Illusion spells require careful arbitration because players and DMs are often too generous with the cantrip's abilities:
The minor illusion's effect on a creature ends automatically in witnessing something passing through it, or though an Intelligence (investigation) check - which costs an action. The check represents the targets ability to discern imperfections in the illusion. Depending on the context, of the casting, the DM should be able to either trigger investigation checks if something seems odd about it, and also to assign advantage on those checks if something seems really odd about it.
Let's look: It creates a sound OR an image, but not both at the same time. The image cannot move - it's a 3d holograph, and it is fixed in space. A flag cannot flap. Illusory text cannot appear on an attended book or page, that moves. A mirror cannot reflect anything that moves. Fire can't move, and cannot cast light, nor produce heat.
Invisibility: Creating the image of empty space (air) would still be transparent and you would still be visible within it. Restricting movement: Image of an iron maiden around a person up to their neck (it's only 5 feet tall), it would dispel immediately from the contact - it has no substance. Concealment/Hide If you they shoot out of the barrel (shooting through the concealment), that's an interaction and it will be blown.If arrows or environmental destruction hit it (ie hiding in an image of a barrel for example, to get concealment), especially if it looked like cover (but is only concealment because it has no substance), it will be blown. Disguise: no - the illusion can't move. Unless the person stands as still as a corpse. Light: Looks bright, but you can stare right at it and no shadows are cast
I go with the gist that all illusions have errors and tells which, if the target is alert - will notice and trigger a check. The result of the roll determines the target's effectiveness in spotting and understanding what doesn't make sense. The closer to mundane and making sense the illusion is, the less likely will be the check. The farther from the familiar (ie it doesn't make sense that a barrel just appears in a fight where the gnome was, or that the wall moved in an area where they are familiar), the more likely will be the check. Truly unbelievable minor illusions could be checked at advantage.
At that level, a clever player should be able to use illusions situationally to distract, to grant concealment, and to create hazards that affect where enemies might go, and to get the target to spend an action to overcome the illusion.
Minor Illusion has two big limitations that it seems like you and the party are overlooking: the 1 minute duration and "no larger than a 5-foot cube"
For the illusion to be effective, and not give opponents a good reason to disbelieve it, it has to cast out of sight. How often can they cast an illusion out of sight with enough advance warning before that they can also complete an encounter within 1 minute and not have to recast the spell or have it poof out of sight?
The second limitation is the 5-foot cube. On Player's Handbook page 204 under "Areas of Effect" it says that, "The cube's size is expressed as the length of each side." Meaning your illusion must fit within a 5-foot cube, not that they have 5 cubic feet of a material that could be made a quarter inch think and 30 feet long, or whatever dimensions your math PhDs have worked out with 5 cubic feet of stone. The examples given in the spell description, such as a chair and a small chest, fit within this cube, but a 6 foot tall door wouldn't, nor would an upright medium sized humanoid with a greatsword or aiming with a longbow be able to hide behind it and be ready to attack. For that matter, your "frozen" images of your characters would have to miniature size too, unless they all happen to be small races. And with the 5-foot cube limitation, it's really not that hard to see around with just a small shift in angle anyway.
If you ask me, it seems like either folks have overlooked these limitations or are abusing the spell.
First off, I think it's hilarious that this post even exits, I love smart players.
Speaking of which, I have a PC that wants to use minor illusion to hide inside or behind. I want to allow this, but I am trying to figure the action economy for it.
If a rogue jumps into a crate, that is a hide action, roll stealth.
If a warlock casts an illusion of a crate over or in front him self, his action is cast but isn't he still hiding? He should roll a stealth check, but spending another action to hide doesn't seem right.. he is already inside of the crate.
Bonus question, if he is within the illusion, can he see out? Clearly you can't see in, so I assume the whole thing is opaque.
(TBH I didn't read every reply, so sorry if this repeats stuff others have said).
