The illusory creature spell has the auditory and visual traits. The traits state that for the spell to work, one must be able to hear and see the spell effect. However, this only seems to impact the auditory and visual aspects of the spell, respectively.
If I close my eyes and scream loud enough to block out sounds (or use some other method of blocking sight and sound) can an illusory creature hurt me?
What if a person was blind and deaf, and started off unaware of its presence? Could the caster even make its presence known to such an individual?
The illusory creature spell has the auditory and visual traits. The traits state that for the spell to work, one must be able to hear and see the spell effect. However, this only seems to impact the auditory and visual aspects of the spell, respectively.
If I close my eyes and scream loud enough to block out sounds (or use some other method of blocking sight and sound) can an illusory creature hurt me?
What if a person was blind and deaf, and started off unaware of its presence? Could the caster even make its presence known to such an individual?
The spell affects visual, "sounds, smells, and feels believable to the touch". As such, blind and deaf creatures will still smell it and still feel it: as such, not seeing and hearing the illusory warhammer that smacks you upside the head doesn't stop the feel of the impact.
Avert Gaze: I'm not sure that'd do anything to this spell as it's not dependent on any one trait and Avert only works for "visual abilities that require you to look at a creature" and IMO looking away from the illusion doesn't stop it from hitting you. Once you see it, you know it's there assuming your character understands object permanence. IMO, it's actually HARDER to disbelieve an illusion as it's harder to notice "the damage doesn't correspond to the image of the monster" that's give you a free check to disbelieve.
blind and deaf: if a creature is such, they can still smell and feel so they can try to detect creatures: As such, they might not be unaware. Few creatures are missing a sense of touch.
But if the target can't see or hear it, how would you convince them that there is a hammer heading towards her head in the first place? The spell seems to indicate that they must be aware of it to have any impact (in this case, literally). If that's not true, why would those tags be there in the first place? They're clearly inconsequential at that point.
But if the target can't see or hear it, how would you convince them that there is a hammer heading towards her head in the first place?
Simple, the exact same way you can feel a REAL warhammer when it hits you. Remember you can still feel it.
The spell seems to indicate that they must be aware of it to have any impact (in this case, literally).
If something touches you and you can't see or hear it, do you notice it?
If that's not true, why would those tags be there in the first place? They're clearly inconsequential at that point.
Pretty simple actually: not all uses are attacks. You want your illusion to attack someone and run away to draw them out so you can attack them from ambush? Well, they have to see or hear it. Or you want to discourage a a patrol of humans from entering a cave, it doesn't work if they can't see and hear the dragon you made. Also "You might need to attempt a Deception or Performance check to mimic the creature, as determined by the GM" and that's not something you can do if you can't see and hear it but that's not related to damage.
Remember the traits say "This applies only to sound-based parts of the effect" and "This applies only to visible parts of the effect". The damage isn't either of those, it's a mental effect.
"Any creature that touches the image or uses the Seek action to examine it can attempt to disbelieve your illusion." Note losing sight of or not hearing it anymore aren't a reason to save: in fact, losing them greatly lowers the ability to "uses the Seek action to examine it as you are limiting your options to smell. [feel it it's own check]
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In order to try that, you must already be aware it's an illusion. So you're much of the way to ignoring it already.
Voluntarily blinding, deafening, and stunning yourself on purpose mid-combat might make you immune to the spell, but even if so it also makes you extremely vulnerable to basically everything else.
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If you were already aware of the illusory creature then screaming and closing your eyes (if not an attempt to disbelieve) would imo have 1 of 2 outcomes:
1) you are flatfooted to the creature as you not watching.
2) the creature auto crits and does massive damage to you based on the fact your imagination makes the creature nastier than the spell. If you still believe a monster would be hitting you (which is how illusions work) than why would simply closing your eyes and screaming (the standard response to a monster in horror movies) assume it would stop attacking?
Spend the action to disbelieve ignoring it based on tags wouldn't work if you believe the creature is there.
If you close your eyes and scream as an enemy comes at you you're probably going to get what you deserve. Namely, either 1d4+spellcasting mod damage if you're lucky and it's an illusion, or whatever its normal damage is if not. Probably increased due to a crit since you're not really defending yourself.
And let's not say what everyone else is going to say if this is your go-to response. And if someone tried to say 'Well, I'm doing that before combat just in case', then you're probably not going to be invited to the dungeon crawl ...
Closing your eyes definitely works if the illusory creature is a certain Ravenous Bugblatter Beast.
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Yeah, I'll semi-echo others- your solution here doesn't work unless you know its an illusion, which in-character requires you to have already saved or have been told, reliably, against all of your personal senses, that it is an illusion in such a way your character who believes the creature is real (due to not having saved) is willing to take nigh suicidal action.
The whole idea is that until you save, your character believes it is real. Acting otherwise is grievously meta.
If you have reason to believe it is an illusion, I reccomend healthy but reasonable skepticism (ie, a seek action) instead.
