Does Silent Image let me do Looney Toons stuff?

[Aasimar]

Don't know if it would precisely have tactical value, but I'm thinking about stuff like:

Jump/fly/airwalk across a chasm that I've made a silent image of a bridge over (hopefully while enemies are out of sight), watch as they try to follow.

Cross a corner and duck into a bush, making a silent image of a cave/tunnel on a nearby cliffside, watch as they run into it.

To hide, stand right next to a wall, make a silent image of the same wall just in front of me.

Run into a room and close the door behind me, make a silent image of the still open door on top of it.

Or how about stuff like:

A slide show explaining the current situation.

Comedy props, "CGI effects" on top of a performance

A running cartoon demonstration of what I want the party to do

[Zanos]

"Figments cannot make something seem to be something else", which puts a damper on a lot of potential shenanigans with silent image.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Don't know if it would precisely have tactical value, but I'm thinking about stuff like:

Tactical value varies with the image but creativity can work wonders.


Jump/fly/airwalk across a chasm that I've made a silent image of a bridge over (hopefully while enemies are out of sight), watch as they try to follow.

Sure, no problem. Takes a bit of setup though.


Cross a corner and duck into a bush, making a silent image of a cave/tunnel on a nearby cliffside, watch as they run into it.

Nope. A figment cannot make one thing (a wall) seem like something else (a passage). You might be able to pull an image of a remarkably detailed drawing of an opening with a craft (painting) check but that'd take a generous DM.


To hide, stand right next to a wall, make a silent image of the same wall just in front of me.

No problem. Fairly common use, actually. Just be aware that a hump in a wall may be suspicious to people familiar with the building.


Run into a room and close the door behind me, make a silent image of the still open door on top of it.

Nope. The reverse, making an opened door look closed, is doable but to make a closed door look opened would require changing the appearance of the actual door, not just filling the empty door frame with an image. Changing the appearance of an object requires a glamer subschool illusion. The image line are all figments.


Or how about stuff like:

A slide show explaining the current situation.

Comedy props, "CGI effects" on top of a performance

A running cartoon demonstration of what I want the party to do

All fine as long as you're not trying to change the appearance of a real object. That's the hard-limit on figments; they can create as many false objects as you please (within the prescribed limits of the actual spell) but can't make something look like something else.

[Aasimar]

Alright, thanks :D

I may need to invest in some craft (painting) ranks

[SilverLeaf167]

"Figments cannot make something seem to be something else", which puts a damper on a lot of potential shenanigans with silent image.

Out of the examples given, I don't think this would stop anything but than the cave and the closed door, since the others all boil down to creating an illusion either in the air or superimposed on something else.

That's the most important distinction, I think: you can't change or make invisible what's already there (you can't make the closed door transparent or create a 3D tunnel through stone), but opaque illusions can definitely cover and thus disguise physical objects.

For instance: you can't make a closed door look open, since that would require either an extremely realistic 2D image of the space behind the door or making the door transparent. You could, however, make an open door look closed if it opens away from the viewer, since in that case you're just creating the illusion of a closed door inside the empty frame.


EDIT: Swordsage'd, with the exact same example too.

[Aasimar]

I could probably find some more uses for this.

Illusion of a painting of a quiet scene, in front of the guard tower window (assuming I'd seen what that scene looks like and had the skill to craft such a painting)

Floating on an illusion of the edge of a cliff, 1-2 meters further out than the actual edge of the cliff.

There's a lot of potential, depending on creativity and GM approval.

[SilverLeaf167]

I could probably find some more uses for this.

Illusion of a painting of a quiet scene, in front of the guard tower window (assuming I'd seen what that scene looks like and had the skill to craft such a painting)

Floating on an illusion of the edge of a cliff, 1-2 meters further out than the actual edge of the cliff.

There's a lot of potential, depending on creativity and GM approval.

The first probably wouldn't work. It'd be pretty much impossible to precisely recreate the perspective and such in a 2D painting, especially from a high tower where perspective is even more apparent. It might fool someone who's looking at it from one exact direction, and not too closely, but as soon as they looked at it from another angle your cover would be blown.

The cliff trick should definitely be possible, though.