The orcs don't know they are in a fictional world or a game with balanced encounters. Its very likely the first thing they see of the wizard is the illusionary wall.No, the first thing they see of the Wizard is it's equipment. Have they an intricate staff or just a basic one? A robe of Eyes or one you can buy in the local market?
And when the Wizard acts, do they move at a 40ft. speed or just the basic 25ft. speed everyone has? Have they rolled so high in initiative that they nearly ended their spell before the orcs even reacted?
Then, they see the casting: basic casting or world shattering one?Finaly, they see the illusionary wall. At that stage, they had a lot of information to make an educated guess.
What I've described is all the questions the players will ask if they end up in the same situation.
Being in a fictional world is not relevant here, and balanced encounters are only for PCs, not NPCs.
Once again you are assuming near omniscient actors and this makes no freaking sense. What unit of comparison would these orcs have !
Look if you want to run your games that way go for It. But it's DEFINITELY not the way most people run their game and honestly if my Gm ran their NPCs with that level of omniscience, I would not play at their table long.
CERTAINLY not an illusionist.
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Your assumption is the same as if I just showed up to a secluded south american tribe with limited civilisation contact and assumed them to be able to tell between me and my old boss who has the most successful company at a glance.
Secluded south american tribes?
The basic orc warrior has a breastplate, a necksplitter and 2 shortswords. It looks to me that these orcs have access to civilization. Also, last time I've faced an orc warrior, I was not in the thick of the jungle but in a quite populated area. And even if it's true they only speak Orcish, the level 2 orc Warchief speaks common, which would be the equivalent of english in our world. So it looks like they have a lot of links to civilization. Actually, I bet they are civilized and as such know magic like anyone else.
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Illusions are not the absolute power many people want them to be.
And I dislike the idea that people who live in a world where Illusions are a very real thing are supposed to set apart this knowledge when they meet a PC with illusion spells and delusions of grandeur.
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Once again you are assuming near omniscient actors and this makes no freaking sense. What unit of comparison would these orcs have !
Look if you want to run your games that way go for It. But it's DEFINITELY not the way most people run their game and honestly if my Gm ran their NPCs with that level of omniscience, I would not play at their table long.
CERTAINLY not an illusionist.
Omniscient actors? Actually, swords are less common than spells as in the secluded areas I've seen depicted in Pathfinder the NPCs where fighting with wooden weapons but were having some shamans to lead them.
Also, any level 3 arcane/occult caster can create illusory full plates that last for an hour and are convincing through all senses. And they can be sold at 30gp each. Con artists must be rich in your world.
And I've never said that you can't use illusions, just that people know about it. If your illusion is not convincing in the slightest, people will just not buy it. And creating a wall of stone seems like high level magic, so most people won't buy it unless they have reasons to believe you are some kind of archmage (level 9+ casters are rare unlike low level casters able to cast Illusory Object).
As a side note, I've always seen monsters with at least a little bit of intelligence targetting healers. So, it looks like most people know about healing magic, I don't know why illusion magic would be so arcane.
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As a side note, I've always seen monsters with at least a little bit of intelligence targeting healers. So, it looks like most people know about healing magic, I don't know why illusion magic would be so arcane.
Do they target the healers before or after they openly use healing magic?
If it's before then we run into the same problem mentioned above of there being semi-omniscient actors. If it's after, then there is no issue whatsoever as, when you actually see wounds closing via magic and dying people rising back to their feet, it's pretty blatant what's generally happening.
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As a side note, I've always seen monsters with at least a little bit of intelligence targeting healers. So, it looks like most people know about healing magic, I don't know why illusion magic would be so arcane.Do they target the healers before or after they openly use healing magic?
If it's before then we run into the same problem mentioned above of there being semi-omniscient actors. If it's after, then there is no issue whatsoever as, when you actually see wounds closing via magic and dying people rising back to their feet, it's pretty blatant what's generally happening.
"Let's focus on the cleric!
Orc Warrior: The what???- The one with a big holy symbol raised when they cast spells.
