Building the Best Phantasmal Force

[Koningkrush]

I've been trying to create the ideal combat-use of phantasmal force I can, and this is what I've come up with so far:

Restrained (Paralyzed seemed OP): Serrated and barbed tentacles tightly wrapped around the entire body, causing horrible pain as flesh is torn asunder due to any rapid movement.
Blind: Screaming Mouther (Like gibbering mouther, but screaming instead) wrapped around the entire head, obstructing their view.
Deafened: Two screaming mouths cupped around each ear that produces a sound louder than a jet taking off.
Mute/Gagged: A bulging tentacle is inserted into the mouth of the target, spewing the foulest pus-like fluid down the throat at the slightest movement of the jaw.
Poisoned: If the jaw moves or the target otherwise bites down and "ingests" this foul substance, causing immediate nausea and vomiting.

All of this moves with the target: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/14/phantasmal-force-on-a-bag/

Thoughts?

[Belier]

Ok first I want to note that you cannot make your target restrained or gagged. He will feel he is restricted or gagged but when he'll try to break free or talk any movement and sound will happen like normal and your target will try to rationalise how come he did move so easily or why was he able to speak.

The most powerfull combat use I ve foundnso far is this one.

The target start to feel like as if the air around him put a huge pressure on him, and as effect of this a big buzzing start to be heard and blood start to flow from every orifice of the body. Blood flows from the mouths, ears, nose ans eyes of the target, giving heavy obscurement to the target.

So for a level 2 spell, you get ennemy has disadvantage/ you have advantage on all attacks, ennemy has disadvantage on perception check relative to hearing, sight and even feel because the air pressure is oppressive on the skin, as well as 1d6 psychic per round and the ennemy might waste plenty of turns against your illusion DC. its gonna be hard to do better than this, combat oriented.

[Pex]

I've used it to make party invisible. When there's a lone monster guarding something or just there blocking your way, I cast the spell to have it perceive its immediate surroundings as it always had. The party can move by it or take what it's guarding, but the monster believes it is alone as it always was.

[Belier]

I've used it to make party invisible. When there's a lone monster guarding something or just there blocking your way, I cast the spell to have it perceive its immediate surroundings as it always had. The party can move by it or take what it's guarding, but the monster believes it is alone as it always was.

Do not forget that it is 10 foot cube and that silent image is 15 foot cube for a level 1 slot. It would be more efficient.

[the secret fire]

Do not forget that it is 10 foot cube and that silent image is 15 foot cube for a level 1 slot. It would be more efficient.

These are the sorts of shenanigans I allow, but only after a contested Arcana vs. Perception check. I feel like it should be difficult to perfectly mirror what a creature is seeing, unless you have possessed it and can see from its point of view (in which case, I would allow autosuccess on such an illusion). I think this gives a clear rule for the players to work with, and results in fair outcomes. How DMs are meant to handle illusions is always a sort of undefined space in the rules.

[Belier]

These are the sorts of shenanigans I allow, but only after a contested Arcana vs. Perception check. I feel like it should be difficult to perfectly mirror what a creature is seeing, unless you have possessed it and can see from its point of view (in which case, I would allow autosuccess on such an illusion). I think this gives a clear rule for the players to work with, and results in fair outcomes. How DMs are meant to handle illusions is always a sort of undefined space in the rules.

I thought the same thing too, since you do not have it's point of view, it may not look perfect, but I'd let it for the DM to handle. Many DM do not likes illusion and meta them any way.

[Kane0]

These are the sorts of shenanigans I allow, but only after a contested Arcana vs. Perception check. I feel like it should be difficult to perfectly mirror what a creature is seeing, unless you have possessed it and can see from its point of view (in which case, I would allow autosuccess on such an illusion). I think this gives a clear rule for the players to work with, and results in fair outcomes. How DMs are meant to handle illusions is always a sort of undefined space in the rules.

I'm quite the fan of allowing mages to substitute in arcana checks for other skills when using spells like this. Same as how Knock worked in 4e.

[Lord8Ball]

Iron maiden filled with water/blood or powerful gravity.

