Magical Impersonation

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Isolrem
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Magical Impersonation

Post by Isolrem » Mon Jul 04, 2005 5:37 pm

Magical Impersonation
Cast 'Magical Impersonation' <target>

This, for a brief time, changes the caster to become a player or mob in the same room, adopting his adjective, race, size, weight, age, sex, description and name (if it is a player, other greeted players would see a different name)
This is used for framing another, gaining access and priviledges, or substuting oneself for another (e.g. if Mulan ever had this spell :))
Disadvantages:
1. The target will most likely react with hostility for this spell, so don't think you can become Piergeron in front of his face and get away with it.
2. The caster will suffer major ability modifiers for being unused to the body
3. The caster's speech may be impaired for the spell
4. The caster's form will be revealed with dispel, detect illusion, etc.

Because it is magical, the caster can shift substantially in size (dragons, whales, etc.) but will not gain any abilities of the target as it is only an illusion.
I am unsure about whether the status of the target will also be added (e.g. would an impersonater of a Msytran be allowed to shop in Mystra's temple? The advantage might be too unbalancing)
Power to the illusionists!
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Hviti
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Post by Hviti » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:08 am

Who would accept this spell, though? Sure, the Lord of WD might get really mad, but why wouldn't just some random farmer? This is basically identity theft...so while you might think that a farmer is going on a ramapge through WD it really is a cyricist or something. So no one would want this cast on them, and if seeing what appeared to be someone turning into a mirror image of them, they would probably freak out, call the guards, attack the person, or a combination of the above, but not just sit there and take it.

I can see the most interesting uses of this (generating RPwise) coming from impersonating other players (Oh no, that paladin just slew his high priest! Aieee, that male drow from house x just spat in our Matron's face, etc.) but I seriously doubt ANYONE would tolerate being impersonated in front of them (Also, can descriptions be moved with a player impersonation? Otherwise, people could just look to discover fakes, but I think that it would be some coding and other complicated work to alter/substituate the desc...) . The only way I could see it happening would be in this situation:

Evil Wizard (EW) wants to impersonate a Do-Gooder (DoG)

Since EW knows GP would see him while turning if in the same room, he rents a room in the tavern and uses a hefty bribe to get Greedy Person (GP) to strike up a conversation with DoG and bring him to the inn for a talk.

EW uses clairvoyance (once it's fixed) to see DoG, turns into his likeness in the safety of the tavern.


This ought to have a substantial lag, too.

Also, I don't think that this should work while invis, otherwise any wizard can impersonate anyone without any problems.

I can see a lot of nice RP coming out of this, though (I'm a big fan of mistaken ID stories). Nice idea.
Isolrem
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Post by Isolrem » Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:56 pm

I'm thinking that all mobs would react with hostility, but players might be able to consent or something (again, the Mulan scenerio)

Since clairvoyance isn't in the game yet, I'm assuming that the target will always know he has been impersonated -unless- he is sleeping (so the same lure the guy to the inn story, except this time with a seductive girl that gets the character to sleep)
It will be hard to storm cities or kill powerful mobs while under impersonation due to the ability modifiers, hard does not mean impossible though.

The best RP I could see coming out of this is capturing a famous DoG player, cast Bane Thoughspeech, impersonate, and wreak havoc :)
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Hviti
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Post by Hviti » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:13 pm

Consent? Who would consent, and why?

Goods just don't want others using their body, especially since they don't want possible evil deeds to their credit.

Evils want to do the evil deeds themselves :twisted:
Isolrem
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Post by Isolrem » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:29 pm

Like I said, Mulan scenerio.
E.G. Dragon: I will eat this girl tomorrow or destroy the contry
Girl: No!
Martyr: I will sacrifice myself in your form
Girl: OKAY!
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Hviti
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Post by Hviti » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:36 pm

Yeah, but how many people would have that situation? If there would be that few, imm run RP could take care of it.
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Post by Isolrem » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:31 pm

I don't think I understand... are you suggesting that we don't bother to code the consent and make it always aggresive?
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Athon
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Post by Athon » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:37 pm

I think Hviti meant that this spell would rarely ever have an IC purpose to be used and should not be coded. This spell would be more abused than anything.
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Isolrem
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Post by Isolrem » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:45 pm

Just because someone will hostile you doesn't mean you can't get away with it. Pointedly, cast this spell, stun the target, run away and you can still do what you want disguised unless the target can somehow broadcast to the world that he has been impersonated, and even then there will still be confusion.
In other words, the spell always being detectable does not equal always being useless, as for IC circumstances I could and would easily name a truckload.
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Athon
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Post by Athon » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:12 am

You can't just simply pull off a 'cast this spell, stun the target, and run away.' That would seriously violate PK rules unless this was properly RP'd (which, again, would be open to more abuse than RP possibilities). I personally think we do not more spells that could clone others or 'trick' them into it.
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Isolrem
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Post by Isolrem » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:56 am

Largely it would be used on mobs... but we can drop this if there is general disagreement.
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Hviti
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Post by Hviti » Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:40 pm

IMO using it on players doesn't seem like it would work too well (thanks for the additions, Athon) and on mobs, they don't have a reaction coded, so that would be almost more abuse. Remember in Harry Potter (ick, that's not really a good parallel to FR, but anyway) when they were talking about seeing 'doubles' of themselves they would probably think 'nasty dark magic' was going on and attack their clone/double from a different time, etc. I think it would be the same case here. Who wants to be impersonated in their own view?
Telk
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Post by Telk » Wed Jul 06, 2005 6:01 pm

What about making this spell offensive and whenever the MOB is targeted it auto attacks?
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