Disguise Self (Spell) vrs. Disguise Kit, Thought Experiment

[yawnmummy]

Scenario 1: Character casts Disguise Self, on themselves, with the disguise being ... their self (The illusion = reality exactly)
The question: Can this illusion be detected via the normal spell description? (see spell wording below). Obviously detect magic would pick it up.

This is (obviously) not a real scenario, just something to help sort out the mechanics of Disguise Self vrs. Investigation.

Scenario 2: Character uses a disguise kit to match target. Character then casts Disguise Self to match same target
The next question: What occurs during investigation of the spell? (per reference below)

My Thoughts on Scenario 2 ruling:
1. Illusion breaks per normal rules, but the investigator must now break disguise kit based on it's rules prior to realization that something is odd

a. I think this might be too favorable to the disguised.
2. Give the investigator dis-advantage, presuming an acceptable Disguise kit role

Your thoughts?

"Disguise Self" reference rext:

The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection. For example, if you use this spell to add a hat to your outfit, objects pass through the hat, and anyone who touches it would feel nothing or would feel your head and hair. If you use this spell to appear thinner than you are, the hand of someone who reaches out to touch you would bump into you while it was seemingly still in midair.

To discern that you are disguised, a creature can use its action to inspect your appearance and must succeed on an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC.

[Unoriginal]

That you are using Disguise Self to try to look someone who disguised themselves doesn't improves the quality of your disguise.

Imagine that:

Character A decides to disguise themselves as Baron B.

Looking at A's disguise, Character C decides to cast Disguise Self to look like them.

Why would a copy of a disguise be better than simply observing B and coping their actual appearance?


Keep in mind that the Intelligence (Investigation) check is to perceive the signs that indicates it's an illusion. Not to pierce through the disguise, which has an assumed top-notch quality at least visually.


For example, if you're an elf wizard pretending to be the armored half-orc guard the group just disposed of, and one of their colleagues come around and because they've been warned against illusion magic, spend a bit examining the supposed half-orc, they wouldn't go "wait a minute, this armor lacks the dent the Captain made to it during training yesterday! It's not the real guard!" they would go "wait a minute, the guard's movements look weird and don't seem to correspond to the sounds they're making, almost as if someone much thinner and without armor were doing them. It's an illusion!"

[yawnmummy]

That you are using Disguise Self to try to look someone who disguised themselves doesn't improves the quality of your disguise.

Imagine that:

Character A decides to disguise themselves as Baron B.

Looking at A's disguise, Character C decides to cast Disguise Self to look like them.

Why would a copy of a disguise be better than simply observing B and coping their actual appearance?


Keep in mind that the Intelligence (Investigation) check is to perceive the signs that indicates it's an illusion. Not to pierce through the disguise, which has an assumed top-notch quality at least visually.


For example, if you're an elf wizard pretending to be the armored half-orc guard the group just disposed of, and one of their colleagues come around and because they've been warned against illusion magic, spend a bit examining the supposed half-orc, they wouldn't go "wait a minute, this armor lacks the dent the Captain made to it during training yesterday! It's not the real guard!" they would go "wait a minute, the guard's movements look weird and don't seem to correspond to the sounds they're making, almost as if someone much thinner and without armor were doing them. It's an illusion!"

The behavior of the disguised is a good point (to your point about he doesn't move like X). That would likely be deception roll (?)

The scenario is not that A disguises as B and C also disguises as B (based on A disguise).

The scenario is A disguises as B. Twice. First with disguise kit, then with Disguise Self.

The only reason to do this would be because the DM interprets this scenario to increase the difficulty of detecting the disguise.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[Unoriginal]

Well in that case, the worse (ie, which require the lowest INT check to find out) of the two disguises would be ignored, and only the best one would be taken into account.

[Ganymede]

Does a physical disguise hold up to physical inspection? That's the question you have to answer as a DM.

It seems reasonable that, in some ways, a physical disguise will be more robust under scrutiny. After all, it physically exists. If a suspicious onlooker reaches up to touch your "elf" ear, he is going to actually feel it even if it is a prosthesis. On the other hand, will he draw his hand back with his fingertips covered in makeup or even holding a fake pointy ear tip?

Additionally, remember that a physical disguise can only add details to your body while Disguise Self can remove them. Imagine you are an elf and you want to disguise yourself as human; even if you augment your illusion with a physical disguise, someone will still be able to feel your invisible elf ear point.

[yawnmummy]

Does a physical disguise hold up to physical inspection? That's the question you have to answer as a DM.

It seems reasonable that, in some ways, a physical disguise will be more robust under scrutiny. After all, it physically exists. If a suspicious onlooker reaches up to touch your "elf" ear, he is going to actually feel it even if it is a prosthesis. On the other hand, will he draw his hand back with his fingertips covered in makeup or even holding a fake pointy ear tip?

Additionally, remember that a physical disguise can only add details to your body while Disguise Self can remove them. Imagine you are an elf and you want to disguise yourself as human; even if you augment your illusion with a physical disguise, someone will still be able to feel your invisible elf ear point.

More great points, this question is not as situation independent as I first thought. Thank you.

[Gydian]

Considering the extra effort the player is taking and the extra time they are taking to pull this off I would make it a lot harder to discern. If your using the disguise kit to put on a false beard than casting disguise self when someone touches the beard they feel a beard. It looks right and feels mostly right.

According to Xanathar's Its a DC 20 to make a convincing disguise. Than the spell is cast. NPC's looking at the character have to meet the spell DC to get suspicious and see if the Kit is working. I would make any character investigating make 2 consecutive rolls first passing the spell than the kit. The first DC might be high but the second might be low if the player didn't apply the kit well.

[Keravath]

One thing to keep in mind is that using a disguise to look like or impersonate a specific person is much more difficult than just looking or acting different than yourself.

Which situation are you asking about since you only refer to visual queues?

At a distance, it is unlikely that either form of disguise would even trigger an investigation check unless the person could see both the original and the disguised person or noticed one enter the room as the other left by different doors or another situation that might be circumstantially difficult to explain.

However, when interacting with a character, talking, watching them walk and move, their stride, hand gestures and facial expressions ... all of these make it much more difficult to impersonate a specific person if the target has previously interacted with them ... and all of these have nothing to do with what they look like.

In general, there is no reason to suspect the spell disguise self unless you detect magic or something unrealistic happens in the interaction since disguise self is just an image. If the image has a hat and it clips through a ceiling sconce then there is something funny going on. If the hand you shake doesn't match the image you see then there is something else strange. Using a disguise kit might be similar except that it may have imperfections due to application that would not be present in the spell. On the other hand, the beard that a disguise kit might provide could be attached firmly enough to feel real while a disguise self spell would fail that test.

[Ganymede]

In general, there is no reason to suspect the spell disguise self unless...

Well remember, an onlooker that gives the disguised a thorough once-over has a chance to see through Disguise Self whether or not he suspects magic is afoot. The onlooker might be looking for weapons, checking for identifying features, or just generally checking out the cut of the disguised person's jib.