Creative uses of Silent Image

[evisiron]

I am about to play a low level beguiler, and this is my first time as a caster. So, looking through the spells, Silent Image seems to have an interesting depth of potential.

The immediate ones that spring to mind are fearsome enemies and fake walls, but I am curious to see what other people have come up with...

[Santanya]

Silent image is actually rather useful. Need to sneak into a fort? Wait til dawn and use it to mirror the ground underneath to cover your party (they still need their own move silent though). Use it to produce enemies to distract your opponent (Hey, sometimes vision overrides!)

Illusions are a VERY powerful thing to those with imagination!

[SolkaTruesilver]

http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2003-02-03

Good for intimidation checks

[NullAshton]

Silent image is actually rather useful. Need to sneak into a fort? Wait til dawn and use it to mirror the ground underneath to cover your party (they still need their own move silent though). Use it to produce enemies to distract your opponent (Hey, sometimes vision overrides!)

Illusions are a VERY powerful thing to those with imagination!

People would notice a big hill where there was no hill before.

[lotofsnow]

On this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49164&highlight=silent+flanker), I proposed using Silent Image to flank. There were various opinions, but if you convince your DM, well, your rogue and fighter will thank you.

[Rachel Lorelei]

One of my favorite uses is to put up a wall of some sort between your allies and the enemy. You tell your allies it's an illusion, so they can see (and attack/target) through it, but your enemies don't know that, so they can't see you.

Illusionary pits around/in front of the enemy work well, too.

[rollfrenzy]

Great for illusory Terrain during battle or to draw archers/casters fire. It is also even more useful during non combat situations, any time where people wouldn't get a roll to notice illusion. Fake wall to hide behind during clandestine meetings is just one. It's all about molding it to the situation.

[illyrus]

Batman symbol: You could put a symbol or text in the sky that could be seen a distance off as a form of communication.

Battlemap: Basically create a hologram of a map and have the pieces move around to plan an assault.

Fog: Create a solid fog around the enemy. If it works he can't see you but you should be able to see him. Hopefully your allies will get a +4 to their will saves to ignore the fog.

[Darrin]

The immediate ones that spring to mind are fearsome enemies and fake walls, but I am curious to see what other people have come up with...

Primarily, it can be used as an area-control spell, either with fake walls, hedges/brush/rough terrain, but you can also have fun with pit traps, fake bridges, fake stairs, and other terrain features.

It can also be used to simulate other spell effects:

Light/Dancing Lights
Grease
Obscuring Mist/Fog Cloud
Summon Monster/Nature's Ally
Disguise Self
Enlarge Person
Web
Darkness
Flaming Sphere
Mirror Image
Evard's Black Tentacles
Wall of <blank>
Animate Dead
Entangle
Faerie Fire

Other uses:
- "Shatter" a handheld weapon, wand, etc., or transform it into something harmless, like a bouquet of flowers, convincing the owner to drop it or switch to a different weapon,
- Create a forged document/badge to flash at a guard
- Split up or slow down pursuit by creating duplicates, barricades, cover, etc.
- Create a mirror to look around corners
- Make yourself/others look dead
- Turn copper coins into "gold"
- Make an item look broken/damaged/rusted, offer to buy it at a reduced price.
- Convey a message to someone who is deaf or affected by a silence effect.
- Mimic a performance such as a group of acrobats, juggling, fire-breathing.
- Cheat at gambling (four aces, lucky dice, etc.)
- Make someone look like they have a disease or a sudden absence of clothing

[Jacob Orlove]

Keep in mind that Silent Image is a Figment, not a Glamer. You can't use it to change the appearance of objects or people (otherwise you'd have invisibility for duration: concentration).

[evisiron]

But couldn't you still put a Figment in front of yourself to block line of sight, such as hiding behind an illusionary bush?

[JackMage666]

Nude elf to distract attention of the guard. It's hard to take their full attention away, but they won't look very closely at you, which may keep you from being identified.

[Rachel Lorelei]

But couldn't you still put a Figment in front of yourself to block line of sight, such as hiding behind an illusionary bush?

Yes, you could. But then there's a bush there. Big difference between that and invisibility.

"Blocking line of sight/effect" is one of the best uses of low-level illusions. Especially if you couple it with the Swift Concentration skill trick, or the Sonorous Hum spell, or the feat that lets you concentrate on a spell as a swift or move rather than a standard action. THen you can just put an opaque fog, shell, whatever around yourself and see right through it and still cast, while your enemies lose Line of Sight and Line of Effect to you!

