Hat of Disguise

[olelia]

Disguise Self
Illusion (Glamer)
Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1, Trickery 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 10 min./level (D)
You make yourself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment—look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your body type. Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person.

The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form, nor does it alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of you or your equipment.

If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check.

A creature that interacts with the glamer gets a Will save to recognize it as an illusion.

My question is basically how does this work mechanically. While using this is a creature just considered continually disguising themselves? Like if they don't declare that they are trying to disguise the change then are they considered of rolling a 0 on their disguise check or is a creature's original identity considered "invisible"? I guess the better question is if you use this item and change your appearance in anyway couldn't that be considered a disguise in some way?

[Shhalahr Windrider]

I guess the better question is if you use this item and change your appearance in anyway couldn't that be considered a disguise in some way?

It's only a disguise if you are trying to conceal your identity. If you just use the spell or hat simply to, say, dress yourself up in a Royal Outfit to conceal the state of the clothes you actually wear, that is not a disguise. People can still tell you are you. You're just dressed differently. There will be no disguise check necessary.

Of course, they still get Will saves when interacting with the illusory outfit.

[Aquaseafoam]

Well, if you're character is constantly using the hat of disguise to say, go from Tiefling to Human, I'm not sure that would ever truly warrant a disguise check. You're not trying to act like any other person, hence not attempting to take on the mannerisms of someone else. The only real concern with such a switch is that your character would likely smell odd to those with scent.

[Project_Mayhem]

yeah, I figure I'd rule that you only had to role if you were trying to emulate a specific person

[Lolzords]

Say if the guards just saw me kill someone but didn't see my face only my clothes. If i just slip into some random house, kill someone and nick their clothes and stuff my current clothes into my backpack, then walk outside and mingle with the crowd, i'm not going to get much attention, therefore, the guards won't reconize me.

That said, even if they had seen my face, they're not exactly gonna pinpoint me and attack me in the middle of a big crowd.

[F.L.]

You think it's not important to roll disguise if you're infiltrating a city of xenophobic drow, lets say, who will kill any humans they see? Who will take notice of anybody who looks remotely odd? Simply disguising yourself as another race isn't exactly easy, even pro. makeup artists find it tricky in real life (not that real life has anything to do with the RAW).

[tyckspoon]

You think it's not important to roll disguise if you're infiltrating a city of xenophobic drow, lets say, who will kill any humans they see? Who will take notice of anybody who looks remotely odd? Simply disguising yourself as another race isn't exactly easy, even pro. makeup artists find it tricky in real life (not that real life has anything to do with the RAW).

This would be attempting to mimic the mannerisms of an entirely different culture, which would indeed warrant a Disguise check. You wouldn't need the Disguise check to appear as a generic Drow; you're making the check to act like a convincing Drow (which I personally would probably call as a Bluff or Perform (Acting) check.)

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Simply disguising yourself as another race isn't exactly easy, even pro. makeup artists find it tricky in real life (not that real life has anything to do with the RAW).

Does it help if you use a lot of rouge levels?

[UserClone]

rouge levels

Silvanos! Not you!

[kpenguin]

Does it help if you use a lot of rouge levels?

*rim shot*

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Silvanos! Not you!

Thank you! Thank you! *bow*

I will be here all week.

Possibly longer....

[deadseashoals]

If you don't draw any attention to yourself, others do not get to make Spot checks.

Usually, an individual makes a Spot check to see through your disguise immediately upon meeting you and each hour thereafter.

So no Spot checks if you're in a crowd, and you don't do anything stupid, but interpersonal interactions would warrant a spot check.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

yeah, I figure I'd rule that you only had to role if you were trying to emulate a specific person

No, a disugise is pretending to be "Not You." (This includes trying to pass yourself off as a different race, BTW). Note there are specific penalties for explicitly trying to be someone in particular.

[Kraggi]

If you can alter your clothes, can you alter the hat?

[Serenity]

Indeed you can, into a bandanna, a comb in your hair, or any similar accoutrement that would take up the Hat slot. I love the Hat of Disguise very much. It was my con-man cleric's best friend.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

As part of the disguise, the hat can be changed to appear as a comb, ribbon, headband, cap, coif, hood, helmet, and so on.

The fact that the "hat" is still visible in some small form is indication that it's not a perfect disguise self which could normally elminate the hat's appearance. But it does get subsumed into the disguise.

I personally personally like the flavor of that little quirk, though.

[herrhauptmann]

Hat of disguise...
Ahh, my chainwielding maniac used one extensively. An aasimar paladin (in backstory) gave his life for my char (who had resigned himself to death), and in guilt my char took his name, weapons, and moral code of the paladin. Told no lies, tried to protect the weak first off, and second came destroying evil.

The wierdest part, my char was a tiefling slave to his family, a clan of half-fiends spawned by an Archduke 200 some years ago.

Really hard to try and lie without lying when someone asks "What are you, cuz you sure ain't human."

[Nerd-o-rama]

Incidentally, this is even more confusing for Changelings, who get Disguise Self as an at will (Su), only 1) they actually shapeshift and 2) it doesn't effect equipment.

[Aquaseafoam]

Draconic (Blue) human with some very apparent draconic features. Would've been chased out of every town without his hat of disguise, well, chased out of every town sooner without his hat of disguise.

