How to play Illusion mage? and other newbie questions

[SuwinTzi]

Posted awhile back asking about a paladin and had lots of great responses.

Now I'm curious what kind of ridiculous stuff I can do with an Illusion mage.

Haven't had a chance to play much since the last time I posted, but did some theoretical stuff with my DM regarding my now lvl 5 paladin.

We figured out quickly that my pally has a good chance to take out two ogres with their health bumped up to 200hp, by himself, provided they didn't start attacking him first (Smite marking, with power attack, cleave, divine bond, and wrath). So in both our dungeon crawl and the campaign, he's having a hard time coming up with appropriate encounters that aren't ridiculously hard, but not too easy either.

Easiest solution for him is to incapacitate my pally as fast as possible, but given that my pally already has a decent AC...well...

Finally, what's the cheesiest PC possible to make my DM just give up and say, "No, because I said so!" We're using Advanced, all the Ultimate books, advanced races and all 3 bestiaries.

TL;DR
How do I illusion mage and need help for my DM cause pally too strong.

[Andreaz]

Now I'm curious what kind of ridiculous stuff I can do with an Illusion mage.Hmm. Ok "standard" illusions you have Silent Image and its tree. Those illusions are damn powerful, but talk to the dm first about how they work. The save to disbelieve only occurs when someone interacts with it, and "interacts" is not defined. FAQ recommendation is "spending actions to interact with the illusion, or witnessing something that makes the illusion stand out grossly". So if you illusion up a wall, people won't even roll to disbelieve it until they actually touch the wall, throw something at it or see something sticking out of it.
Note that Illusions have some of the strongest spells of the game, but is overall the weakest or second weakest school. Out of certain niche uses, most illusions you'll ever use are pretty low level.

Magic Aura and a good bluff (a good disguise is also recommended) and you'll sell your masterwork sword to someone as if it was a +2 sword.
Illusion is the home of Invisibility and Disguise. Mirror Image and Displacement are amazing defenses, Silent Table shuts down eavesdroppers, Shadow Anchor is a pretty funny way to keep the enemy big stupid fighters in the kids' sandbox. Mirage Arcana is all that separates your lame pirate Brig from the skeletal ship of the infamous Salt Revenants.



We figured out quickly that my pally has a good chance to take out two ogres with their health bumped up to 200hp, by himself, provided they didn't start attacking him first (Smite marking, with power attack, cleave, divine bond, and wrath). So in both our dungeon crawl and the campaign, he's having a hard time coming up with appropriate encounters that aren't ridiculously hard, but not too easy either.

Ogres with 200hp? O.o Anyway, the paladin is fairly strong on the "punching something big, hard" field, losing only to builds with more raw damage output or gunslingers and alchemists. Your level 5 paladin is worth 1600xp, two ogres are worth 1600 xp. seems fairly even to me and matches your report.

You want challenging encounters for the paladin? Show this to your DM (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg). The TL;DR of it is that "big bosses" are a waste of a challenge. PCs will struggle far more to deal with large numbers of enemies (the big one worth about 40% of the alloted challenge). More enemies mean more actions against you, even if they're weak, and that adds up really strong.

[SuwinTzi]

Hmm. Ok "standard" illusions you have Silent Image and its tree. Those illusions are damn powerful, but talk to the dm first about how they work. The save to disbelieve only occurs when someone interacts with it, and "interacts" is not defined. FAQ recommendation is...
...You want challenging encounters for the paladin? Show this to your DM (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg). The TL;DR of it is that "big bosses" are a waste of a challenge. PCs will struggle far more to deal with large numbers of enemies (the big one worth about 40% of the alloted challenge). More enemies mean more actions against you, even if they're weak, and that adds up really strong.

Thanks for the breakdown on Illusion Mage, if we ever finish the campaign, I'll try it out (it's been a year since we played >.>)

And it's not challenging encounters for the pally alone, it's for the entire party. Party is a bit dysfunctional with a sword and board fighter (was an illusion mage), ninja, samurai, cleric (who does do cleric things that often), and my pally. We're all first campaign, second dungeon crawl. The cleric likes using Hand of Acolyte and avoids melee combat (despite having a higher AC than I do), the ninja and samurai work together fine, except the samurai will do some....dumb things occasionally, and the fighter is....plays really cautiously. Only the ninja really has any experience gaming. I picked feats for my pally to handle everything as if I was alone, knowing that I'm not getting backup from the cleric (greater cleave, and not sure if cornugon smash or dazing assault).

