1001 silent images

[Lightlawbliss]

Let's gather a list of effective uses of silent image.
To get us started:

1. A wall further out then the real wall
2. A ghost of a dragon.

[Snowbluff]

3. Make a bridge over a cliff.
4. When they figure this out and test the bridges, extend the cliff by 5 or so feet.

[Andezzar]

5. An open doorway where there is none.
6. cover over a pit.

[Forrestfire]

7. An optical illusion of a pit on the ground, to make them stop for at least a moment so you can ambush.
8. A silent movie.

[Aergoth]

7. A destroyed chest where there is a full one.
8. A trebuchet/cannon or other large imposing weapon. (Double this up with some well timed castings of pyrotechnics and ghost sound for effect if need be)

[Doc_Maynot]

11. Any sorcerer or wizard conjuration (summoning), conjuration (creation), or evocation spell of at least one level lower. (Sorry, had to.)

[dascarletm]

12. Visage of a deity watching over you.

[Beardbarian]

13. Personal sexy show for lonely wizard teenagers

[Valwyn]

13.5. Make money by organizing a sexy show.

(Fun fact: a character (http://kanzaka.wikia.com/wiki/Lina_Inverse) once did just that, except that she sold tickets to illusions of her sister bathing. Said sister (who happens to have a piece of a god's soul inside her) found out and... was not amused.)

[dascarletm]

14. Large glowing arrow saying, "Big Bad This Way!" to put outside the entrance to your adventurer slaughterhouse.
15. Battlefield map for allies to see. You may then precede to animate your game-plan drawings.

[KillianHawkeye]

16. Mimes. Doing something Mimey.

[Cruiser1]

17. Combine with Invisible Spell metamagic and create a wall between your party and the enemy spellcaster who's known to have See Invisibility up. Now you can see the enemy caster, but they only see a wall when looking toward you. :smallwink:

[Segev]

18. A thick fog, which you use a pre-arranged signal to let your allies know is an illusion. (+4 to their save, and only a save upon "interaction" from enemies, means your allies likely see through it while your enemies are effectively blinded)

19. A line of archers rising up from cover while your fighter makes an Intimidate check.

20. A mirror you hold up that reflects everything before you except the man you want to frame for being a vampire.

21. A reflection in a mirror of a vampire you're trying to keep from being detected.

22. Combined with darkvision, a scene lit by an illusory torch's light which matches the truth of the room closely, but leaves out details you don't want known. Maybe the room is made to look more opulent than it really is, or you leave the presence of your fellow party-members out of it so they can be "invisible." Only works against those who lack darkvision, of course. (You need darkvision to be able to see what you're overlaying)

23. You, fleeing past the place you hid as soon as you rounded a corner while trying to escape pursuit.

24. A "secret door" closing just as people turn to look at it, apparently becoming flush with the wall.

25.Mold on the wares of a stall merchant you wish to trick into selling you his goods for cheap. Or on a competitor's perishable goods.

26. Caltrops. Caltrops everywhere. So when they start treating them like illusions, you can scatter real ones they won't even try to dodge.


edit: Added numbers. Sorry for forgetting to!

[Inevitability]

27. Illusion of a horribly mangled corpse somewhere halfway through a long hallway. Makes your party waste a bit of time as they let the rogue take 20 on all search checks for the whole length.

28. Then, as they discover the corpse is an illusion, the second half is actually trapped.

[Troacctid]

Visual aids: PowerPoint, but with magic.

[Threadnaught]

29. Team America Secret Signal.

[The Grue]

30. Entries in this thread between 19 and 28, apparently.

[Forrestfire]

31. A holographic GUI for a magic item.

[Duke of Urrel]

5. An open doorway where there is none. …


7. An optical illusion of a pit on the ground, to make them stop for at least a moment so you can ambush. …

I believe you need to use a Glamer for these effects, such as the Mirage Arcana spell. A Figment can't subtract features from an area; it can only add them. Creating an open door means subtracting part of the wall, and creating an open pit means subtracting part of the floor. Only a Glamer can do that.

According to a strict reading of the RAW, the Silent Image spell can create only one "object, creature, or force," not several of them. This would disqualify several proposals on this thread, assuming that we're using 3.5 rules. However, I choose to interpret the Silent Image spell's description more loosely, so that you can create any number of objects, creatures, or forces within the spatial limits of the spell.

