Phantasmal Force contradiction

[Zulgyan]

I find it contradictory that this spell can deal illusionary damage, but also disappears when touched.

I mean, if someone makes an illusionary giant stone ball that rolls down the corridor ala Indiana Jones and it HITS (touches) a character... doesn't it disappear when it touches him? How the hell will he believe he is damaged if the ball suddenly pops away when it hits him?

I think that the real use of the spell in this case is to scare someone away and make him run down the corridor and take that advantage to escape, but not to quite make him believe he was squashed.

[dwayanu]

As I have seen it, one key is "if the illusion is believed to be real" and another is "mental image." In later rulesets, the effect is even more specifically visual. One might prefer not to get that specific, so that literally out of sight does not mean out of mind; even a blind man would get some sense of the Phantasm.

Presumably, the basis in imagery gets "filled in" by subjects' minds. How important other senses are to conviction would moderate it. Damage is some sort of "mind over matter" effect.

If a boulder vanishes at first contact, then I'd say that's hardly convincing enough to cause damage except from falling down reflexively. Falling into an actual pit onto phantasmal stakes would probably be very convincing. Do you see the difference in the time element?

Then there's "unless touched by some living creature." The rolling boulder, in a sense, is doing the touching -- not being "touched by" the character -- so that might change one's interpretation. The same ruling might apply to the spikes; a character reaching out to touch what has "impaled" him would dispel the illusion of it, but by then the damage has been done. That leaves the question of how literally to interpret the phrase. Does scoring a hit with a weapon count, or must one make more personal contact to recognize the illusion?

One way around the issue (introduced in later Basic editions) is to treat all Phantasmal damage as temporary; once the spell wears off, so does the damage. That makes it less pressing to come up with cases in which damage does not occur, or to make it more likely that the illusion is dispelled. A compromise is to make death real (a victim's "dying of fright" perhaps rationalized as a heart attack).

[Bard]

It also depends on how we interpret HP. I found this HP interpretation of Tim Kask at Dragonsfoot:

"If you've ever boxed or otherwise fought, you'd know what it's like to take a solid whack and think to yourself "Can't take too many more of those". Hit points are not bruises and slices and contusions and fractures causing you to stagger and your knees to turn to 3-day-old celery stalks. HP's are the number of those whacks you can take before being kayoed. HP's are the cat's nine lives, the number of times it can do something horribly dangerous and not die. HP's are a quantification of the number of times you can keep Marcus Mercenary from piercing you in that fatal spot. 2 HP's No problem, no staggers no reeling on your pins; you're just that much closer to running out of luck and feeling 10 inches of finely-honed steel stab into your vitals."

If we think of it in this context, then illusory damage is completely understandable, and it even means, that the damage is not temporary. Maybe some healing can occur, if the character becomes aware that it was some illusion that fooled him. Maybe.

If death occur from illusory damage, it's up to the DM to decide that the character dies, gets a save, and if makes it, survives at 1 HP, or something like it...

(At least this is how I would play it... Sadly I'm not an active DM right now...)

[Melan]

I prefer to think of it like the Conan story (Shadows of Zamboula?), where the evil wizard conjured snakes out of incense-smoke against the girl Zaibibi. Sure, they were just wisps of smoke (and to Conan, who had disbelieved them, harmless), but if they had hit the dancing girl, she would have been dead.

In my games, I give some concessions - if you die from an illusion, you are allowed a saving throw (in O/AD&D, it would be either a save or a system shock roll) to avoid death. Otherwise, dead as a doornail.

[ffilz]

The trouble I have always had with illusions is they become too flexible, and sometimes can be used to duplicate higher level spells.

Perhaps the trick is to state that an illusion can not cause an effect of a higher level spell at all, and that the effect that it duplicates of a same level spell is LESS effective. So for example, Phantasmal Forces can NOT duplicate Fear. Sure, an illusion should be able to scare and possibly make targets make a morale check, but it absolutely should not be as effective as Fear. Nor should it be able to blast an area for damage (but a illusionary archer could be ok - balancing out against magic missile - perhaps exchanging a to-hit required for being able to fire more missiles).

Frank

[busman]

Nice, Frank, I love it! What a brilliant simple rule.

Have and EXALT!

[Melan]

I always "visualised" fear as entirely invisible and abstract; a wave of pure chilling terror rippling through the air - more potent than a concrete thing.

[jrmapes]

Just in case anyone is interested here is EGGs take on PF and Illusions in general. It was a ? regarding PF in 1e but still seems reasonable for 0e; I use it (not that matters much).

As per conversation with E.G.G.

Hey Col.
I have a question for ya. When you play an illusionist as a PC or NPC in 1E how do you handle damage? For instance does phantasmal force do real damage (say an illusion of falling on spikes), or reduced / sub dual damage or some other kind of damage?

Also, how do you determine the amount of damage taken with this spell? For instance would the illusion of falling on 6 spikes do the same damage as falling on 6 real spikes? Or would the damage done have more to do with the level of the caster (a first level illusionist doing 1d6 max, and a 5th level caster doing 5d6 max)?



Hey ........,
Damage is based on the illusion's perceived threat to the character, so the matter is handled as if the attack or trap were real. If the attack or trap does 3d6 damage then that is the amount of damage done. Remember too that PF is a 3rd level MU spell not just "some 1st level spell" It is right up there with fireball.

Any damage believed to have been suffered is actual, caused by the mind of the victim--think of stigmata for an example. So disbelief after the fact does NOT mean automatic recovery. The harm done is actual, and it must be healed as any other damage.

Cheers,
Gary

[grodog]

FWIW, I've always treated illusions (again, based on AD&D) as having two components: illusions and phantasms (from the spell school). Illusions are sensory deceptions that can cause damage, etc., but it's not real damage (subdual damage is a good way to treat them, although that's not how I'd done so in the past), whereas phantasms are the quasi-/semi-/demi-shadow magics that are partly real, and which cause real damage (vs. subdual).

[Zulgyan]

I have noted that in Chainmail , Phantasmal Forces was a spell to summon illusionary units. So the idea of having the spell "attack" and harm non-disbelievers makes sense.

Another question to the forum:

Do you think that this spell, in the context of OD&D, did include sound elements or other elements rather that just visual??

[philotomy]

I think the LBB OD&D description leaves that open to interpretation; a "projected mental image" suggests something visual, but doesn't rule out an auditory component. And "vivid illusions" sounds like it was considered very realistic. In fact, given the spell's original use in Chainmail (again, does an "apparition" make any noise -- maybe or maybe not), I'd say it's very possible a phantasmal force illusion was considered more complete/convincing than in later interpretations (much as charm person is more potent as an OD&D spell than in later versions).

As far as I can tell, the Illusionist class in SR introduced the idea that phantasmal force was visual, only: not by modifying the spell description, but by adding the spectral forces description that says "Similar to Improved Phantasmal Forces, but includes sound, smell and temperature illusions, also these are not destroyed by touch and they last up to 5 turns after the Illusionist has stopped concentrating."