I've seen a lot of annoyance and frustration at illusion spells in 5e, which I think is earned in some ways. After all, it's difficult for most Dm's to rule how illusions work, especially in the effects. How does this monster behave when faced with it's "deepest fears"? What are those exactly? How do you rule the way an illusion looks, plus the fact that anything can be fooled by it within reason? It's more understandable when an illusion fools a camp of goblins and scares them off, but less so with a BBEG or something intelligent or more powerful (which is less likely to fail the save, I know, but it's still possible). I know there are more applications than just scaring or threatening something, such as trying to deceiving someone with a false duplicate of something (alerting guards and distracting them with an illusory thief or explosion or something to that affect), but it seems like it's largely up to the Dm's ruling how powerful an illusion spell is. In addition, illusionists don't get many powerful damage spells, so their real power is in trickery and deception. What's a way to circumvent some of these problems, and make illusion more fun and accessible?
I've seen a lot of annoyance and frustration at illusion spells in 5e, which I think is earned in some ways. After all, it's difficult for most Dm's to rule how illusions work, especially in the effects. How does this monster behave when faced with it's "deepest fears"? What are those exactly? How do you rule the way an illusion looks, plus the fact that anything can be fooled by it within reason? It's more understandable when an illusion fools a camp of goblins and scares them off, but less so with a BBEG or something intelligent or more powerful (which is less likely to fail the save, I know, but it's still possible). I know there are more applications than just scaring or threatening something, such as trying to deceiving someone with a false duplicate of something (alerting guards and distracting them with an illusory thief or explosion or something to that affect), but it seems like it's largely up to the Dm's ruling how powerful an illusion spell is. In addition, illusionists don't get many powerful damage spells, so their real power is in trickery and deception. What's a way to circumvent some of these problems, and make illusion more fun and accessible?
Updog