What are your thoughts on Misty Visions + Illusory Reality

[Greywander]

I remember reading through Treantmonk's wizard guide and seeing that he highly recommended the illusionist subclass, but discouraged a two level dip in warlock. I thought this was strange because I felt like an illusionist with Illusory Reality could get a lot of mileage out of an at-will Silent Image.

The main argument against this is how it sets back your wizard progression. As a straight illusionist wizard, you would get Illusory Reality at 14th level. If you dip two levels into warlock, you'll be 16th level before you have both Misty Visions and Illusory Reality. But if you stayed straight wizard, you would get Spell Mastery at 18th level and could make Silent Image one of your Spell Mastery spells.

So you'd only get an infinite Silent Image + Illusory Reality combo two levels earlier, but at the cost of setting back your wizard progression by two levels. Is it worth it? What else could we get from 2 levels in warlock that might make it worth it?

[Segev]

My analysis of it is that, from character levels 2-5, the Warlock is the superior illusionist due to minor illusion, misty visions, and disguise self all at will. (Yes, the Wizard gets sound AND image out of minor illusion at level 2, and also does it at will, but unless your DM is a lot more permissive than a lot of people who I've..."discussed"...the spell with on this forum, almost nothing will benefit from having both.) At 6th level, the Wizard starts to catch up, because he can re-use the same casting of silent image and/or major image so that, for the brief periods he has the spells active, he's got as much whim-inspired variety as the warlock.

It's only when the wizard hits 9th level that he has a trick the warlock can't at least match: creation is pretty cool with Malleable Illusions. At 11th, the wizard is finally the superior illusionist, because he can make permanent major images that Malleable illusions makes into illusions he can alter at will.

Now, if the DM creates, or lets the wizard's player create, a Wand of Silent Image that, say, has 7 charges and regens 1d6+1 charges per day, the wizard can keep up a bit better. The illusions created by the wand ARE cast by the wizard, so Malleable Illusions applies. With up to 7 extra castings of the staple spell in a day, the wizard doesn't have to conserve castings in semi-casual settings. He still can't just do it for the heck of it, the way the Warlock can, but...it's viable for most practical adventuring, at least.


In short, if you expect to hit 18th level, stick with straight wizard. Especially if you expect to spend significant game time at 18+. If not, go with Warlock; you won't feel the inferior illusionist until probably 11th level. Well, maybe at 9th if you want to abuse seeming. Once you can cast seeming as a Wizard, Malleable Illusions gives you the same benefit as Mask of Many Faces on a Warlock, plus on everybody you look at while you're casting the spell.


As for what else you can do... well, disguise self + friends is a really nice combination, and unless you have a Hat of Disguise, Warlock is how you get that combo. If you are running Warlock after level 11 of Wizard, you also have the concentration-free major images, and can throw hex onto somebody, targeting Intelligence, to give them Disadvantage on their Investigation checks to see through your illusions. (Doesn't work with silent image due to the unfortunate need to Concentrate on both hex and silent image.)

[Deathtongue]

I remember reading through Treantmonk's wizard guide and seeing that he highly recommended the illusionist subclass, but discouraged a two level dip in warlock. I thought this was strange because I felt like an illusionist with Illusory Reality could get a lot of mileage out of an at-will Silent Image.

But cThe main argument against this is how it sets back your wizard progression. As a straight illusionist wizard, you would get Illusory Reality at 14th level. If you dip two levels into warlock, you'll be 16th level before you have both Misty Visions and Illusory Reality. But if you stayed straight wizard, you would get Spell Mastery at 18th level and could make Silent Image one of your Spell Mastery spells.

So you'd only get an infinite Silent Image + Illusory Reality combo two levels earlier, but at the cost of setting back your wizard progression by two levels. Is it worth it? What else could we get from 2 levels in warlock that might make it worth it?Well, for one, if your game isn't going to reach the teens there's nothing wrong with just being a straight-up Warlock with Misty Visions. In terms of illusion tomfoolery, the Warlock is competitive or even straight-up superior, especially at levels 2 - 5.

But combining the two classes? The biggest reason why you wouldn't want to grab Silent Image from Warlock is because it tanks your Save DC (granted, most monsters are still likely to fail), requires you to invest in what's a dump stat for most wizards, and the fact that a wizard is durable enough already.

Silent Image is a level 1 spell. You have 4 first-level slots. Not only that, but wizards get Arcane Recovery. Illusionist wizards get an upgrade to Minor Illusion that makes it better than Silent Image in a number of ways (adding sound and not using Concentration is a big deal). Illusionist wizards can also use Malleable Illusion to squeeze more use out of Programmed Image and Major Image and even Seeming with a permissive DM.

You just don't gain much from having an unlimited-use Silent Image over just being a regular wizard who uses the competitive Upgraded Minor Illusion (especially once Malleable Illusions and Illusory Reality come into play) and is smart with their spell slots. Even if it came for free, it wouldn't be that big of a deal -- as you noted with Arcane Mastery -- but at the cost of two levels and a precious dump stat? No way.

[Segev]

It is worth noting that minor illusion can only do images of objects; unlike silent image, it doesn't do creatures or "phenomena." Depending on who you ask on these boards, it may only do "static" images, though the spell doesn't specify, so it's very much up to your DM whether your objects can move in believable ways that make their ability to make noise make sense. (Not that this prevents you from having a barrel that growls and makes noises like it's shaking, but if it doesn't move...)

So minor illusion, even with the upgrade, doesn't really replace silent image. The illusionist wizard is definitely the better illusionist past level 9 or 11, and has mostly caught up by level 6, but that's a big stretch of the game where the Warlock, with 1-2 Invocations, is doing better than the wizard who supposedly has it as his entire focus. A big stretch that is even bigger when you factor in the likelihood in most games of getting to level 11, and how long games will tend to be played at levels 11+ vs. 10-.