Silent Image / illusion-in-general uses?

[rubycona]

Okay, so this is me giving up :P I hear that Silent Image is one of the most fantastic spells ever, I know of the Beguiler class that is primarily illusion based, and I hear that illusions are awesome.

But I never (well, rarely) seem to find a situation in D&D where I can make use of them. Only out of combat stuff. Which leads me to the conclusion that I'm doing it wrong :P I do sometimes come up with some use, but generally... not so much.

So, I'm basically asking for ideas of what I could use illusions for effectively, namely in combat (because I have gotten quite a lot of out-of-combat usage from my illusions), mostly to get me thinking in the right direction.

At the moment, I'm a level 4 sorc in my present game, so low-level illusion suggestions are more helpful presently, but still, I'd like to better understand illusion usage overall, too.

Thanks for your help :)

[Heatwizard]

The role of illusions in-combat, as far as I understand them, is battlefield control; you conjure up fake obstacles and sort of herd enemies toward your fighter buddy.

[Kantolin]

Enemies

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P|arty
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Make an illusion that follows the lines above, so it looks kinda like a corner or something. Have it go through your party members but not through the enemy.

Your party members, due to being through it, will disbelieve the illusion and thus can shoot arrows through it or dance through it to their leisure. The enemy has to come over here and interact with it before they can see through it.

Ideally, I'd make said 'wall' out of mist or black vapors or something similar to that.

...then once the enemies have you set 'Oh, it's all illusions', use obscuring mist (Or solid fog, or some other actual cloud spell) to do the same thing. When they walk inside, they are confuzzled.

I find mixing false with real to be the best way of confusing intelligent enemies.

[Soranar]

The best uses are things that keep people away and don't require interactions as creatures get no saves unless they interact with them.

For example, even at level 1, you can fake a 10 cubic feet bottomless pit: essentially blocking the way of any creature in a hallway or such.

You can also reverse this, cover a bottomless pit and make it look like normal ground, a running creature would only notice once they fall in.


There's also a lot of social interactions that can be used with it. Say lay a trap and using a fake pile of gold/food/some mcguffin for your intended target.

Speaking of walls, it can easily replace invisibility for you and your group if you put up a fake wall to hide behind.

The limits are basically your imagination.

[rubycona]

Hmm... interesting stuff, but it brings up another point. What, precisely, defines "interaction?" We've always taken it to mean anything more than passive awareness - IE, if you see it and are actively paying attention to it, you get the will save. So, if there were an illusion of someone speaking to a crowd, everyone in the crowd who's paying attention to the speaker would all get will saves.

[Optimator]

One of my favorite tricks is making a cliff edge appear to be 10 feet further out and (flying) standing on the edge. Also, silent images of boulders can hide the whole party. It's like mass invisibility on the cheap.

[Piggy Knowles]

Flanking buddies.
False walls/doors/manhole covers.
Lower level version of Mirror Image.
Terrain obstacles.
Free partial or total concealment, and breaking line of sight to avoid casters.
Fake hostages.
Snazzy hats.

All of the above are things I have used Silent Image for at one point or another, across several campaigns and with different characters. These are primarily in-combat uses. The uses out of combat are really only limited by your imagination.

[HalfDragonCube]

They're also great for pretending to be a mage far more powerful than your level, just mimic the visual effects of a spell. Just be prepare to run if you fail a bluff check.

Whenever you find a chasm to cross, then pretend to conjure up a bridge, then cast fly and pretend to walk across.

'Look, it's perfectly safe!'