Vadagar's page

Thanks a lot for the feedback! That sure does make shadow spells far more viable than I was fearing they weren't. Even normal illusions apparently! I'll be sure to bring it up with my GM soon and hopefully he's alright with changing our current stand on it all. I really do love the idea of playing a sneaky, sly shadow sorcerer throwing out illusions half the time but as it stood I found it hard to justify using them much due to the high failure chance they have over a long duration. Obviously you should create illusions that don't encourage interaction to begin with, like walls of fire, pits of acid and so on, but it's not always what's needed.

With most illusions you don't get a disbelieve save unless you interact with it. I always assumed every time someone interacted with an illusion you got a disbelieve will save. But I read on a recent thread that this was a matter for debate. In any case, I'd still agree that with normal illusions (entirely make-believe) every time someone attacks/interacts they should probably get a will save to disbelieve.

However, what about shadow conjuration or shadow evocation spells that demand constant interaction? Do you get a will save every round? I play an illusionist in my current game and I was initially fine with this (it was me who informed our GM how it worked), but upon experiencing it... I find myself wondering is this is truly the intention of quasi-real shadow stuff spells. It seems a little harsh. It makes some spells nearly useless.

For example, you cast Shadow Resilient Sphere on someone. It's already costing you a 5th level spell to get a 4th level spell, throw spell resistance on top of that (though in this case that's already there), and a will save to disbelieve when it's cast on you. But you get great utility out of shadow spells so that fine. But the spell lasts minutes per level and surely you can say you're constantly interacting with it. Do you really get a save every round? That makes the shadow version of this spell and any non-instantaneous duration spell a lot less useful (to put it politely).

Do people think these shadow spells were intended to give only one disbelieve roll and then no further until the duration runs out or someone else tells them it's not fully real to give them one more at a +4?

For normal illusions I don't mind the one save per interaction. But in the case of these quasi-real spells where you already make so many concessions to get that flexibility, will saves every round during the spells duration seems too much and I think I might start nit picking at the exact wording of the RaW to make a case for this with my GM.

Feelings, Thoughts?

Vadagar wrote:

If your blindsight sensory organ works by detecting and processing vibrations in the air (sound) receives the right sound that sense/sensory organ would see whatever it was receiving. Sound based blindsight would use high pitched sound. But that it still sound. And I can point at loads of illusion spell that create illusory sound.

You are assuming blindsight has its own organ. I can bet you that none of those illusory sounds affect blindsight. Only by removing sound, and therefore the medium through which blindsight might operate could you defeat it.

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Your argument that you can't describe blindsight descriptively, is arguably wrong and more importantly, besides the point. Descriptive words were just created by us (who have 5 senses) to describe those senses. It's not these words that are traveling from objects to you eyes or ears, it light and sound.

The creation of the words does not change the inherent properties that exist. Blindsight can not be used to describe things like our senses can because it does not describe an inherent property of anything, and without an inherent property to ascribe to, it can not really be copied or generally fooled. Only by finding the sense, such as smell or sound, by which it operates can it be negated. In short any illusion fooling blindsight has to negate the primary sense through which it works.

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I'd agree with you if blindsight used a sense other than the basic five.

That is exactly my point. Blindsight is not even its own sense. It is just an enhanced version of the other senses or a combination of them. Even your quotes say that. :)

In order to bypass it, you must negate the sense or senses upon which it relies.

It would have to have a sensory organ to work. The same way you can't see with eyes or hear without ears.

I'm glad you agree that blindsight is not really it's own sense it's just an enhanced version of some other sense as that's the premise to everything I've been saying.

To be honest, it mostly sounds like you agree with me. You even say

Only by removing sound, and therefore the medium through which blindsight might operate could you defeat it.

Well, that would fool it into perceiving nothing. As in, if you negate sounds you negate blindsight. You don't have to negate the medium. The medium is just the air and the sound travels through that. If an observer is outside the range of an illusion the light and sound emanating from it still reach him/her. They still see the illusion. The air (medium) has nothing to do with it. Just the sound. Without it, sound-based blindsight fail to work. And if you learn how to give off sound that processes correctly into blindsight then that would fool it too. The same way a TV throws light at our eyes to see stuff...

And of course blindsight would describe things differently than our senses. You'd have to actually be a bat to know what echo-location looked/felt like. We know it would describes things like distance to objects, size of object, obstacles and so on. You don't get color from it. I believe the RAW even say that last part. So it obviously describes the environment around you. You'd just have to polymorph yourself into a bat to experience echo-location or have that druid spell cast on you to know what it felt like, so that you could send out the illusory sound that describes the environment in terms of echolocation.