[Koningkrush]

Ok first I want to note that you cannot make your target restrained or gagged. He will feel he is restricted or gagged but when he'll try to break free or talk any movement and sound will happen like normal and your target will try to rationalise how come he did move so easily or why was he able to speak.

I'm aware that it can't impose true physical restraint. The trick is to make the target restrain themselves, not the phantasm.
If you make the target think that struggling to escape would be committing suicide, then they will try to stay perfectly still as possible, voluntarily becoming restrained.

The only situation that they would choose to move at all is if there was something occuring that is worth sacrificing their life or otherwise experience excruciating pain for.

As for the gagging, it's also a psychological game of reward/punishment. They may be able to scream "Help!" once, and then they're going to realize that talking is a bad idea as a burst of poison is shot straight into their throat/lungs/stomach, triggering natural reflexes to gag/vomit/etc.
At the very least, a spellcaster is certainly not going to be able to pull off intricate verbal components in this state.

[Koningkrush]

Another example would be if someone was already prone and you cast it on them, causing whirling sawblades to appear all over the place just inches away from their body.

I can guarantee no sane person would choose to move out of that scenario voluntarily.

[Coffee_Dragon]

The spell creates the illusion of an object, creature or other visible phenomenon. Air pressure and gravity are out. Bleeding sounds like a medical event and is probably out. The caster cannot dictate how the target will react to the illusion, so no "cinnamon bun that forces the target to curl up and reminisce about their grandmother" or similar.

As I have said before, if PF could reliably paralyse with certain parameters used for the illusion, then that's what people would always do, that's what the spell would be, and it would be higher level.


whirling sawblades

You get one sawblade per casting.

[Pex]

Do not forget that it is 10 foot cube and that silent image is 15 foot cube for a level 1 slot. It would be more efficient.

Phantasmal Force affects the mind in that the victim rationalizes discrepancies. A party member walking through the 15 ft cube mark of Silent Image would be seen. A party member walking through the 10 ft cube mark of Phantasmal Force would not because that is all the victim is seeing.

[DigitalCharlie]

I'm a big fan of creating mortal enemies, particularly ones who are good at trash talking to keep the attention of the enemy. All the more fun when you pair it with something like Dissonant Whispers such that the enemy winds up 30' away attacking the air for a while.

Also works really nicely to set up betrayals.

[strangebloke]

Do not forget that it is 10 foot cube and that silent image is 15 foot cube for a level 1 slot. It would be more efficient.
Silent image wouldn't cover senses other than sight, and wouldn't move with the target, and wouldn't force the person to rationalize discrepancies, and wouldn't actually hide the party if they passed through it.

It's better if there are a lot of enemies, but Pex's usage is pretty legit.

Iron maiden filled with water/blood or powerful gravity.

Another example would be if someone was already prone and you cast it on them, causing whirling sawblades to appear all over the place just inches away from their body.

I can guarantee no sane person would choose to move out of that scenario voluntarily.

You guys stole my line. You don't use phantasmal force to restrain/gag/blind. You use it to make the creature think he's gagged/restrained/blinded, and use the 1d6 damage to dissuade him from attempting an escape.

I'm a fan of fake plane-shift. The target perceives himself to have been transported to a magic circle in the abyss, surrounded by demons that attack him if he makes a move in any direction. If he takes damage, it's probably that he moved within the reach of some demon accidentally.

You can also use it in a manner similar to enemies abound, making a cult fanatic perceive his friend as suddenly betraying the cult.

[Belier]

The spell creates the illusion of an object, creature or other visible phenomenon. Air pressure and gravity are out. Bleeding sounds like a medical event and is probably out. The caster cannot dictate how the target will react to the illusion, so no "cinnamon bun that forces the target to curl up and reminisce about their grandmother" or similar.

As I have said before, if PF could reliably paralyse with certain parameters used for the illusion, then that's what people would always do, that's what the spell would be, and it would be higher level.



You get one sawblade per casting.

The blood and buzz is not the result of the illusion but are the illusion. You misunderstood the concept. I am not stating that the target react to the Illusion by bleeding. I am saying that the target feels pressured and hallucinating big buzz in the ears and blood flooding from every orifices. Imagine that you are put into a high pressure chamber, the buzz and the blood flooding out is something that will happen to you. In this case, all of this is the illusion, you state this to the dm when he tells you that the spell is successful:

As I cast phantasmal force, the target start to feel pressured and a big buzz appear in it's mind as he halucinate blood flowing from it's mouth, nose, eyes and ears.

