Before you have time to react, two more arrows fly towards you as the creatures set up their position in the grass and try and take full advantage of their ambush. Just as they fire, another boom of thunder rolls overhead, echoing across the landscape and shaking your bodies to the core as the thick, grey clouds circle overhead in an eerie display of nature’s awesome power.
The first arrow streaks towards Vesper, Attack: 13 Damage: 8the other at Chrys. Attack: 7 Damage: 4
Lumen drops the cloak in the mud, letting Krackle go free. He darts forward a bit, and screams in orcish a battlecry that sounds like a dread summoning chant. He casts silent image at a point hopefully right in front of the archers, obscuring the party from their view entirely. It can be as large as a 15-foot cube, so I'm assuming that can get all of them. They're 150 feet away, spaced 10 feet apart, and the image can be at most 60 feet away, so from my internal mental schematic, the image would cover us visually perhaps 40 feet in front of us in their direction.
The image is of a summoned demon that flashes into existence: a tall, wide, imposing, massive barlgura. Its fists are several feet wide, planted firmly in the wet ground. Its hulking frame blocks out the faint light on the distant horizon in the direction of the party. Its piercing eyes burn with hatred at each of the archers. It's daring them to attack him, promising swift destruction.
(It's also, ideally, providing cover for the party, potentially a reason for the archers to flee, and at minimum, a huge terrifying distraction.)
As Lumen invokes his illusion, the massive, menacing and terrifying image of a hulking demonic fiend with bright red fur and enormous fists appears 60 feet away, between you and the four creatures. The position of the image does in fact partially obscure the party from the four creatures, and it effectively blocks the line of sight between you and the middle two archers. The two on either end can still see the front person (We'll say Kess) and the rear person (Chrys).
It's a terrifying impression indeed, and the next two creatures react as you would expect they would. You hear an excited series of dog-like yips and barks come from the archers, and two of them fire their arrows right at the demon. You watch as both arrows obviously fly right through the illusion, which of course, brings more yips and high-pitched yells from the attackers.
(Krackle, Vesper, Kess and Chris, you're all up. Also, as I understand it, the rest of you would see the illusion as well, but I'm assuming that Lumen would let you know that it's actually a spell, and so it would then become a faint image that you can see through, and it would not hinder your own line of sight. Am I correct on this?)
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Krackle would stumble to his feet and hold his hand up towards his face trying to see through the rain as the arrows zip past. "I can help... umm... you said I turned into a bear right... bear.. think bear things... Honey... fur... teeth" The kobold would say aloud as he clenches his tiny fists and squeezes his eyes shut. Suddenly the tiny kobold begins to transform as his hair bursts from between his scales and he morphs into a brown bear with a pair of tiny horns. The bear would let out a loud roar before charging towards one of the furry archers attempting to rend it with his teeth and claws!
(So technically, to figure out it's an illusion you need to use your action to attack (interact) with it, or make a successful investigation check. I'm not sure about party members automatically knowing this, so I guess they'd be susceptible to it as well, but I'd like to imagine we as a party kind of figured Lumen was doing something when he screamed, and when the big demon thing that appeared was attacking the enemies, rather than us. If you want to split hairs, the ?gnolls? that shot arrows through it can now see through it though, since they used their action to determine it was an illusion, and they have indeed determined it is an illusion because the arrows passed through it. Remaining gnolls that stand still and use their action to make an investigation check have to succeed the DC to see through it. This is all from a pedantic reading of the spell. I think it would be awful to punish a player for a creative use of a spell by saying "well, now the gnolls know you're there, but your party can't see them" so I would advocate for "we figure this is Lumen doing shenanigans" and go from there. But, let me know if you want us to make rolls or react as if we think the illusion is real.)
Pretty sure Lumen's cast this spell before so the party would definitely have realized what the heck was going on! If not, he'd have given his allies a heads' up.
And about the archers realizing, I can't tell from the wording of the spell if it takes the extra action to see through it, or if attacking with a melee weapon that makes no contact counts. I'd guess that if you tried to hit the illusion with a sword and found no resistance, that'd be a free action to see through the illusion. Arrows on a dark and rainy day would be different in my mind -- the arrows could have just gone inside the monstrosity with no visible entrance wound or fletching to see for sure. Obviously up to the DM for a final ruling!