Orc Warrior: The big what???"
Orcs know about Clerics, they know clerics are healer, they know about healing magic and they most often can tell the difference between a cleric and a commoner. Golarion is a high magic world, magic is common and basic knowledge of magic is expected from anyone with a glimpse of intelligence.
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As a side note, I've always seen monsters with at least a little bit of intelligence targeting healers. So, it looks like most people know about healing magic, I don't know why illusion magic would be so arcane.Do they target the healers before or after they openly use healing magic?
If it's before then we run into the same problem mentioned above of there being semi-omniscient actors. If it's after, then there is no issue whatsoever as, when you actually see wounds closing via magic and dying people rising back to their feet, it's pretty blatant what's generally happening.
"Let's focus on the cleric!
Orc Warrior: The what???
- The one with a big holy symbol raised when they cast spells.
Orc Warrior: The big what???"Orcs know about Clerics, they know clerics are healer, they know about healing magic and they most often can tell the difference between a cleric and a commoner. Golarion is a high magic world, magic is common and basic knowledge of magic is expected from anyone with a glimpse of intelligence.
Basically this ^^^
Intelligent creatures will use what they've seen in the past to make assumptions about their current situation. Often they'll be right, but sometimes they'll be wrong. For example, the cleric could easily be one who focuses more on harm and other offensive capabilities than heal, and the rogue that they didn't think much of in terms of healing may have a somewhat concealed healer's kit that they're incredibly good at using in combat. So yes, in some circumstances creatures can target the "healer" (or rather, what they assume is a healer) before they've used heal, but only in the right context.
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Well at that point in that kind of game I guess an illusionist would have to drop illusory object and start casting veil to make the casters look like fighters and the fighters look like casters just to f#&+ with the meta.
But that sounds silly.
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"Let's focus on the cleric!
Orc Warrior: The what???
- The one with a big holy symbol raised when they cast spells.
Orc Warrior: The big what???"Orcs know about Clerics, they know clerics are healer, they know about healing magic and they most often can tell the difference between a cleric and a commoner. Golarion is a high magic world, magic is common and basic knowledge of magic is expected from anyone with a glimpse of intelligence.
That would all be totally fine with me, provided I as a player have the opportunity to subvert those expectations from time to time with my character, should I choose. (Such as by having an armored wizard, a defenseless-looking old lady in a wheelchair that don't radiate any magic whatsoever despite her magical powers/items, a scholar in spectacles that can go totally berserk like the flip of a switch, etc.)
I think both game styles are perfectly valid, but I do not believe that most players would long tolerate any sort of double standard. I certainly wouldn't at least! :)
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Mhm, it totally depends on the expectations you set up for your players. As long as it's consistent, and players can work around it like Ravingdork mentioned I think having intelligent creatures act based on their pre-conceived notions can be an interesting addition to the game, but it's definitely not for every group.
Also means you can do silly stuff like cast illusory object "illusory wall of stone" and then cast a wall of thorns inside the fake wall of stone just to encourage them to run headlong into your wall of thorns.
Well at that point in that kind of game I guess an illusionist would have to drop illusory object and start casting veil to make the casters look like fighters and the fighters look like casters just to f*%@ with the meta.
But that sounds silly.
May well be the right tactic at some tables
I only mention these as silly exemples because it exploits the fact that ennemies have massive "meta" suppositions and exploits them.
I've theorised many of these strategies over the years but never actually set any in motion because in my experience when GM's make these suppositions such as having creatures ignore illusion, automatically figure out who the healer is or other things such as this, it's always in bad faith.
So it doesn't matter how clever you are or how you take precautions about their creature's "common sense assumptions" they're always gonna do the same thing because the initial argument was just a thinly veiled excuse for them seeing the gaming table as a GM vs Player environment and the Gm deciding they want to win.
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I only mention these as silly exemples because it exploits the fact that ennemies have massive "meta" suppositions and exploits them.
I've theorised many of these strategies over the years but never actually set any in motion because in my experience when GM's make these suppositions such as having creatures ignore illusion, automatically figure out who the healer is or other things such as this, it's always in bad faith.
