D&D 5E Effective Illusions

[EroGaki]

Illusion spells are offend praised for being one of the strongest options for spellcasters; minor image alone seems to be a required spell for all the casters who have access to it.

I myself have never been fond of illusions; for all their flexibility, they're too dependent on the DM's interpretation for me to want to use them too often, beyond the standard Invisibility and Mirror Image. That being said, I was hoping to give them a try in an upcoming game, and was wondering if I could get some advice.

I intend on playing a warlock, and so I'll have access to unlimited illusion usage through the minor image cantrip and the Misty Visions invocation. My question is, can anyone offer any advice on how to make the illusions as effective as possible, both in and out of combat? I realize that that is an open ended request, but I'd like to have a few examples in mind to build off of.

 

[Shiroiken]

I'm not fond of illusions in general, because the best use of them requires you to be creative and think fast. Each situation is going to be different, and the "best" illusion is going to be hard to come up with in the minute or so you have to think of it. As you've mentioned, a crappy DM can make illusions worthless anyway.

My suggestion is to keep things simple. Obstacles are best for combat (a blade barrier is best, IMO), but in tight quarters the sound of reinforcements coming down another passage can sometimes draw off some to block the passage. Outside of combat you can probably get away with more stuff, and you might have more time to think, but again: keep it simple. Good luck.

 

[EvanNave55]

Because its so aopen for practicaly anything, and also depends on what your dm allows its hard to really answer but I'll atleast give some possibilities and examples of how I have.

I wasn't with the most ... functional party so at one point one party member shoved me into a spiked pit, right afterword a medusa was accidtally released so as a sortof payback I cast an illusion over the piti was into make it looklike I wasn't in there so the medusa wouldnt go after me and left them to fight it on their own.

Another time aparty member (same one that through me in the pit later) was causing some trouble ina merchants shop almost torturing the guy- I don't even remember why- so I asked the dm if I could make the illusions one way anad he said yes (many dms probably wouldn't allow that though) so I cast an illusion on the windows so that looking in the shop it doesn't look like anythings going on, and looking out you still see the normal street. I did this to stop city guards or whoever from seeing what was happening and attacking us, and one way because my party didn't know who I was or that I could do magic and I wanted to keep it that way.

Some other things you could do is make illusions of pits or other obstructions/obstacles as a sort of battle field control since they would try to avoid it, or alternativly make pits look like normal ground so they woukd fall in. You could also combine it with the silent image and minor image to make an illusion that makes sound as well like a higher level illusion. You can use illusions to make a person walking by or sometghing to distract guards/monsters if you're sneaking around. If you needed to hide you could possibly even hide in a corner or something when you were being chased then cast an illusion that makes it lokk like the wall is a little farther forward thus hiding you.

And since in this edition you don't even get to make checks to disbelieve illusions till you touch them they wouldn't ever get saves to disbelieve these since they wouldn't be touching what they thought was there any way. Frequently the best illusions are simply changing the invirement in some way to make enemies act like you want and do it in a way that they probaly won't touch whatever the illusion is so they can't disbelieve it.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Personally I prefer Illusions in combat serve are mostly action denial and be level appropriate.

In a world of magic (including summoning and transmutation) and monsters I think the first response to a dangerous situation will be to prepare for real, but hope it is just an illusion. Wasted attacks or actions, delayed movement, and tactical errors for starters and bigger effects as the spell levels increase.

Outside of combat the utility power can be verging on overpowered but usually few things that can't be accomplished with work, time, and real materials.

As a DM the biggest factor is knowing what the intended effect is mechanically and matching it to the resources used with spells of the same or lower level as a comparison.

 

[neobolts]

I have a player that used phatasmal force to create a locked metal box surrounding a foe's head. They get saves but otherwise they are blind and in fear of suffocating. I allowed it on the fly, but am not sure about if this becomes a regular tactic.

 

[PnPgamer]

Alrighty... On the infinite silent image illusion...
If you know that enemy is ahead, and know they know that You are coming, make them waste their ambush on illusory duplicate of your stealther in party. Make it out of stealther because it is more believable for him/her to be voiceless.

