I am currently playing a (wizard 7, shadowcraft mage 4) shadow craft mage and will heighten a silent image into a scorching ray. Say I shoot the ray(s) at a NPC that has fire immunity, would they still take damage if they fail their will save?
What damage if any would the NPC with fire immunity take if they make their will save? I am assuming that it would be 20% of whatever it is that I rolled due to the fact that part of the illusion is imbued with shadow...
Also, does the fact that a NPC does or does not have spellcraft change how they would interact with an illusion? If the person is able to identify that I am casting a heightened silent image spell and yet they see a fireball, would that help them, or does it just not matter because they are going to interact with the effect no matter what?
Thanks in advance for some clarification and help!
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pretty sure that you'll have to use shadow evocation for this.
Silent image is a figment. From PRD (emphasis mine):
"Because figments and glamers are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. Figments and glamers cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding foes, but useless for attacking them directly."
Shadow Evocation is a (shadow) subschool and is quasi real and can cause damage.
"Such illusions can have real effects. Damage dealt by a shadow illusion is real."
In the case of shadow evo, the immune to fire guy would still be immune to the quasi-realistic fire damage. A resistance 10 would still apply the full resistance against the spell whether he saved (20% of the full effect) or not.
edit: ignore my above if thats some wonky class feature of shadowcraft mage
It is in fact a wonky class feature of shadowcraft mage. Basically it is able to simulate shadow conjuration/evocation with a list of certain illusion spells, one of them being silent image.
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ok, in that case, say your 3x4d6's give 11, 9, and 20 fire damage each. will (disbelief) reduces them to 2, 2, and 4 fire damage each. resistance (and immune) still drops it to below 1.
i've always had a problem figuring out how spellcasters who make a Spellcraft to ID could fail will saves on most illusions. it breaks logic by saying "he's casting hallucinatory terrain!" and then believing you're really in a desert when you fail your will save. however, i can't seem to find a rule saying that the spellcraft does anything at all to the save dc.
edit: although...
"A character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throw. If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus."
man i just confused myself...
gotta love the mental roller coaster involved with shadow magic!
my understanding of this ability is that it is mechanically like shadow evocation/conjuration except as noted (converting spells, percentages, etc.).
therefore, the shadowstuff emulates the actual spell (evoking a damage type or conjuring a creature type, etc.), so even though it is "shadow", it is really partly fire from the plane of shadow. so fire immune means no damage whether or not they save. "shadow" is not a damage type as far as I know.
the spellcraft check would identify heightened silent image, as you suggest. I don't think that there is any indication in the rules that this would give a bonus to the save. In this case the NPC making the spellcraft check has no way of being sure that they made the check successfully or that they weren't the victim of deceptive casting (I think there is a skill trick like this). But a GM would be perfectly justified to grant a circumstance bonus on the will save IMHO.