illusion questions

[Zhepna]

Hi,

I'll play an illusionist. I have the ocular spell feat, chain spell feat and persistent spell feat.

I don't care about the +x spell level added by the feats

1) if I cast Sonorous Hum and persist it, does the sound made by this spell continue to make sound all days long or it's only when I cast it?

2) If I cast major image and maintain concentration for hours, can I move the image outside of the spell range(Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level))? What I mean is to cast a illusion and as walk or fly, move it along with me on a long distance like 20 kilometers

3) I read online that Ocular Spell to turn any non-personal spell chainable. By exemple Chain/Ocularize Haste could be persisted on the whole party. Is it the case? Ocular spell only apply to spells with a target so I guess it's not exactly true.

Thanks for the information.

[Venger]

1) It continues making the sound since that's part of the spell.
2) No
3) Ocular spell is not restricted to spells with a target. It is only restricted to spells with a casting time of 1 full round or less. Ocular chained haste is a valid target to persist if you can get the effective spell level down to a manageable degree somehow, presumably by making haste your arcane thesis and throwing some +0 metamagics on it.

[CharonsHelper]

For an illusion-based caster, I'd sit down with your DM and go over what he's going to allow illusion spells to do - especially the line of image spells (Silent/Minor/Major etc), as they're very subjective, and I've found that some GMs hate them. A big part is what they will consider "proof" that it's an illusion and what they consider counts as "interacting" with it. (A big thing that bothers me is with all the magic crap going on in D&D, it should take a LOT to prove something is an illusion rather than some weird magical wall that lets certain people walk through - or whatever. It's hardly far-fetched in D&D.)

A big thing that I'll point out is that the figment spells (which include all the image spells) are 100% NOT mind-affecting. Therefore they can working against mindless creatures and the undead etc. In fact, they're amazing at dealing with mindless undead who tend to have horrible will saves, and should (again - depends upon the GM) too stupid to figure out how to bypass them. Ex: Make a big illusionary spiked pit in front of some zombies or skeletons with Silent Image, and they're stuck twiddling their thumbs unless they have bows. Then your buddies (not you - you're busy concentrating) have as much time as you need to plink away at them with bows and cantrips etc. (Unless of course your GM has the mindless zombies test to see if the pit is real.

A basic silent image is also great if you have an archer with sneak attack in the group. Just put them behind an illusionary wall while saying a code word (which SHOULD count as proof - since you're the caster) and the illusionary wall will appear translucent to your buddy, but opaque to everyone else, making your buddy 100% unseen and effectively invisible while they fire off their bow.

But again - I will reiterate that how illusions work varies a LOT from table to table. Get with your GM and ask. This is the reason that I dropped playing a fun little gnome sorcerer in Pathfinder Society who was all about the illusions. I had to tell most of them that the image spells worked on the undead, and some (not most) of the GMs seemed upset when my silly illusions were effective and would rule it weakened. Some sessions he was fun to play, other sessions... not so much.

[Darg]

Unless of course your GM has the mindless zombies test to see if the pit is real.

Huh? Mindless undead which aren't programmed with any kind of self preservation understand that a spike trap is dangerous? They would probably act in a way to reach you in the shortest distance. If there isn't a ledge created with that spike trap, they would most likely walk right into it trying to get to you if they were hostile unless commanded otherwise. An image of a wall would stop them cold though as they can't "see" you.

[CharonsHelper]

Huh? Mindless undead which aren't programmed with any kind of self preservation understand that a spike trap is dangerous? They would probably act in a way to reach you in the shortest distance. If there isn't a ledge created with that spike trap, they would most likely walk right into it trying to get to you if they were hostile unless commanded otherwise. An image of a wall would stop them cold though as they can't "see" you.

Okay then - next time you run mindless undead, you are now forced to have them walk off any/all pits and cliffs if something living happens to be in the other direction. Or if someone casts Create Pit between you, they need to just walk into it.

Personally, I have never seen a DM do that, and therefore I'd be pretty grumpy if the DM just had them happen to do so when it's an illusion.

[Zhepna]

3) Ocular spell is not restricted to spells with a target. It is only restricted to spells with a casting time of 1 full round or less. Ocular chained haste is a valid target to persist if you can get the effective spell level down to a manageable degree somehow, presumably by making haste your arcane thesis and throwing some +0 metamagics on it.

Does it mean I could cast a summon spell or an illusion spell with persist spell, ocular spell and chain spell to have a few copies of that spell and the duration will be 24 hours?

It seems awesome but I'm not sure it works.

[Venger]

Does it mean I could cast a summon spell or an illusion spell with persist spell, ocular spell and chain spell to have a few copies of that spell and the duration will be 24 hours?

It seems awesome but I'm not sure it works.

You cannot cast an ocular summon:

Only ray spells and spells with a target other than personal can be cast as ocular spells.
And then the earlier text that limits it to spells with one full round or less in casting time.

Please excuse my earlier statement: i was conflating this ability with spellwarp sniper's spellwarp ability that turns aoes into rays, which obviously sees lots of use with ocular spell.

If an illusion spell were either a ray or a targeted effect with a target other than personal with a casting time of one full round or less, then you could make it ocular to give it a fixed range and chain and persist it, yes.

If permanent summons interest you, check out the halaster's fetch line, which lets you permanently summon a monster (not capped at 24 hours like persistent spell) at a +3 level surcharge (e.g. halaster's fetch 1 is a 4th level spell that lets you permanently get a summoned monster from the summon monster 1 list and so on) no metamagic required.

[Darg]

Okay then - next time you run mindless undead, you are now forced to have them walk off any/all pits and cliffs if something living happens to be in the other direction. Or if someone casts Create Pit between you, they need to just walk into it.

Personally, I have never seen a DM do that, and therefore I'd be pretty grumpy if the DM just had them happen to do so when it's an illusion.

I've never had problems with it being a problem. Even you admit that you just sit there letting arrows take them out. What's the real difference here other than dragging something out and making the mindless dead less threatening?

As I mentioned, making an illusory wall instead of a pit so they don't know you are there gives the same scenario you presented and would prevent them from coming after you. If a fighter equipped the wrong armor before a fight, you wouldn't let them swap during a fight would you? Besides, why would there be mindless undead around places that could kill them?