Stage Magic & Wizardry

[virgil]

Real world magicians & illusionists can perform quite impressive feats that appear to be magic, using well-practiced sleight of hand and comparatively minor technological aids. Using the real magic of D&D as an aid, what kind of stage magic could be performed by a combination stage magician and wizard?

[Judging__Eagle]

Silent Image

[Mask_De_H]

Real world magicians & illusionists can perform quite impressive feats that appear to be magic, using well-practiced sleight of hand and comparatively minor technological aids. Using the real magic of D&D as an aid, what kind of stage magic could be performed by a combination stage magician and wizard?

"Watch me pull a succubus out of my hat!"

[virgil]

Are you trying to say that you can use silent image to circumvent all of the associated skill and effort that goes behind a mundane illusion/trick? That...isn't terribly helpful or even what I was asking. Or are you trying to give an example of a spell that would be in a stage wizard's toolkit? That's not descriptive and borderline tautological (wizards have wizard spells).

A stage magician uses sleight of hand and basic psychology to manipulate cards, smoke and mirrors to create illusions, and more to create the illusion of performing acts that seem to be otherwise impossible with tools at hand. I repeat, what falsified feats become available when you expand their toolkit to include actual magic? A stage magician as found IRL is out of a job in the realm of D&D; they can't just toss a blanket over two peoples' heads and have them switch places when there are 1st level wizards flying around. Their performances need to expand and leverage magic to seemingly do things even a magic-user couldn't do.

[Kaelik]

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

"How would a guy who could do literally anything in the universe with magic amaze bumpkins with his fast hands?"

Answer: He wouldn't fucking give a shit about his fast hands, nor would anyone else.

[sendaz]

Kaelik does have a point in that with the wealth of spells D&D could offer, unless there is some serious drawback in casting (drain, time, etc..) there would be little need to resort to the hand wavery stuff that the Real world guys have to do.

Though if you are wanting to follow on this line, check out 'Lord of Illusion' based on the Clive Barker novel where an actual practitioner hides their talent behind stage magic.

Plus sometimes sleight of hand can still fool the senses, or the other skills can still be useful, especially if everyone else is focusing on the magic side of it.
So you might have a room that is heavily warded against magic intrusion, but a simple lockpick can still open the door.

[radthemad4]

Well, there're the conceal spellcasting and false theurgy skill tricks, but those "can be performed only once per encounter (or once per minute, for scenes that don’t involve combat or other conflict)".

Conceal Spellcasting

Requirements: Concentration 1+ ranks, Sleight of Hand 5+ ranks, Spellcraft 1+ ranks

You can cast a spell without revealing that you are doing it. Make a sleight of hand check as part of the action used to cast the spell, opposed by the spot checks of onlookers. If you are successful, an observer can't tell that you are casting a spell. That observer can't make an attack of opportunity against you, nor can it counter your spell.

False Theurgy

Requirements: Bluff or Sleight of Hand 8+ ranks, Spellcraft 8+ ranks

As a swift action, when casting a spell, you can adjust the spell's verbal and somatic components to mimic those of another spell of your choice of the same level. Any creature using spellcraft or any other means of identifying the spell you are casting believes it to be the other spell instead. This trick renders your spell immune to the normal counterspelling, though dispel magic or a similar effect still works normally. Of course, once the spell takes effect, it can be identified and dealt with normally.

[DrPraetor]

I'm still unclear on the question.

Are you asking - as a low level wizard, could I trick someone into thinking I'm producing 9th level spell effects? Absolutely!

Alter Self looks like Resurrect True - that sort of thing?

It would be a long list, and difficult to adjudicate, because the world of D&D is thin. Meaning, if you have the Spellcraft skill you can probably distinguish between someone using Res True and someone else casting Alter Self and then swapping places with the corpse in a puff of smoke, but it's not clear why or what onlookers would see or expect to see and so on.

So, suppose I try to use Silent Image to trick a third party into thinking the image is a wall of fire. There's some kind of saving throw involved, but the game rules don't even indicate whether the Wall of Fire spell produces cosmetic smoke.

[nockermensch]

Real world magicians & illusionists can perform quite impressive feats that appear to be magic, using well-practiced sleight of hand and comparatively minor technological aids. Using the real magic of D&D as an aid, what kind of stage magic could be performed by a combination stage magician and wizard?