So it's more making it challenging enough to tie up the pally, without wiping the rest of the party.

[Venger]

I wrote a post about how to use illusions a while back. here you go:

the name of the game is absolutely to keep your enemies guessing. If I had to sum up playing an illusionist effectively in one word, it would be this:

Confusion.

No, not that one (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/confusion.htm), but rather the concept as a whole.

The problem that a lot of players who are new to playing illusionists (by which I mean characters who specialise in illusion, not just specialised wizards) run into is trying to focus too narrowly on illusions. What do I mean by this?

Well, illusions are dangerous/useful when paired partially with real things, right? If you hide the secret door that you and the party ducked into with, say, a silent image of smooth stone over the seam so that the guards going up and down the hall, it's really only useful because there was a wall there in the first place for it to blend into, right? You wouldn't just cast a wall in the middle of nowhere, that would look silly.

Think of your magic as a whole like this. you don't need to conjure from whole cloth, you just need to embellish slightly on what is already there. Like when you're trying to make a master of disguise, when you're not impersonating a specific individual, but rather want a safe "adventuring face'', you always go for "minor details only" since it grants a +5 to the check.

By the same token of logic, there is often an advantage to being subtle with your illusions rather than bombastic with them. Remember the adage about special effects in movies, a contemporary example of IRL illusions: If you notice it's there, then it's failed.

First timers with illusion spells are tempted to do stuff like make dragons appear to ward off enemies with the x image spells. the shortish duration, limited range they can move around in, and their high likelihood (in most cases) to be "interacted with" in the form of attack makes them generally poor choices.

Think of illusion as an optical illusion (technically, it is anyway) and your job as supplying the enemy with what they are expecting to see rather than what they're not.

You're running down that stone hallway again away from the guard patrol. there is a T intersection at the end. Wat do? Don't make a wall, they know the halls, they'll be entitled to a save or might just open fire. make a silent image of long shadows falling in the opposite direction.

You seldom want to surprise your enemies with illusion. Quite the opposite, you want to lull them into a false sense of security. This makes it much more satisfying (and fun) when you go in for the kill, depending on your preferred method of dispatch.

What I've been talking about up till now is using illusion on its own. But, since it's more of a garnish than a main dish, and a caster can't survive on illusions alone, you'll probably be supplementing it with other kinds of spells too (whether it be through other schools as a wizard, through wands as a beguiler, or through other slots as a sorcerer or chameleon, since I don't know exactly what kind of class you're planning on)

since illusions function best by building off what's "already there" as it were, like by covering the seam for the secret door earlier on, they go really well with conjuration spells.

the consequence for believing an illusory allip is real? waste your actions for a few rounds.

the consequences for failing to believe a real allip is real? enjoy your wis drain.

If you have summoning spells in your repetoire, a great way to enhance their usefulness on the battlefield is by supplementing them with illusions via spells like minor image (especially for monsters like allips, who don't make any discernable sound) or phantom battle.

if you can summon one allip in a battle, you're a real badass, but if you can suddenly summon 2 or 3, then your enemies will be quite disheartened. assuming one makes the save against a fake, after the real one drains some wis from one of them, they won't know what to think, and that can really turn the tide in a battle that you're (in actuality) outnumbered in.

just as making things appear (with the "image" line, nightmare terrain, illusory pit, etc) is an important part of illusion, so too is making things disappear. invisibility is good for more than just getting SA dice an extra time (though it is pretty great at that)

you're running down the hallway (again) from the guard patrol. there is no T intersection or turns. no secret door either, your DM is wise to your ways. wat do? A wall won't work, he reminds you, they patrol this place regularly and know how long the hall is by exactly how many paces they take every day. not wholly unreasonable, you think.

well then, if a fake wall that they can see is out, then the inverse must also be true. wall of stone + invisibility (or invisible spell if your DM is okay with that use of it) = winning. the guards see you going down the hall plain as day and chase after to hit a stone wall. you could probably wrangle a little damage out of that (it'd hurt) and they'd certainly be confused about how to overcome a wall that they can't see (digging/pickaxing their way through would be difficult without being able to ascertain progress) and depending on the height of the ceiling, you might be able to prevent them from climbing over by sealing off your escape route entirely.

while the specifics may vary depending on exactly what kind of character you want to play, just remember:

fake things can only blend in when there's something to blend in with. either use the environment or conjure something. you always want there to be a consequence for the enemy when they disbelieve your illusions.