So... I'm not sure we'll ever agree :) Which is fine. But I'll try one more time.

Light is not a sense. True. Though I never said it was. The same way as sound is not a sense. I just said, or tried to anyways, that light and sound travel from a source (or are reflected off of something) and reach a natural detector you have that processes that into information. That act of processing light into information by using your eyes is called sight. Which is a sense. Same as sound being processed into auditory information is called hearing. Which is also a sense.

If your blindsight sensory organ works by detecting and processing vibrations in the air (sound) receives the right sound that sense/sensory organ would see whatever it was receiving. Sound based blindsight would use high pitched sound. But that it still sound. And I can point at loads of illusion spell that create illusory sound.

Your argument that you can't describe blindsight descriptively, is arguably wrong and more importantly, besides the point. Descriptive words were just created by us (who have 5 senses) to describe those senses. It's not these words that are traveling from objects to you eyes or ears, it light and sound.

I'd agree with you if blindsight used a sense other than the basic five.

For instance, Imagine there was a 6th sense called... Blargh :) Everything in the world gave off Blargh particles/rays and some creatures had sensory organs that could detect them. In this case, there is no illusion that could fool ones sense of Blargh. Because Blargh is it's own sense entirely. It doesn't operate on sound (for hearing) or light (for sight). It works on Blargh particles :D (or whatever). And no illusion in the book fools Blargh. If you had a version of blindsight that used this magical 6th sense called Blargh, then sure, no argument could be made for an illusion fooling that.

I hope I didn't get too surreal there.

The fact is sound-based blindsight is just sound. And that's as clear as I can make it. It's the sensory organ that processes it differently that makes it blightsight. And a caster could potentially learn how it processes it, by experiencing it, and therefore give off the right sound to trick it same as tricking your ears into thinking it heard something.

Vadagar wrote:

So with that said, all I'm saying is, I think a case could be made for certain illusions fooling blindsight given a caster having experience with that type of blindsight and an illusion that can trick the sense it is based on, if the GM is ok with it.

Arguably True Seeing is a sense which one could be familiar with... Would this logic not allow Illusions to defeat True Seeing?

No. Because True Seeing is magical. It automatically distinguishes illusory sound from real sound, illusory light from real light etc. Just as the illusory sound from an illusion can fool you ear, or illusory light can fool your eye, illusory (high pitched) sound can fool your echo-locator. But just as the Magical ability/spell True Seeing reveals the illusory light and sound for what it truly is, it would reveal the high pitched sound sent out to your echo-locator as illusory also. Therefore, True Seeing always trumps illusions.

Vadagar wrote:

Touché Quantum Steve, Radar does indeed use radio waves. So... I feel stupid! :D

Don't know why I thought radar was just Sonar in air. Apparently, that's called Sodar (which is the equivalent for echolocation I guess). Well, you learn something new every day.

Other than that, it seems like you agree with all my other posts (in this thread). Nice to know I'm not alone anyways :)

If it's radar based blindsight, visual illusions could fool it if the caster has experienced radar based blindsight.

If it's sound based blindsight, illusions that create sound could fool it if the caster has experienced sound based blindsight.

That is not the original arguement. I am not saying blindsight can't be fooled. I am saying it can't be fooled by copying it, which was the original argument. Now if you are saying illusions can duplicate effects that can block blindsight then I agree.

So first off, I'd just like to say I appreciate all your feedback and I do enjoy talking about these things with other people. Often the Rules As Written don't go into everything as well as we'd like and that's when different people have different views on how things go from there. I find it very interesting hearing those views.

It's very possible that your opinion on this matter is set and that's entirely understandable seeing as most people would view the rules as going no further than illusions can only fool the five basic senses as we ourselves use them day to day, and that blindsight is never once mentioned under illusions.

I think there have also been some misunderstandings throughout the thread. I didn't quite get your point, about smell and touch attaching to you, whereas echolocation doesn't attach to you. Neither light nor sound attaches to you in the same way smell or touch can cling to you, but they do reach you by traveling from a source to your sensory organ. And since echolocation works on sound doing that same thing, only reflected sound of a higher frequency doesn't that just make it a sound based sense. Obviously the sensory organ to process that sound is entirely different from an ear, but that doesn't matter to the illusionist, he just needs to know what type of sound to send out to it.

So with that said, all I'm saying is, I think a case could be made for certain illusions fooling blindsight given a caster having experience with that type of blindsight and an illusion that can trick the sense it is based on, if the GM is ok with it.