So it doesn't matter how clever you are or how you take precautions about their creature's "common sense assumptions" they're always gonna do the same thing because the initial argument was just a thinly veiled excuse for them seeing the gaming table as a GM vs Player environment and the Gm deciding they want to win.
Or not.
The only problem I see is that "the right situation" doesn't properly work with "what they have seen in the past".
And could bring issues if this is going to be used as an exploit over and over.
I think I can affirm that nobody would have issues with encountering sometimes creatures able to deal in a efficient way:
- identifying every class
- know the level of spells enemies of their level would be able to cast
- know the character's levelAnd so on.
Also, nobody would deal with that stuff anyway, but simply accept that they found smart adversaries ).
But having this all the time ( unless mindless or stupid creatures) would probably make players run away.
It makes sense in some situations. Bit I think you have to have a hard look at your world and at your opponents.
I have absolutely no problem with monsters having some knowledge about adventurers and magic. Especially if they have a skill rank in something appropriate like Occultism. But I do object if they know all the ins and outs of magic spells. They can roll Recall Knowledge just like the players.
Calm Emotions is a great spell, but its fairly easily set aside by PCs who just Shove each other to break people out of it. The knowledge level of enemies is very important to the effectiveness of that spell.
Illusions are no different.
Its up to the GM what the level of general knowledge about particular magic any actor has. I think its wrong to consider a modern viewpoint, and our own educated situations powered up by the internet, as a reasonable comparison. We have an enormous amount of knowledge. A lot of tribal societies never made it past the next valley. Personally that is how I view a lot of the cultures in a fantasy world. Its a partial explanation for the diversity in the world, and how they cope with another tribe of whatever over the next hill.
Anyway the rules for illusions is they start by being believed. You have to make a check to disbelieve them, even if you know illusions are a thing, even if you cast them yourself. What you do with things you suspect as illusions but haven't disbelieved is over to you. The rules say you can't ignore them, does that mean you just can't see through them or you won't walk through them? Whatever. But I think that its better if they are treated more seriously. That way lies less shenanigan's from the players. I don't see that rolling more saves with bonuses is such a big deal.
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Well at that point in that kind of game I guess an illusionist would have to drop illusory object and start casting veil to make the casters look like fighters and the fighters look like casters just to f#&% with the meta.
But that sounds silly.
I think the crux of this discussion is Illusory Object, not illusions in general. I've read a lot of examples where it was used as a control spell, sometimes even without a save involved ("I create a wall with just one opening in front of the paladin so the orcs should go through it one by one without interacting with the wall and realizing it's an illusion").
A non-Incapacitation spell making the enemy lose at least one action (and when you read the discussion here it's sometimes a whole bunch of actions) without a save involved (the save is there to avoid losing more actions) is clearly not at the power level of other first level control spells.
The closest example to the effects of the illusory Wall of Stone as described in this discussion is Slow 6, where you lose an action even when you succeed at the save and will lose a few actions if you fail it.
That would all be totally fine with me, provided I as a player have the opportunity to subvert those expectations from time to time with my character, should I choose. (Such as by having an armored wizard, a defenseless-looking old lady in a wheelchair that don't radiate any magic whatsoever despite her magical powers/items, a scholar in spectacles that can go totally berserk like the flip of a switch, etc.)
I've seen Hats of Disguise and Glamer Runes used to this end. I think it's both logical and quite funny. I've seen a lot of GMs asking what the party members were looking like before choosing what PC the enemy will attack first.
What a PC could try, why couldn't a NPC try it ?
Not allowing the NPC to do what the PC commonly does IS Metagaming to me.
Exactly. I don't understand why the -1 Intelligence Orc shouldn't have the same kind of reasoning than the -1 Intelligence PC Barbarian.
I only mention these as silly exemples because it exploits the fact that ennemies have massive "meta" suppositions and exploits them.
