What are some of your favorite uses for illusion spells?

[Odessa333]

Topic. I'm making a level 7 gnome wizard (illusionist), and having some researching ideas, narrowing down spell selection, etc, and was hoping to hear some stories of illusions done right. Best story gets a plate of imaginary internet cookies.

[8wGremlin]

1) Using Silent Image to create a cloud of fog around the party, with the for-warning that this will be an illusion.
Party can then see through the illusion, but enemy sees a fog cloud.

This has the affect of giving the party advantage on attacks, and the enemy disadvantage on attacks, and can't draw line of sight, and doesn't know where the characters are in the fog cloud.

2) Using Silent Image to show the Queen kissing the Duke in a window in the palace and then have them leave the window, just as the King looks up at the window. (King was a jealous rage kind of king) <-- fun times in real game

So for shear versatility - Silent Image

[Tanarii]

It's important to check with your DM how they interpret the RAW on physical interaction before you use illusions.

For example:

1) Using Silent Image to create a cloud of fog around the party, with the for-warning that this will be an illusion. Depending on the DM interpretation, several things can happen here:

- no one and no thing physically interacts with it because it's fog and it swirls around anything passing through it. The party can take an action to investigate though.

- your party physically interacts personally (ie their own bodies), the enemy doesn't, your party can see through it but the enemy doesn't. If the enemy enters the fog they will see through it too.

- the party perceives themselves interacting and immediately see through it, and if the enemy fire an arrow at it or sees a party member exit the fog, they've perceived an interaction and see through the spell.

- someone physically interacts (the party) so the illusion goes faint for everyone immediately.

- any of the above, except physical interaction causes an investigation check first, only going faint after it is passed.

Edit:
- Anyone that perceives a physical interaction becomes aware it is an illusion since that reveals it to be one, but it doesn't become faint. An Int (Investigation) check as an action is needed to discern an illusion to go faint.

[8wGremlin]

It's important to check with your DM how they interpret the RAW on physical interaction before you use illusions.


Which is one of the caveats if I ever play an illusionist, always always check with your GM on how they handle them.

Tanarii is correct - and this should be a standard question to GM's on how you handle illusions.

@Tanarii if you were GM how would you handle the above scenario?

[Misterwhisper]

Things that have happened in our games:

1. Using an illusion to make it look like a pit has a cover. Pretty basic.

2. Used an illusion to make a table look like it had stacks of plat on it to start a bar fight.

3. Made an illusion of a whole table of wands to make the enemy caster take forever to get their focus.

4. Illusion of team mates coming from behind cover to draw fire.

5. As a sorcerer used subtle spell to make it look like a high ranking official at a dinner party with the king brought a weapon.

6. Made an audio illusion of a rival snickering and saying, “yeah right.” When the high priest is giving a sermon on how faith will see us through.

[solidork]

It's not particularly clever, but I love being able to just completely shortcut situations where you need to give descriptions of someone or something.

"What did the head cultist look like?" *shows them*
"What's the layout of the base look like?" *illusory scale model*

[Tanarii]

@Tanarii if you were GM how would you handle the above scenario?
Anyone that perceives a physical interactions of any kind (which is generally anyone with line of sight in combat) becomes aware it is an illusion since that reveals it to be one, but it doesn't become faint.

An Int (Investigation) check as an action is needed for an illusion to go faint, and just for the person succeeding.

I treat/read the investigation clause and the physical interaction clause as separate, and the going faint clause as attached to the investigation clause. This makes illusions nice and powerful, but a two way street, since the caster and allies can't just touch illusionary cover and make it go faint.

I'll add that to my list of possible interpretations above.

[8wGremlin]

Anyone that perceives a physical interactions of any kind (which is generally anyone with line of sight in combat) becomes aware it is an illusion since that reveals it to be one, but it doesn't become faint.

An Int (Investigation) check as an action is needed for an illusion to go faint, and just for the person succeeding.

I treat/read the investigation clause and the physical interaction clause as separate, and the going faint clause as attached to the investigation clause. This makes illusions nice and powerful, but a two way street, since the caster and allies can't just touch illusionary cover and make it go faint.

I'll add that to my list of possible interpretations above.

Would you allow advantage on the investigation rolls for the party, as they have been told that it will be an illusion?
How would you handle it?