Looking to take advantage of the distraction with her bow still in one hand, and perhaps play upon the fear of their bestial attackers, Kess would quietly mutter the incantation for a Fire Bolt and position it so that it would seem to pass from the fiend's gaping, toothy maw.
Kess looks to roast some fur (to hit): 9
Damage if it connects: 9
She would then take advantage of the distraction to slink into some nearby tall grass and lower herself enough to use it as cover, hoping to break the line of sight from her attackers and take full advantage of her keen elven senses, adrenaline pumping and staving off the pain she'd be in from her previous wound.
Normally, the players would “see” the illusion as real, but I’m going to assume that Lumen let you know, which could be as simple as him saying “It’s an illusion...” after he cast it.
Also, the creatures, which you’re pretty sure are gnolls, are 150 feet away, so out of range of Kess’s spell, unless she also moved 30’. (I’ll assume she did this.)
For Krackle and Chrys, this will require significant movement in order to reach them; essentially two full rounds of double movement (Dash action.)
I’ll let you guys edit your posts to reflect this fact, otherwise, I’ll assume that you spend the next two rounds charging forward towards them.
Also edited post to reflect movement. And yea, I went back and forth on this with my DM spouse, he pretty much said by the wording of silent illusion, the attack passing through the illusion means the illusion is revealed to the attacker, no saving throw needed. Any other interaction would be an investigation check, but since an attack roll is not an investigation check, it's like an auto-succeed without the DC coming into play if they were to "hit". Feel free to disagree, because we did, haha. ( "They were firing an investigative arrow!" "It's an attack roll, if it missed, it's like they failed the DC!" LOL ) If you want to be super pedantic, maybe the DC to hit the illusion is a 15? ;-)
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
You wall watch as Krackle balls his fists up and transforms from a little scaled kobold into a massive, furry brown bear, which very well could give Lumen a brief moment of pause. However, instead of turning on his friends, the bear lunges forward and begins bounding through the field towards the four grassy gnolls, running right past the illusory demon that stands between you and your enemy.
Following closely behind and trying to keep up with the beast, Chrys also surges forward and begins running through the wet grass as fast as her dwarves legs carry her, armor and shield clinging and clanking with each hurried step, her legs, waist and chest soaking up an increasing amount of water with each step.
Both Vesper and Kess take a different approach. They also launch forward through the grass, but instead of trying to cover the entire distance, they merely try to get in range and stop after a mere 30 feet and cast their spells, their voices barely heard over the cracking thunder and the torrential downpour of rain that's falling from the sky.
Vesper sends a trio of arcane energy bolts towards the gnoll on the right, and watches as all three slam into the creature with a blinding white flash. (Vesper, roll a d20, please.) Unfortunately, Kess's fire bolt sails wide and misses hitting its target, probably because the notion of trying to cast the bolt from another location is beyond her skill.
As two of their ranks fire arrows at the illusory demon, the other two, begin firing on the two of the approaching party members. The first arrow is targeted at the charging Krackle Bear, Attack: 5 Damage: 9 and the other at Vesper once again, since he was just the victim of her magic. Attack: 9 Damage: 7
It is now Lumen's turn again.
---------------
(Regarding the illusion, I would argue that just having the attack pass through the illusion may not be enough to cause the viewer to automatically believe that it's not real. A creature such as a gnoll that has moderate, but not high intelligence, may not have ever seen a demon, and could rationalize it that perhaps demonic creatures are immune to arrow attacks, or simply absorb them without incurring damage. It could very well be that once they miss, they start to think that something is wrong and may need to take additional time to figure out that it's only an illusion. Of course, that scenario would totally play to your advantage, but it may be the case in every situation. Either way, given that the spell description is vaguely worded, I think it's probably designed to give the DM a lot of leeway.)
So Lumen darted forward last turn, to 120 feet, and he darts forward again, to 90 feet. He's not really in range of much useful, so he uses his action to cause the demonic image to surge forward in a furious sprint, fist slamming into the wet ground, straight at the gnolls. As he does so, he pulls out a beat up old horn and lets fly a deeply weird, low-pitched, very off-key, dissonant blast. It's his best approximation of what a demon's roar sounds like. Honestly, it sounds quite a bit like some of the lute solos from the music he wowed Yartar with.
