Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: Jengada on July 17, 2017, 08:33:50 PM
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For thirty years, I've avoided this issue. Now, a player is really excited about illusions and it's all hitting the fan. The Open Mentalism list "Illusions" and the Open Essence list "Lesser Illusions" include many of the same Phantasm and Illusion spells as the Illusionist spells. However, neither of these includes a Feel Mirage spell. Yet, the Phantasm spells read identically. This would mean that a Mentalist can only create Light and Sound phantasms, and an Essence user working from the Open list could only do sound/light/taste/smell phantasms. No one but an Illusionist could make phantasms that can inflict damage.
Has anyone else run into this, and does my read make sense? Or am I missing something subtle.
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In RMSS, the mentalism spell list was updated so it no longer refers to the mirage spells of the other lists, but it's still limited to sound and light. Lesser illusions in essence also doesn't refer to the mirage spells, and higher level phantasms can add senses, but it explicitly states they cannot have a tactile/feel sense. I think the omission is deliberate, and appropriate. A Magician maybe can't make an illusion that does damage, but they have other ways to achieve that goal....
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In our group we also had the rule that Mentalist Illusions could only be seen by the recipients, ie they were entirely in the mind, while Essence based illusions could be seen by anyone since they "created" something tangable.
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In RMSS, there is the Enchanter profession in the Mentalism Companion, which is an essence/mentalism hybrid. They create illusions that are purely mental, either "seemings" which are simply illusions or "overlays" which alter how a real something is perceived. These types of illusions have no size limits, but the target has to be in range and can resist (since it's a type of mental attack), and often they only affect a single target (but not necessariy, since this is a hybrid and not a pure mentalism profession). But since no one else is aware of what that person is seeing, there are some usefully subtle things you can do with it. E.g. two people can have a conversation where one of them is hearing something totally different.