Disguise Self and the Actor feat

-My goal is to have you use these abilities to interact with the game world and generate story opportuni-ties. Thus I want to provide as firm a foundation for use of Disguise self and the actor feat as possible. It’s impossible to predict everything you will try to do so I have tried as best I can.

-You cannot be witnessed by your target casting this spell or they automatically pass their checks.

-Overall the effects are situational and largely depend on what you are doing and trying to accomplish. Many times the npcs won’t even get a roll. Sometimes they will get advantage on rolls or auto-succeed. This will depend on their degree of relationship to the person you are trying to imitate and how out of character you are being for the person you are trying to imitate. The amount of people you are trying to fool at once will also have an effect. The more people you are trying to fool at once the more difficult it will be to succeed.

Example scene 1: You are being pursued by the merchant Rollo’s guards after being caught in a tryst with Rollo’s wife. You run into an alley and use disguise self to literally be anything from an old beggar lady to another merchant. The guards wouldn’t even get a roll, they would believe that you were that person.

However if during the pursuit you tried to disguise yourself as Rollo they would probably auto suc-ceed the save knowing that their paymaster did not join them in the pursuit.

Also it’s possible the alley is not wide enough for them to squeeze by without brushing you, which would probably pierce the disguise self spell.

Example scene 2: You have spent some time with Rollo and know how he talks, his mannerisms, and just as importantly to learn about what things he would talk about. You use Disguise self and the actor feat to sneak past Rollo’s personal guards to get into his office in order to procure a document that you need. You roll with advantage on your performance check.

However failure here doesn’t necessarily mean they automatically know you are not Rollo be-cause your disguise self spell is still in play. Thus they may start asking you questions or talking to you which may result in another roll, with advantage because they are suspicious, or you allay their concerns.

In situations like these researching a specific person you wish to imitate would be crucial.

Example scene 3: You impersonate Rollo and go to his favorite tavern, an upscale place. You wouldn’t have to roll to convince anyone of your impersonation, they would believe it automatically.

However one of Rollo’s best friends, his cousin, or even his mistress (i.e. someone very close to Rollo) sees you and comes to talk to you. Depending on how you roleplay the situation they could either make their opposed roll and their saves with advantage, or automatically notice something is very wrong. If someone, especially someone who knows Rollo very well, goes to touch you, like shake your hand or kiss your cheek, the same is true. If they know Rollo very well they will either automatically pass or gain advantage depending on the intimacy of the touch and how well they know Rollo. It also depends on the size difference between you and the person you are trying to impersonate.

Example scene 4: You impersonate a high up leader, such as a king. The more important a person gen-erally the better connected and more knowledgable they are of how the world works. They’re comings and goings are also noted by many people. Thus a king would probably hear that he was in Sarna, though he knows he hasn’t been in Sarna. He would be most interested in who was impersonating him and would not take kindly to the fact.

Additionally there is a certain level that people probably won’t believe. If the king shows up at the Merry Red there will be a lot of suspicious people. In other words it’s situational.

Example scene 5: You guys encounter a group of hostile bandits. If you just changed your appearance to look like one of them, it would have no effect except for them to note that you are a spellcaster. No rolls or anything.

If you ran behind a tree or a wall or whatever that blocked line of sight exactly as the stealth rules and changed your appearance then you could gain advantage on your next attack. However since you

would keep attacking them it wouldn’t matter if you looked like them, after the first attack they would as-sume you were hostile and you would no longer gain advantage.

Example scene 6: You guys are aware in advance that their is a party of bandits coming down the road. You disguise self as a bandit you guys killed not too far away that same day. The bandits would have no reason to suspect that you are not their buddy, but you would not know the dead bandit’s mannerisms or voice very well. You would roll Deception with advantage (as per the Actor feat). If you succeed they be-lieve you, they get no subsequent save. If you fail they still have to roll against your save. If you come up with a plausible reason why you don’t sound like the bandit (for example), then it will make it more difficult for them to succeed.

However if you attack them then you can’t redisguise yourself at any point in that combat as they are now aware that you can take one of their forms.

Additionally the longer you stay around them the more suspicious they may become as you would not know any of their names, anything they have done, etcetera.