Assuming this takes a deception roll to make the gnolls think the sound is coming from the barlgura. Lumen's basically level with the image at this point so the positioning should work out not terribly.
Deception: 11
He also inspires Kess with a "you'll get the next one" hand wave gesture.
AS you get a little closer, you get a better look at the four creatures; they’re definitely gnolls, with hyena like features, dark brown fur and patched together pieces of hide and leather covering much of their torsos.
All four creatures let out terrible yips and howls when the demonic figure surges forward in its aggressive display. It’s really a terrifying sight...
The two gnolls on the right, who had fired at party members right now, suddenly take more alarm at the barlgura. They didn’t see their two comrades hit nothing but air, and so they both take aim and shoot at the illusion, and are visibly surprised when their arrows sail right through the creature as if it were nothing but air.
At this point, all four gnolls have fired on the demon, and judging by their reaction, you begin to suspect that they might be starting to figure it out. The two gnolls that just fired both look towards you and start to move back. The two on the left are now an additional 30 feet back now, a total of 180 feet from the road where you started your movement.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Vesper moves another 30 feet so that she can toss a Fire Bolt at the gnoll she hit with her Magic Missiles.
Attack: 7 Damage: 9
Not wanting the group to get too far from the road while the storm rages on, she will speak up. "If they keep backing up, let them! We don't gain anything by getting lost chasing some gnolls!"
(I don't know what the visibility is currently. I know that we all have darkvision, but there's a storm going. However, if the DM rules that we can make it back to the road no sweat, completely ignore this.)
Initiative Order
Before you have time to react, two more arrows fly towards you as the creatures set up their position in the grass and try and take full advantage of their ambush. Just as they fire, another boom of thunder rolls overhead, echoing across the landscape and shaking your bodies to the core as the thick, grey clouds circle overhead in an eerie display of nature’s awesome power.
The first arrow streaks towards Vesper, Attack: 13 Damage: 8the other at Chrys. Attack: 7 Damage: 4
It is now Lumen’s turn.
Vesper throws up a shield and deflects the arrow and boosts her AC to 17 for the rest of the round.
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
Lumen drops the cloak in the mud, letting Krackle go free. He darts forward a bit, and screams in orcish a battlecry that sounds like a dread summoning chant. He casts silent image at a point hopefully right in front of the archers, obscuring the party from their view entirely. It can be as large as a 15-foot cube, so I'm assuming that can get all of them. They're 150 feet away, spaced 10 feet apart, and the image can be at most 60 feet away, so from my internal mental schematic, the image would cover us visually perhaps 40 feet in front of us in their direction.
The image is of a summoned demon that flashes into existence: a tall, wide, imposing, massive barlgura. Its fists are several feet wide, planted firmly in the wet ground. Its hulking frame blocks out the faint light on the distant horizon in the direction of the party. Its piercing eyes burn with hatred at each of the archers. It's daring them to attack him, promising swift destruction.
(It's also, ideally, providing cover for the party, potentially a reason for the archers to flee, and at minimum, a huge terrifying distraction.)
As Lumen invokes his illusion, the massive, menacing and terrifying image of a hulking demonic fiend with bright red fur and enormous fists appears 60 feet away, between you and the four creatures. The position of the image does in fact partially obscure the party from the four creatures, and it effectively blocks the line of sight between you and the middle two archers. The two on either end can still see the front person (We'll say Kess) and the rear person (Chrys).
It's a terrifying impression indeed, and the next two creatures react as you would expect they would. You hear an excited series of dog-like yips and barks come from the archers, and two of them fire their arrows right at the demon. You watch as both arrows obviously fly right through the illusion, which of course, brings more yips and high-pitched yells from the attackers.
(Krackle, Vesper, Kess and Chris, you're all up. Also, as I understand it, the rest of you would see the illusion as well, but I'm assuming that Lumen would let you know that it's actually a spell, and so it would then become a faint image that you can see through, and it would not hinder your own line of sight. Am I correct on this?)
