illusions of darkness

[limejuicepowder]

can illusions be used to change the lighting of an area? creating the illusion of a dark room for example. would dark vision work to see through it? what if i wanted to create the illusion of a shroud over a a lantern, turning the scene back to natural light?

[Otomodachi]

Dude. Duuuuuuude.

There's some really good rules interpreters on this site, they'll probably be more successful than me in getting you a truly kosher answer. I still want to take a swing at this one, though, because I've played a LOT of illusionists! If you wanna skip my analysis there's a TL;DR at the bottom.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#illusion

Figment
A figment spell creates a false sensation. Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment. (It is not a personalized mental impression.) Figments cannot make something seem to be something else. A figment that includes audible effects cannot duplicate intelligible speech unless the spell description specifically says it can. If intelligible speech is possible, it must be in a language you can speak. If you try to duplicate a language you cannot speak, the image produces gibberish. Likewise, you cannot make a visual copy of something unless you know what it looks like.

I assume you're talking about figment spells, i.e. minor image et all. What you're faced with here is a poor choice of wording.

Cannot make something seem to be something else, taken literally, means you CAN'T make an open pit look like normal ground. You CAN'T make an illusion of a bridge. Taken to literal extremes, you can't even make an illusion of a person standing in a field. Why? Well, aside from semantics, you're still making AIR look differently.

If you want to get maximum effect from the spells that (to me) are synonymous with illusion, you're really going to need to sit down with your DM (or, if you're the DM, than the player in question) and hammer out some kind of gentleperson's agreement. Illusions are very, eh, flexible, and it is my opinion that, because of the large amount of ways you can use them, the rules-as-written don't handle them very well.

PERSONALLY, I feel that making a room seem dark crosses the line; the player should use the spell creation rules to make a GLAMER type spell to accomplish this.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#glamer

Glamer
A glamer spell changes a subject’s sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear.

But, to devil's advocate myself, it could easily go the other way.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/silentImage.htm

This spell creates the visual illusion of an object, creature, or force, as visualized by you. The illusion does not create sound, smell, texture, or temperature. You can move the image within the limits of the size of the effect.

Is darkness a force, or the absence of a force? In the REAL world, you probably already know the answer to that. In DND terminology, though, it's a little murkier. There's an entire plane of Shadow (if your DM chooses to use it :smallsmile: ) so I could see describing it as a force using the same logic that makes acid an energy type.

Edit: If *I* were the GM, I would totally allow the 'shroud over a lantern' illusion, and probably give you an extra pittance of xp for it.

TL;DR It's unlikely anyone external to your specific game can give you a complete or satisfactory answer; I know it can feel like a cop-out, but "talk to your DM" is probably the best bet.

[Slipperychicken]

can illusions be used to change the lighting of an area? creating the illusion of a dark room for example. would dark vision work to see through it? what if i wanted to create the illusion of a shroud over a a lantern, turning the scene back to natural light?

What spell(s) are you talking about? There's a lot of room for interpretation on this one. Depending on how you interpret it, the whole Illusion school can be either nonfunctional, OP, or somewhere in-between.

[shadow_archmagi]

Yeah, I could see a DM ruling that in D&D darkness was an actual thing you could summon.

If nothing else, you could create an illusion of thick black fog and hope your enemy can't tell the difference between that and real darkness.

[Particle_Man]

I attack the darkness. :smallbiggrin:

[bloodtide]

In general, illusions don't effect real 'natural' nonliving things. For example, you can't make darkness over a campfire to block the light. That is what the evocation [darkness] spells do. This is mostly true for all figments. And even if you failed your save that thought the illusion of darkness was 100% real, it would still not block the light from the campfire. The same way that if you make an illusion of a dam, the water will go right through it.

Now Shadow type illusion spells can block a campfire. You could cast a Shadow Conjuration Fog Cloud for example.

The Core Rules don't really say anything about this, but it does seem a bit over powered that you can make a figment illusion of anything to do anything like effect people sight and senses. Though a lot of DM's let players get away with making 'darkness and light' figment illusions. Some DM's think it's perfectly reasonable that a 1st level spell can make utter and pure darkness even more powerful then the spell darkness. And you can also make bright and powerful lights too, of course. But that is just some DM's.

So my ruling is Figment Illusions can never have [Light] or [Darkness] effects at all, by default. You need Shadow type illusions to to that type of effect.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Illusions of Darkness? Yes but they don't really interact with anything in a meaninful way. Won't block natural or magical lights but can obscure vision of those who fail their saves. I'd rule that anyone looking at it would get a save as they are "interacting" with it by seeing it.

If you really want something that blocks vision, make an illusory Wall of Stone spell. Anyone with any kind of knowledge of magic (short of making a successful Spellcraft) will probably assume the wall to be real stone and be more expediant to go around than to hack through.