The case is made not by referencing one of the rules as written, but by referencing and combining a few of them, as follows:

1) Blindsight is "the extraordinary ability to use a non-visual sense (or a combination senses) to operate effectively without vision" examples of which are "sensitivity to vibrations, acute scent, keen hearing, or echolocation". This ability is not magical it is an extraordinary ability. And considering the examples given, there's seems to me to be an understandable means of how it works. That is to say, there's science to it.

2) There exist, illusions that can fool at the very least 3 of the 5 basic senses, hearing, smell and sight. Major Image for example.

3) The caster of an illusion, must first have experienced a type of sense before he can create an illusion that tricks that sense. E.g. If the caster had always been deaf he could not create the illusion of sound. If the caster had always been blind he could not create a visual illusion. This rule might only apply to the basic senses, BUT it never specifically states that. Therefore, if a caster has experienced a sense other than the five basic, run-of-the-mill, senses, it would be possible for him to create an illusion of it IF such an illusion spell existed.

That final point is important. You might say, that no illusion spell does exist that can trick someone's blindsight into seeing something that isn't there (figment) or seeing something that is there as being different (glamer), and leave it at that. But there are illusions (figments and glamers) that trick those same senses that blindsight (in all it's forms) uses to work. So all I'm saying is, if you take it a little further, what's to say those same illusions can't send out sound (much higher pitched for echolocation), light (of the appropriate wavelength e.g. radio waves for radar) or smell to fool the equivalent type of blindsight?

I think, if both GM and Players are OK with that, there's some solid ground to allow it given that interpretation of the RAW. It doesn't even seem a stretch to me. But I'm sure there are others who would just get angry at the thought of blindsight not overcoming illusions and consider it no further. Remember, there are loads of other ways of seeing through illusions, be it through other special creature abilities or spells such as See Invisibility or True Seeing (expensive though), or items like Gem of Seeing. So I don't think the repercussions of allowing it are crazy game changing.

Touché Quantum Steve, Radar does indeed use radio waves. So... I feel stupid! :D

Don't know why I thought radar was just Sonar in air. Apparently, that's called Sodar (which is the equivalent for echolocation I guess). Well, you learn something new every day.

Other than that, it seems like you agree with all my other posts (in this thread). Nice to know I'm not alone anyways :)

If it's radar based blindsight, visual illusions could fool it if the caster has experienced radar based blindsight.

If it's sound based blindsight, illusions that create sound could fool it if the caster has experienced sound based blindsight.

The spell Echolocation:

Echolocation: You can perceive the world by creating high-pitched noises and listening to their echoes. This gives you blindsight to a range of 40 feet. The echo-producing noises are too high-pitched to be heard by most creatures, and can only be detected by dragons, other creatures with this ability (such as bats), and creatures with hearing-based blindsense or blindsight. You cannot use this ability if you are deaf, and cannot detect anything in an area of silence.

The Illusion Spell Silence (which silences an area):

Silence: Upon the casting of this spell, complete silence prevails in the affected area. All sound is stopped: Conversation is impossible, spells with verbal components cannot be cast, and no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area. The spell can be cast on a point in space, but the effect is stationary unless cast on a mobile object. The spell can be centered on a creature, and the effect then radiates from the creature and moves as it moves. An unwilling creature can attempt a Will save to negate the spell and can use Spell Resistance, if any. Items in a creature's possession or magic items that emit sound receive the benefits of saves and Spell Resistance, but unattended objects and points in space do not. Creatures in an area of a silence spell are immune to sonic or language-based attacks, spells, and effects.

Therefore you can use an illusion spell to fool some forms of blindsight.

Also, radar, natural or otherwise, is a sound based means of detection (vibrations in the medium of air).

Also, I'm not talking about negating blindsight. I'm talking about having illusions give off sound to fool what someone with sound-based-blindsight sees. For that, you don't have to do anything with the medium, as you put it, just have an illusory sound source outputting the illusory sense it's based on (i.e. the Major Image or Mirror Image if it can mimic sound).

Regards Mirror Image only fooling 1 sense, that being sight, it doesn't actually state that. In fact, it states that it also mimic's the sound you create. So that's two at the minimum. Though I'd take a ruling that those were the only two senses it fools.

Regards Blindsight not being considered a sense (not in the normal sense???), I'd have to disagree. Obviously it's different to smell or sound. But it's still a sense and illusions are meant to fool senses. It also appears in the "Senses" location for creatures.

Certain illusion spells specify certain senses that they fool (Major Image being able to fool all... other than touch anyways). Blindsight seems to be a highly attuned sense (or combination of senses) other than sight.

Some creatures possess blindsight, the extraordinary ability to use a non-visual sense (or a combination senses) to operate effectively without vision. Such senses may include sensitivity to vibrations, acute scent, keen hearing, or echolocation.