[lotofsnow]

Here's (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20060228a) the fourth part of a WotC article on Illusions. It gives some suggestions for Figments. I recommend reading the whole article series (only 4 parts), especially since you're playing a Beguiler.

[Lemur]

It could be used to catch people off guard, by something like tying you and your friends with illusionary ropes or getting stuck under an illusionary rock to trick people into lowering their guard (assuming they're not around when you cast the spell). It has to be believable in accordance to the situation/environment, or they'll still be cautious.

You could always do the
"Look out, there's a [insert dangerous creature or person] behind you!"
trick. They probably won't fall for the first part, which is why you have an illusion appear behind them, and loom over them. Nice way to freak someone out, since it's a trick within a trick.

You might be able to stall for time (or at least piss someone off) with an endless chain of items type trick. For example, someone tells you to drop your weapons. You begin pulling all sorts of crazy (illusionary) weapons out of nowhere, and throwing them to the ground. Continue until you run out of spell area for your weapons pile, or your foe runs out of patience. Alternatively, you might "not feel well" and start vomiting things like whole cows and the like. This stuff can also be done as part of a comedy routine.

Another variation on making walls for concealment is to cover an area in a dome. Outside light sources (like the sun) will be blocked, creating an area of nonmagical darkness inside the illusion, but not for people who disbelieve it.

Fog is probably a simpler (and less bizarre) way of achieving the same effect, though.

[LotharBot]

Keep in mind that Silent Image is a Figment, not a Glamer. You can't use it to change the appearance of objects or people (otherwise you'd have invisibility for duration: concentration).

Remember that it's also limited to an area. You can't make the illusion move out of the area, so even if you're using it to grant yourself cover, your cover can't move with you beyond a certain distance.

[NullAshton]

One of my favorite uses is to put up a wall of some sort between your allies and the enemy. You tell your allies it's an illusion, so they can see (and attack/target) through it, but your enemies don't know that, so they can't see you.

Illusionary pits around/in front of the enemy work well, too.

Doesn't work. Illusions are opaque, regardless of if you save against it or not. If you save against the illusion, you know that it's fake, no more and no less. It doesn't give you the ability to look through it.

[Lemur]

Saving Throws and Illusions (Disbelief)
Creatures encountering an illusion usually do not receive saving throws to recognize it as illusory until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion.

A successful saving throw against an illusion reveals it to be false, but a figment or phantasm remains as a translucent outline.

A failed saving throw indicates that a character fails to notice something is amiss. A character faced with proof that an illusion isn’t real needs no saving throw. If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus.


The rules suggest otherwise. Emphasis mine. Silent Image is a figment, so anyone who disbelieves it can still see the outline of the illusion, but can also see through it.

[expirement10K14]

We were in the middle of a dungeon, about to fight a lich. Our wizard created images of our party in front of it, so it attacked them, then we rushed in and killed it.

[Enlong]

This one requires Major Image, and I'm not so sure that it works, but here goes.

Faking a Wall of Fire with Major image, and getting the damaging waves of heat, due to Major Image including thermal effects.

Or, more mundanely

Warming up yourself or cooking food with the Major Image of a roaring fire.

[TheAlmightyOne]

In our group me and the bard got together and used it to annoy the crap out of the other party members. The bard was the team leader and I was plot relevant so the rest of the party couldnt really do anything. But basicly we just kept creating images of doors so the barbarian would charge at them and run into walls/into pits/fall down stairs. We were just plain mean and somehow got away with it.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Remember that it's also limited to an area. You can't make the illusion move out of the area, so even if you're using it to grant yourself cover, your cover can't move with you beyond a certain distance.

You can change the illusion, so you can move it with you as you go.
And you CAN see through illusions if you disbelieve them--someone's already quoted the relevant text. Illusionary walls and pits are great.

[Matthew]

Not quite:


Silent Image
Illusion (Figment)
Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Effect: Visual figment that cannot extend beyond four 10-ft. cubes + one 10-ft. cube/level (S)
Duration: Concentration
Saving Throw: Will disbelief (if interacted with)
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates the visual illusion of an object, creature, or force, as visualized by you. The illusion does not create sound, smell, texture, or temperature. You can move the image within the limits of the size of the effect.

Focus
A bit of fleece.

You can move it within the area of effect, but you cannot move the area of effect itself.

[Rachel Lorelei]

You can also presumably change it. So slap those ten-foot cubes down all around you, cover some of them in fog, and move the fog when you move.