Krackle would stumble to his feet and hold his hand up towards his face trying to see through the rain as the arrows zip past. "I can help... umm... you said I turned into a bear right... bear.. think bear things... Honey... fur... teeth" The kobold would say aloud as he clenches his tiny fists and squeezes his eyes shut. Suddenly the tiny kobold begins to transform as his hair bursts from between his scales and he morphs into a brown bear with a pair of tiny horns. The bear would let out a loud roar before charging towards one of the furry archers attempting to rend it with his teeth and claws!
Bite Attack: 21 Damage: 6
Claws Attack: 22 Damage: 9
The bear staggers and slips in the mud and lets out a weird bear cough... and a sneeze... I guess....
(So technically, to figure out it's an illusion you need to use your action to attack (interact) with it, or make a successful investigation check. I'm not sure about party members automatically knowing this, so I guess they'd be susceptible to it as well, but I'd like to imagine we as a party kind of figured Lumen was doing something when he screamed, and when the big demon thing that appeared was attacking the enemies, rather than us. If you want to split hairs, the ?gnolls? that shot arrows through it can now see through it though, since they used their action to determine it was an illusion, and they have indeed determined it is an illusion because the arrows passed through it. Remaining gnolls that stand still and use their action to make an investigation check have to succeed the DC to see through it. This is all from a pedantic reading of the spell. I think it would be awful to punish a player for a creative use of a spell by saying "well, now the gnolls know you're there, but your party can't see them" so I would advocate for "we figure this is Lumen doing shenanigans" and go from there. But, let me know if you want us to make rolls or react as if we think the illusion is real.)
Vesper shoots three magic missiles at the archer on the right end, who can see around the illusion.
7
Vesper would've moved 30 feet up in order to get within range.
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
(The turn if Chrys knows this is Lumen's illusion)
Chrys takes the opportunity to use Lumen's handy distraction and charges towards the gnolls.
Action: Dash
Pretty sure Lumen's cast this spell before so the party would definitely have realized what the heck was going on! If not, he'd have given his allies a heads' up.
And about the archers realizing, I can't tell from the wording of the spell if it takes the extra action to see through it, or if attacking with a melee weapon that makes no contact counts. I'd guess that if you tried to hit the illusion with a sword and found no resistance, that'd be a free action to see through the illusion. Arrows on a dark and rainy day would be different in my mind -- the arrows could have just gone inside the monstrosity with no visible entrance wound or fletching to see for sure. Obviously up to the DM for a final ruling!
Looking to take advantage of the distraction with her bow still in one hand, and perhaps play upon the fear of their bestial attackers, Kess would quietly mutter the incantation for a Fire Bolt and position it so that it would seem to pass from the fiend's gaping, toothy maw.
Kess looks to roast some fur (to hit): 9
Damage if it connects: 9
She would then take advantage of the distraction to slink into some nearby tall grass and lower herself enough to use it as cover, hoping to break the line of sight from her attackers and take full advantage of her keen elven senses, adrenaline pumping and staving off the pain she'd be in from her previous wound.
Normally, the players would “see” the illusion as real, but I’m going to assume that Lumen let you know, which could be as simple as him saying “It’s an illusion...” after he cast it.
Also, the creatures, which you’re pretty sure are gnolls, are 150 feet away, so out of range of Kess’s spell, unless she also moved 30’. (I’ll assume she did this.)
For Krackle and Chrys, this will require significant movement in order to reach them; essentially two full rounds of double movement (Dash action.)
I’ll let you guys edit your posts to reflect this fact, otherwise, I’ll assume that you spend the next two rounds charging forward towards them.
Edited post to reflect movement.
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
Also edited post to reflect movement. And yea, I went back and forth on this with my DM spouse, he pretty much said by the wording of silent illusion, the attack passing through the illusion means the illusion is revealed to the attacker, no saving throw needed. Any other interaction would be an investigation check, but since an attack roll is not an investigation check, it's like an auto-succeed without the DC coming into play if they were to "hit". Feel free to disagree, because we did, haha. ( "They were firing an investigative arrow!" "It's an attack roll, if it missed, it's like they failed the DC!" LOL ) If you want to be super pedantic, maybe the DC to hit the illusion is a 15? ;-)
You wall watch as Krackle balls his fists up and transforms from a little scaled kobold into a massive, furry brown bear, which very well could give Lumen a brief moment of pause. However, instead of turning on his friends, the bear lunges forward and begins bounding through the field towards the four grassy gnolls, running right past the illusory demon that stands between you and your enemy.