Hide yourself by making a big treetrunk or a rock to hide yourself in. In urban enviroments, a barrel of trash/supplies/whatevs, or even crates. Easier if you are small race but should work for medium sized folk as well.

These two should go by almost any dm. However if your dm allows of visual illusions that extend and falsify the dimensions etc. You could make a hallway to a wall, create a seemingly pit to ground.

Our dm only allowed of a creation of things so fake doorways which seemingly have a room on the other side was a no go.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Man, you guys are really negative about illusions.

Yeah, once you really get rolling, using them on the fly in combat is your ultimate goal, but there's a lot of useful things you can do with the most basic illusions that rarely will have encounter DM issues:

* Create an illusion of the real wall, just six to nine inches further in. Have everyone hug the real wall and be quiet. Congrats on group invisibility at a very, very low cost.
* Create illusions of things that people already expect to see. That noise down the alley? That's not your stupid fighter, that was a rat nosing around with a piece of metallic garbage.
* Use it to empty out full things, like armories, treasure rooms and the like, forcing patrolling guards, or whomever, to take off running looking for where it has "gone." You, of course, are standing in the "empty" space, ready to scoop up everything they've just abandoned and run the opposite direction.
* Closed and locked doors replace the ones you just opened (especially if it was kicked down).
* Dead/unconscious guards out of earshot can be replaced with illusory ones standing at their posts.
* Animals and low intelligence foes are the best targets for illusions on the fly. Predators, even without scent, will scare them -- even the shadow of a predatory animal flying overhead can terrify them -- as will fire at a distance.
* And taking a page from Doctor Who, illusion up some documents to show to authorities. That's a visual-only illusion, most of the time, and should work so long as you've seen what legitimate versions of the documents look like.

 

[Raunalyn]

In a world of magic

Sorry...totally off topic, but I couldn't help but read this in the movie trailer guy's voice.

Carry on....

 

[Zaruthustran]

With Minor Illusion and cantrips, you can effectively replicate everything you see in a horror movie. Think of the hapless protagonists in The Ring, Poltergeist, Blair Witch, and other non-slasher "psychological" horror movies. With illusions (and Mage Hand and Prestidigitation), you're the director of such a movie. With some time, mobility, and surveillance (get a familiar) you can completely disrupt an entire town.

In-combat? Screens to block LOS, fake "summoned" monsters to draw enemy fire, obstacles to discourage movement.

For the "summons", pretend to be a necromancer and go with incorporeal undead. Provides a rationale for why weapons pass right through them, and even the bravest warrior might flee when confronted by a wraith. They teach "If it bleeds, we can kill it" in Fighter School after all.

 

[EroGaki]

Man, you guys are really negative about illusions.

Yeah, once you really get rolling, using them on the fly in combat is your ultimate goal, but there's a lot of useful things you can do with the most basic illusions that rarely will have encounter DM issues:

* Create an illusion of the real wall, just six to nine inches further in. Have everyone hug the real wall and be quiet. Congrats on group invisibility at a very, very low cost.
* Create illusions of things that people already expect to see. That noise down the alley? That's not your stupid fighter, that was a rat nosing around with a piece of metallic garbage.
* Use it to empty out full things, like armories, treasure rooms and the like, forcing patrolling guards, or whomever, to take off running looking for where it has "gone." You, of course, are standing in the "empty" space, ready to scoop up everything they've just abandoned and run the opposite direction.
* Closed and locked doors replace the ones you just opened (especially if it was kicked down).
* Dead/unconscious guards out of earshot can be replaced with illusory ones standing at their posts.
* Animals and low intelligence foes are the best targets for illusions on the fly. Predators, even without scent, will scare them -- even the shadow of a predatory animal flying overhead can terrify them -- as will fire at a distance.
* And taking a page from Doctor Who, illusion up some documents to show to authorities. That's a visual-only illusion, most of the time, and should work so long as you've seen what legitimate versions of the documents look like.

Interesting ideas!