Another silent image trick

[Snivlem]

As I wrote in my previous thread, my warlock level 2 has learned the misty visions cantrip giving him the ability to cast silent image at will. I'm trying to understand the limits of what I can/cannot do with this spell according to the rules. I'm asking here because neither me or my Dm have much system mastery over 5e.

I had the idea of continously (more or less - I can recast every 10 minutes when exploring) creating the image of either a copy of a party member or a imaginary extra party member moving with/ in front of the rest of the group. For instance I would create an illusion of rogue trying to hide in shadows or dragonborn in full plate armor etc. to trick enemys to waste an attack on him, make bad tactical decisions etc. The downside of the tactic is that the trick takes my concentration so I can't have hex going etc.

The rules as I understand them: The spell is clear I can create an uphold the image if I use my action every turn moving it. I still get to use my own move action every turn, so I can move along with the group.

My question is mostly on how using my action every turn (if at all?) when exploring would limit me. Would I be able to move at the same rate as the rest of the group as long as we don't run? dash action) Would it limit my perception somehow? What is clear and what is up to Dm interpretetation in the rules regarding this?

[Aaron Underhand]

I have silent image as one of the precious spells known on my bard.

Best use to date was the image of a Grell, just out side the cave full of goblins. The cave had a curtain across the entrance, and most of the goblins emerged, and either diverted or wasted an attack. I then moved the image to the next entrance, further along the cliff face. Since the goblin lair was interconnected a number of goblins ened up cowering inside rather than emege and possibly surround our party pressing into the cave.

It probably helped that we had recently encountered a Grell, so they were obviously native in the area.

Arguably sleep would have been more effective, but I was quite satisfied with the utility from a 1st level slot

[Snivlem]

Yes uses are like that are cool, now imagine what you could do if you had the spell available at will :) but fyi if any of the goblins hit the grell with the attacks (?), the illusion probably should had been dispelled as they were interacting physically with it.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

My character was skulking around where he should not have been. Hearing voices coming near, he looked around. There were lots of barrels, but they were stacked too thick to hide behind. So he ducked down, and made an illusion of a barrel around him. Guards looked around, saw no one, and left.

[Quoxis]

Yes uses are like that are cool, now imagine what you could do if you had the spell available at will :) but fyi if any of the goblins hit the grell with the attacks (?), the illusion probably should had been dispelled as they were interacting physically with it.

The attacking goblin would have seen through the illusion, but the spell doesn't end with that. The rest of the goblins would still have to make either an attack or (if they saw the attacker's weapon swing right through the illusion) an investigation (?) skill check to discover the truth about the grell.

[Snivlem]

The attacking goblin would have seen through the illusion, but the spell doesn't end with that. The rest of the goblins would still have to make either an attack or (if they saw the attacker's weapon swing right through the illusion) an investigation (?) skill check to discover the truth about the grell.

That would be open to DM-interpretation, I guess. I think most DMs would rule that it would dispell it for everyone who sees the arrow pass through the illusion, or that the one who made the attacks would be able to alert the rest of the party so they could see through it (I think both of these would occure). If you know it is an illusion you can see through it. At the very leat they could be alterted so they could just ignore it. Without limits like this, the spell becomes insanely strong, especially as an at will abiolity, considering what you can do with it (fog clouds concealing your party etc.)

Anyone have any input on the rules question in the OP? How, if at all RAW, would using my action to move the illusion every turn limit me when exploring?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The first time the illusion was attacked, by RAW, it is interacted with and ends.

[Demonslayer666]

The first time the illusion was attacked, by RAW, it is interacted with and ends.

Only to those that saw that happen.

[Aaron Underhand]

The first time the illusion was attacked, by RAW, it is interacted with and ends.

It does not end - it just becomes translucent to the person who interacted with it.

DM's interpretation whether others can also see through it or not - our DM rules they need an investigation check to do so.

Note - this cuts both ways - without this ruling I'd have just made a wall across the entrance and told my party's archers it was an illusion. Then they would have had advantage shots at each emerging goblin. As our DM rules we can't do this without every character making an investigation role - which given the usual dumped intelligences might take a while - certainly not an option in combat.


Either way, with creative usage it is powerful. I'm not so worried about at will though - It uses your concentration, so it's likely to be once an encounter - useful for a Warlock, but more powerful than agonising blast? I think it's pretty balanced, and helps the warlock feel unique

[tieren]

Anyone have any input on the rules question in the OP? How, if at all RAW, would using my action to move the illusion every turn limit me when exploring?

RAW I don't think there is anything that specifically addresses this. In general some concentration spells have very long durations (Hex or hunters mark can be 8 hours) so just concentrating shouldn't be a big problem.

When you talk about incredibly frequent casting though I think some DMs may impose some sort of consequence. For instance to players that claim to cast shillelagh every 60 seconds while traveling so they don't have to use a combat bonus action to do it. I know my DM has discussed using exhaustion as a tactic to discourage it.

[Snivlem]

Note - this cuts both ways - without this ruling I'd have just made a wall across the entrance and told my party's archers it was an illusion. Then they would have had advantage shots at each emerging goblin. As our DM rules we can't do this without every character making an investigation role - which given the usual dumped intelligences might take a while - certainly not an option in combat..


I don't think it does. With your DMs rules you can create a fog cloud around and concealing your allies (who can see through it without a roll because they are interacting with it), and if each and every enemy have to spend an action to try to see that (can't alert each other) this becomes what I'd say is a broken tactic (especially at will). And with the wall - you can just tell your allies to touch the wall (free action), and the enemies won't be alerted by the arrows they shoot through it. The spell becomes much stronger with this ruling.

