NPC Illusionists: Illusions need faster despawn

[RikOz]

Carnie Illusionists/Master Illusionists need a bit of a nerf, and I'm going to approach this as a logic issue.

 

Those danged Phantasms, Decoy Phantasms, and Dark Whatsits hang around way too long after I've defeated the NPC Illusionist herself. In particular, I'd like to complain about the Decoy Phantasms.

 

The logic: These are illusions, not genuine physical entities. Logically, they should require the caster to "maintain" them, and the caster should not be able to "maintain" the illusion while unconscious. Thus, all of these illusions should, logically, despawn shortly after the Illusionist is defeated/rendered unconscious. Even if the illusions are the result of the NPC directly affecting the player character's brain, those effects should quickly fade upon the NPCs defeat.

 

Why it's a problem: These illusions are often cast by an NPC who is guarding a hostage, and the hostage cannot be "rescued" until the NPC caster and all of her illusions are "defeated". If the player is not able to defeat the illusionist before she is able to cast her illusions, the whole fight is pointlessly dragged out for a stupidly long time. This is why I'm singling out the "Decoy Phantasm" in particular. I can fight and "defeat" the Phantasm and the Dark Whatsit. The Decoy Phantasm, on the other hand, neither deals nor suffers much damage at all. Once the other illusions are "defeated", the Decoy Phantasm is more or less part of the scenery, less of a threat than, say, Caltrops. It doesn't actively attack me unless I move into immediate melee range, and even then it isn't particularly dangerous. Trying to kill it is just wasted effort. The Decoy Phantasm is basically nothing more than an arbitrary, pointless waiting game. The player doesn't "defeat" a Decoy Phantasm. The player simply waits it out. Which takes entirely too long. Waiting simply for the sake of waiting is Not Fun(tm). If the idea was to make the player wait while actual human enemy reinforcements rush to the scene, that would at least make some sense. But simply forcing the player to stand around waiting for mechanical reasons is, again, Not Fun(tm).

 

Solution: Drastically reduce the timer for these things to despawn after the NPC illusionist is defeated.

Edited December 21, 2019 by RikOz