Illusionist healing - needs fixing IMHO

[Camazotz]

I rather like the concept of an illusionist who can heal....am kind of surprised it hasn't been attempted (even unofficially, just by a regular illusionists in some prior era) before.

The out-of-game metamechanic is simple enough to understand: illusionists are mages who require audience participation. If the audience believes, it's made real. If they don't play along, it all goes poof.

The in-game concept is even easier: 95% of all PCs and NPCs in the game will have a difficult time telling the difference between an illusionist and a regular wizard....heck, if the cleric doesn't flaunt his god they might have a hard time telling him apart, too. The main difference will be that the wizard is kind of scary and hurts people, often, and usually with fire or other hideous effects. Sure, he'll do fun stuff occasionally....but otherwise, watch out. The illusionist is that cool dude whose always putting on a show, and getting you involved. He wants you to believe and "get into" what he's doing....and he makes it surprisingly easy. Unless you're that Int 18 wizard who knows they're all illusions and you find his "spooky quantum magic made real by the observer" to be a bunch of malarky....then when he tries to heal you, the spell fizzles, just like you expect it to (because you made your Int check).

So yeah, I really, really dig this approach to illusionists!

EDIT: In fact, I might even FINALLY get to see one in play someday, as I think this might at last make the class interesting to my players.
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[Sir Osis of Liver]

Camazotz wrote:
I rather like the concept of an illusionist who can heal....am kind of surprised it hasn't been attempted (even unofficially, just by a regular illusionists in some prior era) before.

The out-of-game metamechanic is simple enough to understand: illusionists are mages who require audience participation. If the audience believes, it's made real. If they don't play along, it all goes poof.

The in-game concept is even easier: 95% of all PCs and NPCs in the game will have a difficult time telling the difference between an illusionist and a regular wizard....heck, if the cleric doesn't flaunt his god they might have a hard time telling him apart, too. The main difference will be that the wizard is kind of scary and hurts people, often, and usually with fire or other hideous effects. Sure, he'll do fun stuff occasionally....but otherwise, watch out. The illusionist is that cool dude whose always putting on a show, and getting you involved. He wants you to believe and "get into" what he's doing....and he makes it surprisingly easy. Unless you're that Int 18 wizard who knows they're all illusions and you find his "spooky quantum magic made real by the observer" to be a bunch of malarky....then when he tries to heal you, the spell fizzles, just like you expect it to (because you made your Int check).

So yeah, I really, really dig this approach to illusionists!

EDIT: In fact, I might even FINALLY get to see one in play someday, as I think this might at last make the class interesting to my players.

Well said. +1.

There's a big part of me that still believes that much of the resistance to this option is that it's not something that's part of tabletop RPG canon. "Gary Gygax didn't write the illusionist this way, so it can't be this way." Horsefeathers! I think this is a way to give a creative player the ability to really RP up a class that was previously underused/underappreciated by the masses. In the right hands, an illusionist can be a complete bad-ass. This option (another thing that sets C&C apart from other games, I might add) just provides more people that incentive to see if they can make their hands the right ones to pull off such a character.

[PeelSeel2]

Camazotz wrote:
....then when he tries to heal you, the spell fizzles, just like you expect it to (because you made your Int check).

And if they really want to believe, to let themselves go, well, they can fore-go their save.

Camazotz wrote:
So yeah, I really, really dig this approach to illusionists!

EDIT: In fact, I might even FINALLY get to see one in play someday, as I think this might at last make the class interesting to my players.

That is the way I feel! I actually WANT a player to roll an illusionist now!
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[Treebore]

Illusionist uninteresting? My problem with Illusionists is that Illusions can be so dang powerful!

They can do practically anything they can imagine.
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[anglefish]

Sir Osis of Liver wrote:
Well said. +1.

... , I might add) just provides more people that incentive to see if they can make their hands the right ones to pull off such a character.

+2