Had a session where we had an undead army thundering down a road ehile my character was hiding in a tree (we were scouting for the kings army) I scrambled down without falling....thank god. I ended up making it seem like we had cut trees down in the road to make them stop...the undead were confused but this bought us time to spring a trap and fell some.trees on.them and book it back to the army.
Illusions can be very useful
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.” ― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice
Honestly, the efficacy of illusions depends on the DM. I played with a DM who completely ignored an illusionist whom I thought was doing a great job with his illusions. He cast a Silent Image of a pit around an area where we were behind palisades and the DM just said the enemies just marched on past and they automatically figured out that the pit wasn't real because they didn't fall in. I tried arguing that if they saw a pit, they wouldn't just walk in, but the DM wasn't having it. Maybe I'm just jaded because I've had more than one DM basically ignore every illusion cast, but that's just been my personal experience with it.
Also, in the same session that I used the illusion spell to create a tree blocking the path the enemies were taking, I used the Silence spell. We had a platoon of heavy infantry travelling with me, the paladin, and the fighter while the rogue and ranger took their elven archers through the trees ahead of us. In order to move these loud clanking soldiers through the forest I used the silence spell so we could get the drop on the Necromancer's stronghold. We ended up getting sighted and I had to use thunderwave to blow the gate open under archer fire.
Bards for the win btw.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.” ― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice
After reading Alfrebaut's comment, I guess I have been very lucky. Half the time I use illusions my DM just roleplay the opponents as they believing them out right, and half the time he has make them rolling a ST.
I normally play illusions with scary living things (I also like to describe the effects of Phantasmal Killer to the smallest detail) and my favorite illusionist wizard was keen to keep some tooth or nail of the creatures he helped slain, using them as material components when creating illusions. My DM make me track them precisely, and rewarded the idea making my spells harder to resist when casting them in such a way.
Making one square obstacles and hazards with minor illusion is great.
I saved the party ranger once. He was being dragged into a large pool of water down in this flooded dwarven mine by some manta ray creatures. I simply made sounds of people swimming on an opposite side of the water edge. The creatures swarmed the location I had chosen, giving the ranger time to swim back to safety.
I am playing a diviner and so far I have not tried bigger and better creative illusions with him, but I have Hypinotic Pattern and love it. Very strong effect.
After reading Alfrebaut's comment, I guess I have been very lucky. Half the time I use illusions my DM just roleplay the opponents as they believing them out right, and half the time he has make them rolling a ST.
I think the method you've seen is much more the norm. That pit he mentioned? It would have worked just fine in my games. In fact it's a good use of the spell. If the foes had some trap specialist or someone who commonly built pits then I might give them a check, or if it was a pit set in stonework I might give a dwarf a check, or if the foes had been there earlier and seen no pit and might think that there was too short a period of time to create a pit I might give them a check, or that sort of thing. But unless there is some reason the foes would have to doubt the pit, I wouldn't even give them a check.
Hide inside of an illusory monster, or an illusory crate.
Moving an existing pit. Foes see a pit that's just about jumpable/bridgeable; and right where that pit seems to end is where the real pit begins.
Spectral undead. Always silent, dangerous, often acting irrationally (which means the illusion's possibly strange behavior wont call as much attention), spectral undead are very good, cheap illusion.
The game didn't last long, but my Gnome Artificer liked to hide inside of an illusory rock and snipe with his Thundercannon. Few enemies are going to take the time to interact with a non-descript and difficult to reach boulder just to figure out of that's where the booms are coming from, especially when there are visible and very real threats to still deal with.
I wasn't playing a wizard, but I was an Arcane Trickster Doppelganger named Hrigl Parthomeulex the 11thborn, and he was trying to get into some sort of divine mountain fortress or something. I had him go inside a nearby corpse, and he cast minor illusion to make it seem like it was a living dwarf. I may or may not have used unseen servant to puppeteer the body.
The guardians on the wall turned Hrigl away, and so the corpse walked away a bit, and then I cast invisibility and climbed out of the corpse and dismissed the illusion, making it seem as if the dwarf just fell dead.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm that Jojo reference guy with too much imagination
Honestly, the efficacy of illusions depends on the DM. I played with a DM who completely ignored an illusionist whom I thought was doing a great job with his illusions. He cast a Silent Image of a pit around an area where we were behind palisades and the DM just said the enemies just marched on past and they automatically figured out that the pit wasn't real because they didn't fall in. I tried arguing that if they saw a pit, they wouldn't just walk in, but the DM wasn't having it. Maybe I'm just jaded because I've had more than one DM basically ignore every illusion cast, but that's just been my personal experience with it.
Depends. Did the DM roll any dice? Its possible they noticed it wasn't real....or
An army under some kind of spell that they mindlessly march forward no matter what.
Familiarity with the area. Its possible to be so familiar with an area that you might rule the creature simply knows something is up and inspects it discovering it isn't real.
Provided the above isn't true, sounds like a jerk of a dm.
The reason you get a check is because you brain can resist the illusion. It is still magical and must overcome your senses completely to fool you. More so than just sight. One might even say an illusionist themselves may have advantage on such saves because of their familiarity with the spells. Basically the higher your wisdom the more likely you are to simply not be fooled by the spells because the spells fail to penetrate your mind.
