On the many uses of "Nystul's Magic Aura"

[ruy343]

I've always wanted to play a wizard who had the Nystul's Magic Aura spell, and used it to accomplish strange things; but I'm pretty consistently a DM, which means that I don't get to play.

However, the tides have turned! I finally get to be a character in my local group, and I've rolled up a cleric of the arcana domain. With my new ability to cast Nystul's starting at 3rd level, I've been brainstorming possible uses for the spell, based on the spell text:

-Acquired an item that can only be used by dwarves or casters? Nystul's can make you appear to be a different creature type
-Found a door that only opens for the high priest of Thor? No worries! Whatever magical effect that lets the HP walk in can be duplicated by Nystul's (your DM might require you to analyze the effect though, observing the HP enter while casting detect magic or identify - I certainly would)
-Alarm spell that goes off when a non-kobold crosses it? Not a problem! Just walk right through
-Competing with a magical bow in an archery tournament? Cheating has never been easier!
-Need to return a MacGuffin to a patron, but you secretly want to keep it really bad? Nystul's to block the real one, while you make a forgery and enchant it to appear real!

What else can you guys think of?

[Vingelot]

Figuratively speaking, if you need to hide a magical needle, make it appear nonmagical with Nystul's Aura and put it in a haystack. Rather an obvious use but very useful.

[Sir cryosin]

I've always wanted to play a wizard who had the Nystul's Magic Aura spell, and used it to accomplish strange things; but I'm pretty consistently a DM, which means that I don't get to play.

However, the tides have turned! I finally get to be a character in my local group, and I've rolled up a cleric of the arcana domain. With my new ability to cast Nystul's starting at 3rd level, I've been brainstorming possible uses for the spell, based on the spell text:

-Acquired an item that can only be used by dwarves or casters? Nystul's can make you appear to be a different creature type
-Found a door that only opens for the high priest of Thor? No worries! Whatever magical effect that lets the HP walk in can be duplicated by Nystul's (your DM might require you to analyze the effect though, observing the HP enter while casting detect magic or identify - I certainly would)
-Alarm spell that goes off when a non-kobold crosses it? Not a problem! Just walk right through
-Competing with a magical bow in an archery tournament? Cheating has never been easier!
-Need to return a MacGuffin to a patron, but you secretly want to keep it really bad? Nystul's to block the real one, while you make a forgery and enchant it to appear real!

What else can you guys think of?

This spell I see me using it more as a DM then as a player.

[JAL_1138]

Figuratively speaking, if you need to hide a magical needle, make it appear nonmagical with Nystul's Aura and put it in a haystack. Rather an obvious use but very useful.

In game terms, the lich makes a phylactery out of an ordinary-looking rock, Nystuls it, and chucks it down an abandoned mineshaft fifty miles from the dungeon.

[Vingelot]

In game terms, the lich makes a phylactery out of an ordinary-looking rock, Nystuls it, and chucks it down an abandoned mineshaft fifty miles from the dungeon.

Precisely. I was actually looking for a plausible example using a rock/grain of sand on a beach, but when none came to mind, i opted for the proverbial example instead :smallbiggrin:

[DarkKnightJin]

I hadn't looked at Nystul's for a long time, but I'm sure a creative player could get some fun mileage out of it.

Part of the reason I wanna make an Arcana Cleric myself is fiddling around with a wizardly cleric.

[cZak]

Used it to hide a quasit familiar from the party paladin

On a Staff of Power to... well, because

[sir_argo]

Gotta be careful with Nystul's. It is only an illusion and changes how the aura appears. If you cast Nystul's on a zombie and create the false aura that it is a beast (instead of undead), you still can't cast Heal on it. It does effect spells and magical effects that try to detect what you are... so if a Glyph of Warding were set to only trigger on Elves, Nystul's will work. Cast Nystul's on your elf and give a false aura that you're a hafling and presto, that glyph no longer triggers on you.

I post this because the OP gave the example "-Acquired an item that can only be used by dwarves or casters? Nystul's can make you appear to be a different creature type"

This will probably not work. You might be able to convince a DM that Dwarven Thrower is detecting that you're a dwarf and that Nystul's will work, but more than likely, only a real dwarf can use it. Changing your aura will be useless. More definitively, you cannot change your aura to "caster" and begin using magic items that only work for casters. You actually have to have the the ability to cast spells in order to use those magic items. I'm not even sure "caster" is an aura that Nystul can set.

Just for the record, I made a post suggesting that Nystul's would actually change your creature type, suggesting you could change your creature type to plant and then cast Transport Via Plants to "burst out of someone's chest". I thought it would be very humorous, but doesn't actually work

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516874-Bursting-out-of-someone-s-chest-like-an-alien