Maze at first level

[Pielorinho]

I was playing around with goofball uses for Silent Image. The classic usage is as a wall, to separate the enemies. And that's great.

But it occurred to me, why limit yourself to one wall? Anything that fits in a 15' cube is allowed. And you know what fits in a 15' cube? A 15' square with a 10' ceiling, that's full of a maze passage.

like so.

Cast the spell centered with the enemy on the X. The first version gives a single path and takes 45' of movement to escape from. The second version gives two paths, and is clearly an inescapable room after about 30-40' of movement. This would work on one enemy, but you could also mess up several enemies just by making sure they're all somewhere within the path.

The problem, of course, is that enemies will poke the walls--either by making an investigate check, or just by shoulder-ramming the wall to break through. You have to persuade the enemy not to poke the walls. And you know what people don't like to poke? Walls made of razor-sharp thorny vines slick with a dark sap, or walls covered in pointy sticky blades, or walls made of undulating intestinal tissue. Be creative, but make it look unpleasant to poke!

Make things even more unpleasant with a low ceiling. If the ceiling is lower than 5' (and is also super-nasty-looking), medium creatures must squeeze to get by, taking double movement.

The tactic gets better still with Major Image, because now you can make a 20' cube, and there can be smells and sounds to add to the horror. Your intestinal maze comes to life. The third maze at the above link would work well with a Major Image. Even at 60' movement, the exit is not visible.

All of this is just round-wasting shenanigans--unless you're a dedicated illusionist wizard at sixth level. At this point, you can alter the illusion round to round. As long as the enemy can't see the exit, you can just re-center the illusion on them, creating a maze that lasts for ten minutes, or until they decide to spend a round investigating the spiky gut thorns or whatever, or until they decide to bullrush the nonexistent walls.

I've not seen other folks use this illusion idea. Has anyone tried it? How'd it go?

 

[Mistwell]

I like it. I'd allow some sort of check each round to see if the targets decide to suspect the walls. A will check based on your spell DC, or an insight check or a perception check, or something.

 

[Shiroiken]

I've actually used the spiked wall bit with Minor Illusion to cover a doorway. It worked for about a round, until one enemy finally "hit" it with an axe. My cantrip wasted 4 enemy actions, which was worthwhile, since we were outnumbered 3:1 at the time.

I haven't used spell level illusions yet, mostly because I'm hesitant to spend resources to know/scribe a spell that I don't know how the DM will react to. Spending a spell slot to have the enemy break the illusion by touching it bothers me greatly, and even if they spend their action to do it, a spell slot and an action to waste an opponent's action is a bad exchange rate.

I like the maze concept, because assuming they don't spend an action (and succeed), they'll waste a full round getting out by double moving. I don't think you can drop the ceiling down, however, since the illusion would appear all at once, forcing it to touch the target, revealing the illusion. 6th level illusionist could do this, slowly lowering it until the target is crawling.

 

[LordEntrails]

Silent Image is detected as an illusion not only if it is interacted with, but also with an action used to make an intelligence check.

Sure, I like your idea, I also expect the party enemies to use the same tactics.

The world is magical, make it so!

 

[77IM]

I think I like this design the best: Where's the door?

When I DM, I interpret the bit about "uses an action to examine the image" very liberally. For example, someone spending an action looking for a secret door would be entitled to an Intelligence (Investigation) check even though they didn't explicitly say they were examining the image. Or, if the walls are poisoned thorns, trying to recall lore about the plant species would trigger the Intelligence (Investigation) check, too.

 

[Pielorinho]

I haven't used spell level illusions yet, mostly because I'm hesitant to spend resources to know/scribe a spell that I don't know how the DM will react to. Spending a spell slot to have the enemy break the illusion by touching it bothers me greatly, and even if they spend their action to do it, a spell slot and an action to waste an opponent's action is a bad exchange rate.

ABSOLUTELY talk with your DM before rolling up an illusion-heavy caster. They play very differently from playing, say, an evoker: much of what an illusionist is doing is convincing enemies to make terrible decisions, and the rules don't really cover that. YOu need a DM who's willing to adjudicate what sort of terrible decisions your illusions can compel, without unbalancing the game.

I like the maze concept, because assuming they don't spend an action (and succeed), they'll waste a full round getting out by double moving. I don't think you can drop the ceiling down, however, since the illusion would appear all at once, forcing it to touch the target, revealing the illusion. 6th level illusionist could do this, slowly lowering it until the target is crawling.

The low ceiling can appear with the casting of the spell. Start the enemy off in a room with a 10' ceiling, but the only exit from the room is a tunnel with a 4' ceiling. If the target wants to move, they'll need to squeeze, spending double movement.

I think I like this design the best: Where's the door?

When I DM, I interpret the bit about "uses an action to examine the image" very liberally. For example, someone spending an action looking for a secret door would be entitled to an Intelligence (Investigation) check even though they didn't explicitly say they were examining the image. Or, if the walls are poisoned thorns, trying to recall lore about the plant species would trigger the Intelligence (Investigation) check, too.

Good design! My only concern with it is that when you reach a dead end, you often search that dead end for secrets, right? I agree that such a search ought to trigger the investigation check. A loop might make it less likely that an enemy will stop to search for secrets; they may assume they missed a turn somewhere, and continue moving.

I was trying to create a branching maze, but a 15' square just doesn't give much room for that. Maybe if you make very narrow passages that enemies would squeeze through, you could do it? I'll play with that later.

I imagine that during downtime, my wizard is building tiny models of mazes, so he can visualize them properly in combat .

 

[Pielorinho]

Actually, a weird technicality prevents the squeeze tactics, RAW, for medium creatures:

You can squeeze into the space of a creature one size smaller than you. Medium creatures occupy a 5x5 space. Small creatures also occupy a 5x5 space. Tiny creatures occupy a 2.5x2.5 space.

So RAW, a medium creature can't even squeeze into a space that's 4' x 4'.

That seems like a glaring error to me, and I think most DMs would allow a medium creature to squeeze into a smaller space--but you might want to check with your DM first .