Does anyone have fun or interesting stories or ideas to use for minor illusion, major image, silent image etc? This is of course with the use of the malleable illusion and illusory reality features, not looking for anything particularly strong just ideas to spice up those dull moments and add some flavor to a character.
As someone who is using the “Gambler” background currently, there is a ripe opportunity to use the Illusion Wizard as someone who manipulates gambling or games of chance with their illusions (i.e., changing the cards to appear like they have a full house or flush, creating dice that look and sound like they’re hitting the table for favorable numbers, etc…)
Or an artist that creates elaborate paintings or sculptures that are completely fabricated by illusions.
You could even be everyone’s favorite storyteller at the tavern, because your illusions actually SHOW what happened during your stories.
Use Minor Illusion to add sound effects to your Silent Image of a rampaging monster or other threat, for a discount version of Major Image. Combine Dancing Lights down a dark passage (or in a Fog Cloud) with the sound of approaching footsteps from Minor Illusion to convince an enemy that reinforcements are coming. Replicate the sound of a minion calling for help or giving the "all clear!" Create a Silent Image of an empty prison cell to convince the guard your party has escaped and unlock the door to investigate.
Once you have Illusory Reality, you can really ramp up battlefield control. Domes, cages, walls, and just plain blocks of stone can really change the way the map flows. You can also conjure cover with arrow slits in it. You can conjure expensive material components. Bridges and ladders. Really, any problem you have that could be solved by an object just requires some imagination to fix.
There are some interesting mechanical uses of illusions particularly if you get something like misty visions for at will silent image which makes it more economical
1)illusions can block vision which means they can do the following
allow some one to take the hide action
allow some one to move without provoking an attack of opportunity
give some one advantage on at least one attack ( many dms will rule attacking through an illusions reveals it to be false but the first attack should work)
give an enemy disadvantage on an attack against a player.
Block the casting of spells that rely on sight
These should basically work regardless of what the illusion is as long as it conceivably blocks vision . Most DMs should allow it as its a fairly plain reading and they basically just enhance pre-existing actions like help and disengage with the spell giving the bonus of letting you do it for other people at range. Some might say minor image is not large enough to hide a medium creature but larger illusions certainly will be. This lets you flavor things like help and disengage as illusions.
illusion spells like silent image can likely replicate invisibility with the caveats of what ever spell is used rather than that of invisibility. This would function like holding up a painting of the area with out you in it between you and a creature. I.e you could make anything you want in an area invisible but if some one enters or investigates the area they may see through it and you cant leave the area. This has the advantage that you can cast spells while hidden this way without breaking the invisibility as long as such a spell causes no physical interaction. Its also work noting being unseen is not the same as them not knowing your location and you need to take the hide action to not be seen.
3) minor illusion doesn't require concentration and can be combined with other illusions
Basically because minor illusion's casting is visual only and it doesn't require concentration you can cast it while you are hidden by another illusion as long as that spell does not say it breaks when casting a spell like invisibility. This means you could hide behind an illusion spell like silent image and also use minor illusion to create a distraction or image in another location with out conflict.
4) Dms may allow malleable illusions to extend the economy of illusion spells
Its not clear what changing the nature of an illusion means. Can you move the location or target, do creatures who saw through the first "nature" see through the second "nature" and can you smoothen the changes to mimic natural movement. If you can for example change the target then when you kill a creature with phantasmal killer you'd be able to move it to a new target essentially recasting it for free as long as it hasn't ended. If you can change the nature so as to make creatures no long see through it could allow allies to shoot through an illusion then reinforce it on your turn to maintain a kind of party invisibility instead of needing to recast a spell like silent image. If you can move location and mimic natural movement you can have your illusions walk along side you and persist as you move through a dungeon for their whole duration. Possibly even have an entirely illusory party member lead the way.
I think these are all reasonable interpretations of malleable illusions as all of them could be achieved by recasting the illusions essentially making malleable illusions a spell slot saving feature. That said Jeremy Crawford says no to moving illusions locations
There are some interesting mechanical uses of illusions particularly if you get something like misty visions for at will silent image which makes it more economical
yeah, Misty Visions lets you conjure any single object that fits in a 15-foot cube. For free.
