Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Illusionists
Message-ID: <104@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Nov-85 13:33:36 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.104
Posted: Wed Nov 20 13:33:36 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Nov-85 05:29:11 EST
References: <620@drutx.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 24
Summary: 


     Most posters have taken the tack that an illusion is completely in the
mind of the one deceived.  I suppose the converse is to say that the power of
the mind is supreme; if the characters *believe* in the illusion, *everything*
will happen as if it were real.
     With this interpretation, the illusory fireball causes real damage because
the character's powers of control over his own body are subverted to make them
cause 3rd-degree burns.  Kind of like those saints that could make stigmata
(nail wounds) appear on their hands and feet.
     Similarly, if the party *really believed* that that bridge over the chasm
were there, they would be able to walk across it -- though to someone who
didn't believe they would seem to be walking on air, and though if they for one
instant disbelieved they would plunge into the chasm.  In this case it would be
risky to get a party to walk over its own illusionist's bridge, because no one
except maybe a Paladin or a Monk would have the mental discipline to believe in
it so strongly.
     Conversely, I can imagine the illusionist creating an illusory bridge and
letting the poor grunt Orcs on the other side stream across.  Then just before
they reached the near side, someone could yell "It's an illusion!" -- and watch
them all go the way of Gandalf & the Balrog.

--Jamie.
...!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"For slain ye can be, and slain ye shall be"