To see how bizarre this question is, try to imagine its reverse: Can you figure any stage trick that couldn't be done with smoke, mirrors, Mirage Arcana and Wish?

[virgil]

I was thinking pretending to perform magic that breaks the rules - resurrecting Rip Van Winkle after his death half a millennium ago (or even slaying a millennium old ghoul and then rezzing him), scorching ray that passes through stone walls, a prismatic sphere in the shape of a toroid that will let at least two members of the studio audience to pass through without harm and then request from the wizard audience to cast the spells necessary to bring it down, restore three dozen people scattered in the audience (at least 60' apart) from the effects of a poison after confirmation from an independent cleric with detect poison (and any other spellcasters in the audience), etc.

[Eikre]

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

"How would a guy who could do literally anything in the universe with magic amaze bumpkins with his fast hands?"

Answer: He wouldn't fucking give a shit about his fast hands, nor would anyone else.

So, back in the latter days of the 1800s, there was a magic trick where a magician would light candles using a pistol.

Now, you and I are 21st century techno-wizards, and our concomitant ranks in Spellcraft enable us to watch the trick today and immediately discern that the candles are made with an electro-conducive filament in the wick and that the candelabras were electrical sockets, so the only further sophistication to the trick is having somebody flip a switch. But people can still do tricks that totally fool us. Just because we're savvy to one sort of magic doesn't mean we can't be fooled with skillful sleight of hand.

An audience with D&D wizards has spells that actually let them the discern the underlying nature of what they're looking at. They can rock up to the stage with permanent Arcane Sight, and even if they fail all their spell-craft rolls, you can take it for granted that they'll see the the Transmutation spell you used to turn the ferret into a bear. But- what is this, in the bear's mouth? Is it.... THE ORIGINAL FERRET? And Mr. Gandalf, IS this or is this NOT your ARCANE MARK on his belly? It IS? Ladies and gentlemen! Esteemed members of the audience! You've seen no Conjuration [Teleportation] or Illusionary effects, you've witnessed no instances of Nystul's Mystic Aura, so tell me, HOW DID HE DO IIIIIIIIIIIT????

[virgil]

An audience with D&D wizards has spells that actually let them the discern the underlying nature of what they're looking at. They can rock up to the stage with permanent Arcane Sight, and even if they fail all their spell-craft rolls, you can take it for granted that they'll see the the Transmutation spell you used to turn the ferret into a bear. But- what is this, in the bear's mouth? Is it.... THE ORIGINAL FERRET? And Mr. Gandalf, IS this or is this NOT your ARCANE MARK on his belly? It IS? Ladies and gentlemen! Esteemed members of the audience! You've seen no Conjuration [Teleportation] or Illusionary effects, you've witnessed no instances of Nystul's Mystic Aura, so tell me, HOW DID HE DO IIIIIIIIIIIT????

This is what I'm talking about; and it's one of the few times I wish we had a +1 button for posts.

[Kaelik]

An audience with D&D wizards has spells that actually let them the discern the underlying nature of what they're looking at. They can rock up to the stage with permanent Arcane Sight, and even if they fail all their spell-craft rolls, you can take it for granted that they'll see the the Transmutation spell you used to turn the ferret into a bear. But- what is this, in the bear's mouth? Is it.... THE ORIGINAL FERRET? And Mr. Gandalf, IS this or is this NOT your ARCANE MARK on his belly? It IS? Ladies and gentlemen! Esteemed members of the audience! You've seen no Conjuration [Teleportation] or Illusionary effects, you've witnessed no instances of Nystul's Mystic Aura, so tell me, HOW DID HE DO IIIIIIIIIIIT????

And my entire point is "Who gives a fuck?" Being able to accurately show someone their card or do sleight of hands tricks are kind of cool in this world because there is no fucking magic. If I could magically create anything in the goddam universe I wanted with a standard action I wouldn't be impressed by anything any stage magician has ever done. Even though I can't do it, still I would not be, much less because he does it in a way that I can't (but I can still totally do it).

[Eikre]

A stage Magician fans out a deck of cards. They are all face down, except for the three of clubs. "Is THAT your card???"

"Yeah. So fucking what?" says Kaelik. He picks up the deck and starts thumbing through it extremely overtly. "I can find a fucking card! What do you want, the ace of spades?" he searches the deck for a full painstaking three seconds, in full and 100% obvious sight of every single observer. "And, what, you want it flipped over?" he flips the ace, with zero effort to conceal the fact that he is doing so. Then he fans out the deck. "There. Is that your card, you moron? Your 'trick' sucks, anybody can do that."