I guess the caster of the illusion could only fool forms of blindsight that he's experienced (i.e. vibrations, acute scent, keen hearing, or echolocation) AND only if the illusion he chooses to cast fools the basic senses that that type of blindsight is based on.

I do accept that many creatures do not have their blindsight specified. But the rules do seem to suggest that you should make a judgement on how a specific creature's blindsight works, since it states under blindsight:

Deafening attacks thwart blindsight IF it relies on hearing.

I guess a GM at that point needs to decide whether it works on hearing or some other sense. And therefore, maybe make a ruling as to how that particular blindsight works and what makes sense given the creature in question. (the RAW just don't cover that, like so many other intricacies)

I still think you could make a case for fooling blindsight under certain circumstances.

Vadagar wrote:

To complicate things a little further. Under the rules for figments it states you cannot "copy another sense exactly unless you have experienced it".

Therefore, if an illusionist goes out of his way to experience blindsight, through a polymorph spell or whatever, he could trick a creature's blindsight.

Often blindsight is sound based (in such instances, silencing the area can stop blindsight from working), and since to illusions make the same sound as you, by experiencing blindsight, you could easily tweak the sound they give off to fool blindsight.

At least that's my reading of it :) What do others think?

No dice with Mirror Image, at least, as it specifically states in the spell;

'An attacker must be able to see the figments to be fooled. If you are invisible or the attacker is blind, the spell has no effect.'

Other illusions are likely at GM's discretion.

I see your point, though I took that to mean if you can't "percieve" the images they obviously can't fool you. E.g. if someone cast Deeper Darkness and you can no longer see the illusion only total concealment would apply. But that fooling blindsight would be the same thing as seeing the illusion. But I guess that's a point of view...

To complicate things a little further. Under the rules for figments it states you cannot "copy another sense exactly unless you have experienced it".

Therefore, if an illusionist goes out of his way to experience blindsight, through a polymorph spell or whatever, he could trick a creature's blindsight.

Often blindsight is sound based (in such instances, silencing the area can stop blindsight from working), and since to illusions make the same sound as you, by experiencing blindsight, you could easily tweak the sound they give off to fool blindsight.

At least that's my reading of it :) What do others think?

A shadow sorcerer of 15th level gains a power called Enveloping Darkness.

Enveloping Darkness: At 15th level, you may create an area of deeper darkness that you can see through without penalty. All creatures except you are entangled within this darkness unless using freedom of movement or a similar effect. You may use this ability once per day.

The Entangled rules read as follows:

Entangled: The character is ensnared. Being entangled impedes movement, but does not entirely prevent it unless the bonds are anchored to an immobile object or tethered by an opposing force. An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity. An entangled character who attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) or lose the spell.

My question is, Does Enveloping Darkness stop movement entirely or just reduce movement to half speed?

The power acts like Deeper Darkness, so it must be cast on an object. Would it depend on whether the object it was cast on were immobile or not? Or is being entirely surrounded on all sides by the enveloping darkness enough to stop any movement regardless of the condition of object emanating the darkness? Or is movement only ever halved?

Awesome. Thanks again for the response. Just wanted to hear someone else's opinion before mentioning it to my GM, in case I missed something.

Thanks for the response. When I first took the spell, I also just thought it acted like silent image in that respect. But at the end of the description for Major Image it states you can move it (the effect) within the range.

This spell functions like silent image, except that sound, smell, and thermal illusions are included in the spell effect. While concentrating, you can move the image within the range.

Which is a great improvement over silent image. Therefore, you could create the illusion of a dragon (as long as the size of the dragon does not exceed the size of the effect, four 10-ft. cubes + one 10-ft. cube/level) and have it fly around within the range of the Major image spell (400 ft. + 40 ft./level).

So what I'm wondering is, does the origin point for the illusion move when you move (while concentrating). The description of "Range" says nothing about it being the range of the spell from where you cast it, just the range from you.

bumpity bump

If I cast Major Image to create an illusion, can I then have that illusion follow me as I travel (as long as I concentrate of course) seeing as the spell says you can move the image within the range, or is the range of the spell anchored to where I cast it?

Range

A spell's range indicates how far from you it can reach, as defined in the range entry of the spell description. a spell's range is the maximum distance from you that the spell's effect can occur, as well as the maximum distance at which you can designate the spell's point of origin. If any portion of the spell's area would extend beyond this range, that area is wasted. Standard ranges include the following.

It just says "from you", so I'm hoping that as long as I concentrate I can bring it with me.

I'm playing a gnome sorcerer specializing in illusions with the effortless trickery feat. Think it would be hilarious to have a illusory monkey follow me around everywhere :)