Certainly the goblins could tell each other the grell was an illusion so even if they couldn't see through it, they could just ignore it, though?

[Snivlem]

RAW I don't think there is anything that specifically addresses this. In general some concentration spells have very long durations (Hex or hunters mark can be 8 hours) so just concentrating shouldn't be a big problem.

When you talk about incredibly frequent casting though I think some DMs may impose some sort of consequence. For instance to players that claim to cast shillelagh every 60 seconds while traveling so they don't have to use a combat bonus action to do it. I know my DM has discussed using exhaustion as a tactic to discourage it.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not worried about concentration or casting the spell to often (10 minutes duration is not so bad), but I have to spend my action to every turn to make it move. I guess at least disadvantage on perception and possibly stealth would be a reasonable ruling.

[Zorku]

So by RAW your at will spell and action use every turn to do a thing is legal, in the same way that a blinded fighter could attack the square in front of him every 6 seconds (several times if he has extra attack,) for eight hours in a row. The rules don't stop you, but your DM might decide that this sort of activity is simply too much exertion... after some point.

The current way that I look at it is that any time you enter a new room in a dungeon (or similar division of space if you're out in the woods following some deer trail or what not,) you spend 2-12 minutes just looking around to make sure that hidden spikes aren't going to kill everyone or that there's not some assassin crouched behind a box and all around taking in if there is anything important or not in the room, and you spend about twice as much time in that room if you try to perform any kind of skill check there, so there's lots of time to catch your breath between a couple of minutes of messing with your silent image. I'm not really getting any of that from the 5e core books though, so I would advise that you basically say that to your DM and then ask them if they think everything happens much faster or much slower than that.


Yes uses are like that are cool, now imagine what you could do if you had the spell available at will :) but fyi if any of the goblins hit the grell with the attacks (?), the illusion probably should had been dispelled as they were interacting physically with it.

Little clarification there: The image becomes faint, as in, you can see through it. If the goblins see spears sail through it then they realize that this was an illusion, and presumably hiss at each other in their mongrel tongue to relay this information to every goblin in earshot. Dispelling it would probably work in a similar way, but there's not much room for ambiguity when you see something got 50% transparent after you touched it somehow.

Different tables rule that every single creature has to interact with an illusion to see through it, but watching somebody else wave a hand through an illusion seems sufficient for other creatures to 'get it,' and the illusion school of magic is prone to power creep as soon as you get creative with it, so most tables go with something like what I described.


It does not end - it just becomes translucent to the person who interacted with it.

DM's interpretation whether others can also see through it or not - our DM rules they need an investigation check to do so.

Note - this cuts both ways - without this ruling I'd have just made a wall across the entrance and told my party's archers it was an illusion. Then they would have had advantage shots at each emerging goblin. As our DM rules we can't do this without every character making an investigation role - which given the usual dumped intelligences might take a while - certainly not an option in combat.


Either way, with creative usage it is powerful. I'm not so worried about at will though - It uses your concentration, so it's likely to be once an encounter - useful for a Warlock, but more powerful than agonising blast? I think it's pretty balanced, and helps the warlock feel unique
I don't advise tampering with DM's balance rulings, but it seems like you could tell your party it was an illusion then just have each of them walk up and put their finger into it. If it's not paper thin then the enemies on the other side won't see anything but your party automatically sees through it now.

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I've been in a fair number of grognard discussions about the exact limits of illusion spells, and there seems to be two schools of thought for what assumptions you ought to roll with.

The first is that illusions are something like a holographic painting that the wizard imagines and then magics into place. With this interpretation you look at the illusion school in general and see how higher spell slot illusion magic isn't only bigger and longer lasting, but how it also seems to limit the amount of detail that goes into the illusion. People with this interpretation get very upset when you try to create a silent image of a mirror and then use your action to make the reflection move appropriately "because that would be too much computation to do in your head." I don't really get why that changes when you cast something like major images, but somehow the higher spell slot means the wizard doesn't need to work that out in their head anymore, but the smaller spell slot options basically rely on how well the wizard can paint a picture in their head, which is why the investigation check is going against an intelligence based spellcasting DC (nevermind when a charisma caster uses these spells...)

The other school of thought is that these spells actually tell you everything you need to know about how they work, and they basically look like they are supposed to because a wizard did it. Here a mirror doesn't have to move because it is simply reflective, and it doesn't need to interact with light to show someone a reflection because it is magic. The limits on these spells/new things you can do with higher level spell slots now have little to do with complexity, but are just these arbitrary limitations that exist because that's how the magic works.

Most people intuit that the free form illusion spells are operating in that first way. Developer tweets seem to indicate that they were thinking of something similar when they wrote the PHB, but the actual language there doesn't rule out the second option, and there are a lot of examples in literature of each one that there's not really a concrete case for why someone's wrong to think the second way. I personally fall into the first category, but if you and your DM want to use the second one then you're going to want to figure out why you both think that silent images doesn't allow you to hunker down in the middle of an empty room while appearing invisible as you do so (the box that looks like empty space trick,) or if you both think that that's not going to break game balance.

The silent image copy that springs ambushes early shouldn't be nearly as controversial as that, but you might wanna figure out how your DM approaches this, and if the rulings get confusing maybe you two just ended up on these two different wavelengths.