Make a golden statue of the BBEG to distract/bribe them
Never pay for anything in non-illusory coin again
Conjure expensive material components for spells
Make an illusion of a coffin around the BBEG and them make it real (and then Fireball it of course)
Nearly replicate the clothing part of Disguise Self (actually, wouldn't the spell/Mask of Many Faces let you make the disguise real if it was one object? maybe if you said all the clothing pieces were sewed together or something)
Drop a giant block of stone on enemies (might violate the restriction on harming other creatures)
Mid-combat emergency panic shelters, with arrow slits
Cube of mirrors on a bright sunny day to blind things (or put them inside it!)
Does anyone have fun or interesting stories or ideas to use for minor illusion, major image, silent image etc? This is of course with the use of the malleable illusion and illusory reality features, not looking for anything particularly strong just ideas to spice up those dull moments and add some flavor to a character.
I have with minor illusion but it depends a lot on how your DM rules subtle spell and rule of cool. Minor Illusion has a somatic and material component, does this mean someone who sees you when you cast it knows you cast something? If so that makes it far less useful.
Assuming the DM allows me, usually I use minor illusion in social encounters and a Character with a high Deception. The following examples come mostly from a Glasya Tiefling Arcane Trickster with a 16 intelligence, 14 Dexterity and Deception expertise:
1. Mimic the voice of someone in authority coming from around the corner (Captain of the guard or whatever), often done after we had killed said individual.
2. Similarly I was trying to get a bunch of Hobgoblins to flee a stronghold, I used disguise self first to disguise myself as one of the Hobs we killed outside, only heavily injured and burned. Then I ran into the strong hold with minor illusion making sounds of a Dragon outside. I told the Hobs and Hill Giants inside they all needed to flee while I was also having my Mage Hand to take timbers from the fire and lighting stuff on fire as a bonus action (inclunding one of the hobgoblins) "It is the Dragons using her Wizardry". The Hobgoblins inside the keep all fled out the back, it did not fool the Giants.
3. At 1st level, we were in a church and knew we were going to be under attacked by a number of Goblins, so I climbed the steeple, broke out a window and then put a minor illusion of an intact window in its place. The two melee guys blocked the front door and I fired down on the masses through the minor illusion, getting advantage and giving them disadvantage to attack me. I few tried to see through it, but they failed their investigation check and wasted their action. I used this similarly several levels later while on top of a house being attacked by a mob of Drow, I put up an illusion of a small chimney to fire over. The difference on the house is it was not large enough to completely obscure me, but it did give me cover against the arrows the Drow fired back.
4. We were interrogating someone and I wanted to look scary (she also had proficiency in Intimidation). I used minor illusion to make my Eyes burn a fiery red and instead of speaking using my voice initially, I used MI to create a deep devil voice. So here was this smallish female horned Tiefling with burning red eyes saying in a deep hellish voice that he better cooperate or I was going to send him to Hell.
5. I cast it to burn a reaction and counterspell from an enemy we were fighting. He used CS every time our sorcerer tried to cast, So I announced to the DM I was casting a spell and being very obvious about it, the DM burned his counterspell and reaction.
As an illusion wizard you could do better than this as you can do both a sound and an image at the same time I believe. The only other "tricky" illusion I have a lot of experience with is disguise self. That is straightforward I think, you disguise yourself as someone and try to trick other people or alternatively prevent them from targeting you.
One of my go to tricks is to put up a wall at the end of a hallway or cubby, and the party can hide behind it. Dont forget to take Eldritch Adept Feat to unlimited Silent Illusion.
Keen Mind is also an extremely useful feat for an Illusionist. You can recall any map or writing and always know the exit.
Ironically silent image is not silent to cast. Depending on your dm that may mean you have more or less success trying to pass this illusion off as other spells like creating fake walls of stone ect...
Does anyone have fun or interesting stories or ideas to use for minor illusion, major image, silent image etc? This is of course with the use of the malleable illusion and illusory reality features, not looking for anything particularly strong just ideas to spice up those dull moments and add some flavor to a character.
Wasn't a player character per se...but my group was robbing a bank and we hired 3 mercenaries, one of which was an illusionist wizard.
We made it through most of the bank without alerting guards, but one guard did check and see why the vault area was so quiet. Wasn't enough space for us to hide, so the Wizard (controlled by a player) cast Major Image over the area to resemble it, just without us.
