They're not tricks! They're Illusions!

[GutterFace]

So i want to make a Wizard, specializing in illusions. I am awful when it comes to planning casters and less so in 5e mostly because i have yet to play more than 1 level in a campaign.

Race is not a problem, i just need help planning the class with no multiclassing if possible.

tips and thoughts would be awesome and if you guys have some cool things to do with illusions since i know they are a bit open ended when it comes to the effect they produce.

[MadGrady]

So i want to make a Wizard, specializing in illusions. I am awful when it comes to planning casters and less so in 5e mostly because i have yet to play more than 1 level in a campaign.

Race is not a problem, i just need help planning the class with no multiclassing if possible.

tips and thoughts would be awesome and if you guys have some cool things to do with illusions since i know they are a bit open ended when it comes to the effect they produce.

Obviously go with the Illusion school as your arcane school of choice. That shouldn't be too difficult.

In the past, my illusionists have mostly been used for battlefield control, and social interactions.

For battlefield control, we had this one encounter where we were setting an abush in a sewer for a bunch of thugs. The illusionist cast an illusion to make it look like the wall of the alcove where we were hidden, and we were on the other side. Got a bonus for nice camoflage. When the thugs came, we all got surprise, and it took a round or so for them to notice where the attacks were finally coming from. Not saying this was done according to RAW, but the DM rolled with it, and it was nice to see one of our plans come together perfectly.

In other situations, used illusions for deceptions (here's the object you were looking for, or here's a bag of coins to pay you with, etc etc.)

My one piece of advice is to have a few tricks outlined for your DM, that you can sort of pre-approve with him. Doesn't have to be detailed, but it keeps him from having that moment of surprise when he realises "Oh crap, you can actually do that." How this works out is going to be highly dependent on how touch/flexibile your DM is. I've had an illusionist in the party that got pretty wild with his ideas before, and the DM sort of had to reign them in. Other times, it made for fantastically different situations, and the DM just rolled with it. Illusions power and fun come from their flexibility, and as long as your DM can roll with it (and of course they always have the saves and interactions with illusions on their side to help curb power) you should have potential for a lot of fun

[GutterFace]

interesting. Do the illusions in 5e get any sort of extra love? in ways of actually dealing damage or shutting people down like it did past versions. (spells like Illusory pit, or illusory feast, etc?) in essence can i make them hurt people directly or just through trickery?

[archaeo]

The nice thing about going with School of Illusion is the ability to conserve a lot of your higher-level spell slots via low level trickery for big stretches of the game. A clever illusionist can hide the whole party, mislead entire armies, and trick their way into nearly anywhere. Meanwhile the subclass powers the Illusionist gets are really powerful and extend the power of low-level illusions quite a lot. And, of course, Illusory Self is a fantastic panic button.

Otherwise, I'd just second MadGrady's advice. Talk to your DM about illusions and what they can accomplish in their view.

Edited to respond: There are a decent handful of damage-dealing illusions, most of which scale with spell slots. The best of them tend to do decent damage every turn the monster fails a save. But if you want to do HP damage, you're probably going to need to branch out to other schools; illusion is definitely focused on applying conditions or just outright tricking your way past encounters.

[MadGrady]

interesting. Do the illusions in 5e get any sort of extra love? in ways of actually dealing damage or shutting people down like it did past versions. (spells like Illusory pit, or illusory feast, etc?) in essence can i make them hurt people directly or just through trickery?

Illusions tend (and I don't have the book in front of me, so forgive if I am over generalizing) to cause conditions more than straight up damage (stunned, confused, etc). Hypnotic pattern is the one that comes to mind first.