Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site wuphys.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!mgnetp!we53!busch!wucs!wuphys!mff
From: mff@wuphys.UUCP (Swamp Thing)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Illusionists
Message-ID: <404@wuphys.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Nov-85 12:27:31 EST
Article-I.D.: wuphys.404
Posted: Tue Nov 19 12:27:31 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Nov-85 08:33:40 EST
References: <620@drutx.UUCP>
Reply-To: mff@wuphys.UUCP (Swamp Thing)
Organization: Physics Dept., Washington U. in St. Louis
Lines: 37

In article <620@drutx.UUCP> slb@drutx.UUCP (Sue Brezden) writes:
>
>How do illusionist spells work?  How do you play them?  If an
>illusionist uses Phantasmal Force to make a bridge across a chasm
>for his friends, can they walk on it?  If so, how?
>Some of them, the high level
>ones, seem VERY powerful.  (Point and you're dead sorts of things.)
>

That's something we've worried about too.  In our campaign, you could not walk
on an illusionary bridge, because it's not really there, and thus cannot
support you against gravity.  You might, however, think you were, until, very
suddenly, you would stop thinking so (Splat!).  It's not very clear at all how
you treat something like a phantasmal force of a red dragon.  Can a first level
illusionist create a 90 h.p. red dragon and have it snuff out a high-level
party?  And what happens when you swing at it, and your sword passes right
through it?  The way we have handled this is that you can only create monsters
which you have studied carefully, and you must be able to make them react
realistically to "damage" that they take, although even this is not always
satisfactory.  One idea we have toyed with is to use have the "realness" of an
illusion depend on the relative hit dice of the caster vs. the monster being
created.  We haven't actually tried this, though.

As for high-level illusionist spells being nasty, have you looked at "Death"
(6th lev. M.U.) latley? (Let's see.  That's 4d20, right?)  Or how about
cloudkill?

						Mark F. Flynn
						Department of Physics
						Washington University
						St. Louis, MO  63130
						ihnp4!wuphys!mff

"There is no dark side of the moon, really.
 Matter of fact, it's all dark."

				P. Floyd