This is more or less my point.
Either we accept what our senses tell us, or we don't. Ergo, either our senses are lying to us, or we have proof based on what they say - or else, the word "proof" doesn't really mean anything.
Ya, makes sense. I think i mentioned bayesian thinking in this thread earlier as a joke, but seriously anyone who has truly absorbed bayesian thinking will never be able to discern illusions under pathfinder rules. For them you can't ever "prove" anything in the natural world, that term gets replaced with things like "sufficiently strong evidence" or "high probability of", but even when they have those they are just waiting for the next update/evidence injection so they can revise their mental models.
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This is more or less my point.
Either we accept what our senses tell us, or we don't. Ergo, either our senses are lying to us, or we have proof based on what they say - or else, the word "proof" doesn't really mean anything.
Except that is the exact opposite of what is happening with illusions. You senses are all telling you there is an owlbear there but your mind is telling you that the wizard just cast an illusion spell and the owl bear may not be real so you are left thinking your way through the illusion which is deserving of a save but not automatically disbelieving.
A simple skill check is not going to be a 100% reliable every time way to disbelieve any illusion ever. Sorry, just isn't that way no matter how badly you want it to be. It doesn't give you that much information no matter how many times you boldly assert it to be fact.
In the some situations such as a 20' tall befanged lemming suddenly appearing the spellcraft check may be considered proof. Because such creatures don't normally exist and it just appeared out of thin air. However, an owlbear charging out of the forest or the wall of a burning building falling between you and the NPC you are pursuing is not so clear. There is a real possibility that the owlbear or the wall are real. Maybe the wall fell and now you can't see the illusion the wizard intended you to see but maybe the wall is the illusion. There just isn't reasonable certainty.
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In the some situations such as a 20' tall befanged lemming suddenly appearing the spellcraft check may be considered proof. Because such creatures don't normally exist and it just appeared out of thin air. However, an owlbear charging out of the forest or the wall of a burning building falling between you and the NPC you are pursuing is not so clear. There is a real possibility that the owlbear or the wall are real. Maybe the wall fell and now you can't see the illusion the wizard intended you to see but maybe the wall is the illusion. There just isn't reasonable certainty.
If everyone simply ignored all weird creatures that popped in out of nowhere - Summon Monster would become FAR more useful.
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Also - the whole idea of it being an unbelievable coincidence which something non-illusionary happens when someone casts an illusion ignores that, if that were the rules of magic, spell-casters would know that and trick their foes.I'm not entirely sure if you're agreeing, disagreeing, or trying to fine-tune the argument I made with this statement. Sorry I'm being dense.
Well - I'm also probably bad at explaining myself. >.<
What I mean is - IF characters simply ignored weird things that happened when they saw a spell-caster cast an illusion, and spell-casters KNEW that they did so, it'd be easy for spell-casters to get them to ignore real threats which they timed with their illusions.
For example: A common illusion which I use is to make it appear that I have dozens of archers on my side of the battlefield shooting arrows at my foes. I do this when I have an ACTUAL archer or two in my party, but my foes then don't know which ones to attack, often wasting multiple turns chasing down and swinging at the fakes.
If my foes simply ignored all of the archers, they would be flat-footed to the real archers in the mix. Frankly - this would be a very useful thing for my illusionist if the REAL archers had SA.
You can't logically say that they have proof ONLY that the illusionary archers aren't real if the real archers kept themselves hidden until the fake archers appeared anyway.
If everyone simply ignored all weird creatures that popped in out of nowhere - Summon Monster would become FAR more useful.In the some situations such as a 20' tall befanged lemming suddenly appearing the spellcraft check may be considered proof. Because such creatures don't normally exist and it just appeared out of thin air. However, an owlbear charging out of the forest or the wall of a burning building falling between you and the NPC you are pursuing is not so clear. There is a real possibility that the owlbear or the wall are real. Maybe the wall fell and now you can't see the illusion the wizard intended you to see but maybe the wall is the illusion. There just isn't reasonable certainty.
LMAO, that is true!
All of this discussion though has given me a thought. Why is there not a feat that allows you to attempt to bluff while casting to make others think you are casting a different spell or at least disguise that you are casting at all?
Hear that devs? Get on this right away! Chop chop!
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If everyone simply ignored all weird creatures that popped in out of nowhere - Summon Monster would become FAR more useful.In the some situations such as a 20' tall befanged lemming suddenly appearing the spellcraft check may be considered proof. Because such creatures don't normally exist and it just appeared out of thin air. However, an owlbear charging out of the forest or the wall of a burning building falling between you and the NPC you are pursuing is not so clear. There is a real possibility that the owlbear or the wall are real. Maybe the wall fell and now you can't see the illusion the wizard intended you to see but maybe the wall is the illusion. There just isn't reasonable certainty.
LMAO, that is true!
All of this discussion though has given me a thought. Why is there not a feat that allows you to attempt to bluff while casting to make others think you are casting a different spell or at least disguise that you are casting at all?
Hear that devs? Get on this right away! Chop chop!