If you don't like this description stating that the spell creates a single object,creature or visible phenomenon, know that you can achieve the same result by attaching a large squid like creature innthe target face, the squid blocks the sight of the target and is screaming making it hard for the creature to ear correctly. It starts eating the face of the target so he does take 1d6 damage per round and the target might lose rounds attacking or trying to remove the squidlike creature.

[Matrix_Walker]

The blood and buzz is not the result of the illusion but are the illusion. You misunderstood the concept. I am not stating that the target react to the Illusion by bleeding. I am saying that the target feels pressured and hallucinating big buzz in the ears and blood flooding from every orifices. Imagine that you are put into a high pressure chamber, the buzz and the blood flooding out is something that will happen to you.

I believe the issue is that a feeling of pressure and a buzz of sound are not objects, creatures nor visible phenomina.

[Belier]

I believe the issue is that a feeling of pressure and a buzz of sound are not objects, creatures nor visible phenomina.

Per visible phenomena, they add that it is only perceivable by the target. Perceivable does not only refer to sight. What if you put an illusion unto a blindsight only creature. Would the spell auto fail? Flans and ooze have no eyes but are neither undead nor construct and are only seeing throught blindsight.

[Coffee_Dragon]

It's better if there are a lot of enemies, but Pex's usage is pretty legit.

I wouldn't have to think for a second before disallowing Pex's usage. "The room being empty" is context, circumstance, not a thing. (If you want to cram every drop of semantics out of the spell description it could be a "visible phenomenon", but only because then anything is.) If I were a **** DM, I would say "sure", then as soon as somebody walks into the "empty" room they are perfectly visible along with it.


I'm a fan of fake plane-shift. The target perceives himself to have been transported to a magic circle in the abyss

Funnily enough, something similar is what I would have suggested as a completely absurd way to try to use the spell that nobody would allow. Guess not. (I would have suggested using it to make someone think they were standing in line to the good afterlife, with a stern archon telling them to keep their head down and only think of bunnies, because nobody would start Investigating their way out of that. Except that the usage is bogus from start to end.)


I am not stating that the target react to the Illusion by bleeding. I am saying that the target feels pressured and hallucinating big buzz in the ears and blood flooding from every orifices. Imagine that you are put into a high pressure chamber, the buzz and the blood flooding out is something that will happen to you. In this case, all of this is the illusion, you state this to the dm when he tells you that the spell is successful:

As I cast phantasmal force, the target start to feel pressured and a big buzz appear in it's mind as he halucinate blood flowing from it's mouth, nose, eyes and ears.

And that's backwards. In my understanding, the spell creates the illusion of a thing (creature, object, environmental element like fog or lava), with enough impression of sensory input to suspend disbelief. A patch of lava will seem to hiss and glow a bit as expected of it, not because you crafted an illusion to specifically hiss and glow just so, but because you made it lava.

You are deciding that you want the target to experience secondary effects of bleeding and hearing a buzz. Those can't be the illusion because they're not things. You can try to append them to the illusion "suffering intense compression", but that's not something the spell does either, because it's a context or event. If you want buzzing, I would suggest creating a swarm of wasps, because that buzzing is a property of the wasps, and will appear to support the illusion. You can't get the bleeding because that's not a sensory property of a thing. If you create the illusion of a heap of plutonium, the spell may back this up with a spooky radioactive glow, but it will not back it up with things that would begin to happen in the surroundings if that were real plutonium. That's not what the spell does. Rather, it stresses the fact that inconsistencies are likely to appear.


know that you can achieve the same result by attaching a large squid like creature innthe target face, the squid blocks the sight of the target and is screaming making it hard for the creature to ear correctly.

Well, imparting conditions is another thing "my" Phantasmal Force doesn't do. Someone with an hallucinatory squid in their face will still be able to see, and will rationalize this as peeking out between the tentacles or something. If you allow PF to work as a better Blindness (with concentration), on top of anything else you can do with it, then of course it will be an attractive spell to take.