As the guard came closer to investigate, we *all* held actions and when he was in range demolished him.
When a few other guards came to investigate we dragged the one guard's dead body into the illusion and waited until they tripped over the body to run away (1500 gp per person involved...like 12 total including NPCs that helped plan)
edit: we also used disguise self to enter the bank disguised as the owners and managers. but that was a divination wizard (me), Bladsinger wizard and trickery domain cleric
Also was in a game the other day, it was a 1v1 tournament that a guild put together. Final encounter was on a pirate ship being attacked by a Kraken. The Gnome Wizard cast minor illusion to create a box to hide in. Would have probably lead to me getting killed by Pirates if the Kraken wasn't also destroying the shift
Does anyone have fun or interesting stories or ideas to use for minor illusion, major image, silent image etc? This is of course with the use of the malleable illusion and illusory reality features, not looking for anything particularly strong just ideas to spice up those dull moments and add some flavor to a character.
Gloomstalker Superiority
As someone who is using the “Gambler” background currently, there is a ripe opportunity to use the Illusion Wizard as someone who manipulates gambling or games of chance with their illusions (i.e., changing the cards to appear like they have a full house or flush, creating dice that look and sound like they’re hitting the table for favorable numbers, etc…)
Or an artist that creates elaborate paintings or sculptures that are completely fabricated by illusions.
You could even be everyone’s favorite storyteller at the tavern, because your illusions actually SHOW what happened during your stories.
Use Minor Illusion to add sound effects to your Silent Image of a rampaging monster or other threat, for a discount version of Major Image. Combine Dancing Lights down a dark passage (or in a Fog Cloud) with the sound of approaching footsteps from Minor Illusion to convince an enemy that reinforcements are coming. Replicate the sound of a minion calling for help or giving the "all clear!" Create a Silent Image of an empty prison cell to convince the guard your party has escaped and unlock the door to investigate.
Get creative and theatrical!
Once you have Illusory Reality, you can really ramp up battlefield control. Domes, cages, walls, and just plain blocks of stone can really change the way the map flows. You can also conjure cover with arrow slits in it. You can conjure expensive material components. Bridges and ladders. Really, any problem you have that could be solved by an object just requires some imagination to fix.
There are some interesting mechanical uses of illusions particularly if you get something like misty visions for at will silent image which makes it more economical
1)illusions can block vision which means they can do the following
These should basically work regardless of what the illusion is as long as it conceivably blocks vision . Most DMs should allow it as its a fairly plain reading and they basically just enhance pre-existing actions like help and disengage with the spell giving the bonus of letting you do it for other people at range. Some might say minor image is not large enough to hide a medium creature but larger illusions certainly will be. This lets you flavor things like help and disengage as illusions.
2) replicatinginvisibility with other spells
illusion spells like silent image can likely replicate invisibility with the caveats of what ever spell is used rather than that of invisibility. This would function like holding up a painting of the area with out you in it between you and a creature. I.e you could make anything you want in an area invisible but if some one enters or investigates the area they may see through it and you cant leave the area. This has the advantage that you can cast spells while hidden this way without breaking the invisibility as long as such a spell causes no physical interaction. Its also work noting being unseen is not the same as them not knowing your location and you need to take the hide action to not be seen.
3) minor illusion doesn't require concentration and can be combined with other illusions
Basically because minor illusion's casting is visual only and it doesn't require concentration you can cast it while you are hidden by another illusion as long as that spell does not say it breaks when casting a spell like invisibility. This means you could hide behind an illusion spell like silent image and also use minor illusion to create a distraction or image in another location with out conflict.
4) Dms may allow malleable illusions to extend the economy of illusion spells
Its not clear what changing the nature of an illusion means. Can you move the location or target, do creatures who saw through the first "nature" see through the second "nature" and can you smoothen the changes to mimic natural movement. If you can for example change the target then when you kill a creature with phantasmal killer you'd be able to move it to a new target essentially recasting it for free as long as it hasn't ended. If you can change the nature so as to make creatures no long see through it could allow allies to shoot through an illusion then reinforce it on your turn to maintain a kind of party invisibility instead of needing to recast a spell like silent image. If you can move location and mimic natural movement you can have your illusions walk along side you and persist as you move through a dungeon for their whole duration. Possibly even have an entirely illusory party member lead the way.