[Segev]

This thread compiles my favorite things about an illusionist wizard: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477658-Illusionist-Tricks

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Making a door before opening/breaking it(sometimes the doors open the wrong way).

Sometimes I make a wall of ice very close to the door so it looks blocked.

Making a loony toons hole in the wall and using the stealth character to run into the hole and hiding just before hitting it.

Making a big evil dragon on the center of town to clear it.

Making a pantsmale force that looks like a dragon or a dangerous enemy so I won't be targeted or making a bridge above a big fall.

[Fable Wright]

With Malleable Illusions + Illusory Script, you can have the same piece of paper say two different things. We're investigating a guild hideout? Have an official message from the boss saying (to half the people) that <X important figure> is a traitor; kill him. The other half of the people see that the bearer of the message is a traitor; kill him... and hey, he's trying to hunt down <X important figure>. Bam, instant civil war.

With Disguise Self, look like a medusa. Add in a petrified statue with Minor Illusion.

Turn into an illusory barrel is an oldie but a goodie.

Just this week, my group was trying to escape an ally out from a gang warehouse. So I cast a Minor Illusion of the dirt road on the street, used Mold Earth to make some cover to hide behind on the street (and a 5' deep pit underneath the illusion. When our ally ran out under fire, he'd duck behind the cover, vanish below the earth, and I'd recast Minor Illusion so that it was now a 5' cube showing his corpse on the street. He'd be hiding under their noses, and they weren't too keen to stick around with the fuzz coming up. That's about the only way I could think of for him to get out of this alive.

One of my DMs let my illusionist use Malleable Illusions to carry a lake in his back pocket with Hallucinatory Terrain. RAW? Technically not. Rule of cool when the wizard grabbed something from his pocket, threw it down, and bam, instant lake & marshland between the party and pursuers? Worth it.

[KorvinStarmast]

and was hoping to hear some stories of illusions done right. Best story gets a plate of imaginary internet cookies. Using minor illusion cantrip to communicate with goblins whose language we did not speak.

Our bard did a clever thing when we encountered a Batiri tribe in Chult.
None of us PCs speaks goblin. (My ranger's favored enemy is giants, and he speaks giant ... wrong end of the size spectrum)

He cast comprehend languages ahead of time as a ritual (since my ranger had gone scouting and discovered the camp full of goblins) and then we made an open approach to their camp. We tried to use gestures/etc to indicate friendship, and then we hit on an idea of how to communicate with them.

He'd show them a picture with the illusion, and then when they spoke he'd understand their response.

In trying to show that we were "on their side" we ended up with what amounted to a slide show of how we'd battled undead and dinosaur, etc ... sort of like showing someone the home movies of our summer vacation.

Rather than having a battle with a tribe of goblins, we ended up making an ally of their chief who appreciated our having cleared out a bunch of undead nearby. He ended up giving us a mask with a batiri inscription on it that said, roughly "these non goblins are a little nuts, but they are OK" to show to other Batiri whom we are likely to meet.

It was also a funny interaction based on how we RP'd the back and forth between the party and the goblins.

[Chaelos]

Mirage Arcane and Major Illusion (cast with a 6th level spell slot) are some of my favorite spells in the game. One of my more egotistical characters likes to leave permanent 3-dimensional paintings of herself (and sometimes her party) at the sites of their major battles, and she's covered her personal demiplane with illusions to make it look (and feel--at least, in terms of temperature/smell) more home-y than a 30x30x30 box of stone/wood otherwise would.

With Mirage Arcane, my Gnome Diviner lawyer character once turned an entire stone giant mountain fortress into the Big Rock Candy Mountains, which we leveraged into making the stone giants think they'd earned the displeasure of their deity (we were trying to heal their temporarily-maddened thane). While this was admittedly a loose (and hilarious) interpretation of "some other sort of terrain[,]" our DM was willing to roll with it for rule of cool/hilarious purposes. Mirage Arcane could also be used to completely alter the shape of a battlefield prior to a climactic major battle sequence, adding obstacles where there are none and vice versa.

Silent Image (like Major Image) has almost too many uses to enumerate. The same egotistical painter character once used it to create a convincing illusion of Strahd to lure a witch who was obsessed with him outside of a ritual chamber, thus allowing the (frankly outgunned) party a technical victory against overwhelming odds.