[Belier]

I wouldn't have to think for a second before disallowing Pex's usage. "The room being empty" is context, circumstance, not a thing. (If you want to cram every drop of semantics out of the spell description it could be a "visible phenomenon", but only because then anything is.) If I were a **** DM, I would say "sure", then as soon as somebody walks into the "empty" room they are perfectly visible along with it.



Funnily enough, something similar is what I would have suggested as a completely absurd way to try to use the spell that nobody would allow. Guess not. (I would have suggested using it to make someone think they were standing in line to the good afterlife, with a stern archon telling them to keep their head down and only think of bunnies, because nobody would start Investigating their way out of that. Except that the usage is bogus from start to end.)



And that's backwards. In my understanding, the spell creates the illusion of a thing (creature, object, environmental element like fog or lava), with enough impression of sensory input to suspend disbelief. A patch of lava will seem to hiss and glow a bit as expected of it, not because you crafted an illusion to specifically hiss and glow just so, but because you made it lava.

You are deciding that you want the target to experience secondary effects of bleeding and hearing a buzz. Those can't be the illusion because they're not things. You can try to append them to the illusion "suffering intense compression", but that's not something the spell does either, because it's a context or event. If you want buzzing, I would suggest creating a swarm of wasps, because that buzzing is a property of the wasps, and will appear to support the illusion. You can't get the bleeding because that's not a sensory property of a thing. If you create the illusion of a heap of plutonium, the spell may back this up with a spooky radioactive glow, but it will not back it up with things that would begin to happen in the surroundings if that were real plutonium. That's not what the spell does. Rather, it stresses the fact that inconsistencies are likely to appear.



Well, imparting conditions is another thing "my" Phantasmal Force doesn't do. Someone with an hallucinatory squid in their face will still be able to see, and will rationalize this as peeking out between the tentacles or something. If you allow PF to work as a better Blindness (with concentration), on top of anything else you can do with it, then of course it will be an attractive spell to take.

There are tweets about phantasmal force being able to blind ennemies by having an illusion of a bag on the head so per RAI you don't see through the squid.

Also, blood is an object so you could definitively have illusionary blood flood out from every body orifices and sounds are part of what you can achieve with an illusion. Just look at minor illusion cantrip. Phantasmal force comes with the sounds you want it to have also.

The problem with illusion spells and stuff like speak with animals is that it is DM dependant and many dms hate and nerf these kind of spells even if the PC likes it and commit their ressources into it.

I'll admit thought that I will steal you the wasp swarm idea, it could give obscurement and make a buzzing sound indeed

I'll edit the sage advice tweet later on I gtg.

[strangebloke]

Funnily enough, something similar is what I would have suggested as a completely absurd way to try to use the spell that nobody would allow. Guess not. (I would have suggested using it to make someone think they were standing in line to the good afterlife, with a stern archon telling them to keep their head down and only think of bunnies, because nobody would start Investigating their way out of that. Except that the usage is bogus from start to end.)


I really don't see why you're being so restrictive about this stuff. The spell has a lot of limitations; it isn't like incapacitating one enemy is overpowered for a second level spell.

Your reading is essentially:

"You create 1 thing. Only 1! And the creature can see through it, (somehow) so it's strictly worse than silent image. No hiding behind phantasmal walls. The thing has the properties the creature expects, not the properties you give it. In fact, except for the creature believing that the thing is there, he doesn't really perceive it at all."

What the spell actually says is:

"...visible phenomena no larger than a 10-foot cube... The phantasm includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli... The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm."

That description is basically a blank check. The illusion moves with and reacts to the target (or else, how could the illusory creature attack the character. Your interpretation goes both against RAW and against official RAI. It's fair for you to consider the spell to be stupid, but I don't really see why.

The only really questionable bit is: can you create something that fits in the cube, but appears larger? This is clearly possible by mixing conventional optical illusions with more magical ones. In Pex's example, you could create an illusory 'fun room' around the target that fits in a 10-foot cube that appears to be the same size and shape as the original room, adjusting to the creature's movement.

Technically, I'd say the rules allow it, but I'd require INT checks for that level of complexity.

