Let's say the party wants to infiltrate an enemy camp.
They walk up out of the forest to a perimeter guard and are like "Hey, we're totally one of you and also we're hungry, is dinner ready yet?"
At this point two things might happen (I think).
1, the party may need to roll an Impersonate check to convince the guard they're legit, and they'd get a +4 bonus from the Veil spell.
2, if the guard is highly suspicious and is wondering if this is some kind of weird trick, he gets a perception check against the caster's DC to see through the illusion. This is due to the guard engaging with the illusion and trying to figure out if something is off here. On the flip side, a guard 50 feet away who's watching this out of the corner of his eye but otherwise not really paying attention would NOT get a perception check to see through the illusion.
Is that all correct?
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That sounds right to me.
It is useful and powerful, but not to the point where it removes the need for dice rolls.
Speaking of dice rolls, in terms of practical impact this seems to mean that getting past low level flunkies basically is guaranteed, getting past slightly threatening enemies is high chance but not guaranteed, and getting an equal level or higher level enemy is basically a coin flip at best.
Yes.
But the same can be said of just about everything else too.
Level is the most important and impactful stat in the game, and relative level is the biggest indicator of success/failure. Of everything from combat, to bluffing, to investigating clues, to navigating terrain.
Just making sure I wasn't missing anything.
So you can easily fool the privates, the captain probably won't see through it, but it's unlikely to fool the general (in other words, don't try to use the spell to talk to the enemy general unless you're prepared for it to have a fairly high chance to fail).
Is it one perception check per party member who is veiled or once for the entire spell?
The former makes it a lot more likely to be caught, period, while the latter means it's a lot less likely every illusion is seen through.
I'm guessing it's once per spell, though, otherwise the odds of the illusion failing for at least one person get extremely high and that's often enough to blow it.
Balkoth wrote: Is it one perception check per party member who is veiled or once for the entire spell? That is entirely up to the person doing the encounter design. So either the GM making their own campaign, or the AP authors writing the AP books.
It could be one skill check (You are authorized; you and your friends can go).
It could be one skill check each (I want to see ID from each of you).
It could be an entire Victory Point skill challenge.
I could also see a scenario where even if the disguises are successful, the guard doesn't let anyone through. I have heard stories like that from military settings IRL - the low ranking soldiers ordered to guard a particular building, a higher ranking officer comes by - one that the soldiers even recognize - but doesn't have their ID on them...
What you want here is the Impersonate activity, which is a bit confusing. I'm looking at the Remaster version of the activity and Veil. (Now heightened Illusory Disguise.)
Impersonate only triggers a check in 3 cases:
1. If someone specifically used a Seek action to inspect you.
2. If you directly interact with someone.
3. Potentially, at GM's discretion without direct interaction if you're impersonating a specific individual who an observer knows.
So all you NEED is one secret check from the PC who is doing the talking. But if the guard is going to specifically inspect the party to make sure nothing is off, it is kind of up to you how many checks they make. If he's just looking at the lead person closely, it is probably one check. But if they are doing a pat down search or checking IDs on every person walking in, it is probably one check per person. In a scenario like this, I might suggest allowing someone to roll a different check or cast a subtle spell to keep the guard from inspecting everyone, like Create a Diversion (oh look! A thief!) or Coerce (you don't want to keep the general waiting, do you?)
If you decide everyone gets a check, don't forget everyone gets the +4 status bonus and can add their level if untrained in Deception. And if you've got someone with expert+ proficiency in Deception, the party can follow the leader for an additional circumstance bonus.
Captain Morgan wrote: And if you've got someone with expert+ proficiency in Deception, the party can follow the leader for an additional circumstance bonus. Wouldn't expect this to work: Follow the Expert is a lengthy exploration activity for recurring skill checks, not a help for one check during one NPC interaction.
Finoan wrote: I could also see a scenario where even if the disguises are successful, the guard doesn't let anyone through. I have heard stories like that from military settings IRL - the low ranking soldiers ordered to guard a particular building, a higher ranking officer comes by - one that the soldiers even recognize - but doesn't have their ID on them... Oh absolutely. In such a case IRL the "officer" would be told they need to go get a new ID then or something, or have a superior officer override the lack of ID.
I don't think ID cards like that, though, let alone electronic codes are typical in fantasy settings meaning trying to do this sort of thing is a lot more plausible.
Captain Morgan wrote: Impersonate only triggers a check in 3 cases:
1. If someone specifically used a Seek action to inspect you.
2. If you directly interact with someone.
So all you NEED is one secret check from the PC who is doing the talking. But if the guard is going to specifically inspect the party to make sure nothing is off, it is kind of up to you how many checks they make. If he's just looking at the lead person closely, it is probably one check.
It would be 1 and 2 in this type of scenario. A guard they directly interact with at the perimeter and then potentially one or more superior officers further in.
Captain Morgan wrote: If you decide everyone gets a check, don't forget everyone gets the +4 status bonus and can add their level if untrained in Deception. And if you've got someone with expert+ proficiency in Deception, the party can follow the leader for an additional circumstance bonus. Can you elaborate on this?
If a Tengu or something definitely not human uses Veil to disguise as a human...the observer doesn't simply do a perception check against the caster DC to notice the illusion itself?
It seems there's two layers here:
1, does someone realize the "human" is actually something else entirely?
2, does someone realize the "human" is acting oddly (especially if the PC is trying to pretend they're part of a specific group or even a specific person that the observer is familiar with)?
I assumed the impersonate stuff applied for the latter part if someone was suspicious...but being good at acting wouldn't help with the whole "Yeah...you've got feathers and a beak" part if the illusion is seen through.
Hmm. I thiiiink that because Veil/Illusory Disguise cite the Impersonate action with the +4 status bonus, that specific rule trumps the general rule about seeing through illusions. That's certainly how I've played it before, but I might be wrong.
Errenor wrote: Captain Morgan wrote: And if you've got someone with expert+ proficiency in Deception, the party can follow the leader for an additional circumstance bonus. Wouldn't expect this to work: Follow the Expert is a lengthy exploration activity for recurring skill checks, not a help for one check during one NPC interaction. If you don't think an extended impersonation to infiltrate an enemy base is a lengthy exploration activity that calls for reoccurring skill checks, then what is?
But if you say it doesn't apply, you can get that circumstance bonus from an Aid check instead. By the time Veil comes online you can crit those pretty consistently.
Captain Morgan wrote:
Errenor wrote: Captain Morgan wrote: And if you've got someone with expert+ proficiency in Deception, the party can follow the leader for an additional circumstance bonus. Wouldn't expect this to work: Follow the Expert is a lengthy exploration activity for recurring skill checks, not a help for one check during one NPC interaction. If you don't think an extended impersonation to infiltrate an enemy base is a lengthy exploration activity that calls for reoccurring skill checks, then what is?
I was thinking about one separate directly role-played encounter (non-Encounter) with one guard (or a group).
Like there are informal 'discrete' (or maybe 'stationary' or 'skill') exploration activities with the trait and most often duration times (like 10 minutes and hours) and travelling exploration activities with travel speed defined. Follow the Expert is close to the latter, and definitely in their list.
I don't think that's very important. But could be for someone.
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