1. I think it's pretty fair to have a villain take an action that isn't the "disbelieve" action, but also reveals easily to the villain that something isn't right, and that the power of the illusion was over. I was having similar trouble with spike growth previously—it didn't feel fair to have enemies know to look for secret caltrops or whatever that were supposed to be nearly indistinguishable from the surroundings. So now I generally have one enemy run through and get ground to hamburger, and the rest are quicker to realize about where their friend suddenly collapsed in a bloody heap.
2. These villains exist in a world full of magical trickery, and probably use it or have seen it repeatedly before! This isn't like an average person in our world unreasonably detecting there is a magical illusion or a shapeshifter, but wily dictators who have probably had all sorts of mental magic, poisons, psychic assaults and who knows what else tried on them in an attempt to bring them down. Would an adult dragon, who has schemed for centuries, really be taken in by a wizard suddenly appearing dancing around? Or would they realize this was a distraction right off the bat, especially after a gout of fire passes through the shimmering illusion?
First off, I think it's hilarious that this post even exits, I love smart players.
Speaking of which, I have a PC that wants to use minor illusion to hide inside or behind. I want to allow this, but I am trying to figure the action economy for it.
If a rogue jumps into a crate, that is a hide action, roll stealth.
If a warlock casts an illusion of a crate over or in front him self, his action is cast but isn't he still hiding? He should roll a stealth check, but spending another action to hide doesn't seem right.. he is already inside of the crate.
Bonus question, if he is within the illusion, can he see out? Clearly you can't see in, so I assume the whole thing is opaque.
RAW, there's a difference between just being unseen and actually being hidden. Like, I'm visible, and then I duck behind a crate (or an illusion of a crate), the enemy won't see me. But they'll still know where I am, because they literally just saw me go behind a crate. They're not idiots. The "hide" action represents actually doing the work to make the enemy believe you're somewhere other than where you actually are, whatever that may be for this situation.
i am incredebly curious as to how some noise and an 5ft static cube manages to defeat high level mind flayers, dragons and owlbears.... please what have these lads done
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
I'm perfectly fine with players getting creative with cantrips. They are wizards after all and I suspect they've played and refined this type of magic since the very first time they learned how to cast it. Such a spell as Minor Illusion would most certainly have its uses and come in handy for all sorts of situations. The more creative and outside the box thinking your player, the more fun they can have with the spell and the more varied its uses. But it's not a catchall they can use to get out of any situation, nor tip the balance in their favor all the time. It's situational. Dumb monsters have other senses they rely on. Smart enemies might do a double take and then probably recognize it for what it is. It's hardly game breaking, but can be used creatively to buy time when precious moments count.
So... the uses that they are putting the spell minor illusion to are foiling even high-level encounters. As a DM, I do not want to discourage the use of creativity, but the ability to create any visual (stationary) illusion in a 5-foot-cube at will as a cantrip is incredibly over-powered. How do you deal with this?
I know that enemies can take an action to disbelieve, but to be honest, the way the players are using the spell (as walls, doors, images of themselves) wouldn't provoke the desire to disbelieve (otherwise, each combat would start with everyone taking an action to disbelieve.
Minor Illusion doesn't let you create "any visual illusion in a 5-foot-cube", for starters. It's very picky: it creates an image of an object, and objects have a very specific definition in D&D: "a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects." That means no atmospheric effects, no lighting or shadow effects, no creatures (including images of themselves), arguably not even loose liquids. It also means no walls - at least not a wall that's seamlessly connected to the rest of the structure - because that wouldn't be a discrete item of reasonable size, it'd be an extension of the building.
Once you realize how incredibly mundane the spell is, it shouldn't pose a significant problem.
I agree with most of this, except the 'wall' exception. Also, remember if trying to cover up a doorway or alcove, they are usually larger than 5'x5' so would take at least 2 castings.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Watch your back, conserve your ammo, and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
First off, I think it's hilarious that this post even exits, I love smart players.
Speaking of which, I have a PC that wants to use minor illusion to hide inside or behind. I want to allow this, but I am trying to figure the action economy for it.
