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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 5624429" data-attributes="member: 11760">Caveat: I don't play Pathfinder, but I've played a 3.5 illusionist for four years.As per the RAW, figments don't cause damage. Period. But as you've noted, you don't have to cause damage to affect your opponents. You can cause them to avoid you, to flee the scene or think that you pose no threat.I've used Silent Illusion to work as a functional invisibility spell by recreating an existing wall a foot further in than it really is, and standing between the illusory and real walls. It has the advantage of not requiring any sound to work and is plausible enough -- there's really a wall there! -- that it's unlikely to be interacted with or doubted.Where you run into problems are when you want illusions to be interacted with.A fog cloud? Sure, that's not really a problem -- although it requires creating the illusion all the way through believably, not just an outer shell. I'd say that its save is merited. If the save is made, the illusionist didn't create an illusion with sufficient foggy depths.Glitterdust's effects are magical. An illusion can't detect invisible people and all the illusionist can create is an illusory cloud of motes. At best, I'd have illusory creatures roll a save with a big bonus (improved slightly if the illusionist announces "and now I'll expose that invisible fiend" or something, and the caster recognizes it as an alleged glitterdust spell). Honestly, it's not a great use of an illusion, in my opinion.An illusory web works better as a barrier than people would avoid than as something they'd interact with, since that's when they'll get that Will save.Yeah, creating a pit is a classic illusion, for the reasons you outline. It doesn't need to be a special spell, though -- whenever I see those in rulebooks, it's clear to me the author doesn't use a lot of illusions in their game -- since that's easily created with the most basic illusion spells available.A stinking cloud is just a green cloud of fog in illusory form, unless your illusion spell has an olfactory component (most don't) and the subject recognizes what it's supposed to be. Bad use of an illusion.The keys to good illusions, IMO, are plausibility -- is it something that could reasonably be expected to appears? -- and that the victim won't want to interact with it, and thus test it. A spiked pit illusion or a floor full of caltrops are ideal illusions, as is a slumbering guard dog, increasing the number of melee fighters with illusory reinforcements, a dragon in flight silhouetted against the sun, or a flight of arrows cresting a hill and (so far) missing the target.As for the module you cite, I wouldn't have had the orcs cause damage, since that's not how figments work. But you can handwave that and just say it's some specialized effect that works in a different way -- maybe it's a conjuration spell that creates orc-shaped effects, rather than an actual illusion spell.</blockquote>

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