In a recent session I managed to get a couple of construct dogs to fall to their doom over a bridge they perceived as being there, when we had retracted it moments previously.
As a 14th level illusionist wizard you could cast the spell programmed illusion on your arcane focus. Set the parameters to activate when a you face an expected foe, like an attacking dragon. The programmed illusion can be up to a 30ft. cube, so you can make a wall of floating tower shields, a cascading waterfall, or a large stone wall; however, I would suggest programming a subtle object like a small rock, or wisps of black smoke emanating from your shadow. As a bonus action on your turn you can use illusory reality to make the illusion real. If you happen to go first in combat, you can ready your action to trigger when a dragon makes a breath attack, an enemy holding a weapon moves within 15ft. of you, or enemy spell caster begins to cast a spell. At this time use the malleable illusion feature to change the illusion to a 30ft. wall of iron, 30 interlocking tower shields, or a 30ft. pit. You've instantly created cover for yourself and provided a free programmed illusion that acts as a contingency spell for you. Also, it is permanent until dispelled, resets after 10 minutes, requires no concentration (so you can have more than one programmed illusion at a time). One could spend a week designing programmed illusions to appear under a myriad of circumstances.
I try to imagine Forest Gnome society, where everyone knows minor illusion and can cast it at will. They would probably start playing games with minor illusion when they were still very young (as soon as they pulled their first piece of wool out of their teddy bear). Anything that fits in a 5 ft cube and doesn’t move or emit light is still a pretty powerful set of illusions.
Minor illusion is excellent for sharing information. Maybe you can gain advantage on a Persuasion check if you spice up your delivery with some visuals.
Creating a false (illusory) wall, about 2 feet in front of any existing wall is a great way to provide concealment while still in the open.
Illusions work best to trick people if they don’t deviate too much from reality. Other illusions are simply beautiful to look at, and even though they are obviously not real, they might be very distracting and might give you or an ally advantage on some action.
Don’t bother picking up illusion spells unless you want to flex your role playing skills.
This is a great question, and I would love to see some creative answers get tested against the community’s interpretation of the RAW.
A 5’ cube could probably hide at least 4 gnomes comfortably and 4 humans if they squished together (and weren’t wearing backpacks).
I think of minor illusion as little bit like the back drop of a stage play. A 5’ cube means it can provide concealment from any angle. Outdoors, boulders and bushes make good illusions when there are other boulders or bushes around.
How about a 5’ cube of heavily obscuring haze to block someone’s view while you move to a better hiding place.
If you stand next to a wall, you could create a identical false wall in front of you.
Used creatively it can provide concealment, and advantage or disadvantage on certain actions. Very powerful for a cantrip.
I've recently started playing a smarmy little gnome wizard, and intend to develop him into a full-blown illusionist.
So far I have been having fun with minor illusion - confusing and distracting enemies in combat, as well as using it to avoid combat completely.
Do any of you have interesting or funny anecdotes RE: use of illusions? Would love to hear of some creative examples used in an actual session!
Had a session where we had an undead army thundering down a road ehile my character was hiding in a tree (we were scouting for the kings army) I scrambled down without falling....thank god. I ended up making it seem like we had cut trees down in the road to make them stop...the undead were confused but this bought us time to spring a trap and fell some.trees on.them and book it back to the army.
Illusions can be very useful
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice
Honestly, the efficacy of illusions depends on the DM. I played with a DM who completely ignored an illusionist whom I thought was doing a great job with his illusions. He cast a Silent Image of a pit around an area where we were behind palisades and the DM just said the enemies just marched on past and they automatically figured out that the pit wasn't real because they didn't fall in. I tried arguing that if they saw a pit, they wouldn't just walk in, but the DM wasn't having it. Maybe I'm just jaded because I've had more than one DM basically ignore every illusion cast, but that's just been my personal experience with it.
Also, in the same session that I used the illusion spell to create a tree blocking the path the enemies were taking, I used the Silence spell. We had a platoon of heavy infantry travelling with me, the paladin, and the fighter while the rogue and ranger took their elven archers through the trees ahead of us. In order to move these loud clanking soldiers through the forest I used the silence spell so we could get the drop on the Necromancer's stronghold. We ended up getting sighted and I had to use thunderwave to blow the gate open under archer fire.
Bards for the win btw.
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice
After reading Alfrebaut's comment, I guess I have been very lucky. Half the time I use illusions my DM just roleplay the opponents as they believing them out right, and half the time he has make them rolling a ST.
I normally play illusions with scary living things (I also like to describe the effects of Phantasmal Killer to the smallest detail) and my favorite illusionist wizard was keen to keep some tooth or nail of the creatures he helped slain, using them as material components when creating illusions. My DM make me track them precisely, and rewarded the idea making my spells harder to resist when casting them in such a way.
"Let your dice roll"
codexanathema.com
Making one square obstacles and hazards with minor illusion is great.