[Coffee_Dragon]

The spell has a lot of limitations; it isn't like incapacitating one enemy is overpowered for a second level spell.

If it reliably incapacitated one enemy as long as you just use the right illusion parameters (squid, buzzsaws etc.), that's what people using it would always do. It wouldn't be in question; the spell would say this is what you do with it, among other things. Designers wouldn't leave it as some kind of puzzle to unlock higher-level spell functionality by fuzzy extrapolation, unless they're, well, bad designers.


"You create 1 thing. Only 1!

It kinda does say that. And I've given the example of a swarm of wasps, which is like a thing of things.


And the creature can see through it, (somehow) so it's strictly worse than silent image. No hiding behind phantasmal walls.

Well, that is the logical consequence of the wall only being in your head and not actually presenting an obstacle to anything real. So if you're looking at a phantasmal thingy in front of a wall, you're technically seeing the wall. You're not really going to take conscious notice of that fact or take it as an indication that the thingy isn't there, but if there is something alarming on that wall, you are able to react to it. PF makes you think something is real that isn't there. It doesn't have functionality to make you actively disbelieve in things that are incidentally "obscured" by a thing that only exists in your head and does not actually occupy any lines of sight.


The thing has the properties the creature expects, not the properties you give it. In fact, except for the creature believing that the thing is there, he doesn't really perceive it at all."

The thing to note is, PF is different from other illusion spells, whatever conclusions we draw from that fact. Those spells put something visible in the world, PF doesn't. If PF is "actually sensing", instead of "the seeming of sensing", how is it different? It wouldn't be, yet we know it is. All other illusion spells show you something and if you question it, it disappears. PF flatly states that the hallucination is believed with the active collaboration of the target's mind. To me that says you don't treat caster specification of illusion appearance and behaviour in the same way (however you were treating them to begin with - the baseline is going to be different from DM to DM in the first place).


That description is basically a blank check.

And that doesn't strike you as remarkable for a 2nd-level spell?

Why does it say creature or object if "visible phenomenon" covers those as well as multiple instances of anything else?


Your interpretation goes both against RAW and against official RAI.

I disagree about RAW, obviously. As for RAI, like everybody else I reject JC's rulings when I don't agree with them. :smalltongue:


The only really questionable bit is: can you create something that fits in the cube, but appears larger? This is clearly possible by mixing conventional optical illusions with more magical ones.

Our ideas of what is "clear" here are clearly different. :smallsmile:

[strangebloke]

The thing to note is, PF is different from other illusion spells, whatever conclusions we draw from that fact. Those spells put something visible in the world, PF doesn't. If PF is "actually sensing", instead of "the seeming of sensing", how is it different? It wouldn't be, yet we know it is. All other illusion spells show you something and if you question it, it disappears. PF flatly states that the hallucination is believed with the active collaboration of the target's mind. To me that says you don't treat caster specification of illusion appearance and behaviour in the same way (however you were treating them to begin with - the baseline is going to be different from DM to DM in the first place).
The active collaboration of the target's mind does not supersede or invalidate the line that says "The phantasm includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli, also evident only to the creature. " If he isn't hearing a troll, how is the phantasm including sound and temperature?

It is different, but in a way that makes it better, not worse.

Why does it say creature or object if "visible phenomenon" covers those as well as multiple instances of anything else?
'other visible phenomena.' Implying that 'creature or object' are subsets of that. I don't know why they went with that wording, but it is at least worth pointing out that:

1. A swarm is a singular 'creature' as you noted.
2. Objects include all physical things in dnd. The rules for objects in 5e explicitly cover things like castle walls and traps, so it's safe to say that 'object' essentially includes everything that isn't a creature.
3. 'Visible Phenomena' is extremely inclusive. A lens creates a visible phenomena. A visible phenomena includes things like a mountain range. While you can't fit a mountain range into a 10 foot cube, you can fit a stereoscopic image of a mountain range into a 10-foot cube.
4. You are not limited to objects and creatures in the monster manual any more than the DM is. So a 'swarm of imps' is fully within the realm of things I can describe.
5. 'The illusion of a cave in hell, with a magic circle on the ground, surrounded by demons, with all expected sounds and feelings and smells,' is a perfectly valid visible phenomena. If it isn't a visible phenomena, then what is it?