[Lightlawbliss]

Mind fixing the number system?

I believe next is 21

[Segev]

I believe you need to use a Glamer for these effects, such as the Mirage Arcana spell. A Figment can't subtract features from an area; it can only add them. Creating an open door means subtracting part of the wall, and creating an open pit means subtracting part of the floor. Only a Glamer can do that.

According to a strict reading of the RAW, the Silent Image spell can create only one "object, creature, or force," not several of them. This would disqualify several proposals on this thread, assuming that we're using 3.5 rules. However, I choose to interpret the Silent Image spell's description more loosely, so that you can create any number of objects, creatures, or forces within the spatial limits of the spell.

I'd at least interpret it to allow for "a single unit," even if that unit is not contiguous as a singular physical being. Otherwise, you'd have a hard time justifying "clothes" and "items" worn or wielded by illusions of people. Also, things like the "line of archers" could be still done; they'd just have an illusion of ground connecting them and "really" be an illusion of a shapeshifting creature flush with the ground protruding archer-shaped pseudopods. Which is silly, so just allow "a unit of archers."

[Duke of Urrel]

I'd at least interpret it to allow for "a single unit," even if that unit is not contiguous as a singular physical being. Otherwise, you'd have a hard time justifying "clothes" and "items" worn or wielded by illusions of people. Also, things like the "line of archers" could be still done; they'd just have an illusion of ground connecting them and "really" be an illusion of a shapeshifting creature flush with the ground protruding archer-shaped pseudopods. Which is silly, so just allow "a unit of archers."

I agree with your reasoning. It's an illusion we're talking about, so really we're not creating any creature, object, or force at all; we're only creating creature-like, object-like, or force-like illusory effects. There shouldn't be any numeric limit to these effects, only the spatial one given in the spell's statistics block.

I feel like a poor sport for not proposing my own use of the Silent Image spell: Pretend to summon a raucously noisy creature inside the area of a Silence spell.

[Extra Anchovies]

Mind fixing the number system?

I believe next is 21

Nope; it's just confusing. Look at Segev's post; it covers 18-26. Dire Stirge should change his to 18 and 18.5 to 27 and 28, then we're perfectly in order.

[Lightlawbliss]

Nope; it's just confusing. Look at Segev's post; it covers 18-26. Dire Stirge should change his to 18 and 18.5 to 27 and 28, then we're perfectly in order.

ok, I guess that works

[nedz]

47. Being charged by some horsemen, make a line of pikemen appear. Now the riders will be suspicious, but horses are dumb.

48. There is a plank across the chasm, it's a bit wobbly.

49. There's a rope hanging out of the window.

[Duke of Urrel]

50. Illusory repair. After your half-orc barbarian has broken down a door (that is, torn it completely off its hinges), create an illusory replica in its place, so that nobody knows the place has been broken into.

And along these lines:

51. Create an illusory object in place of a real object that has been stolen, so that nobody notices that it has been stolen.

[Segev]

52. Grab a small but important item and throw an illusory version of it into tall grass, a stream, or some other terrain feature which would be tricky to search for such an object.

[Seharvepernfan]

A tall bright red pillar that can be seen from far away.

Writing on a wall, or changing writing that is already on a wall.

Yourself, but in armor and with weapons (or a robe and staff).

A jeweled golden necklace hanging from a cliffside, to bait people into going to get it.

[Threadnaught]

30. Entries in this thread between 19 and 28, apparently.

Nah I fixed the order.

57. Numbers for Segev. That wasn't a real edit, I just cast Silent Illusion. :smalltongue:

58. Moar numbers for Seharvepernfan. I cast Silent Image.

[137beth]

59. A wizard getting ready to cast Silent Silent Image.

[Threadnaught]

46. An explanation of how 32 + 1 = 47.

[Lightlawbliss]

46. An explanation of how 32 + 1 = 47.

I'm sorry if this should be obvious, but I don't get this one.

[Threadnaught]

I'm sorry if this should be obvious, but I don't get this one.

It's really me being picky and paying far too much attention to detail. See these posts in order, I noticed no other submissions between them.