Following closely behind and trying to keep up with the beast, Chrys also surges forward and begins running through the wet grass as fast as her dwarves legs carry her, armor and shield clinging and clanking with each hurried step, her legs, waist and chest soaking up an increasing amount of water with each step.
Both Vesper and Kess take a different approach. They also launch forward through the grass, but instead of trying to cover the entire distance, they merely try to get in range and stop after a mere 30 feet and cast their spells, their voices barely heard over the cracking thunder and the torrential downpour of rain that's falling from the sky.
Vesper sends a trio of arcane energy bolts towards the gnoll on the right, and watches as all three slam into the creature with a blinding white flash. (Vesper, roll a d20, please.) Unfortunately, Kess's fire bolt sails wide and misses hitting its target, probably because the notion of trying to cast the bolt from another location is beyond her skill.
As two of their ranks fire arrows at the illusory demon, the other two, begin firing on the two of the approaching party members. The first arrow is targeted at the charging Krackle Bear, Attack: 5 Damage: 9 and the other at Vesper once again, since he was just the victim of her magic. Attack: 9 Damage: 7
It is now Lumen's turn again.
---------------
(Regarding the illusion, I would argue that just having the attack pass through the illusion may not be enough to cause the viewer to automatically believe that it's not real. A creature such as a gnoll that has moderate, but not high intelligence, may not have ever seen a demon, and could rationalize it that perhaps demonic creatures are immune to arrow attacks, or simply absorb them without incurring damage. It could very well be that once they miss, they start to think that something is wrong and may need to take additional time to figure out that it's only an illusion. Of course, that scenario would totally play to your advantage, but it may be the case in every situation. Either way, given that the spell description is vaguely worded, I think it's probably designed to give the DM a lot of leeway.)
10
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
So Lumen darted forward last turn, to 120 feet, and he darts forward again, to 90 feet. He's not really in range of much useful, so he uses his action to cause the demonic image to surge forward in a furious sprint, fist slamming into the wet ground, straight at the gnolls. As he does so, he pulls out a beat up old horn and lets fly a deeply weird, low-pitched, very off-key, dissonant blast. It's his best approximation of what a demon's roar sounds like. Honestly, it sounds quite a bit like some of the lute solos from the music he wowed Yartar with.
Assuming this takes a deception roll to make the gnolls think the sound is coming from the barlgura. Lumen's basically level with the image at this point so the positioning should work out not terribly.
Deception: 11
He also inspires Kess with a "you'll get the next one" hand wave gesture.
AS you get a little closer, you get a better look at the four creatures; they’re definitely gnolls, with hyena like features, dark brown fur and patched together pieces of hide and leather covering much of their torsos.
All four creatures let out terrible yips and howls when the demonic figure surges forward in its aggressive display. It’s really a terrifying sight...
The two gnolls on the right, who had fired at party members right now, suddenly take more alarm at the barlgura. They didn’t see their two comrades hit nothing but air, and so they both take aim and shoot at the illusion, and are visibly surprised when their arrows sail right through the creature as if it were nothing but air.
At this point, all four gnolls have fired on the demon, and judging by their reaction, you begin to suspect that they might be starting to figure it out. The two gnolls that just fired both look towards you and start to move back. The two on the left are now an additional 30 feet back now, a total of 180 feet from the road where you started your movement.
Ok, everyone else’s turn.
Vesper moves another 30 feet so that she can toss a Fire Bolt at the gnoll she hit with her Magic Missiles.
Attack: 7 Damage: 9
Not wanting the group to get too far from the road while the storm rages on, she will speak up. "If they keep backing up, let them! We don't gain anything by getting lost chasing some gnolls!"
(I don't know what the visibility is currently. I know that we all have darkvision, but there's a storm going. However, if the DM rules that we can make it back to the road no sweat, completely ignore this.)
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
"Agreed! Let's just make sure they understand that following us is a fool's notion...!"
Kess would spring up from her spot in the grass, taking aim at the nearest gnoll and looking to fire an arrow right between his eyes.
Kess does her best Robin Hood impersonation: 19
A critical hit!
The damage from Kess' grievous blow on the gnoll: 12 + 3 = 13!