[Kaelik]

A stage Magician fans out a deck of cards. They are all face down, except for the three of clubs. "Is THAT your card???"

"Yeah. So fucking what?" says Kaelik. He picks up the deck and starts thumbing through it extremely overtly. "I can find a fucking card! What do you want, the ace of spades?" he searches the deck for a full painstaking three seconds, in full and 100% obvious sight of every single observer. "And, what, you want it flipped over?" he flips the ace, with zero effort to conceal the fact that he is doing so. Then he fans out the deck. "There. Is that your card, you moron? Your 'trick' sucks, anybody can do that."

Oh quit being such a purposeful idiot because you are butthurt about your examples sucking.

The tricks of a simple card trick are usually sleight of hand that allows you to take back and produce the card they picked. It's only "a trick" because you wouldn't expect them to be able to do it.

If you can read their fucking mind and summon the three of clubs right in your hand, then that's a better fucking trick, so don't be surprised if the guy who can do that isn't too impressed with your ability to fucking move fast, something, by the way, he can also fucking do.

SLA Time stop is literally every sleight of hand trick that anyone has ever done in the history of sleight of hand in one spell. Don't be surprised if the guy who can Time Stop isn't as impressed by palm and replace tricks as people in world without fucking magic.

[Occluded Sun]

The problem is that magic is relatively common in D&D worlds. So an effect that would utterly wow even jaded onlookers in our world - that would require serious skill to create - would be commonplace.

Look at it this way: a flashlight would have seriously discombobulated a medieval audience, and would probably result in its wielder being killed for demonic possession. It does absolutely nothing for us moderns.

Consider also the fictional example of Valentine Michael Smith from Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. He performed actual extraordinary actions that ignorant Earthlings view as essentially miraculous as part of a stage act, but had so little understanding of showmanship that no one was impressed. His show was utterly convincing (because, unknown to the audience, it was entirely real) but not entertaining at all.

A technically proficient stage magician that lacks showmanship won't be successful. A charismatic and psychologically canny performer can enthrall audiences with relatively simple tricks. And of course most of the tricks are applied psychology in the first place, combined with manual dexterity.

[Eikre]

There's a TED talk where the presenter does 'Mathemagic', which is to say, quick long-digit calculations employing mnemonic technique.

An entire audience of modern people applauds him, in blithe disregard of the gigaflop-per-second computational device that every one of them is likely carrying in their pocket.

People genuinely do not care about the effect of a magic trick. Sawing a person in half and putting them back together again is exactly as impressive as making a handful of salt unexpectedly turn out to be in a different place. It has literally nothing to do with with the utility of either of those things, or the capacity of the people in the audience to preform a surgery that bisects a person and then stitches them back together, or anybody's knowledge of a chemical process which could dissolve white grit into thin air and then precipitate it elsewhere. Zero. The only thing it has to do with is the possibility of the observer being left with the question, "how did he do that?"

High-level wizards would not be so jaded by their terrific magic power that they couldn't appreciate a mundane card trick. They would be so jaded to their terrific magic power that the only thing they could appreciate would be a mundane card trick.

[Occluded Sun]

If they knew it wasn't done 'magically', and they couldn't figure out how it's done. Merely having a stage magician pull doves out of his hat would do nothing for them.

Magic is only impressive because you don't know how it's done. Lose the awe, as is inevitable with actually knowing how to perform magic, and you lose the interest.

Compare the potential results of having a stage magician in our world - which has no 'magic' - with merely the Prestidigitation spell.

[norms29]

"May I have a volunteer from the audience?"

"Can you confirm that the object on the table is, in fact, 10 pounds, and thus too heavy to lift with the well known Cantrip known as Mage hand?"

"And yet it floats in midair!"

[Eikre]

My society put a man on the moon. I have a magic mirror in my pocket that talks and has encyclopedic knowledge of all things. I am eating a tropical fruit in the middle of winter. A tiny orchestra of perfect skill and infinite variety lives in a pair of tiny boxes that flank my desk. It's four o'clock so I'm going to take a magic potion of "amphetamine" to induce incredible cognitive acuity, because my morning extended-release potion will be wearing off soon, and I have an evening lecture at my wizard school, to which I will be transported in my incredible horseless carriage. I live in a world of infinite wonders that I disregard as the simple matter of course, but if you come to my office right now and pull a rabbit out of your baseball hat I am going to be fucking exhilarated.