Guys, this supposed to be more of a mental exercise/rules discussion, rather than an attempt at developing a practical combat strategy. The whole "But why would you?" answers aren't terribly helpful, nor are they furthering any form of discussion.
Guys, this supposed to be more of a mental exercise/rules discussion, rather than an attempt at developing a practical combat strategy. The whole "But why would you?" answers aren't terribly helpful, nor are they furthering any form of discussion.
Theyre totally relevant, because until you save your character saves against the spell they believe the creature is real. This isnt something a sane character would do around a real, hostile creature.
If you happened to be closing your eyes and screaming by coincidence you may be immune to the creature until you stopped doing so - but that seems highly unlikely.
The hypothetical blind and deaf individual seems seems to be effectively immune.
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Screaming doesn't negate sound. Sound still happens. You would have to hit the exact pitch of the opposing sound to negate it. Maybe a performance where you hold one note.
Screaming requires air in your lungs. You also require air to breath and live. Once you expel all the air, you are going to be going to suffocation rules unless you breath in. Those rules are more deadly than a illusion.
You could negate the visual aspect, but that would not mean you pass it's save. You are just choosing to close your eyes and avoid interacting with it. With out interaction with the illusion and it still has the audio tag, you are still being affected by it. And since you are choosing to ignore the interaction option provided to you, you would fail the save.
Being blind and and deaf might provide natural Immunities though. Maybe. But closing your eyes and screaming would not.
Being blind and and deaf might provide natural Immunities though. Maybe. But closing your eyes and screaming would not.
Alright, so maybe closing one's eyes and screaming wasn't the best example to use.
It seems there are two primary schools of thought:
1) Someone who is unable to perceive the audible and visual elements of the spell is effectively immune to it.
2) Such creatures can still be impacted (perhaps literally) by the other illusory senses that the spell imposes.
Is that about right?
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Alright, so maybe closing one's eyes and screaming wasn't the best example to use.
For what its worth, I consider that to be very specific to this case.
Id absolutely allow a player to scream really loud for a bonus against Suggestion or Command if they know its coming (exactly as per Avert Gaze, but for Auditory), or Avert Gaze against a Pattern spell or something similar.
Its just that the presumption with Illusory Creature is that it appears to be believably real until you save.
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Why would a blind and deaf person be considered a threat to a caster? They could just walk right up and knife them, thus negating the issue of casting an illusion on that person. Or even just cantrip them to death since the blind person would not know the location of the attack since you can just move each turn after you cast a cantrip and would not be able to hear them move to pinpoint the location.
Also, you might want to read up on Temporary Immunity if you are pondering if you can temporarily blind and deafen your self to an illusion.
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Temporary Immunity
Source Core Rulebook pg. 453 1.1
Some effects grant you immunity to the same effect for a set amount of time. If an effect grants you temporary immunity, repeated applications of that effect don’t affect you for as long as the temporary immunity lasts. Unless the effect says it applies only to a certain creature’s ability, it doesn’t matter who created the effect. For example, the blindness spell says, “The target is temporarily immune to blindness for 1 minute.” If anyone casts blindness on that creature again before 1 minute passes, the spell has no effect.
Temporary immunity doesn’t prevent or end ongoing effects of the source of the temporary immunity. For instance, if an ability makes you frightened and you then gain temporary immunity to the ability, you don’t immediately lose the frightened condition due to the immunity you just gained—you simply don’t become frightened if you’re targeted by the ability again before the immunity ends.
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If you want to say "i blind and deafen myself to disbelieve the Illusion to gain those immunities" you can not. You would still be affected by the illusion that was cast before you immuned yourself. You would be immune to auditory and visual spells after you do that action to blind and deafen yourself though. But the original one, would still affect you as normal and you then have penalties to not seeing or hearing it.
Can the illusion be smelly?!?
This one can. Visual, auditory, touch, and smell. If you can smell the angry illusory hobgoblin who just smacked you for very real damage with his illusory sword while you were shouting with your eyes closed, I suppose you could argue you could also taste the illusory hobgoblin as well as much of taste is based on smell, if you were so inclined
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I suppose you could argue you could also taste the illusory hobgoblin as well as much of taste is based on smell, if you were so inclined
That's the definition of desperate if you're down to licking a hobgoblin to see if it's an illusion... :P
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Being blind and and deaf might provide natural Immunities though. Maybe. But closing your eyes and screaming would not.Alright, so maybe closing one's eyes and screaming wasn't the best example to use.
It seems there are two primary schools of thought:
1) Someone who is unable to perceive the audible and visual elements of the spell is effectively immune to it.
2) Such creatures can still be impacted (perhaps literally) by the other illusory senses that the spell imposes.
Is that about right?
In addition to the tags, the spell itself says it "generates the appropriate sounds, smells, and feels believable to the touch." Both the Auditory and Visual traits say not being able to see/hear gives immunity to any part of the effect relying on seeing/hearing. Being blind and deaf will make you unable to be affected by the visual and audible parts of the illusion, but they do nothing to stop the touch (or smell) parts. So, to me, it seems pretty clear you could still be affected by being punched by an illusory critter.