Perhaps allow you to make an opposed Sleight of Hand check?
as far as disguising that you are casting at all there is metamagic like still spell and silent spell
as far as disguising that you are casting at all there is metamagic like still spell and silent spell
Per RAW, neither of those matter with identifying when a spell is being cast due to all spells having some sort of visual magical effect.
Personally though I increase the spellcraft DC of spells being cast under those conditions to identify the exact nature of the spell.
as far as disguising that you are casting at all there is metamagic like still spell and silent spellPer RAW, neither of those matter with identifying when a spell is being cast due to all spells having some sort of visual magical effect.
Personally though I increase the spellcraft DC of spells being cast under those conditions to identify the exact nature of the spell.
Also those metamagics have other effects than just disguising you are casting and have stringent requirements to reflect that such as increasing the level of the spell and requiring two feat slots to have both. Because they allow you to cast while pinned or paralyzed. They allow you to cast in silence.
In my opinion there should be something that only allows you to disguise your casting. I would prefer it tied to a skill check like bluff or slight of hand (as mentioned by Charon's Little Helper) vs sense motive, perception or even spellcraft or something like that.
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Both of those things (kind of) exist. Rakshasa bloodline arcana boosts spellcraft ID and lets you fake other spells against sufficiently bad spellcraft checks (wizards will see through, but you have better odds against Cha and Wis casters). There's a trait, Magical Flair, that goes well with it, increasing the ID DC and giving a random spell of the same school and level if they barely fail.
Cunning Caster hides casting with a bluff check, but it's basically just for psychic casting.
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You want Cunning Caster.
Ultimate Intrigue is adding more things, too- spells with baked-in spellcraft DC increases and misidentification results, another option to hide casting, and probably some more options.
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You want Cunning Caster.
That is awesome! Thank you!
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You want Cunning Caster.
It is awesome - but it's sort of too bad that there's not a variant which allows you to make the spell you're casting look like a different spell rather than this which merely hides your casting entirely. (still cool)
Also - the whole idea of it being an unbelievable coincidence which something non-illusionary happens when someone casts an illusion ignores that, if that were the rules of magic, spell-casters would know that and trick their foes.
I'm not entirely sure if you're agreeing, disagreeing, or trying to fine-tune the argument I made with this statement. Sorry I'm being dense.
Well - I'm also probably bad at explaining myself. >.<
That's cool: everyone is at some point or another!
What I mean is - IF characters simply ignored weird things that happened when they saw a spell-caster cast an illusion, and spell-casters KNEW that they did so, it'd be easy for spell-casters to get them to ignore real threats which they timed with their illusions.
For example: A common illusion which I use is to make it appear that I have dozens of archers on my side of the battlefield shooting arrows at my foes. I do this when I have an ACTUAL archer or two in my party, but my foes then don't know which ones to attack, often wasting multiple turns chasing down and swinging at the fakes.
If my foes simply ignored all of the archers, they would be flat-footed to the real archers in the mix. Frankly - this would be a very useful thing for my illusionist if the REAL archers had SA.
You can't logically say that they have proof ONLY that the illusionary archers aren't real if the real archers kept themselves hidden until the fake archers appeared anyway.
Yes and no.
The entire concept hinges upon cause and effect - the original scenario granted didn't provide any reasoning beyond "well, it could just be coincidence" which is exceptionally unlikely.
This scenario gives us some sort of reasoning obvious both in- and out-of-character for us to presuppose. "I cast a spell and a bunch of archers appeared." ... okay. There is actually more cause to believe in a bunch of archers than in a single mastadon, toothy sloth, or owlbear appearing.
Having an ambush =/= having a coincidence following in your favor.
Further, in order to have the illusion-but-really-a-summon trick pulled off effectively, you either have to have two casters* - one casting in some sort of exceptionally hidden way, and one casting the illusion - or you have to have really exceptional timing which either only makes sense in a specific scenario (in which case that specific scenario should be spelled out) or is just a major coincidence. The "major coincidence" is the issue - while PF worlds might have that sort of thing, for the players of a given scenario that's going to be really hard to swallow.
If you have a scenario in which there is actual planning involved - specify the planning, not the coincidence.
* "Two casters" needn't be actual people doing spellcasting. Traps or other things could apply, but those allow all sorts of other checks to happen before you ever get to the will save part.
Except that is the exact opposite of what is happening with illusions. You senses are all telling you there is an owlbear there but your mind is telling you that the wizard just cast an illusion spell and the owl bear may not be real so you are left thinking your way through the illusion which is deserving of a save but not automatically disbelieving.
Actually, no. This is why I combined that with the idea of "Cause and effect" - the very idea that you've brushed aside by use of the word "coincidence":
they can't know for sure that the timing isn't just a coincidence
... which may well simply be poor wording, which is what I tried to address with,
(There are, of course, other elements that can come into play that mitigate such; but in a vacuum, with those statements as-given in play, "proof" either doesn't exist and that line is meaningless, or it does and the argument as-presented needs refining as it's lacking data points.)
... but that just might have been poorly communicated anyway. Sorry, if that's the case! :)