Creative uses for Illusion ("Image") spells

[lukelightning]

There's always the good old "illusion...illusion...real" trick. For example, send an illusionary version of your party to attack an enemy lair. They quickly realize it's an illusion. Do it again...illusion. Then you really attack them...

 

[Mistwell]

Cool. So I make an illusion that the unattended door is invisible from this side only, and look through to see what's on the other side.

How's that different from a Figment of a pit trap?

You cannot ACTUALLY make the door invisible. First, because invisible isn't an object, creature, or force I don't think (though I would list a pit as one of those, since it has light and shading, texture, look to the structure such as stones which recede in size as they go down, a bunch of spikes in the bottom, maybe a dead body in the bottom, a set of trap doors already sprung and swinging at the top, etc...). But second, even if you could, unless you know what to make the illusion look like for the other side of the door, you're just in a sense making up what would be on the other side of the door. Much like the pit. It's not a real pit, and you have no idea what would happen if you made a real pit in that spot, since you have no way of knowing if there is another floor below you. It's just a figment of an image YOU make up.

 

[KarinsDad]

It's possible to make a strictly additive illusion of a pit... but only if you know exactly where the observers will be looking from!

This assumes that illusions are limited to real world physics. Couldn't your example show the back of the guy's head from the POV of the guy kneeling on the bricks if this were a magical illusion?

 

[Hypersmurf]

This assumes that illusions are limited to real world physics. Couldn't your example show the back of the guy's head from the POV of the guy kneeling on the bricks if this were a magical illusion?

Above ground level, certainly; 'below' ground level, I'd say no, because both people will be looking at the 'picture' on the flat surface from 'above'. There is no 'in front' and 'behind', because it's not a 3-dimensional image; if it were 3-D, it would not be visible, because it would be inside the floor.

Since both people are looking at the picture from above, they'll both see the same thing; it can't show one thing to observer A and a different one to observer B. The difference is that the perspective that works well for observer A will be completely messed up for observer B.

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

I love illusion magic. Karinsdad's points are well taken, but they can be expressed in positive guidelines as well as in negatives:

* Use illusions against non-magic-using opponents. Animals, magical beasts (for the most part), fighter types, many undead, and the like are great targets for illusion magic. Keep in mind that when you use them in this sense, you don't need to duplicate actual spell effects. If you create a spikey wall atop which fiery spearment wait for the enemy's advance (an effective illusion I once created), the low-Int undead that are attacking you won't know that this isn't a core sorcerer spell; if you summon a huge elemental with a standard-action illusion, many warriors will have no idea that this is impossible (and even a spellcaster who fails the Spellcraft check may figure you have a funky power that enables this effect).
* Illusions are best when the enemy isn't going to think to interact with them. A wall of fire used to keep a rat horde at bay is effective (as i found in a game that I DMed). A wall of fire used to surround a PC to keep him out of hte battle is not effective (again, as I found in a game I ran: PCs are generally more suicidal than rats and therefore more willing to leap through the wall of fire).
* Subtle effect illusions are wonderful. I love the idea of squeezing up against a wall and casting a wall over the opening to prevent an attack. I once DMed a game in which first-level PCs survived the attack of a huge animated object by using exactly this trick. The animated object had no reason at all to interact with the wall behind which they hid, and so it received no save.
* In general, an illusion is best at wasting an emey's time for a round or two. When I DM, my very vague rule of thumb is that an illusion ought to waste at least one round for at least one enemy unless it was cast very stupidly. The more clever the illusion and the more appropriate to the situation, the more powerful it can be. It's definitely a school of magic that rewards the imaginative player, and I think that's perfectly appropriate.

Daniel

 

[Mistwell]

Hyp, I see what you mean that the pit looks different depending on where you are standing (see pic). However, I really think you are overthinking this.

 

[Hypersmurf]

However, I really think you are overthinking this.

Well, my reading of figments is that you're effectively building a three-dimensional picture. You can't make a three-dimensional picture of a hole in the ground, because nobody will be able to see it - the ground gets in the way! You can make a two-dimensional picture of a hole and lay it on top of the ground (where the ground won't obscure it), but the problem with it is that such a picture has a fixed perspective, and if you look at it from the wrong angle, it doesn't work.

(Like the faux-3D advertising they paint onto sports fields. If the camera's shooting from the 'standard' angle, they pop out of your screen. If it's shooting from the wrong angle, they just look distorted.)

-Hyp.

 

[Mistwell]

Well, my reading of figments is that you're effectively building a three-dimensional picture. You can't make a three-dimensional picture of a hole in the ground, because nobody will be able to see it - the ground gets in the way! You can make a two-dimensional picture of a hole and lay it on top of the ground (where the ground won't obscure it), but the problem with it is that such a picture has a fixed perspective, and if you look at it from the wrong angle, it doesn't work.

(Like the faux-3D advertising they paint onto sports fields. If the camera's shooting from the 'standard' angle, they pop out of your screen. If it's shooting from the wrong angle, they just look distorted.)

-Hyp.

Yes I agree with you on both counts. You are laying a 2D image on top of a 3D floor, and in real life such a thing would look wrong if looked at from the wrong angle. And I am saying I think that is asking too much reality from your magic spells. It's just a square on a battlemat that has a pit illusion on it, perhaps with a pit trap dungeon tile like this:

Most people are not going to care a whole lot of the theoretical ramifications of the physics of the thing. It's just an image of a pit, probably one of the most common uses of the silent image spell.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It's just an image of a pit, probably one of the most common uses of the silent image spell.

Not in my game!

From two squares away, that looks like an incredibly shallow pit with amazingly short spikes!

-Hyp.

 

[Mistwell]

Not in my game!

From two squares away, that looks like an incredibly shallow pit with amazingly short spikes!

-Hyp.

Interestingly, I think the Rules of the Game article on illusions agrees with you:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20060228a

* You wish to draw some bad guys into an ambush by creating a false oasis in the desert.

You cannot use a figment to make empty sand look like an oasis. You still can create an illusory oasis with one or more figment effects. You can create an illusory pool of water to fill a depression in the sand, and you can sprinkle the area with illusory palm trees and undergrowth.

If the area is very flat, you won't be able to create a believable figment pool of water, but you might get away with a spring where water bubbles to the surface and soaks back into the sand.

So perhaps what we have here is a failure of imagination. Can anyone think of a way to use a silent image spell to create a barrier similar to the barrier represented by a pit, but in a way that would be more believeable?

Perhaps a pool of bubbling lava is the dungeon equivelent of the bubbling spring mentioned in the article example....