| Anghara |
Suppose you have a human Varisian that needs to seem Chelaxian. You use disguise self to alter skin color and eye color.
What counts as interaction to get the will save for the illusion?
Its just a change in color, so skin texture, and facial features remain the same. Does touching count? You cant feel the difference in color with your touch, with your eyes closed and only touching a red shirt or a black shirt is the same.
| Xenocrat |
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But what does it mean to interact with an illusion? It can’t just mean looking at the illusion, as otherwise there would be no need to make the distinction, but drawing the line can be a bit tricky. Fortunately, the rules can help to define that difference. A creature that spends a move action to carefully study an illusion receives a Will saving throw to disbelieve that illusion, so that is a good benchmark from which to work.
Using that as a basis, interacting generally means spending a move action, standard action, or greater on a character’s part. For example, if there were a major image of an ogre, a character who tried to attack the ogre would receive a saving throw to disbelieve, as would a character who spent 1 minute attempting a Diplomacy check on the ogre. A character who just traded witty banter with the ogre as a free action would not, nor would a character who simply cast spells on herself or her allies and never directly confronted the illusory ogre. For a glamer, interacting generally works the same as for a figment, except that the interaction must be limited to something the glamer affects. For instance, grabbing a creature’s ear would be an interaction for a human using disguise self to appear as an elf, but not for someone using a glamer to change his hair color. Similarly, visually studying someone would not grant a save against a glamer that purely changed her voice.
| graystone |
Suppose you have a human Varisian that needs to seem Chelaxian. You use disguise self to alter skin color and eye color.
What counts as interaction to get the will save for the illusion?
Its just a change in color, so skin texture, and facial features remain the same. Does touching count? You cant feel the difference in color with your touch, with your eyes closed and only touching a red shirt or a black shirt is the same.
You could sidestep the issue and cast Chameleon Scales [0 level transmutation spell].
| Mathmuse |
Take a peek at the last panel of [url="http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0478.html"Order of the Stick #478.[/url] The wizard Varsuvius is advising the bard Elan on how to make his illusions more believeable. He advised Elan to advance the illusionary lion slowly, so that their opponents will retreat and not actually touch the lion.
Magic tactics minimize the chance of interacting with the illusion that would provide an opportunity to disbelieve.
In contrast, imagine someone who not only changed skin color and eye color with Disguise Self, but also height and clothing. Then when the butler asks to take that guest's coat, he has no real cloak to give. That would call for a Bluff check why the person refused to remove his illusionary cloak. Or perhaps the butler already grabbed for the cloak, and his hand passed through it. That would be a full-fledged interaction.
Changing only skin color and eye color minimizes the chance of interaction almost down to zero. The biggest risk would be Detect Magic or True Sight. However, such a minor change might not be enough to give the +10 bonus on the Disguise check if Chelaxians are noticeably shorter than Varisians or have different facial structure. If the GM objects to a minor non-interactable change, then less bonus to Disguise would be the appropriate penalty.
| blahpers |
Nice find, Xenocrat!
Based on that, careful visual study looking for imperfections should be enough for a saving throw, but not touching if the only difference is color. Whether that's enough to really appear more Chelish than Varisian is a setting matter, and it's been some time since I reread ISWG.