D&D General Reification versus ludification in 5E/6E

[Hussar]

It isn't.

What's controversial, to me anyway, is the degree of restriction you'd probably want to put on illusion magic thus likely ensuring "not many illusionists get played" would very soon become "no illusionists get played" because all the fun would have been stripped away from them.

As a player, I've run two very-long-term Illusionists (or nearest 3e equivalent in one case) plus a couple of one-hit wonders, so it's not like I personally never play the class.

Whereas I would prefer illusions had a list of effects. Something like the new version of Command. You cast a third level illusion. Choose from the following list of effects and describe your illusion. Possible effects: fear, obscurement, psychic damage. I dunno. Something like that.

Making spells clear and easy to use means that the spells get used. Vague spells with undefined effects get to warm the pines.

 

[Lanefan]

Whereas I would prefer illusions had a list of effects. Something like the new version of Command. You cast a third level illusion. Choose from the following list of effects and describe your illusion. Possible effects: fear, obscurement, psychic damage. I dunno. Something like that.

Once the possible effects list grows to include deception (which is the point of nearly all illusions in one way or another), confusion, and-or concealment (different from obscurement, see below) - all of which IMO would be staple illusion effects - then the sky's the limit as to what an illusionist can do.

Obscurement vs concealment: obscurement to me is something like darkness or fog cloud or similar that actively blocks view of something. Concealment is more like casting an illusion of a wall moving out from its original location slowly enough that observers don't notice, to eventually allow one's companions to sneak past between the illusionary wall and the real one, and then very slowly "moving" it back into place before dropping the spell (I've done this trick a few times in play, forgetting each time about the obvious drawback that while it gets my comrades past the observers, I-the-caster am still stuck where I started).

Illusionists can do both types of effects, hence the distinction.

Making spells clear and easy to use means that the spells get used. Vague spells with undefined effects get to warm the pines.

As a player, when running an Illusionist I find the opposite is true: the clear and simple spells don't get used as often because the vague ones are far more fun.

 

[Hussar]

As a player, when running an Illusionist I find the opposite is true: the clear and simple spells don't get used as often because the vague ones are far more fun.

But, I would point out that that isn't supported by things like what we see in Critical Role. And, personally, I've seen FAR more Invisibility spells than probably all other illusions combined. Add in things like Blur and Hypnotic Pattern, and, again, totally IME, that would account for probably about 75% of all the illusions I've seen cast.

IME, players get taught very early on that vague spells, while I agree are tons more creative, are too hard to use at the table. DM's almost always rule on the side of caution. Players are far more likely to cast a Fear spell which is simple, and you know exactly how it works, to make the baddie run away rather than something like Major Image (also 3rd level) to create a big scary monster to make the baddies run away.

So, despite both spells being exactly the same level and same school, one spell is actually effective, while the other depends so much on the mood of the DM.

 

[James Gasik]

Summon a monster out of thin air: "Augh! A monster! Slay it!"

Create an illusion of a monster: "Hmm, something seems off about that monster. How could it appear out of thin air like that? I find myself inexplicably inspired to poke/prod/investigate/disbelieve the existence of such a thing!"

Create a wall of stone to block an area: "Egads, it's a magically conjured wall blocking my path!"

Create an illusion of a wall to block an area: "Wait, I know this area very well, that wall isn't supposed to be here! And look! This style of brick doesn't even match with other brickwork in this area!"

If you've never seen this sort of double standard in action- congratulations! You might have a successful career as an illusionist!

If you have, however, you might as well ignore most of the Illusion school and pretend it doesn't exist.

 

[Hussar]

^ Pretty much this. And, to be honest, I'm probably guilty here too. Maybe not recently, but, yeah, I've probably done something like that too. In any case though, I have enough experience with players coming to my table who wouldn't touch illusion magic with a ten foot pole most of the time.

It was actually quite refreshing in a recent session with a fairly D&D newbie to see him use Minor Illusion to defuse a potential combat. We were trying to find a missing little girl who had been missing for years. Turned out she was taken in by some goblins who were actually treating her fairly well. ((Think Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) We wanted to communicate that we had come from her mother, so, the party Sorcerer tried using Minor Illusion to mimic her voice. But, the DM immediately ruled that it couldn't reproduce intelligible speach. ((And, right there, we see the DM automatically defaulting to limiting the spell)) So, the player simply reproduced an image of the mother instead. Thus the encounter was resolved without violence.

But, again, right there, you have the DM deliberately interpreting the spell in as limiting fashion as possible. You can make it sound like someone's voice, but, you couldn't actually make it talk.

It's pretty much par for the course IME.