If a rogue jumps into a crate, that is a hide action, roll stealth.
If a warlock casts an illusion of a crate over or in front him self, his action is cast but isn't he still hiding? He should roll a stealth check, but spending another action to hide doesn't seem right.. he is already inside of the crate.
Bonus question, if he is within the illusion, can he see out? Clearly you can't see in, so I assume the whole thing is opaque.
Because the caster KNOWS the illusion is an illusion, it appears faint (or non-existent by DM ruling) to the caster. Thus the caster should be able to see through any Minor Illusion s/he creates.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Watch your back, conserve your ammo, and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
1 or 2 years back, a friend of mine decided he was going to run a module for myself and a couple of other friends to give myself and another party member a break from DM'ing. He incorporated several house rules, several of them after seeing characters I and other members created. In my case it took 3 tries to get a character he would except.
The final character I successful came up with (he agreed to it fully at the time) was a forest gnome wizard 1 / cleric (knowledge) 1 he wanted us to start at 2nd level at the time). My character was going to go School of Illusion in the long run.
My friend, as part of session zero asked me how I intended to play the character. I gave him some of the ideas of things I intended to do (ie: create a hollow shell of mist around an enemy to block its Line of Sight (LoS), create a wooden barrel around myself to provide full cover versus targeted effects, etc. He then, after this conversation, introduced house rules that effectively made playing an illusionist next to ineffective (ie: Illusions could now only be cast outside of combat).
I dropped out of the campaign at this point (this was the 3rd character I'd created and he'd basically shot down). He went on to run the campaign with others, but it was very short run.
To play an illusionist, you require a DM's who will work with you and not against you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Watch your back, conserve your ammo, and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
I know this was posted a long time ago, but I wanted to make something clear. A 6ft or even a 7ft door can certainly fit in a 5ft cube. So can an 8ft pole. Pythagoras disagrees with you.
Illusion-conservative DMs can really ruin a game for Bard or Wizard illusionist builds for sure. It's something I check for now before starting a campaign with a new DM.
I know this was posted a long time ago, but I wanted to make something clear. A 6ft or even a 7ft door can certainly fit in a 5ft cube. So can an 8ft pole. Pythagoras disagrees with you.
Loot is correct, do the math. Pythagoras's formula is simple, A squared + B squared = C squared, for any right triangle A tall and B wide. Cube is 5 x5, = 25+25 = 50,, rooted for diaganol length C, which is 7.07 ft. So if you turn a cube on edge, it can fit a 7 x 5 ft door with some room to spare. If you balance it on it's point, the longest pole it can fit is that 50+ 25 = 75 rooted = 8.66, or about almost 8 ft 8 inches.
It is a 5 foot cube not 5 cubic feet huge difference
It is, but if you rotate the cube to stand on one edge rather than having vertical and horizontal sides, then you can get more shapes along the diagonal. Very cheesy.
tell me if im wrong, but im pretty sure that truesight allows you to see through illusions. you could give the major enemies of your players truesight. or, you could have your villains be smart enoigh to see through the illusion.
Illusion spells require careful arbitration because players and DMs are often too generous with the cantrip's abilities:
The minor illusion's effect on a creature ends automatically in witnessing something passing through it, or though an Intelligence (investigation) check - which costs an action. The check represents the targets ability to discern imperfections in the illusion. Depending on the context, of the casting, the DM should be able to either trigger investigation checks if something seems odd about it, and also to assign advantage on those checks if something seems really odd about it.
Let's look: It creates a sound OR an image, but not both at the same time.
The image cannot move - it's a 3d holograph, and it is fixed in space.
A flag cannot flap.
Illusory text cannot appear on an attended book or page, that moves.
A mirror cannot reflect anything that moves.
Fire can't move, and cannot cast light, nor produce heat.
Invisibility: Creating the image of empty space (air) would still be transparent and you would still be visible within it.
Restricting movement: Image of an iron maiden around a person up to their neck (it's only 5 feet tall), it would dispel immediately from the contact - it has no substance.
