Disillusionment With The Illusionist

[Deadfire182]

Hey all!

I recently started a campgain with some friends, and we just reached level 2. Me being a Wizard, I chose the school of illusion because it sounded really neat. Only problem is that it seems a bit lacking in power later down the line. Is there something I’m missing here?

For reference, I have these spells right now:
Minor Illusion
Message
Ray of Frost
Mage Hand
Thaumaturgy (Tiefling)

Silent Image
Unseen Servant
Magic Missile
Shield
Mage Armor
Find Familiar
Identify
Thunderwave

[stoutstien]

It starts slow but ramps up. Lv 6 you can get a lot of mileage from lower lv illusions.
Illus
Lv 10 is a free can't hit me once a s/l rest.
Illusory reality is one of the most powerful features In the game.

[Frozenstep]

If you play illusionist, you need to get the DM to tell you how he'd rule various situations first. What if you cast an illusion of fog cloud/darkness? Your allies would know it's an illusions, enemies would not, but would arrows coming out of darkness reveal that it's an illusion?

[8wGremlin]

to counter that: It really depends upon your GM and how they handle illusions.
It is the most GM dependant of wizards. I would suggest talking with your GM and seeing how they handle illusions and if not 100% how you see them, ask them if you can switch schools. (don't pick enchantment either)

[Ganryu]

Both Illusion and Enchantment are extremely powerful out of combat. You can easily start wars easier than the bard can, influence people, freak them out, avoid encounters all together. Its about being creative.

A good example:

Silent image. You're in a dungeon, an enemy is passing by, you convince the party to hide in a large crevice, and 'paint it over' with a new wall that the enemy thinks is just part of a wall. Maybe you end a passage way early with this. You've just stopped combat. Or perhaps given the party a good chance to ambush.

[redwizard007]

There is a little known fact about illusionists that I will be happy to share with you. They aren't limited to illusion spells.

Altering illusions (lvl6) and a free illusory double (lvl10) are pretty useful abilities all on their own. That's what illusions are, useful. They aren't big damage dealers, they are highly customizable control spells. For damage you are still looking at the classic evocation spells that you have full access to.

[Chugger]

Illusion is so DM-dependent. Party is fleeing, goes around corner - presses into a nook - and you use illusion to "extend" the rock wall and cover the nook, hiding the party. One DM goes "cool, the orcs run right past - they're gone now - what do you do?" Another DM goes "roll me a deception check" - but why deception? because you're trying to deceive them with your illusion. Another DM might make it a performance check. Another DM might base it on intel - another might say make a nature check because you're trying to copy nature.

They don't explain how illusions work in the rule books, so you never know what you'll get.

Illusory Reality is very powerful but only if you're very creative. It's not at all powerful if you don't know what to do w/ it or can't cook up awesome creative uses on the fly. In that case divination is probably more powerful, cuz auto-saving a ST on disintegrate or forcing something to fail a save on banishment is very very powerful. Other schools are powerful too.

Only go illusion if (1) you're very creative and can cook up awesome uses for illusion and (2) your dm isn't going to smother you every time you try to do something cool.

[Dr. Cliché]

In my own experience, Illusions can be very useful/effective for certain situations/encounters, however, they're rarely ever consistently useful.

Now, maybe it's just that no one in any of my D&D groups over the years has been skilled or creative, but given that they've come up with all manner of creative, non-illusion ideas and solutions, I tend to think that illusions (rather than players) are the issue.

To put it another way, I think that illusions are a useful option to have but I wouldn't want to specialise in them.

[Deadfire182]

Alrighty, so I probably shouldn’t only have Illusions as a one trick pony. The game is too new to know how my DM will consistently rule illusions, but I get the feeling he’ll be a bit more lenient with their use. I may go into a bit of conjugation/transmutation initially to keep enemies on their toes about what’s real and what isn’t, maybe making the illusions more effective.

