how does disguise self interact with continual flame?

[Michael Haneline]

I'm surprised no one has ever asked this before (and that I never thought of it before), but how does Disguise Self interact with Continual Flame?
My character is a warpriest of a fire god and currently has continual flame cast (multiple times) on her armor, cloak, weapon, and her holy symbol. I was looking over magic items today, and began to wonder about what would happen if she had a hat of disguise, or any other item that basically casts disguise self on her. Can disguise self hide the continual flame? If she tried to use the magic to disguise herself as a simple peasant woman instead of her "true" form as a scary fire knight, would she look like a peasant woman who was on fire? If the fire is hidden, is the light also hidden?

[Firebug]

A peasant woman whose armor, cloak, weapon, and holy symbol (or rather, the locations where they are under the illusion) are on fire.*

Glamer wrote:

Glamer: A glamer spell changes a subject's sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear.

Disguise Self is a Glamer. However, it is limited to: "yourself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment", but not other spell effects.

Inivisiblity doesn't have the limiting language and states that light sources still produce light, even when invisible. So it should stop the flaming effect, but still produce light.

*If you can convince your GM that Continual Flame emanates from a point on the object because of the 'can be covered and hidden language', you could have one side of the cloak look like its on fire. Then when you want to pull the peasant woman trick, flip the cloak inside out (and probably button it up) and make sure it is covering your armor/sheathed weapon/holy symbol while using disguise self to make it look like you aren't even wearing a cloak. If not, put on another cloak.

[Diego Rossi]

I agree with Firebug, His suggestion at the end of the post should work.

[Chell Raighn]

Disguise self wouldn’t work... since it would simply change the appearance of you and your armor, it wouldn’t cover the flames in any way shape or form...

Fabricate disguise and the use of a mundane disguise however would hide the flames... assuming you covered all of your gear... you can even combine the mundane disguise with disguise self for better results...

Basically use a cheap crummy mundane disguise that can easily cover all of your flames, then disguise self for the proper final disguise.

[Michael Haneline]

Thank you!

[Azothath]

review the spell Continual Flame
so it can be hidden or covered.

Disguise Self an illusion(glamer) that only changes visual appearance and A creature that interacts with the glamer gets a Will save to recognize it as an illusion. clicking on Glamer takes you back to the text. A glamer spell changes a subject's sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear. and disguise self specifically deals with appearance but is limited to the caster's person. So it can definitely cover the source of the light.
I think that leads you to one of two possibilities; 1) sure, it works. Simple and easy. 2) it hides the source of the light but not the emanation of light (similar to invisibility).
If the Will save is made, the observer overcomes the spell effect and can see the light... odd if you let your friends save but newbies can't benefit from the light as in the first case.

I'd agree that simply putting the target object of continual flame in a bag covers and blocks the light, that's been canon for 30 years.

getting into the picky parts, armor is usually composed of many parts tied, riveted together, or sewn together. The target object isn't well defined in the game using volume or dimension.
I don't know that having one side of an object exhibit the spell effect is feasible. Certainly you could play parts iz parts and simply cast the spell on an armor trinket or accessory that attaches to your armor. This way it would be removable without broaching what constitutes an object.

[Ember Flameheart]

ok let's reverse this, ...

Say the caster looks like "a peasant", being rather plain and having little quality items. Now they cast disguise self and take on the appearance of the form of "a scary fire knight" complete with flaming armor/clothing/equipment.

does it look like she has a bunch of continual flame spells cast on her stuff?

If she's in a dimly lit room, does she shed light? or does it look like she does?

[Fire Dancer]

If the "disguised" character (disguise self spell) has an Ioun Stone orbiting her head, can she conceal it? (make it look like she DOESN'T have that piece of equipment?). Or can she make it look like she HAS one if she doesn't?

Can she change the appearance of the Ioun Stone to be that of a different one?

How about changing an "Ioun torch" into a "clear spindle" stone? or vise-versa?

[Azothath]

you'd have to use the contrapositive rather than a simple reversal.

disguise self cannot emulate the spell effects of continual flame as that's not in the spell description. Appearance is one thing(so you can look like you've recently been on fire), perception penalties due to lighting conditions are another. The spell clearly has limits (can't even change type or size categories).

Ioun stones(slotless magic items), what constitutes possession in the game, what are separate objects... that's a big 'ol can of GM gray area.

[Diego Rossi]

Ember Flameheart wrote:

ok let's reverse this, ...

Say the caster looks like "a peasant", being rather plain and having little quality items. Now they cast disguise self and take on the appearance of the form of "a scary fire knight" complete with flaming armor/clothing/equipment.

does it look like she has a bunch of continual flame spells cast on her stuff?

If she's in a dimly lit room, does she shed light? or does it look like she does?

As Disguise self has no description saying that it emits light, you can have "a scary knight with wisps of flame following his form and small jets of fire from the joints", but not "a scary knight with big flames equivalent to a torch jetting from the joints of his armor".

So, more similar to alcohol fire than a burning torch.

[Ember Flameheart]

I would think (and rule in my game) that she would actually LOOK the same... depending on her Disguise check anyway... just not shedding light. Kind of the reverse of the Invisible light source, she would look like she sheds light, but actually doesn't. More like the picture of the lantern not actually giving off light, it just looks like it.

Well, unless she was an Aasimar or Tiefling or some race that doesn't have the same Type as the "scary fire knight". But if that were the case, then she could disguise self as a fire elemental - which would be totally weird...

SO - IMHO -
"does it look like she has a bunch of continual flame spells cast on her stuff?" Yeah - that's what disguise self does. it makes her look like "a scary fire knight" complete with what looks like flaming armor/clothing/equipment.

"If she's in a dimly lit room, does she shed light?" Nope. No light.

"or does it look like she does?" Yeah. Looks like flames, but no light (just like continual flame doesn't produce heat, smoke, or use oxygen or set things on fire).

As to the Ioun Stone ... I agree with Azothath - " that's a big 'ol can of GM gray area." At first glance I'd say "no - it can't look like an Ioun Stone" - but then I could see BBE making burned out Ioun Stones or Ioun Torches part of their guards uniforms. "I can tell that 'guardsman' is a hero in disguise! No Ioun Stone!"

[Michael Haneline]

Though the reverse isn't what I was going for, it is an interesting thought experiment. Using disguise self to portray fire that doesn't actually shed any light makes me think of IRL painting miniatures with "glowing" bits that obviously don't actually shed light, but look like they do with application of some optical illusion.
https://www.lightminiatures.com/tutorial-object-source-lighting-osl-and-oth er-lighting-effects/