Concealment/Hide If you they shoot out of the barrel (shooting through the concealment), that's an interaction and it will be blown.If arrows or environmental destruction hit it (ie hiding in an image of a barrel for example, to get concealment), especially if it looked like cover (but is only concealment because it has no substance), it will be blown.
Disguise: no - the illusion can't move. Unless the person stands as still as a corpse.
Light: Looks bright, but you can stare right at it and no shadows are cast
I go with the gist that all illusions have errors and tells which, if the target is alert - will notice and trigger a check. The result of the roll determines the target's effectiveness in spotting and understanding what doesn't make sense.
The closer to mundane and making sense the illusion is, the less likely will be the check.
The farther from the familiar (ie it doesn't make sense that a barrel just appears in a fight where the gnome was, or that the wall moved in an area where they are familiar), the more likely will be the check.
Truly unbelievable minor illusions could be checked at advantage.
At that level, a clever player should be able to use illusions situationally to distract, to grant concealment, and to create hazards that affect where enemies might go, and to get the target to spend an action to overcome the illusion.
Minor Illusion has two big limitations that it seems like you and the party are overlooking: the 1 minute duration and "no larger than a 5-foot cube"
For the illusion to be effective, and not give opponents a good reason to disbelieve it, it has to cast out of sight. How often can they cast an illusion out of sight with enough advance warning before that they can also complete an encounter within 1 minute and not have to recast the spell or have it poof out of sight?
The second limitation is the 5-foot cube. On Player's Handbook page 204 under "Areas of Effect" it says that, "The cube's size is expressed as the length of each side." Meaning your illusion must fit within a 5-foot cube, not that they have 5 cubic feet of a material that could be made a quarter inch think and 30 feet long, or whatever dimensions your math PhDs have worked out with 5 cubic feet of stone. The examples given in the spell description, such as a chair and a small chest, fit within this cube, but a 6 foot tall door wouldn't, nor would an upright medium sized humanoid with a greatsword or aiming with a longbow be able to hide behind it and be ready to attack. For that matter, your "frozen" images of your characters would have to miniature size too, unless they all happen to be small races. And with the 5-foot cube limitation, it's really not that hard to see around with just a small shift in angle anyway.
If you ask me, it seems like either folks have overlooked these limitations or are abusing the spell.
First off, I think it's hilarious that this post even exits, I love smart players.
Speaking of which, I have a PC that wants to use minor illusion to hide inside or behind. I want to allow this, but I am trying to figure the action economy for it.
If a rogue jumps into a crate, that is a hide action, roll stealth.
If a warlock casts an illusion of a crate over or in front him self, his action is cast but isn't he still hiding? He should roll a stealth check, but spending another action to hide doesn't seem right.. he is already inside of the crate.
Bonus question, if he is within the illusion, can he see out? Clearly you can't see in, so I assume the whole thing is opaque.
(TBH I didn't read every reply, so sorry if this repeats stuff others have said).
1. I think it's pretty fair to have a villain take an action that isn't the "disbelieve" action, but also reveals easily to the villain that something isn't right, and that the power of the illusion was over. I was having similar trouble with spike growth previously—it didn't feel fair to have enemies know to look for secret caltrops or whatever that were supposed to be nearly indistinguishable from the surroundings. So now I generally have one enemy run through and get ground to hamburger, and the rest are quicker to realize about where their friend suddenly collapsed in a bloody heap.
2. These villains exist in a world full of magical trickery, and probably use it or have seen it repeatedly before! This isn't like an average person in our world unreasonably detecting there is a magical illusion or a shapeshifter, but wily dictators who have probably had all sorts of mental magic, poisons, psychic assaults and who knows what else tried on them in an attempt to bring them down. Would an adult dragon, who has schemed for centuries, really be taken in by a wizard suddenly appearing dancing around? Or would they realize this was a distraction right off the bat, especially after a gout of fire passes through the shimmering illusion?
