Diguise Question

[Chilingsworth]

How does the disguise skill work? I know it's disguise check vs. spot check, but what happens when the spot check succeeds? Does the person see through the diguise completely (becoming able to recognise the disguised person) or, is the disguise merely recognised as such, but the person still not immediately recognisable?

Further, what happens when you have magic involved? If, for instance, you have a disguise self spell, but the disguise check is still beaten? Is the magic still seen through? (I'm assuming here the spotter does not have True Seeing.)

But what if the spotter does have true seeing? Does the use of the disgiuse self spell make the disgiuse automatically useless, or does the True Seeing simply eliminate the +10 bonus the spell provides?

Lastly, where in the rulebooks are these things explicitly stated, or are they explicitly stated nowhere? I can't seem to find them clearly stated anywhere.

[FMArthur]

Rules Compendium has it under its Influence and Interaction category, page 67. It never specifies what happens when people see through a disguise; the third paragraph seems to imply that all they know is that a disguise was attempted, and possibly not your true identity.

It does clarify the magic bit, though: magic used to see through illusions only penetrates the magical component of a disguise - the mundane part of your disguise (if there is any) is still resolved as normal.

[JeminiZero]

I would say it depends on the nature of the disguise.

Lets say you were Clark Kent/Superman. And one day Batman goes missing and all chaos breaks out in Gotham. Superman at this point decides to help by disguising himself as Batman by wearing one of Bruce's costume. Lets say someone manages to see through the disguise. He can tell the guy in the Bat costume isn't the original Batman (body shape not right or something). But he can't tell that the person is actually Superman (at least not until he starts flying around shooting laser beams from his eyes).

On the other hand lets say you're an evil genius wannabe, and you have a bardic twin brother who looks almost like you except he doesn't have a goatee. To disguise yourself as him, you shave yours off (and stick it on your brother's chin with soveriegn glue). Unfortanately, at some point, a sniffy halfling smells through your disguise. He can immediately discern your facial features, and identify you as the evil twin.

In D&D terms, if the disguise itself requires a large amount of prosthetics (e.g. a human pretending to be an orc would likely need significant amount of green latex padding and fake tusks), it is more likely to obscure the disguiser's face, such that those who see through it are less likely to discern the disguiser's face.

[Kobold Esq]

Though not at all spelled out in any rules, part of it determines what the purpose of the disguise is.

A famous, well known person using a disguise is trying to obscure his identity. A successful spot check will see through the disguise, and if the spotter knows the famous person, they would recognize him. But if the spotter doesn't know the famous person, all they will see is "Weird, that guy is wearing a fake mustache for some reason."

Whereas in the Batman/Superman example, someone who doesn't know what Superman/Clark Kent looks like, but sees through the disguise will only know that it isn't Batman.

[Chilingsworth]

Well, specifically, it's my wizard. He wears a twilight mithral chain shirt and carries (and can use, though poorly) a dragonfang falchion. In addition to his "props," he uses a hat of disguise and ranks in the skill to disgiuse himself as a warrior. He does this to gain a little breathing space before the enemies (which are probably going to be hostile NPC adventuring parties,) decide to "kill the wizard!"

[Kobold Esq]

The magical part of the disguise is very important here. Even if they make their spot check and realize you are disguised, that doesn't dispel the illusion. You still look like whatever you chose to look like. However, smart NPCs will probably assume that "guy magically disguised to look like a big strong warrior" probably isn't really a big strong warrior. Also, you're using magical illusions, which suggests a wizard. They won't know for sure, but any relatively intelligent NPC who makes their spot check will probably assume.