Yes, a wizard can do ANYTHING with spells. But he can't do anything WITHOUT spells. And just like I'm going to be unimpressed when I see the wires and winch that you're using to levitate, a Wizard is going to be unimpressed when he sees the Prestidigitation you use to pull a quarter out from behind his ear. Make no mistake, he will see it. Detect Magic is the most common, easiest, widely-appealing spell in the entire game. Being wreathed in a magic field is no less apparent to anybody of consequence than being wreathed in a complement of kabuki stagehands in black zentai suits. In the absence of those completely ordinary, unimpressive, matter-of-fact mechanisms, however, people are delighted and thrilled.

As an aside, the Wizard casting state is intelligence. They're all a bunch of huge fucking nerds and nerds are not difficult to impress. You can tell them a cool etymology and they will educate people about it at parties for the rest of their lives. You can show them a cool way to fold a t-shirt and they will cue up by the millions to see. You can show them a moldy petri-dish and if you can come up with some reason at all as to why they should regard it as significant, nerds will shit themselves in excitement.

[spongeknight]

My society put a man on the moon. I have a magic mirror in my pocket that talks and has encyclopedic knowledge of all things. I am eating a tropical fruit in the middle of winter. A tiny orchestra of perfect skill and infinite variety lives in a pair of tiny boxes that flank my desk. It's four o'clock so I'm going to take a magic potion of "amphetamine" to induce incredible cognitive acuity, because my morning extended-release potion will be wearing off soon, and I have an evening lecture at my wizard school, to which I will be transported in my incredible horseless carriage. I live in a world of infinite wonders that I disregard as the simple matter of course, but if you come to my office right now and pull a rabbit out of your baseball hat I am going to be fucking exhilarated.

This is such a blatant false analogy that it makes my head hurt. You know what magic can do in D&D? EVERYTHING! You are impressed by people pulling rabbits out of hats and locating your card because these are things that you do not consider possible based on your understanding of the world. You know that we can send people to the moon because smart people tell you it is possible and then they do it. You know that your smartphone can search the internet because the sales rep who sold you that phone pointed that out as a fucking feature that you would want for your phone. What you don't know is how someone can find a card you marked after you put it in your own pocket, and that's why it's impressive to you.

In D&D land, magic can do literally anything and you know that. It's not impressive when someone saws someone in half, because there's a spell for that. It's not impressive when someone creates a fucking town out of thin air because there's a spell for that. There is nothing at all that they can do that does not fit the explanation "a wizard did it."

Sure, they can have showmanship and a sense of grandeur during their show- the same way you are impressed by special effects during movies despite knowing the trick behind them- but nothing about the actual effects produced is impressive beyond "that was a cool spell."

EDIT- also includes masking your magical aura, because there are fucking spells for that and anyone with a point in spellcraft knows that too.

[OgreBattle]

"What is that rogue doing there with the chopsticks in the keyhole?!"

"He's attempting to DISARM a TRAP!!"

"But why would he not just send a celestial monkey to 'disarm' it for him?"

"Because he can't! He lacks the intelligence for wizardry and charisma for sorcery! He uses his HANDS!"

"WOW!"

[sendaz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

[Kaelik]

"What is that rogue doing there with the chopsticks in the keyhole?!"

"He's attempting to DISARM a TRAP!!"

"But why would he not just send a celestial monkey to 'disarm' it for him?"

"Because he can't! He lacks the intelligence for wizardry and charisma for sorcery! He uses his HANDS!"

"WOW!"

Disarming traps with celestial monkeys is the dumbest fucking thing that people thinks work but clearly doesn't.

[Mechalich]

People in a D&D would will have an understanding of what magic is and an idea of its capabilities (this would obviously vary by location/level/quantity of exposure, and so forth). They would not be particularly impressed by seeing commonplace magic performed. On the other hand, if someone was able to demonstrate magic that violated the known capabilities of magic in some drastic way - ex. someone raising the dead in a world where that is impossible - then they would be impressed, but they would also try to prove that it's really happening, in the same way that people try very hard to figure out new sleight of hand tricks in the physical world. Only rather than using cameras or infrared sensors they'd use other magic to try and figure out the trick.