Our ideas of what is "clear" here are clearly different. :smallsmile:
I'm just questioning why you are dead-set on making a 2nd level spell worse and less flexible than a first level spell.

[Belier]

If it reliably incapacitated one enemy as long as you just use the right illusion parameters (squid, buzzsaws etc.), that's what people using it would always do. It wouldn't be in question; the spell would say this is what you do with it, among other things. Designers wouldn't leave it as some kind of puzzle to unlock higher-level spell functionality by fuzzy extrapolation, unless they're, well, bad designers.



It kinda does say that. And I've given the example of a swarm of wasps, which is like a thing of things.



Well, that is the logical consequence of the wall only being in your head and not actually presenting an obstacle to anything real. So if you're looking at a phantasmal thingy in front of a wall, you're technically seeing the wall. You're not really going to take conscious notice of that fact or take it as an indication that the thingy isn't there, but if there is something alarming on that wall, you are able to react to it. PF makes you think something is real that isn't there. It doesn't have functionality to make you actively disbelieve in things that are incidentally "obscured" by a thing that only exists in your head and does not actually occupy any lines of sight.



The thing to note is, PF is different from other illusion spells, whatever conclusions we draw from that fact. Those spells put something visible in the world, PF doesn't. If PF is "actually sensing", instead of "the seeming of sensing", how is it different? It wouldn't be, yet we know it is. All other illusion spells show you something and if you question it, it disappears. PF flatly states that the hallucination is believed with the active collaboration of the target's mind. To me that says you don't treat caster specification of illusion appearance and behaviour in the same way (however you were treating them to begin with - the baseline is going to be different from DM to DM in the first place).



And that doesn't strike you as remarkable for a 2nd-level spell?

Why does it say creature or object if "visible phenomenon" covers those as well as multiple instances of anything else?



I disagree about RAW, obviously. As for RAI, like everybody else I reject JC's rulings when I don't agree with them. :smalltongue:



Our ideas of what is "clear" here are clearly different. :smallsmile:

You may disagree with game designers but in the end they know RAI better than us. If a dm still prefer RAW it is up to him however to shape the game as he wish.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/14/blinding-phantasmal-force/amp/

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/14/phantasmal-force-on-a-bag/

Assuming these info, illusion can make vision hindered, and the illusion follow yhe target, so the swarm of wasp idea is kinda awesome.

[Pex]

I wouldn't have to think for a second before disallowing Pex's usage. "The room being empty" is context, circumstance, not a thing. (If you want to cram every drop of semantics out of the spell description it could be a "visible phenomenon", but only because then anything is.) If I were a **** DM, I would say "sure", then as soon as somebody walks into the "empty" room they are perfectly visible along with it.



Then I'm glad you weren't my DM when I used it against the Giant Crab guarding the chest in White Plume Mountain allowing party members to loot the chest instead of us having to fight the thing. If anything it shows the vulnerability of having one monster go against a save or lose spell, but that's why the Ultimate BBEG monsters have Legendary Resistance. That was the only situation in that dungeon the idea could work since we were able to see the guardian before it could see us. You confront the genie and vampire at the moment they confront you.

Some DMs have a tendency to nerf illusion spells to uselessness. Either they can't separate the metagame of knowing it's an illusion yet the bad guys don't but they do because he knows or they're afraid the players are trying to get away with something with a cheap trick.

[strangebloke]

If it reliably incapacitated one enemy as long as you just use the right illusion parameters (squid, buzzsaws etc.), that's what people using it would always do. It wouldn't be in question; the spell would say this is what you do with it, among other things. Designers wouldn't leave it as some kind of puzzle to unlock higher-level spell functionality by fuzzy extrapolation, unless they're, well, bad designers.

I'm coming back to this because this is particularly troubling. None of the illusion spells explicitly spell out every usage, because they're intentionally left open-ended. For instance, silent image doesn't say that putting an illusory wall between you and your opponent is a way of creating obscurement/cover.

But if you eliminate every reasonable extension of illusion spells, you makes them almost totally useless.