[Matthew]

Sure, but you cannot change or move an area of effect:


Subjects, Effects, and Areas
If the spell affects creatures directly the result travels with the subjects for the spell’s duration. If the spell creates an effect, the effect lasts for the duration. The effect might move or remain still. Such an effect can be destroyed prior to when its duration ends. If the spell affects an area then the spell stays with that area for its duration.

Creatures become subject to the spell when they enter the area and are no longer subject to it when they leave.

Which is the thrust of what was being said in Post #16 and which you contested in Post #22, as far as I can see.

[Rachel Lorelei]

I just meant that you can move it around within the area of a fight.

[Beleriphon]

This one requires Major Image, and I'm not so sure that it works, but here goes.

Faking a Wall of Fire with Major image, and getting the damaging waves of heat, due to Major Image including thermal effects.

That doesn't work. It makes you think you feel heat, it doesn't actually produce heat.


Or, more mundanely

Warming up yourself or cooking food with the Major Image of a roaring fire.

Which is a good way to kill your enemies. Make them think they're warming themselves by a blazing fire, while they are actually freezing to death.

[Skyserpent]

One guy in our group cast Silent Image to make a box around his target, inside of which is eerily lit and filled with sputtering organs and shredded meat and muscles. It was disturbing but funny because the outside of the box is a bright shade of lilac.

[Kami2awa]

Get an non-magical, but very ornate bottle (an empty potion flask would be good). When threatened, open it and shout "Destroy them, O mighty servant" and create a illusion of a cloud of smoke pouring from the bottle and forming the most horrific, scary demon you can imagine.

Most enemies, particularly at low level, will be a little scared.

[ChrisMcDee]

On a related note I really enjoyed one of the stories in a D&D Podcast where a low-level party had been chasing an illusionist through a dungeon and putting up with his tricks the whole way through. As he's fleeing up his escape path he casts silence on a boulder and sets it rolling down the hill. The PCs have spent the whole dungeon being hounded by his silent images and choose to ignore the boulder as it rolls towards them...

[Arbitrarity]

One of my favorites went like this:

Take some rogues, or archers, or something. Get them Phasing arrows, or brilliant energy arrows.

Get a wall (of iron, or something). Make it permanently invisible.

Make a major image of the wall being where it would be, except it's invisible. Tell the archers that the image is fake. Once they can see through it, you have archers firing through a wall, who can see through, but their enemies cannot.

EDIT: Permanent image works better, come to think of it. Duh!

[Rachel Lorelei]

Keep in mind, folks, that you have to actually cast the illusion. That means that you can't just yell something and then make it happen, you have to spellcast.

Of course, the Conceal Spellcasting skill trick from the Complete Scoundrel helps with that.

[Fixer]

Illusionary walls and pits are great.

You cannot create illusory pits over real floor with a figment. That requires a glamer. The floor is ACTUALLY there and figments require the absence of something to create the illusion. Glamers can change something into nothing.

You can create an illusory floor over a real pit with a figment.

[Rachel Lorelei]

You cannot create illusory pits over real floor with a figment. That requires a glamer. The floor is ACTUALLY there and figments require the absence of something to create the illusion. Glamers can change something into nothing.

You can create an illusory floor over a real pit with a figment.

You certainly can! You can create an image that looks just like a pit. It's very much possible to make two-dimensional things look three-dimensional--some great street art gets done that way. And if you can do that with chalk, how much more could you do with magic, that responds precisely to your visualization?

[Lapak]

You certainly can! You can create an image that looks just like a pit. It's very much possible to make two-dimensional things look three-dimensional--some great street art gets done that way. And if you can do that with chalk, how much more could you do with magic, that responds precisely to your visualization?Those chalk drawings only look three-dimensional from a specific distance and angle. They are very, very impressive drawings, but images that would continue to fool a viewer in motion towards them they are not.

[Fixer]

You certainly can! You can create an image that looks just like a pit. It's very much possible to make two-dimensional things look three-dimensional--some great street art gets done that way. And if you can do that with chalk, how much more could you do with magic, that responds precisely to your visualization?

I know the art you are talking about and that does not relate here. This is not Craft (painting), this is magic. I understand you can make very pretty pictures with illusions, but making the illusion change for every participant viewing them is beyond the means of a 1st level spell.

Figments, by definition, cannot be placed upon something that is already there. Period. A floor is already there and, by definition, cannot be affected by a figment.

Glamers, by definition, alter the apperance of something already present. Period. A floor is already there and, by definition, CAN be affected by a glamer.

Now, that being said, what you CAN do is create an image of the floor moving upwards and opening a mouth with sharp teeth. Perhaps even coiling up as a snake to bite at people. You cannot make it seem that the mouth is endless or extends beyond the floor because the reality of the floor will exert itself through the illusion.