I saved the party ranger once. He was being dragged into a large pool of water down in this flooded dwarven mine by some manta ray creatures. I simply made sounds of people swimming on an opposite side of the water edge. The creatures swarmed the location I had chosen, giving the ranger time to swim back to safety.
I am playing a diviner and so far I have not tried bigger and better creative illusions with him, but I have Hypinotic Pattern and love it. Very strong effect.
Hide inside of an illusory monster, or an illusory crate.
Moving an existing pit. Foes see a pit that's just about jumpable/bridgeable; and right where that pit seems to end is where the real pit begins.
Spectral undead. Always silent, dangerous, often acting irrationally (which means the illusion's possibly strange behavior wont call as much attention), spectral undead are very good, cheap illusion.
Illusion of green slime.
I once used minor illusion to convince a corrupt politician that he'd gain the powers of a Balor by drinking the "potion" I handed him.
The actual contents of the bottle was Alchemist's Fire.
Want to sneak to the other end of the room? Surround the monsters with a wall
The game didn't last long, but my Gnome Artificer liked to hide inside of an illusory rock and snipe with his Thundercannon. Few enemies are going to take the time to interact with a non-descript and difficult to reach boulder just to figure out of that's where the booms are coming from, especially when there are visible and very real threats to still deal with.
I wasn't playing a wizard, but I was an Arcane Trickster Doppelganger named Hrigl Parthomeulex the 11thborn, and he was trying to get into some sort of divine mountain fortress or something. I had him go inside a nearby corpse, and he cast minor illusion to make it seem like it was a living dwarf. I may or may not have used unseen servant to puppeteer the body.
The guardians on the wall turned Hrigl away, and so the corpse walked away a bit, and then I cast invisibility and climbed out of the corpse and dismissed the illusion, making it seem as if the dwarf just fell dead.
I'm that Jojo reference guy with too much imagination
The reason you get a check is because you brain can resist the illusion. It is still magical and must overcome your senses completely to fool you. More so than just sight. One might even say an illusionist themselves may have advantage on such saves because of their familiarity with the spells. Basically the higher your wisdom the more likely you are to simply not be fooled by the spells because the spells fail to penetrate your mind.
I've really enjoyed reading these! Thanks guys.
In a recent session I managed to get a couple of construct dogs to fall to their doom over a bridge they perceived as being there, when we had retracted it moments previously.
Illusions are really fun :D
As a 14th level illusionist wizard you could cast the spell programmed illusion on your arcane focus. Set the parameters to activate when a you face an expected foe, like an attacking dragon. The programmed illusion can be up to a 30ft. cube, so you can make a wall of floating tower shields, a cascading waterfall, or a large stone wall; however, I would suggest programming a subtle object like a small rock, or wisps of black smoke emanating from your shadow. As a bonus action on your turn you can use illusory reality to make the illusion real. If you happen to go first in combat, you can ready your action to trigger when a dragon makes a breath attack, an enemy holding a weapon moves within 15ft. of you, or enemy spell caster begins to cast a spell. At this time use the malleable illusion feature to change the illusion to a 30ft. wall of iron, 30 interlocking tower shields, or a 30ft. pit. You've instantly created cover for yourself and provided a free programmed illusion that acts as a contingency spell for you. Also, it is permanent until dispelled, resets after 10 minutes, requires no concentration (so you can have more than one programmed illusion at a time). One could spend a week designing programmed illusions to appear under a myriad of circumstances.
Pseudo-invisibilty, put an illusion around the party to hide.
I try to imagine Forest Gnome society, where everyone knows minor illusion and can cast it at will. They would probably start playing games with minor illusion when they were still very young (as soon as they pulled their first piece of wool out of their teddy bear). Anything that fits in a 5 ft cube and doesn’t move or emit light is still a pretty powerful set of illusions.
Minor illusion is excellent for sharing information. Maybe you can gain advantage on a Persuasion check if you spice up your delivery with some visuals.
Creating a false (illusory) wall, about 2 feet in front of any existing wall is a great way to provide concealment while still in the open.
Illusions work best to trick people if they don’t deviate too much from reality. Other illusions are simply beautiful to look at, and even though they are obviously not real, they might be very distracting and might give you or an ally advantage on some action.
Don’t bother picking up illusion spells unless you want to flex your role playing skills.
“Surviving Port Nyanzaru” - Dungeon Master Tier 1
Since minor illusion is limited to a 5' cube, how many party members could you hide with it and what kind of illusion would you use to do that?
This is a great question, and I would love to see some creative answers get tested against the community’s interpretation of the RAW.
A 5’ cube could probably hide at least 4 gnomes comfortably and 4 humans if they squished together (and weren’t wearing backpacks).
I think of minor illusion as little bit like the back drop of a stage play. A 5’ cube means it can provide concealment from any angle. Outdoors, boulders and bushes make good illusions when there are other boulders or bushes around.
How about a 5’ cube of heavily obscuring haze to block someone’s view while you move to a better hiding place.
If you stand next to a wall, you could create a identical false wall in front of you.
Used creatively it can provide concealment, and advantage or disadvantage on certain actions. Very powerful for a cantrip.
“Surviving Port Nyanzaru” - Dungeon Master Tier 1