[Fixer]

If you use a hat of disguise you can try to do some of the following, but ALL require a disguise check (these are generalized, so attempting to be really older than you are has more penalties as it says in the book, these also assume only minor changes to appearance):

{table]Disguise yourself as a generic member of the same gender/race/age category, minor details only|+15 to disguise check
Disguise yourself as a generic member of two of the above|+13 to disguise check
Disguise yourself as a generic member of only one of the above|+11 to disguise check
Disguise yourself as a generic member of a completely different gender, race, and age category|+9 to disguise check[/table]

Now, any person who has reason to be suspicious that the character isn't who they say they are (such as, someone who interacts with the person wearing the hat of disguise and passes their willpower saving throw) makes a Spot check against the original Disguise check. Spot check succeeds, the spotter knows that the person is disguised. If the spot check fails, they cannot tell they are disguised, even if the willpower saving throw passed.

[Badgerish]

How i run 'hat of disguise' (i'm rather crunch-heavy)

when planning for a standard-magic campaign, i had a quick check through cheap magic items for loot etc.

after reading through the hat of disguise, my first thoughts where to increase the price by 10x and make them illegal. after i calmed down i read and re-read the rules to work out what (IMHO) it actually does.

1) you put on the hat and activate it (standard action, provokes AoO. this is standard for wondrous items).

2) you make a disguise check with a +10 disguise-self bonus. record the result.

3) choose your new appearance, this may include changes to your clothing/worn items (must include some type of headgear/ornament), face, basic body shape (taller/thinner etc, personally i'd also allow things like folded-wings into backpacks). to disguise yourself as another race or a specific person, use the normal rules.

4) the effect lasts 10min (based on the item's price) and counts as a CL1 'disguise self' spell for the purposes of detect/dispel magic. People touching you or paying you a lot of attention get to make a will save to recognise it as a glamour

5) to renew the duration of the effect, you can spend another standard action and make another disguise check, with a DC of the original disguise check in step 2. failure results in a new appearance part way between the original and altered forms


now, this does seem overly complex, but it works for me. Keeps the hat usable for quick changes while restricting its use for totally duplicating people's appearance.

[Sir Giacomo]

Badgerish's ideas make sense to me.

The hat of disguise item is quite powerful, also for the following reason:

It is a glamer, so after successful disbelief save even the drow in the underdark or whoever realises it's a ruse will NOT be able to see what is underneath (similar to the invisibility effect, which cannot be "disbelieved").
Of course, opponents can simply grapple the guy with the hat and then take it off (feeling is not negated with this spell).

With magic, it's a bit more tricky. Dispel magic cannot target the hat (to suppress the magic for 1d4 rounds), since the caster cannot see where the hat exactly is (remember, the wearer can also appear taller or smaller). Additionally, the dispel would be more probably targeted at the wearer directly since the most likely thing is that the wearer simply used a disguise self spell (which can be removed with a dispel!).
Similarly, no magic items the wearer of that carries can be targeted properly with a dispel magic.

Overall, the hat of disguise makes a great defensive item vs item-targeting magic which often relies on line of sight to work.

- Giacomo

[Emperor Demonking]

You only have to use disguise if your trying to disgise yourself as dsomething your not.

[UserClone]

Remember, people, your Hat of Disguise is only good as long as the King's herald doesn't see you and say, "How dare you?!? Remove thine cap whilst in the presence of His Majesty!"

[brian c]

You only have to use disguise if your trying to disgise yourself as dsomething your not.

Well, the only thing you are is yourself, and if you're only trying to disguise yourself as yourself, I'm pretty sure you can pull it off without a magic item. Anything else, you need a disguise check.

Remember, people, your Hat of Disguise is only good as long as the King's herald doesn't see you and say, "How dare you?!? Remove thine cap whilst in the presence of His Majesty!"

As mentioned previously, it doesn't have to be a hat. Eyepatch would be a nice choice, if the DM allows it; no one will ever ask you to take that off

[UserClone]

...Except an eyepatch takes up the face/eyes slot, not the head slot.
But, really, I was talking about having a disguise on, and being stuck in full view of the public with no way out other than showing your true self.

[Reinboom]

Remember, people, your Hat of Disguise is only good as long as the King's herald doesn't see you and say, "How dare you?!? Remove thine cap whilst in the presence of His Majesty!"

Hat of disguise can change its own appearance, a common one I use is a small hair clip or pin that looks like a foreign holy symbol.

-edit-
This was already brought up. I need to read more.

[kamikasei]

This would be attempting to mimic the mannerisms of an entirely different culture, which would indeed warrant a Disguise check. You wouldn't need the Disguise check to appear as a generic Drow; you're making the check to act like a convincing Drow (which I personally would probably call as a Bluff or Perform (Acting) check.)

Bluff provides a synergy bonus to "Disguise checks to act in character". Thus "acting like a convincing Drow" is indeed a Disguise check. Put it this way: if you're a man acting a woman's part, the Disguise check isn't just putting on a dress and makeup but changing your voice and body language too.

What confuses me about the abilities based on Disguise Self, like the Hat of Disguise and changelings' Minor Shapechange is time. A normal disguise check takes ten to thirty minutes, and you make a check as part of any of those abilities if you're disguising yourself. Does that check also take so long? Is the time required to apply the disguise (makeup, prostheses, etc), or to get it right (looking in the mirror, tweaking details)?

Note also that Disguise Self says "If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check." If. Some of the things it can do are not necessarily "creating a disguise". If "you could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person", presumably you don't have to make a disguise check just to change your eye colour or the length of your hair or the pattern of your cloak's stitching. You might dye your hair as part of a disguise, but sticking on a Hat of Disguise because you want to have pink hair today shouldn't count as a disguise - "myself, but with pink hair"? I guess intent has to be taken into account.