[lotofsnow]

You certainly can! You can create an image that looks just like a pit. It's very much possible to make two-dimensional things look three-dimensional--some great street art gets done that way. And if you can do that with chalk, how much more could you do with magic, that responds precisely to your visualization?

From the Wizards of the Coast article I linked on the previous page:


As noted in Part One, spellcasters often make the mistake of trying to use figment spells (such as silent image, minor image, and major image) to make something look like something else. Figment spells don't do that -- you need a glamer spell for the task. You can craft a figment to fit in with its surroundings or to conceal something. Consider these situations:

* A party wishes to hide in a dungeon room just beyond an archway.

You cannot use a figment to make the archway look like an unbroken wall. You can, however, use a figment to make the archway look like it has been bricked up; the edges of the bricked area will conform to the archway. You also could use a figment to create an illusory door that fills the doorway. You could even include hinges for the door (set atop the frame of the arch) and a big lock.

* You wish to draw some bad guys into an ambush by creating a false oasis in the desert.

You cannot use a figment to make empty sand look like an oasis. You still can create an illusory oasis with one or more figment effects. You can create an illusory pool of water to fill a depression in the sand, and you can sprinkle the area with illusory palm trees and undergrowth.

If the area is very flat, you won't be able to create a believable figment pool of water, but you might get away with a spring where water bubbles to the surface and soaks back into the sand.

* A party caught in the open wants to hide from an airborne foe.

A figment can't make the party look like they aren't there. It can, however, make them a place to hide. You could use a figment spell to make an illusory house, a grove of trees (with leafy branches for concealment), or even a hill or big rock. The party will be concealed so long as the characters stay underneath the illusion.


Fixer is correct in his statement about the pit. Just as you cannot make flat sand look like a pool of water, you cannot make the floor look like it isn't there with a figment.

Figments cause you to perceive an additional object but do not change the reality of the objects around it, be it water bubbling over sand, a cover over a pit trap, a tree on the ground, or even a vicious tiger preparing to pounce. None of these things changes the reality of the situation, there is sand beneath the water, there is a pit trap below the cover, and their is ground beneath the tree.

A glamer, on the other hand, takes things that already exist and changes how they are perceived. This allows you to go invisible, see a pit in a solid floor, or a deep pool in the desert.

[FoxHush]

Putting a image of a pit above a pit.


If they see past it they might think its another image.






Speaking of creative uses items?


Like dust of dryness with 300 gals of holy water for a undead killing water ballon?

[Serpentine]

A gigantic flaming frog.
Combined with ventriliquism.
And he did it TWICE :smallsigh:

[Umarth]

The best bit of advice I ever heard on illusions is to make them things people won't try and disbelieve.

Don’t go over the top keep things simple and natural so that they never even get a save.

Also never let people know what class you are. If someone knows you’re a beguiler or an illusionist you’ve just lost a lot of your power.

[Chronos]

Elhar gestures and mumbles some words in an unfamiliar language. A rift appears in the sky, beyond which writhing eldritch things can be seen. He shouts a final word, his forehead wrinkled in concentration, and a dozen tentacled horrors emerge from the rift before it closes. The inky black beasts descend to the battlefield, and each engulfs the head of one of the bugbears.

Crunch effect, effectively blind all of the enemies at once, and keep them blinded for as long as you concentrate, with a first-level spell. Fluff effect, you look a lot more powerful and frightening than you really are. For extra effectiveness, use this when you know that a few of your enemies are claustrophobic, so they scream convincingly. Or just cast a Ghost Sound the round before, to add your own screams.

Oh, one other point if you're going to "summon" illusionary monsters with Silent Image: Try to stick to incorporeal undead. Since they all are (or can be) perfectly silent, the lack of sound won't be suspicious.

[Lazy Fat Man]

Can you make mirrors with silent image? If so, you can use them to look around corners or even make your party invisible with some clever mirror placement.

I guess that all depends on your DM.

On a similar vein, maybe you can make a telescope that you can then use, or a magnifying to help with an appraise check.

I guess what I'm asking is, what are the light bending capabilities of a silent image?

[Kurald Galain]

Can you make mirrors with silent image? On a similar vein, maybe you can make a telescope that you can then use

No, and no. Silent image doesn't bend light, it creates an image. Don't try to go meow-splat on it :smallsmile: Technically you can't even use it to light up a room.


Oh yeah - while you might not be able to make an archway look like a wall, you can create the illusion of a wall in front of the archway, which is essentially the same. Especially if it's darkish and/or the walls were uneven to begin with.