of the surface...". So what is the point of the save, doesn't interaction automatically reveals the illusory wall? Is looking at the wall enough of an interaction so save?
Illusory Wall is a 4th level Illusion spell that like most Figment spells offers a Will save to disbelieve once you interact with the spell effect, but in the description of the spell it states "Touch or a probing search reveals the true nature of the surface...". So what is the point of the save, doesn't interaction automatically reveals the illusory wall? Is looking at the wall enough of an interaction so save?
As far as we've always understood it, and have run it, interaction is basically anything regarding it taking an action.
_Seeing_ the wall is not an interaction, but taking a move action perception check to look for stimuli is. Likewise it might be considered an interaction if, say, an opponent is standing between you and the wall and you fire a bunch of arrows at it and miss, so the arrows would have hit the wall. Likewise, casting a Fireball that has part of the area beyond the wall might count as an interaction.
Granted, we play kind of "loose" with these sorts of things, using what we think makes sense in a given context, as the rules themselves are kind of vague when it comes to illusions.
Ok that all makes sense, so the will save is to not ignore the arrow is missing or the fire was not stopped but the wall.
What got me asking was my sorcerer happened to detect magic when the wall was in her cone of effect... oh there is magic here... 2 rounds later hey thats an illusion. Ok I touch the wall... crap the gig is automatically up!
Or would the will save be required for her hand not to stop and touch the wall where she suspects it to stop. This is my delemma, is a figment external to a mind or in the eye of the beholder so to speak. The spell says that physical objects pass through but is the illusion so good that thinking its there changes your sense of touch?
The reason it urks me is that a CR 14 dragon had its lair behind several of these walls and luck, not detective work got them right in, bypassing 1/2 the adventure. Luck based on a cantrip!
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a character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throw
Because of the above, use of a spell that detects illusions would cause you to automatically disbelieve it. I'm not sure how that works, but it's in there. If it's a figment or phantasm you still see a faint outline, but if it's a glamer its appearance doesn't change at all, you just know it's fake.
What counts as "proof" varies from GM to GM, but I take it to mean "I used a special ability that will say 'this is illusion!' and it said so." Poking it with a stick and having it go through is only enough to show that the wall isn't solid, not that it's not there at all. To do anything less causes illusions to be auto-negated constantly, which seems a bit unfair to any illusionists out there.
Note that most real illusionists would magic-aura their permanent fake walls to look mundane so that detect magic and arcane sight could not cause an auto-success (nor even a bonus). Not doing this is usually what causes frustration at detect magic. (IMO: All illusions should be magic aura'd by default, but they aren't, so whatever.)
Make an illusion of impenetrable fog. Make sure your allies know it's an illusion so it appears transparent to them. Much better than a wall, since moving through a fog is totally a reasonable thing to happen.
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a character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throwBecause of the above, use of a spell that detects illusions would cause you to automatically disbelieve it.
That isn't true at all. There are many ways in which an illusion detection spell could detect an illusion while a specific thing is still there.
Like, say you see a wall, and cast detect magic, seeing that it radiates illusion.
Now, that _could_ be an illusiory wall, or illusion magic could have been used to change the color of the wall, or the wall could be trapped with a color spray trap, or the wall could have misdirection cast on it (as long as it's no larger than 10 by 10) and so on and so on.
So getting a positive on illusion radiating from a wall is not evidence of the wall not being real.
On the other hand, sticking your head through the wall and seeing the other side is pretty strong evidence that it isn't a real wall (it might be a real something else, but a wall it isn't).