D&D 5E Illusionist Tradition Questions

[vandaexpress]

I'll make this as short as possible. Illusions have often occupied an area that depends heavily on DM-Player cooperation. I'm running a campaign where one of the BBEG's is an illusionist. In trying to figure out what to do with him, I've come up with some questions about wording in the Illusionist Arcane tradition, in particular, the Malleable Illusions and Illusory Reality features and would like to know your interpretations and answers to the following questions:

1. Could an illusionist cast major illusion and, using a 6th level slot to make it permanent, create an illusion of say, a small ball of light orbiting his head (like an Ioun stone), then use Malleable Illusion to turn that illusionary ioun stone into a big illusionary wall 40 feet away as an action? In other words, can an illusionist have a "stockpile" of permanent major illusions that they take with them everywhere and transform as needed? Assuming a collection of a dozen major images, this would seem to eliminate the need to ever spend a spell slot casting a major illusion ever again.
2. Is Illusory reality something that can only be used as the spell is cast (sentence one in that paragraph suggests this) or can it be used on an existing illusion by expending a bonus action (as the second paragraph suggests), or is it only usable on a spell as it's being cast by using a bonus action along with the normal action to cast the spell?
3. Is there any limit to the number of illusions that can be affected by illusory reality at once? Say I cast major illusion of a brick wall and make the wall real, then on my next round, I cast minor illusion of a door and make the door real. Is this possible? RAW, there doesn't appear to be anything prohibiting this.
4. If you use Illusory reality to make part of an illusion real, say a silent image, then later drop your concentration on the silent image to cast a different spell, is the real part of the illusion still there since it's been made "real"? Or is it still considered a part of the spell effect and disappears once concentration is lost?
5. If an illusionist is using mirage arcana as his lair, would he basically be able to use malleable illusion to completely change the layout of his lair as an action (so long as he can see that part of the lair)?
6. Would an illusionist be able to use malleable illusion to change the appearance of a simulacrum?

If an illusionist can morph permanent major images he carries around with him and use illusory reality on a spell that's already been cast... that's pretty powerful. You show up to fight a level 14 wizard who has 6 permanent illusions orbiting his head. He uses malleable illusion on the first one to form a 2ft thick 20x20 adamantine cage (or even a box) around 2 or 3 party members then uses a bonus action to make it real for 10 rounds. It's not a spell being cast, so it can't be countered. Unless the party gets a dispel magic off on the first round (assuming you rule that the illusion-made-reality can be dispelled) and counter his counterspell with their own, he can drop a cloudkill on the box and call it a day. Or just bombard it with fireballs.

I mean, that's just the first idea I had, I'm sure there are other, more effective things that could be done if these interpretations are, in fact, RAW.

What are your thoughts, how do you interpret this tradition's features?

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

1. It's possible to create multiple permanent illusions, but the biggest problem I see with stockpiling them would be moving them around. Major Image requires an action to move it (I haven't checked every other image producing illusion in the book, but I'd expect similar). So having these stockpile illusions on your person at all times would be problematic if you have to spend a good chunk of time putting effort into them to move them. As a DM I'd rule short travel would be feasible, but at a slower pace (ex. walking distances within a city) but long range travel would be terribly inefficient.

2. The wording "When you cast an illusion spell..." means you would choose to activate illusory reality or not only upon initial casting.

3. No limit is mentioned in illosory reality's text. As long as you pay attention that you pay the required spell slot to avoid concentration clash, I'd rule you can have multiple real illusions.

4. As I hinted at above, I'd rule that if you break concentration on a spell that was made real the spell ends and the created object disappears.

5. Using malleable illusion on Mirage Arcane the caster would be able to make it very difficult to maneuver by creating difficult and impassable terrain at will. The spell even mentions structures, so it'd be possible to create one crazy castle. Sounds to me like a very fitting place to encounter a master illusionist.

6. This is one of those very specific interactions that was probably overlooked. As a DM I'd allow malleable illusion to change the appearance of the simulacrum as long as it still had the same shape. For example if you make a duplicate of a bear, it must remain a bear, but you can change fur colour, add scars, etc. For humanoids I might let you get away with shifting appearance to another humanoid race as long as you don't change size categories.

These are my opinions and what I would rule if I had a player ask me about them (aside from #2 which is RAW).

 

[iserith]

Could an illusionist cast major illusion and, using a 6th level slot to make it permanent, create an illusion of say, a small ball of light orbiting his head (like an Ioun stone), then use Malleable Illusion to turn that illusionary ioun stone into a big illusionary wall 40 feet away as an action? In other words, can an illusionist have a "stockpile" of permanent major illusions that they take with them everywhere and transform as needed? Assuming a collection of a dozen major images, this would seem to eliminate the need to ever spend a spell slot casting a major illusion ever again.

Sure, sounds neat. It might become a bear in combat though when the action economy kicks in because it costs an action to move the illusions. Since it's an NPC we're talking about, I'd be inclined to just make it a Trait where it costs the NPC no actions to move the illusions - call it "Motile Illusions" or something along those lines.

Is Illusory reality something that can only be used as the spell is cast (sentence one in that paragraph suggests this) or can it be used on an existing illusion by expending a bonus action (as the second paragraph suggests), or is it only usable on a spell as it's being cast by using a bonus action along with the normal action to cast the spell?

I think either/or is fine.

Is there any limit to the number of illusions that can be affected by illusory reality at once? Say I cast major illusion of a brick wall and make the wall real, then on my next round, I cast minor illusion of a door and make the door real. Is this possible? RAW, there doesn't appear to be anything prohibiting this.

I don't see any issue with that.

If you use Illusory reality to make part of an illusion real, say a silent image, then later drop your concentration on the silent image to cast a different spell, is the real part of the illusion still there since it's been made "real"? Or is it still considered a part of the spell effect and disappears once concentration is lost?

I'd say it disappears.

If an illusionist is using mirage arcana as his lair, would he basically be able to use malleable illusion to completely change the layout of his lair as an action (so long as he can see that part of the lair)?

Yeah, and that would be cool.

Would an illusionist be able to use malleable illusion to change the appearance of a simulacrum?

Sure.

If an illusionist can morph permanent major images he carries around with him and use illusory reality on a spell that's already been cast... that's pretty powerful. You show up to fight a level 14 wizard who has 6 permanent illusions orbiting his head. He uses malleable illusion on the first one to form a 2ft thick 20x20 adamantine cage (or even a box) around 2 or 3 party members then uses a bonus action to make it real for 10 rounds. It's not a spell being cast, so it can't be countered. Unless the party gets a dispel magic off on the first round (assuming you rule that the illusion-made-reality can be dispelled) and counter his counterspell with their own, he can drop a cloudkill on the box and call it a day. Or just bombard it with fireballs.

I mean, that's just the first idea I had, I'm sure there are other, more effective things that could be done if these interpretations are, in fact, RAW.

You can also just say rocks fall and everyone dies, but whether the group finds that very fun is really the issue. This is not to say your idea is too powerful - rather I'm just suggesting that you're the DM and this is an NPC so you don't have to follow the rules for PCs when coming up with its stat block at all. It just has to be fun, exciting, and memorable if you hope to achieve the goals of play.