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Wizard Talent: Illusion/Phantasm

Written by Matt Hoffman.

This talent represents a Wizard's mastery of the magical school of illusion. Developed by gnomes and capitalizing on the natural Gnomish talent for minor illusion magic, this talent allows the Wizard to perform extraordinary illusory feats to beguile the senses. This talent has two main applications:

Outside of combat, the Wizard is able to craft major illusions, with components from all five senses (though, if someone tries to touch your illusions, they can make a normal saving throw to disbelieve and thus shatter the effect). Handle these in a fashion similar to ritual spells: the player describes the illusion that the Wizard is trying to craft, and then determine how successful the illusion is by way of an Intelligence check (plus any backgrounds applicable to illusion magic). The GM can adjust the check's difficulty based on the complexity of the proposed illusion. People who've already been fooled by the Wizard's illusions generally can't be fooled again once they've seen through the magic, so in most cases this application of Illusion magic can only be used once per scene (GM's call, according to context).

In combat, the Wizard can use his mastery of illusion magic to create illusory allies to aid him in combat. Creating an illusory ally requires the Wizard to make an Intelligence check (plus any illusion-related backgrounds), with a difficulty dependent on the complexity of the illusion. The ally will then behave and attack in a manner that best serves its own believability (and the will of the wizard), and uses the same baseline stats as the Necromancer's Skeletal Minion (see 13 True Ways). Every time the illusory ally is hit, the player must roll a normal saving throw. Failure means the illusory ally somehow failed to react believably to the attack that just hit it, and the illusion is shattered. Once an illusory ally has been disbelieved in combat, this trick cannot be used again in the same battle (though, if the illusory ally is merely defeated, and not disbelieved, another illusory ally can still be fabricated believably). 

In addition to the above-listed abilities conferred by this talent, an Illusionist Wizard gains a +2 bonus to a background that involves the use of illusion magic. (this bonus is +3 for Gnomes)

Adventurer Feat: Once per battle, your illusory ally can re-roll a failed saving throw to avoid being disbelieved. 

Champion Feat: Once per battle, you can use your illusion magic to cast an illusory version of one of your limited spells. As long as this spell is not disbelieved (normal saving throw upon being affected by the illusory spell), the damage or effect it creates becomes real. 

Epic Feat: Once per battle, you can create an illusory double of yourself. It has all of your base stats, but only 1/10 of your hit points. The illusory double can use all of your attacks and cast all of your spells, though its limited spells are still limited. The double is indistinguishable from you, and enemies are 50% likely to attack the double instead of attacking you; however, just like your illusory allies and your illusory versions of common spells, the double has the expected chance to be disbelieved (normal save when the double is hit, or when the double casts a spell). 

 

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