 

[Lanefan]

^ Pretty much this. And, to be honest, I'm probably guilty here too. Maybe not recently, but, yeah, I've probably done something like that too. In any case though, I have enough experience with players coming to my table who wouldn't touch illusion magic with a ten foot pole most of the time.

It was actually quite refreshing in a recent session with a fairly D&D newbie to see him use Minor Illusion to defuse a potential combat. We were trying to find a missing little girl who had been missing for years. Turned out she was taken in by some goblins who were actually treating her fairly well. ((Think Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) We wanted to communicate that we had come from her mother, so, the party Sorcerer tried using Minor Illusion to mimic her voice. But, the DM immediately ruled that it couldn't reproduce intelligible speach. ((And, right there, we see the DM automatically defaulting to limiting the spell))

Actually, what we see there is the DM following very old and long-standing precedent (it's right there in the 1e spell write-ups) regarding illusions that include sound: they can't reproduce intelligible speech. (I suspect this is to prevent shenanigans such as illusions casting spells or uttering command words for devices, but I'm not sure on that)

The only ways I can think of to make an illusion talk coherently are either a) to have a second caster use Ventriloquism in tandem or b) cast Projected Image, a much higher-level spell that talks as if it was the person being projected.

So, the player simply reproduced an image of the mother instead. Thus the encounter was resolved without violence.

That would be the way, yes; and good thinking on the player's part.

 

[Lanefan]

Summon a monster out of thin air: "Augh! A monster! Slay it!"

Create an illusion of a monster: "Hmm, something seems off about that monster. How could it appear out of thin air like that? I find myself inexplicably inspired to poke/prod/investigate/disbelieve the existence of such a thing!"

Create a wall of stone to block an area: "Egads, it's a magically conjured wall blocking my path!"

Create an illusion of a wall to block an area: "Wait, I know this area very well, that wall isn't supposed to be here! And look! This style of brick doesn't even match with other brickwork in this area!"

If you've never seen this sort of double standard in action- congratulations! You might have a successful career as an illusionist!

If you have, however, you might as well ignore most of the Illusion school and pretend it doesn't exist.

It comes down to the DM playing the opposition in good faith. A mindless creature will be immune to illusions as there's nothing there to fool. A particularly smart creature might notice something amiss right away*. But most creatures will believe something until-unless they have a reason not to; even more so if it's backed up by something real - e.g. in the case of the summoned monster, if the first one summoned is real there's no way they'll think to disbelieve the second, illusory, one that follows it in.

* - or simply be paying attention, as once happened in my game when the party Illusionist yelled out "I'm about to cast an illusory fireball!", hoping her allies could thus ignore it and forgetting that the foes could probably understand her just as well...

 

[Hussar]

The only ways I can think of to make an illusion talk coherently are either a) to have a second caster use Ventriloquism in tandem or b) cast Projected Image, a much higher-level spell that talks as if it was the person being projected.

But you're basically proving my point. 5e (2024) allows Minor Illusion to actually imitate voices. Now, granted, it doesn't specifically say you can imitate speech. True. But 5e does not have a Ventriloquism spell. It's been folded in under the umbrella of Minor Illusion. But, because the description does not specficy that you absolutely can do speach, the DM automatically rules that it can't.

And that's the problem. Spells with vague descriptions get shut down by DM's in the name of "challenge". Any creative use of the spell gets denied because the DM has been burned year after year by poorly written spells. So, the automatic reaction is "no". Can I do this? "Nope. It doesn't say you can do it in the spell, so, too bad. You can't."

Which returns us right back to the original point. Vaguely worded spells rarely get chosen by the players because they are taught very quickly that DM's won't actually allow creativity. And there's no point in having a spell you can't use.

 

[Lanefan]

But you're basically proving my point. 5e (2024) allows Minor Illusion to actually imitate voices. Now, granted, it doesn't specifically say you can imitate speech. True. But 5e does not have a Ventriloquism spell. It's been folded in under the umbrella of Minor Illusion.

Strange move, but OK - given that, Minor Illusion should be able to speak.

This provides a good example, though, to support your point about specific spells: Ventriloquism, Audible Glamour, and Dancing Lights should all be their own spells separate from Minor Illusion (does that equate to Phantasmal Force or Improved PF - given the sonic aspect, I'd guess the latter) each with their own effects and limitations e.g. Ventriloquism can speak but nothing else while Audible Glamour and the other low-level illusions that include sound can do a lot of things but specifically cannot speak.

 

[Hussar]

Actually I don’t really have a problem with spells sort of grouping effects. Three different spells just to either do sound or visual illusions is a bit harsh.

It’s just like the 5e version of Bigby’s Hand. Four very specific thematic effects. Great. No problem. It’s the vague spells I have a problem with.