I want to play a mute trickster wizard who uses text or minor illusions to communicate and finds minor pranks hilarious. Problem is being muted prevents many spells so I was thinking on the flavor part of the matter and wanted to see what DM's here would feel about this character concept and what they would change to make it more acceptable.
Okay so I am figuring the voice thing is a curse that the character gained at a very young age where the curse stops others from hearing you speak so you technically are speaking but others can't hear it (magical explanation) if you want to get scientific about it lets just say your voice is at a pitch due to the curse that nobody can hear so the words come out but reach nobodies ears.
Also the backstory I want to work with will be that after losing his/her voice he/she struggled a lot and lacked many friends going into isolation and becoming more mischievous. Eventually They got onto a traveling circus as a ground worker cleaning and stuff. But eventually me the head illusionist who took pity and saw potential in him/her so the illusionist decided to teach illusion magic to him/her. After many years of learning and studying illusions with someone who was like a father figure to him/her for many years he/she became a main act until bandits came in the dead of the night pillaging the circus and killing for entertainment. He/she only managed to survive due the the illusions taught by his/her teacher, casting minor illusions to distract their eyes from his/her movements, prestidigitation to make them investigate a location based on sounds and smells, and mage hands to knock things off around to make them go investigate.
After years past living the the city proved to be a gold mine allowing Him/her to survive well enough, he/she occasionally works as a street performer using his/her illusions to create shows for ever ones eyes. The King personally tries to sneak into town because he finds these shows a nice change of pace from the usual crime so he doesn't stop the commotion and lets him/her do their shows for money.
What do you think and would you accept a character like this who lives by the moment and seeks adventure and entertainment?
As a DM I'd allow it with two caveats. First being that any spell which needs the creature to be able to hear you would fail, period. So, Suggestion, Command, and similar spells would not work. However, a spell such as Message or Sending would work. The second caveat is that you cannot use it as a form of Silent Spell such as the Sorcerer's meta magic.
Thanks! I would totally be okay with that since the whole thing is a trickster not a person who controls people lol. I even got mold earth and minor illusion together so I could possibly prepare a pitfall that looks like normal ground. Also grabbed things like disguise self, sleep, hideous laughter, ect. Would be great to just make a bunch of goblins laugh to death and to assist the rogue in his sneaks by putting their target asleep, ect.
Planning on a kinda abnormal appearance since they grew up in the circus and uses illusions.
Planning on doing this as my first chaotic Neutral since my necromancer was a lawful good exiled doctor who wanted to save lives as much as possible and my Blood hunter was chaotic good/evil fighting his cursed blood line striving to overcome his evil nature.
I'd also suggest stealing a page from some of my older game: Create Stones of Sending. They're just pieces of jewelry that have the Sending spell permanently enchanted on them allowing for you to communicate with others. You could go even more limited, and kind of stick to the self-reliant side of the personality and make it so it's more like a Stone of Awakened Mind (Great Old One Warlock). You can talk to others telepathically within range, or while they hold the stone/trinket, but they'd have to talk normally in response.
If your character can speak but cannot be heard by humans IRL, there's nothing stopping other creatures from hearing you. Dogs, cats, mice, and many beasts have a hearing range much wider than humans. Of course, going this route, it would be a bit more work for the DM to determine which monsters and beasts can hear you and which cannot. This becomes important if your character is trying to cast from hiding, etc.
Oh I am planning to use the wizard illusionist because you can cause minor illusions to do both sounds and visuals so I will make a mini me to speak when I have something to say lol
First i love the concept. It looks fun withou all the baggage of a kenku.
The only part that would concern me are spells like command that as RAW not possible (and yes that is a bad example because it isnt on you list. Granted if you choose the list and for RP/self limited reasons not a problem. I would vet any potential cases with the DM to be clear on parameter you can do things and avoid fustrating both of you.
Problem is I don't get to speak to the DM until the first session... soooo hints why I am getting other opinions so I can get the discussion with him to go smoother lol I usually make several characters in case one dies which i hate when it happens it allows me to jump back in with some friends after a bit easily.
But yeah did it for rp reasons, glad people seem to really enjoy my character concepts!!! I used to write short stories as a hobby lol.
Problem is I don't get to speak to the DM until the first session... soooo hints why I am getting other opinions so I can get the discussion with him to go smoother lol I usually make several characters in case one dies which i hate when it happens it allows me to jump back in with some friends after a bit easily.
But yeah did it for rp reasons, glad people seem to really enjoy my character concepts!!! I used to write short stories as a hobby lol.
For that case, make a list of spells you want and review if any are red flags. This list should be more than you can prepare or store in your spell book. Review the questionable ones right before you start. If they sound problematic, swap them out.
