Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Elias4444]

More questions from a new GM.

I'm trying to understand the point of the illusion superpower without the psychosomatic trauma modifier. The manual doesn't list any actual effects from the power, unless of course you take the Obscure Only mod which then gives those in the field of use a "darkness" penalty.

It seems like an awfully expensive power to take along with it's eating up of your action every round, to not doing anything significant.

Am I missing something?

[kronovan]

It's a good power for crowd control. If the PC creates a frightening illusion extra foes will have to make fear rolls. That means there's good odds that a group of extras are going to be shaken. Even with just spending 2 points on it, at level 2 you can use it to create an illusion 24 ft cubed, so literally a huge imaginary beast. So as the GM you should be often making those fear rolls for the extra adversaries at a minimum of -2 penalty. I've rewarded creative use of it by granting an even bigger penalty. If the PC with it is lucky enough to draw initiative 1st and succeed, the rest of the party could get the opportunity to take shots at shaken foes. Its one of those powers where the effect will be very much driven by the imagination of the player. A very effective and good power IMO.

[fanchergw]

I agree with Kronovan. Illusion is a power that creative players can get a lot of use out of.

Gordon

[ogbendog]

Or to hide stuff.

1 - blow up / remove bridge
2 - make illusion bridge is there

or

1 - hide flying heros on ground
2 - make illusinos of heros flying to attack
3 - chuckle as foes waste attacks and actions on illusions

[Snate56]

And keep it close to home, as it were. If you're in the middle of a street battle and a dragon shows up, that may be a little far fetched. But if the target glances over his shoulder and sees a garbage truck bearing down on him, well he can't just assume that it's an illusion.



SteveN
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"We've got a blind date with destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." <The Shoveller>

[Garuda]

I had a player who used Illusion a lot. It's massively useful for creating diversions/misdirection and for basic camouflage too. In combat it can be used imaginatively to gain the benefits of tricks and such.

[The Dread Polack]

Same here. I remember a battle where as GM I underestimated the usefulness of illusions. It wasn't supers, but I remember the player said he was going to create an illusory car to hide behind, which worked for a while. When the bad guys spotted him, he created the illusion of picking up the car and throwing it at the opponent. This *not* being a supers campaign, the guy reacted reasonably and truly thought he had been crushed by the car when it landed on him (I gave him a roll to "disbelieve" and he blew it). This gave the players a couple rounds to deal with other things and prepare to fight the bad guy while he slowly realized he wasn't dead.

It was both hilarious and very clever. It made a real difference in the fight.

[Yondalor]

I suggest you see the Avengers movie for some ideas about how to use Illusion. There were some nice ideas there.
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Repairer of Reputations

[kingofsouls]

[xxlgeeklord]

depending on whether your illusion is a physical transformation of light or a mental image imposed on others, you could creat a one-way mirror which deflects enemy lasers and blocks line of sight, while you are able to see and attack the opponent just fine.

Also, illusions can be used to hide pretty much anything, scare the bejeeses out of people and convince people of untruths. Creating multiple fake copies of yourself, making baubles of pure darkness, creating illusions of spiders and bugs all over somebody etc. are all practical uses of illusions.

So basically what the other guys said.

[The Dread Polack]

Us roleplayers are inherently very paranoid people, but life is full of situations where we don't think through what we're about to do. Even if you know that illusion magic or raealistic holograms are real, you don't have time to consider everything you see, so I think the best way to handle it in a game is to make a simple roll to see if you see through the illusion, and act accordingly.

The best illusions are the simplest- ones where the observer has no reason to question its validity. You can really mess with people that way. You just need to be creative. I'm actually not sure I'd want to play an illusionist-type characters, since I'm not so creative in that way, but I've been very amused by the characters I've GMed who have.

[Sailboat]