[ad_hoc]

Illusions are powerful out of combat.

Illusions are weak in combat.

Whether that is good depends on what you want.

[Tanarii]

Illusion is so DM-dependent. Party is fleeing, goes around corner - presses into a nook - and you use illusion to "extend" the rock wall and cover the nook, hiding the party. One DM goes "cool, the orcs run right past - they're gone now - what do you do?" Another DM goes "roll me a deception check" - but why deception? because you're trying to deceive them with your illusion. Another DM might make it a performance check. Another DM might base it on intel - another might say make a nature check because you're trying to copy nature.
I'd expect a DM to call for a Stealth check. Even though that would screw the typical party, with one or more Heavy Armor wearers in it.

[ad_hoc]

Illusion is so DM-dependent. Party is fleeing, goes around corner - presses into a nook - and you use illusion to "extend" the rock wall and cover the nook, hiding the party. One DM goes "cool, the orcs run right past - they're gone now - what do you do?" Another DM goes "roll me a deception check" - but why deception? because you're trying to deceive them with your illusion. Another DM might make it a performance check. Another DM might base it on intel - another might say make a nature check because you're trying to copy nature.


This is definitely Stealth.

Treat the party as though they are all invisible. They still need to avoid making noise. I might give them advantage if the passing orcs are making a lot of noise. The orcs may have disadvantage too if they are too bloodthirsty to be looking for them.

[TheUser]

The class gains loads of traction at 6 that gets better and better all the way to 14.

Malleable Illusions is great with all kinds of spells which is half the reason it takes time to ramp up. Being able to swap up Disguise Self or Silent Image on the fly is great (especially because the swaps require no verbal or somatic components) but the feature really shines when spells like Seeming and permanent Illusions (with 6th level slots) come into effect. Creation is hilarious (turn your fake banana peel into a 5x5x5 granite block and literally crush any large or smaller creature to death) and by tier 3 and 4 you get Mirage Arcana and Simulacrum which are obscene when combined with Malleable Illusions.

It's not an early-mid game powerhouse wizard like the Evoker or Necromancer but rather gets strong at levels 9+

More of mid/late game wizard.

[Segev]

I'm a huge fan of the Illusionsit subclass's features, particularly the 6th level one and how it interacts with certain mid-level illusion spells. I wrote a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477658-Illusionist-Tricks) on it, here, a few years ago, and I think it still holds up pretty well.

That said, there are two major considerations when making the decision to play an illusionist:

What level will the game go to?
How well does the DM run monsters interacting with illusions?

The level question is crucial. If you're not even hitting sixth level, a warlock is just plain a better choice for an illusionist who feels like an illusionist. He'll have silent image at will from level 2, which is going to let you pull illusions out whenever you want. An illusionist wizard at level 6 almost catches up, with his higher-level illusions and ability to adapt them while they're up, but he has to maintain concentration or lose them, and the duration is still a concern.

If you're not going to get significant play at levels 11+, I would probably stick with the warlock if what you want is to reshape the perception of reality. Silent image at will is just that good. Major image is better, but the inability to do it more-or-less at will hurts. At level 11, you can cast it with a 6th level spell slot, though, making it permanent duration and no longer requiring Concentration; the illusionist's 6th level ability to redesign his illusions now makes major images into at-will, on-demand illusions, as long as you keep them nearby.

There ARE other things an illusionist from levels 6-10 can do that are cool which a warlock doesn't replicate easily. So it's in the 6-10 range that it's a question of what you really want to be doing. At levels 11+, the illusionist really comes into its own, though, in my opinion, and finally is the hands-down better choice than Warlock for an "illusionist character" concept.


Also, if playing a wizard illusionist, try to talk your DM into a Wand of Silent Image. It'd be Uncommon and have 7 charges, regaining 1d6+1 charges at dawn. This makes it feasible not to spam silent image, but at least to cast it regularly, and sometimes whimsically.