Maybe come up with some other sound you make while casting like clapping or snapping or stomping your feet or armpit farts or whatever. Just so you aren't effectively casting a silent spell every time you cast. Or maybe make your somatic gestures really, really exaggerated. Or both. Just something that would make it obvious to an onlooker that you are casting a spell. Casting a spell secretly is a pretty powerful feature to get for free for every spell.
Thanks didn't think of that side of things being a problem, I would probably got for a snap because even though he is not very serious and pranks a lot he isn't a joke himself lol I want to balance humor and seriousness together with this one. will definitely talk to the dm about that one.
Oh I am planning to use the wizard illusionist because you can cause minor illusions to do both sounds and visuals so I will make a mini me to speak when I have something to say lol
Keep in mind that Minor Illusion either creates a sound or an image, not both at the same time.
Actually if you go wizard illusionist you get a trait that allows you to do sound and visual at the same time like dropping coins into your hand making them look gold and make sound then dropping it on the counter taking the item. Then after you are out it poofs out and your disguise self is gone so they are looking for the wrong person.
Actually if you go wizard illusionist you get a trait that allows you to do sound and visual at the same time like dropping coins into your hand making them look gold and make sound then dropping it on the counter taking the item. Then after you are out it poofs out and your disguise self is gone so they are looking for the wrong person.
Right. Sorry, I remembered that wrong. What I had been thinking of was that Minor Illusion does not allow the illusion to move. Thus an illusion of a creature would be like a wax museum or statue version of the creature in appearance even as it made sounds.
As stated by others, the idea is interesting. There's some good times to be had with this character, though the balance issues might concern your DM.
One possible workaround is that the character's voice is damaged, but not entirely destroyed. He can make gutteral noises, force his way slowly and painfully through simpler words, and can fulfill the verbal components of spells, but it causes him active pain to try and carry on a normal conversation and does so at Thieves' Cant speeds at best. So he doesn't.
As said, any spell that requires you to speak and be understood by the target fails automatically, and I'd perhaps avoid 'Word of [X]' spells as well, but allowing as the character is making some manner of noise would be the way to start, I'd think.
Actually if you go wizard illusionist you get a trait that allows you to do sound and visual at the same time like dropping coins into your hand making them look gold and make sound then dropping it on the counter taking the item. Then after you are out it poofs out and your disguise self is gone so they are looking for the wrong person.
I was referring to this part. According to the rules as they have been explained to me by other players and DMs, the coins cannot move. Your illusion of a coin cannot move from where you first "created" it. So you could not make the image of a gold coin drop onto the ground or into somebody's hand. Also, any image of a creature would not be able to move. So Silent Image or Major Image would be needed to give the impression that there is movement to your illusion.
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I want to play a mute trickster wizard who uses text or minor illusions to communicate and finds minor pranks hilarious. Problem is being muted prevents many spells so I was thinking on the flavor part of the matter and wanted to see what DM's here would feel about this character concept and what they would change to make it more acceptable.
Okay so I am figuring the voice thing is a curse that the character gained at a very young age where the curse stops others from hearing you speak so you technically are speaking but others can't hear it (magical explanation) if you want to get scientific about it lets just say your voice is at a pitch due to the curse that nobody can hear so the words come out but reach nobodies ears.
Also the backstory I want to work with will be that after losing his/her voice he/she struggled a lot and lacked many friends going into isolation and becoming more mischievous. Eventually They got onto a traveling circus as a ground worker cleaning and stuff. But eventually me the head illusionist who took pity and saw potential in him/her so the illusionist decided to teach illusion magic to him/her. After many years of learning and studying illusions with someone who was like a father figure to him/her for many years he/she became a main act until bandits came in the dead of the night pillaging the circus and killing for entertainment. He/she only managed to survive due the the illusions taught by his/her teacher, casting minor illusions to distract their eyes from his/her movements, prestidigitation to make them investigate a location based on sounds and smells, and mage hands to knock things off around to make them go investigate.
After years past living the the city proved to be a gold mine allowing Him/her to survive well enough, he/she occasionally works as a street performer using his/her illusions to create shows for ever ones eyes. The King personally tries to sneak into town because he finds these shows a nice change of pace from the usual crime so he doesn't stop the commotion and lets him/her do their shows for money.
What do you think and would you accept a character like this who lives by the moment and seeks adventure and entertainment?
I love the concept, it's fun and unique.
As a DM I'd allow it with two caveats. First being that any spell which needs the creature to be able to hear you would fail, period. So, Suggestion, Command, and similar spells would not work. However, a spell such as Message or Sending would work. The second caveat is that you cannot use it as a form of Silent Spell such as the Sorcerer's meta magic.