I really don't understand why you speak about massive "meta" when we are just speaking of knowing illusions exist. My grandmother will never give you any bank details through email because her banker told her so. She doesn't know the word phishing but she's still able to counter it if it's too obvious.
Also, one thing you forget about your illusionary wall is the spellcasting. Per RAW, spellcasting shows obvious visual and sound effects, and any depiction I've seen of a spell being cast in Pathfinder illustrate the visual effects as being in line with the spell cast (fire surrounding the Wizard when casting a Fireball, for example). Illusionary Object doesn't affect the spellcasting manifestation, only the object. So, instead of a Wall of Stone emerging from the ground with a shattering noise and a little bit of earth shaking, you have a wall of stone blinking into existence with sparkles and a jingling noise.
Even my grandmother could say something is amiss.
Its up to the GM what the level of general knowledge about particular magic any actor has. I think its wrong to consider a modern viewpoint, and our own educated situations powered up by the internet, as a reasonable comparison. We have an enormous amount of knowledge. A lot of tribal societies never made it past the next valley. Personally that is how I view a lot of the cultures in a fantasy world. Its a partial explanation for the diversity in the world, and how they cope with another tribe of whatever over the next hill.
Every time I've seen a community of at least a few dozen people depicted in Pathfinder there was always a caster in the middle, most of the time a Cleric (or Shaman if the community had a low technological level). So even in secluded areas people should have basic understanding of magic.
I could also imagine some customs or laws in line with magic. For example, I consider that in most civilized areas people are making 2-step transactions for important ones (like we do in my country when you buy a house). One day, they accept the deal and they pay the next day. It's an easy trick to go through most Illusion and Enchantment spells (they have a shorter duration than a day) and lacking such type of customs would generate way too much problems with anyone able to cast Charm or Illusory Object.
Anyway, it all comes down to what the GM considers "basic understanding of magic", but I dislike seeing Illusory Object used to trivialize a fight. I think my "basic understanding of game balance" is also a proper method of determining when something is wrong. There's even a rule about that and I think it's RAW to bring it when a player wants to replicate some high level spells with a first level one.
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I think the crux of this discussion is Illusory Object, not illusions in general. I've read a lot of examples where it was used as a control spell, sometimes even without a save involved ("I create a wall with just one opening in front of the paladin so the orcs should go through it one by one without interacting with the wall and realizing it's an illusion").A non-Incapacitation spell making the enemy lose at least one action (and when you read the discussion here it's sometimes a whole bunch of actions) without a save involved (the save is there to avoid losing more actions) is clearly not at the power level of other first level control spells.
The closest example to the effects of the illusory Wall of Stone as described in this discussion is Slow 6, where you lose an action even when you succeed at the save and will lose a few actions if you fail it.
Illusions can be very powerful as they do affect your enemies tactics. Yes if they get it very wrong then it will go badly wrong for them.
I hope the orcs are familiar with the area they are in and may realise that the wall next to them is an illusion. If they are jammed up behind each other they certainly have the time to do that.
If you are talking about a doorway or a corridor then the local creatures will almost certainly be interested in the new section of wall and should get a disbelieve roll in fairly quick order. Especially if an attack comes in through there.
The spell seems perfectly balanced to me. Yes it will waste one action for everyone that wants to ignore it, on both sides. What is wrong with that it. It does no damage directly. A slow spell wastes one action per round without additional saves, and keeps going for the entire encounter. The illusion can have a save for every wasted action and typically only waste 1 or 2 actions per creature, just at the start. As soon as the illusion becomes apparent most creatures will get it fairly quickly. A slow will almost always work. An illusion only in particular circumstances.
An illusion spell of a plank on a bridge (after you remove a plank) is likely a save or die effect, from a level 1 spell. But you could do the same thing with a trap say a weakened plank. I suppose in both cases a perception check then a reflex save to catch hold.
So is a simple gust of wind spell on the deck of a boat, or a shove action on the edge of a cliff.
Striving for balance on effects is not reasonable to the extent you are asking for. Intelligent play has to be rewarded.
