Rotes & Procedures

Generally, a simple illusion misleads the senses and leads a character to mistaken impressions. That said, that illusion could indirectly draw a person into danger by inspiring him to step into traffic, confront a cop, attack a friend, fall off a roof, or commit some other act of potentially grievous bodily harm. It’s not actually the illusion that’s sending that character to the ER or the morgue; without its influence, however, he’d probably be enjoying a healthy evening somewhere that didn’t involve broken bones or worse.

Certain illusions, however, can inflict damage if that “feature” is built into the Effect. A mental illusion wedded to a psychic assault, for example, could hurt the victim through a combination of mental delusion and crippling pain. The source of that pain may not be obvious to the victim, of course – she might see herself being slashed by a phantasmal claw instead of being blasted by a Psychic Shatter feat. And so, given the quirks of human consciousness and biology, the aggravated damage from that psychic assault could manifest as Freddy Kruger-style slashes across skin that hasn’t been touched by a physical blade.

In rules-terms, a mental illusion that inflicts bashing physical damage works as a Mind 3 Effect. Aggravated damage would require Mind 3/ Life 3. The nature of those injuries gets determined by the caster. That illusion could slash the skin, stop the heart, cause hemorrhages inside the brain, or deal out whatever sorts of gruesome (or invisible) carnage the mage desires.

A physical illusion could use elemental energies to hurt someone too. In this case, the “illusion” has been backed up by standard-issue Forces-Sphere damage – usually blunt trauma (bashing damage) from buffeting winds or solidified air, but possibly lethal or aggravated injuries from radiation, superheated steam, or other sources of elemental ouch.

Forces-related illusions may have other physical effects as well. A person could step into the arms of an illusionary robot and fly through the air if that “robot” also includes the Forces elements necessary to pick that person up and carry her away. (For details about the Rank of Forces necessary to lift physical objects, see the Forces and Weight chart in the Elemental Mastery section, p. 29.)

Whatever the effects might be, an illusion that inflicts damage or employs some other form of physical phenomena requires additional successes on top of the base successes mentioned on the Feats of Illusion chart. Each additional success beyond that base inflicts two additional levels of damage, as shown on