Thanks! I would totally be okay with that since the whole thing is a trickster not a person who controls people lol. I even got mold earth and minor illusion together so I could possibly prepare a pitfall that looks like normal ground. Also grabbed things like disguise self, sleep, hideous laughter, ect. Would be great to just make a bunch of goblins laugh to death and to assist the rogue in his sneaks by putting their target asleep, ect.
Planning on a kinda abnormal appearance since they grew up in the circus and uses illusions.
Planning on doing this as my first chaotic Neutral since my necromancer was a lawful good exiled doctor who wanted to save lives as much as possible and my Blood hunter was chaotic good/evil fighting his cursed blood line striving to overcome his evil nature.
I'd also suggest stealing a page from some of my older game: Create Stones of Sending. They're just pieces of jewelry that have the Sending spell permanently enchanted on them allowing for you to communicate with others. You could go even more limited, and kind of stick to the self-reliant side of the personality and make it so it's more like a Stone of Awakened Mind (Great Old One Warlock). You can talk to others telepathically within range, or while they hold the stone/trinket, but they'd have to talk normally in response.
If your character can speak but cannot be heard by humans IRL, there's nothing stopping other creatures from hearing you. Dogs, cats, mice, and many beasts have a hearing range much wider than humans. Of course, going this route, it would be a bit more work for the DM to determine which monsters and beasts can hear you and which cannot. This becomes important if your character is trying to cast from hiding, etc.
That I would leave up to the DM's discretion if he needs them to hear me or not lol
Oh I am planning to use the wizard illusionist because you can cause minor illusions to do both sounds and visuals so I will make a mini me to speak when I have something to say lol
First i love the concept. It looks fun withou all the baggage of a kenku.
The only part that would concern me are spells like command that as RAW not possible (and yes that is a bad example because it isnt on you list. Granted if you choose the list and for RP/self limited reasons not a problem. I would vet any potential cases with the DM to be clear on parameter you can do things and avoid fustrating both of you.
But i would welcome that character at my table.
Problem is I don't get to speak to the DM until the first session... soooo hints why I am getting other opinions so I can get the discussion with him to go smoother lol I usually make several characters in case one dies which i hate when it happens it allows me to jump back in with some friends after a bit easily.
But yeah did it for rp reasons, glad people seem to really enjoy my character concepts!!! I used to write short stories as a hobby lol.
For that case, make a list of spells you want and review if any are red flags. This list should be more than you can prepare or store in your spell book. Review the questionable ones right before you start. If they sound problematic, swap them out.
Otherwise, go for it, have a spare, and have fun.
Maybe come up with some other sound you make while casting like clapping or snapping or stomping your feet or armpit farts or whatever. Just so you aren't effectively casting a silent spell every time you cast. Or maybe make your somatic gestures really, really exaggerated. Or both. Just something that would make it obvious to an onlooker that you are casting a spell. Casting a spell secretly is a pretty powerful feature to get for free for every spell.
Thanks didn't think of that side of things being a problem, I would probably got for a snap because even though he is not very serious and pranks a lot he isn't a joke himself lol I want to balance humor and seriousness together with this one. will definitely talk to the dm about that one.
Will do thanks for the advice!
Keep in mind that Minor Illusion either creates a sound or an image, not both at the same time.
Actually if you go wizard illusionist you get a trait that allows you to do sound and visual at the same time like dropping coins into your hand making them look gold and make sound then dropping it on the counter taking the item. Then after you are out it poofs out and your disguise self is gone so they are looking for the wrong person.
Right. Sorry, I remembered that wrong. What I had been thinking of was that Minor Illusion does not allow the illusion to move. Thus an illusion of a creature would be like a wax museum or statue version of the creature in appearance even as it made sounds.
But from the back with sound could work for making someone waste time walking into a trap for a "sneak attack"
As stated by others, the idea is interesting. There's some good times to be had with this character, though the balance issues might concern your DM.
One possible workaround is that the character's voice is damaged, but not entirely destroyed. He can make gutteral noises, force his way slowly and painfully through simpler words, and can fulfill the verbal components of spells, but it causes him active pain to try and carry on a normal conversation and does so at Thieves' Cant speeds at best. So he doesn't.
As said, any spell that requires you to speak and be understood by the target fails automatically, and I'd perhaps avoid 'Word of [X]' spells as well, but allowing as the character is making some manner of noise would be the way to start, I'd think.
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These are great thanks!
I was referring to this part. According to the rules as they have been explained to me by other players and DMs, the coins cannot move. Your illusion of a coin cannot move from where you first "created" it. So you could not make the image of a gold coin drop onto the ground or into somebody's hand. Also, any image of a creature would not be able to move. So Silent Image or Major Image would be needed to give the impression that there is movement to your illusion.