If you players are crushing the adventure, you have to adjust the balance. Typically by adding an extra monster or two. I've almost always had to do it when I GM. Isn't that what everyone does?
Let's keep in mind that in this game recognizing a creature or a spell both take an action. This is true even for commonly known facts. The example given is a Recall Knowledge success tells you about trolls regeneration and how to shut it off. Trolls are famous creatures on golarion, and dangerous enough to where a wary village should probably run "troll drills" in case one shows up. But you still need to use an action and roll a check to realize what it is and how to beat it.
I don't really see the difference between that and recognizing that Illusory Object is easier to cast than Wall of Stone, or that the robed playing with his necklace is likely a healer. If you want to see if a NPC knows that, they can roll an arcana or a religion check. Same as a PC in that situation-- if you don't want to waste actions for your character to figure out things you know from meta knowledge, take the automatic knowledge feats, play an investigator, or what have you.
I certainly wouldn't let someone charge head first, full speed into a brick wall without using a check to establish they know it is probably an illusion. And even then, if your senses are telling you something is real and dangerous, your survival instincts may override your calculations.
The orc example is a perplexing one, though, as most evil orcs worship Rovagug and are only interested in civilization in so far as destroying it. They also relish proving their strength, so having them charge the wizard instead of the barbarian doesn't really feel in character even if they had this knowledge.
The spell seems perfectly balanced to me. Yes it will waste one action for everyone that wants to ignore it, on both sides.
Obviously, the goal is for the enemies to be the only ones to waste an action. So you will shape your wall (or whatever solid thingy you want) so one or two enemies are on your allies' side. After all, nothing forces you to make a straight wall. And if you put the wall a few squares away from the enemies, they will waste at least 2 actions, one to move to the wall and one to interact with it. And that's if the orcs act as such they know what an illusion is because if you ask for Recall Knowledge checks you just trivialized a fight with no roll.
The Paladin drops from the enemy attacks: I create a block of ice around them so noone will attack them as they will all believe the illusion and won't waste actions on a Recall Knowledge check.
This boss is too dangerous, we need a round to heal: I create a spherical wall around them with an opening on the farthest side so they will lose one round to get back to the fight (as they believe my illusion).
There are many enemies around us: I create a serpentine wall that just isolate a few enemies to cut the fight in 2.
Completely balanced for a first level spell.
Intelligent play has to be rewarded.
I perfectly agree. If you read my previous posts, I said that I have no issue with properly used illusions. I have an issue with illusions that can mimic any object and that the enemies will automatically believe so what remains of the game is just to find the proper shape for your Illusory Object.
I think using illusory object on multiple foes will often be a bad idea. You only really want to trade two of your actions for 1-3 of the enemies if you're fighting a solo threat. And in the meantime, it's definitely more reasonable for the orcs to walk through the wall if they've already seen their allies do the same.
Against masses, you're better off using an AoE spell, or relying on saving throws since these creatures are more likely to fail their saves.
Ans of course, the dumber the foe the more likely they are to fall for the illusion. An orc can make a Recall Knowledge roll, maybe when at an Untrained DC (10) to realize the rings SuperBidi is saying. A griffon, not so much c
TBT using the same illusion again and again to trivialize combats does not feel much like "Intelligent play" to me.
Now, using it subtly and playing on what your opponents can reasonably expect, like a Mage trying to stay free of Paradox, is awesome and worthy of reward.
This is a difficult one because its an arms race between the GM and the illusionist. But technically the GM's monsters are fresh monsters each time while the illusionist can keep improving their tactics. I think the GM can justify more advanced tactics if some of his monsters escape to warn others.
Many monsters will have special senses. If its a dungeon crawl were every encounter is the player breaching the door to a room, then I think its more of a problem with the module and too many encounters being the same. More interesting encounters are possible even in a dungeon.
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Even if your illusions use the same basic principle, you should always be striving to adapt them to your current situation. A little extra detail can make all the difference in the enemy reaction. For example, I convinced a fey the cage I conjured around it was cold iron, and became too scared to test it.