RAW, there's a difference between just being unseen and actually being hidden. Like, I'm visible, and then I duck behind a crate (or an illusion of a crate), the enemy won't see me. But they'll still know where I am, because they literally just saw me go behind a crate. They're not idiots. The "hide" action represents actually doing the work to make the enemy believe you're somewhere other than where you actually are, whatever that may be for this situation.
i am incredebly curious as to how some noise and an 5ft static cube manages to defeat high level mind flayers, dragons and owlbears.... please what have these lads done
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Totally agree. Spending an action to crawl into a crate.. is an action. So casting a minor illusion to hide is your action. I think.
Use it against the players.
I'm perfectly fine with players getting creative with cantrips. They are wizards after all and I suspect they've played and refined this type of magic since the very first time they learned how to cast it. Such a spell as Minor Illusion would most certainly have its uses and come in handy for all sorts of situations. The more creative and outside the box thinking your player, the more fun they can have with the spell and the more varied its uses. But it's not a catchall they can use to get out of any situation, nor tip the balance in their favor all the time. It's situational. Dumb monsters have other senses they rely on. Smart enemies might do a double take and then probably recognize it for what it is. It's hardly game breaking, but can be used creatively to buy time when precious moments count.
I agree with most of this, except the 'wall' exception. Also, remember if trying to cover up a doorway or alcove, they are usually larger than 5'x5' so would take at least 2 castings.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
Because the caster KNOWS the illusion is an illusion, it appears faint (or non-existent by DM ruling) to the caster. Thus the caster should be able to see through any Minor Illusion s/he creates.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
1 or 2 years back, a friend of mine decided he was going to run a module for myself and a couple of other friends to give myself and another party member a break from DM'ing. He incorporated several house rules, several of them after seeing characters I and other members created. In my case it took 3 tries to get a character he would except.
The final character I successful came up with (he agreed to it fully at the time) was a forest gnome wizard 1 / cleric (knowledge) 1 he wanted us to start at 2nd level at the time). My character was going to go School of Illusion in the long run.
My friend, as part of session zero asked me how I intended to play the character. I gave him some of the ideas of things I intended to do (ie: create a hollow shell of mist around an enemy to block its Line of Sight (LoS), create a wooden barrel around myself to provide full cover versus targeted effects, etc. He then, after this conversation, introduced house rules that effectively made playing an illusionist next to ineffective (ie: Illusions could now only be cast outside of combat).
I dropped out of the campaign at this point (this was the 3rd character I'd created and he'd basically shot down). He went on to run the campaign with others, but it was very short run.
To play an illusionist, you require a DM's who will work with you and not against you.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
I know this was posted a long time ago, but I wanted to make something clear. A 6ft or even a 7ft door can certainly fit in a 5ft cube. So can an 8ft pole.
Pythagoras disagrees with you.
Illusion-conservative DMs can really ruin a game for Bard or Wizard illusionist builds for sure. It's something I check for now before starting a campaign with a new DM.
Loot is correct, do the math. Pythagoras's formula is simple, A squared + B squared = C squared, for any right triangle A tall and B wide. Cube is 5 x5, = 25+25 = 50,, rooted for diaganol length C, which is 7.07 ft. So if you turn a cube on edge, it can fit a 7 x 5 ft door with some room to spare. If you balance it on it's point, the longest pole it can fit is that 50+ 25 = 75 rooted = 8.66, or about almost 8 ft 8 inches.
So basically you meta gamed, XD
It is a 5 foot cube not 5 cubic feet huge difference
It is, but if you rotate the cube to stand on one edge rather than having vertical and horizontal sides, then you can get more shapes along the diagonal. Very cheesy.
tell me if im wrong, but im pretty sure that truesight allows you to see through illusions. you could give the major enemies of your players truesight. or, you could have your villains be smart enoigh to see through the illusion.
"players are using the spell (as walls, doors, images of themselves)" ?
You cannot create a minor image of a creature. Only a stationary immovable object.