Phantasmal Force is another amazingly versatile spell. I love using it to distract stupid enemies with implausible, yet delicious, treats, like the time I used it to trick a black pudding into repeatedly attacking "the world's fattest gnome" (since the illusion can be up to 10' square). Hilarity ensued as I described the "gnome" jiggling back and forth as the pudding struck it over and over again.

[Pex]

I like using Phantasmal Force as a poor man's mass invisibility. When there's only one foe the party needs to get past I like to cast Phantasmal Force to have the creature see his immediate surroundings as he's always been seeing it devoid of any other creatures as the party walks on by. It hasn't always worked due to the creature making its saving throw, but when it has it was glorious. One time it worked the party was able to loot the treasure chest it was guarding, and we didn't have to fight the thing.

[Segev]

A call-out that's pretty terrifying from a geopolitical standpoint is that mirage arcane can remove or render to rubble the walls of a city, from line of sight. Or simply wipe a city off a map, or reduce it to ruins. You can be more targeted, too, if you like. But imagine the city gearing up to defend against an incoming army, only for all of its defenses to suddenly crumble to dust.

On the other hand, a largely-undefended city could suddenly have thick walls of impeccable construction. Or a city in ruins from a horrific seige could be rebuilt to pristine condition.

[Man_Over_Game]

Minor Illusion, creating an illusion of an object, OVER an object that doesn't get moved or interacted with, like a silver candelabra. Leave the illusion while you swipe the object. Make sure to leave in the minute you have before the spell ends, or make sure that you're nowhere near it when the illusion ends so that the owner thinks that someone else stole it.

[Maelynn]

In my setting, spells are accessible to non-adventurers by means of courses and permits. This has brought magic into the public service. This means that illusions are used to create a D&D version of theatres, where a series of illusory images are used to tell a story. Which could be accompanied by Bards telling/singing said story, depending on the venue.

[Chronos]

Oddly, all three of my 5e characters thus far (and probably the next one) have had Minor Illusion (an Arcane Trickster, a Warlock, a gnome, and probably a bard). Some of the ways I've used it:

When trying to sneak past some kobolds who were ransacking a town we were trying to protect: A voice 30' off saying in Draconic "Hey, guys, come check out what I just found over here!"

Replacing a stolen object with an illusion, like Man_Over_Game mentioned. Though a party-mate had done the actual stealing, and I was staying close and re-casting to give them more time to make off with it.

The old standby of an illusory crate/bush/boulder/whatever to hide inside. Works better with a short character, but even a 6' tall human can crouch a bit.

Communicating silently with party members, when we're trying to be stealthy, by making an illusion of writing. Also sometimes things like putting the writing on a wall behind an NPC, where they won't notice it.

The sound of footsteps of a bunch of armed men approaching, with one of them shouting "We've got those goblins cornered, now!".

When trying to rendezvous with a friendly bard we knew in a hostile city, playing a flute song I'd heard her playing before, but making the music come from 30' away from me so as not to give away my own position.

Impressing a group of street urchins, by showing off my superior magical abilities.

I haven't had as much chance to use higher-leveled illusions, but a few that worked out well:

Phantasmal Force against a lycanthrope, of a magical silver thornbush growing up and entangling them.

After my ranger had deliberately enraged a T. rex to lure it through a hazardous area, the party wizard embellished the effect by Major Imaging the ranger running around inside the hazardous area and climbing up the stone spires that made up the real threat of that encounter.

Major Image of the entire party walking right up to the main entrance of a stronghold, while in actuality they were sneaking around behind the back.

One that I tried a few times but never got the saving throw to stick: When facing one adversary who we weren't sure if he was working with or against the main adversary, Phantasmal Force an illusion of the main adversary appearing, and he's pissed, just to see the guy's reaction (and maybe do some damage, if he would think that the main adversary would attack him if he were angry at him).

[Aprender]

I'm surprised this thread has made it this far without mentioning disguise self.

I mean, someone is going to have to seduce the evil King to get him alone without his guards...

[TheUser]

Malleable Illusions + Mirage Arcana

Absolutely bonkers given that Mirage Arcana can deal damage.