I think these are all reasonable interpretations of malleable illusions as all of them could be achieved by recasting the illusions essentially making malleable illusions a spell slot saving feature. That said Jeremy Crawford says no to moving illusions locations
yeah, Misty Visions lets you conjure any single object that fits in a 15-foot cube. For free.
I could go on and on and on...
I have with minor illusion but it depends a lot on how your DM rules subtle spell and rule of cool. Minor Illusion has a somatic and material component, does this mean someone who sees you when you cast it knows you cast something? If so that makes it far less useful.
Assuming the DM allows me, usually I use minor illusion in social encounters and a Character with a high Deception. The following examples come mostly from a Glasya Tiefling Arcane Trickster with a 16 intelligence, 14 Dexterity and Deception expertise:
1. Mimic the voice of someone in authority coming from around the corner (Captain of the guard or whatever), often done after we had killed said individual.
2. Similarly I was trying to get a bunch of Hobgoblins to flee a stronghold, I used disguise self first to disguise myself as one of the Hobs we killed outside, only heavily injured and burned. Then I ran into the strong hold with minor illusion making sounds of a Dragon outside. I told the Hobs and Hill Giants inside they all needed to flee while I was also having my Mage Hand to take timbers from the fire and lighting stuff on fire as a bonus action (inclunding one of the hobgoblins) "It is the Dragons using her Wizardry". The Hobgoblins inside the keep all fled out the back, it did not fool the Giants.
3. At 1st level, we were in a church and knew we were going to be under attacked by a number of Goblins, so I climbed the steeple, broke out a window and then put a minor illusion of an intact window in its place. The two melee guys blocked the front door and I fired down on the masses through the minor illusion, getting advantage and giving them disadvantage to attack me. I few tried to see through it, but they failed their investigation check and wasted their action. I used this similarly several levels later while on top of a house being attacked by a mob of Drow, I put up an illusion of a small chimney to fire over. The difference on the house is it was not large enough to completely obscure me, but it did give me cover against the arrows the Drow fired back.
4. We were interrogating someone and I wanted to look scary (she also had proficiency in Intimidation). I used minor illusion to make my Eyes burn a fiery red and instead of speaking using my voice initially, I used MI to create a deep devil voice. So here was this smallish female horned Tiefling with burning red eyes saying in a deep hellish voice that he better cooperate or I was going to send him to Hell.
5. I cast it to burn a reaction and counterspell from an enemy we were fighting. He used CS every time our sorcerer tried to cast, So I announced to the DM I was casting a spell and being very obvious about it, the DM burned his counterspell and reaction.
As an illusion wizard you could do better than this as you can do both a sound and an image at the same time I believe. The only other "tricky" illusion I have a lot of experience with is disguise self. That is straightforward I think, you disguise yourself as someone and try to trick other people or alternatively prevent them from targeting you.
One of my go to tricks is to put up a wall at the end of a hallway or cubby, and the party can hide behind it. Dont forget to take Eldritch Adept Feat to unlimited Silent Illusion.
Keen Mind is also an extremely useful feat for an Illusionist. You can recall any map or writing and always know the exit.
Ironically silent image is not silent to cast. Depending on your dm that may mean you have more or less success trying to pass this illusion off as other spells like creating fake walls of stone ect...
Wasn't a player character per se...but my group was robbing a bank and we hired 3 mercenaries, one of which was an illusionist wizard.
We made it through most of the bank without alerting guards, but one guard did check and see why the vault area was so quiet. Wasn't enough space for us to hide, so the Wizard (controlled by a player) cast Major Image over the area to resemble it, just without us.
As the guard came closer to investigate, we *all* held actions and when he was in range demolished him.
When a few other guards came to investigate we dragged the one guard's dead body into the illusion and waited until they tripped over the body to run away (1500 gp per person involved...like 12 total including NPCs that helped plan)
edit: we also used disguise self to enter the bank disguised as the owners and managers. but that was a divination wizard (me), Bladsinger wizard and trickery domain cleric
Also was in a game the other day, it was a 1v1 tournament that a guild put together. Final encounter was on a pirate ship being attacked by a Kraken. The Gnome Wizard cast minor illusion to create a box to hide in. Would have probably lead to me getting killed by Pirates if the Kraken wasn't also destroying the shift
Assimar illusion wizard who thinks he's Loki.