31. A holographic GUI for a magic item.

Obviously 32 should follow.


I feel like a poor sport for not proposing my own use of the Silent Image spell: Pretend to summon a raucously noisy creature inside the area of a Silence spell.

I'm assuming that's 32, so what's 32 + 1?


47. Being charged by some horsemen, make a line of pikemen appear. Now the riders will be suspicious, but horses are dumb.

Incidentally my earlier post is numbered out of order. :smallsigh:

[The Grue]

Counting is hard, guys.

[Snowbluff]

61. Entry 60.

[Lightlawbliss]

could you guys atleast TRY to keep the numbering in line.

[Segev]

I think these were the last even vaguely serious entries:

A tall bright red pillar that can be seen from far away.

Writing on a wall, or changing writing that is already on a wall.

Yourself, but in armor and with weapons (or a robe and staff).

A jeweled golden necklace hanging from a cliffside, to bait people into going to get it.
These should be 53-56...


59. A wizard getting ready to cast Silent Silent Image.
...which means this one should be 57.

The next one should be 58.

[Troacctid]

Is there a reason we're numbering them? Are we planning to stop at exactly 1001?

[Phelix-Mu]

58. An arbitrarily accurate timepiece, likely a metronome or hourglass (but not necessarily an hour) due to apparent dearth of clockworks in D&D used for clocks (but golems, sure, why not...). Useful for alchemy, testing reaction times, timing intervals between guard shifts/patrol sweeps with accuracy. Needs to be extended for some of the more interesting uses, but meh, the point stands.

[Malroth]

A scene where your daughter the princess is kidnapped by a dragon when you want to fool wandering heroes into killing something for you.

[Dalebert]

A scene where your daughter the princess is kidnapped by a dragon when you want to fool wandering heroes into killing something for you.

Wow, that's a sneaky, quiet dragon and he snatched her without even a scream!

[Segev]

60. When trying to use a river or the like as a barrier between yourself and others, a shadow of something big moving beneath the water's surface.

61. A shadow of something big flying overhead.

[Malroth]

an Illusion of yourself creating an illusion of yourself creating an illusion of yourself ......

[atemu1234]

Make coppers look like gold pieces...

[jiriku]

64. In appropriate locations, have your party press into a corner or against a boulder, then create an illusion of the wall or boulder extended over them. You aren't moving and enemies don't have line of sight to you, so you remain hidden with no need for a Hide or Move Silently check. Enemies aren't even entitled to save unless they touch the illusion or take a standard action to study it, and if they're unfamiliar with the area and/or your illusion is cunningly placed, they may have no reason to be suspicious.

65. An illusion of a wall of iron or other barrier spell. Enemies without Spellcraft saw you cast a spell, and then a wall magically appeared -- again, they've got no reason to be suspicious, and may not attempt anything that would entitle them to save. Note that mindless creatures can't remember that there wasn't a wall there before, and should simply avoid it without giving it a test.

66. Create an illusion of a person or place that you've seen, so that another spellcaster can use spells like teleport or scrying and benefit from having "seen once" the target of their spell.

67. Create an illusion of a murder victim, still living and pointing in an accusatory way, when you want to try to startle a suspected murderer into revealing guilt. With proper setup through the use of social skills and roleplaying, this can be powerful and dramatic.

[nedz]

Some salacious scene in the distance which will draw everyone's attention and distract them.

An image of a Tsundere Yaoi Fangirl doing her thing could also cause a distraction.

[atemu1234]

67. Create an illusion of a murder victim, still living and pointing in an accusatory way, when you want to try to startle a suspected murderer into revealing guilt. With proper setup through the use of social skills and roleplaying, this can be powerful and dramatic.

Reminds me of an episode of Castle.

[jiriku]

Reminds me of an episode of Castle.

Ugh, I'm showing my age. I was thinking of an episode of Murder She Wrote. :smallbiggrin: Although it's probably just as at home in Scooby Doo as well.

[Segev]

70. In conjunction with Ventriloquism, a poor man's Project Image.

[atemu1234]

Some salacious scene in the distance which will draw everyone's attention and distract them.

An image of a Tsundere Yaoi Fangirl doing her thing could also cause a distraction.

You're my hero.