What are the Absolute Nastiest Things an Illusionist Archmage could devise?

[Ionathus]

Rhogar and Bree, I know you frequent these forums. This is not for your eyes. Turn back now.

Hello all, my PCs have managed to royally piss off a level 18ish wizard who focuses on Illusion magic. They've become a thorn in his side and he wants them to leave his country right now, and he is willing to be absolutely brutal to make continuing as painful as possible. What are the most sadistic things he could do to level ~10 PCs, with near-unlimited resources and time, using Illusion magic?

So far, he's already used Dream to mislead, manipulate, and taunt the PCs, making them feel stupid for getting fooled, taking on the visage of their families/victims/enemies, that kind of thing. He's also cast Seeming on a group of mercenaries to make them look like the party, and then sent the mercenaries out to slaughter innocent villagers in the party's name. Being Good types, they understandably hated this. He's made it incredibly clear that if they don't leave him alone, things will get exponentially worse.

Mind games, trickery, that sort of thing is my main approach. Psychological would be better than repeated "ooh, I killed a bunch of innocents, does that make you mad?" but if the situation is right, he would absolutely hurt anybody without compunctions. This dude's Evil with a capital E and he has absolutely no scruples. Hit me with your absolute nastiest most devious tricks. Would also love to discuss.

Thank you!

[CheddarChampion]

Do you want to limit this to existing spells or will you use DM fiat to make illusion-y effects?

The archmage could curse them with an illusory appearance to hamper their ability to interact with people, or with a sort of illusion that appears far above them, giving away their location.

In combat, enemies' numbers could be doubled due to illusory duplicates which the party might sometimes waste attacks on. (Roll behind the screen if you do this.) Maybe a Phantasmal Force gets thrown their way, maybe a dangerous enemy gets a buff like Blur or Mirror Image.

Hallucinatory Terrain is a good spell if they're travelling. Hide a ravine and watch them fall in, or cover some important place with the image of a mountain.

There's also some kind of spell that summons an illusory dragon that can deal psychic damage. Maybe they have to take care to not reveal their location or a shadow dragon comes to kill them? Just make it a real pain to go anywhere unless it's out of the country.

[Ionathus]

Do you want to limit this to existing spells or will you use DM fiat to make illusion-y effects?

The archmage could curse them with an illusory appearance to hamper their ability to interact with people, or with a sort of illusion that appears far above them, giving away their location.

In combat, enemies' numbers could be doubled due to illusory duplicates which the party might sometimes waste attacks on. (Roll behind the screen if you do this.) Maybe a Phantasmal Force gets thrown their way, maybe a dangerous enemy gets a buff like Blur or Mirror Image.

Hallucinatory Terrain is a good spell if they're travelling. Hide a ravine and watch them fall in, or cover some important place with the image of a mountain.

There's also some kind of spell that summons an illusory dragon that can deal psychic damage. Maybe they have to take care to not reveal their location or a shadow dragon comes to kill them? Just make it a real pain to go anywhere unless it's out of the country.

I want to start with existing spells, but am also open to homebrew! In general, the Illusionist doesn't want to risk getting close to them (they gave him a bloody nose last time he closed the distance), so if he can **** with them from afar that'll be his first choice.

I love the idea of cursing them with illusory appearance or a magical flare that follows them. Ditto for there being more monsters than they expect, or giving all monsters Mirror Image or similar. I can picture the frustration now -- my players hate wasting attacks on something like that so it would be a great way to get them to hate him even more.

Hallucinatory Terrain is going to turn this illusionist into Fantasy Kevin McCallister, and I absolutely love it. So many pitfalls ahead!

Thank you so much for your ideas!

[Unoriginal]

Rhogar and Bree, I know you frequent these forums. This is not for your eyes. Turn back now.

Hello all, my PCs have managed to royally piss off a level 18ish wizard who focuses on Illusion magic. They've become a thorn in his side and he wants them to leave his country right now, and he is willing to be absolutely brutal to make continuing as painful as possible. What are the most sadistic things he could do to level ~10 PCs, with near-unlimited resources and time, using Illusion magic?

So far, he's already used Dream to mislead, manipulate, and taunt the PCs, making them feel stupid for getting fooled, taking on the visage of their families/victims/enemies, that kind of thing. He's also cast Seeming on a group of mercenaries to make them look like the party, and then sent the mercenaries out to slaughter innocent villagers in the party's name. Being Good types, they understandably hated this. He's made it incredibly clear that if they don't leave him alone, things will get exponentially worse.

Mind games, trickery, that sort of thing is my main approach. Psychological would be better than repeated "ooh, I killed a bunch of innocents, does that make you mad?" but if the situation is right, he would absolutely hurt anybody without compunctions. This dude's Evil with a capital E and he has absolutely no scruples. Hit me with your absolute nastiest most devious tricks. Would also love to discuss.

Thank you!

He could cast Seeming on a bunch of innocent people to make them look like bandits, mercenaries or even monsters, with Nystul's Magic Aura to hide how it's a magical effect, and then use some mind control to make them attack the PCs (or have a few real goons attacking the PCs with the innocents charmed to help the goons, getting them in the crossfire). Then as the PCs kill people, the Illusionist warns a local authority figure about the slaughter, and said authority figure arrives as the fight ends.

Most villains can kill innocents, but getting the PCs to do the murdering and then get them in troubles with the actual authorities will be a rank of villainy above.

[Segev]

I'll offer up this older thread of mine (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?477658-Illusionist-Tricks/) for just some ideas of what a PC Illusionist could do.

I will draw attention specifically to Illusory Reality being better than I had originally thought. In May of last year I was re-reading it, trying to find a limit I was sure it had so I could quote it to somebody, and...didn't find it.

Illusory Reality has absolutely no limit to how many times you can use it. Just how often. You can use it AS you cast a spell to make one element of the illusion real for one minute. You can use it as a bonus action on your turn to make an element of an ongoing illusion you created real for one minute. There's no limit to this beyond that. You can even make the same thing real again, later, if the minute of its reality expires but the illusion is still there.

Couple this with some thought on how Illusory Reality interacts with the rest of an illusion. I am not going to tell you how to run it, just analyze some possible options. First off: if you make an item in an illusion real, does it suddenly stop being able to interact with the rest of the illusion? For example, if you have an illusory cage sitting on top of an illusory giant's table, and the party walks under it, and you make the cage real, does it suddenly fall through the illusory table and trap the party? Or does it keep sitting, perfectly real, on top of the illusory table? The latter is far more powerful in practice, but the former quickly reveals flaws in illusions as parts of them "desync" from each other due to changing reality levels.

Using seeming to create doppelgangers of the party to get them in trouble is great. Remember that, with Malleable Illusions, seeming can be altered at will by the illusionist. Moreover, its range limit is "sight." If the illusionist stands on a tower overlooking a major part of a city the PCs are in, and waits to have them in line of sight, he can cast seeming on every living creature he's surveying. He can then turn ANY of them into duplicates of the party. He can turn the party into other people.

When in a pitched fight between the party and either his forces or other enemies of theirs, he can cast seeming and make everybody look like the same orc, or make the people the party is in melee with look like themselves to confuse their own allies. He could make one of them look like him to bait an attack on their own friends, even using magic mouth or minor illusion to give a taunt from the fake-illusionist's position.

If he has an active mirage arcane, and is willing to be close enough to the party to see the places they're staying, he can repeatedly transform anywhere they're staying into a pig sty. Literally, or just figuratively. Replace the walls with hole-strewn messes. Make the beds hard and the sheets itchy. Remove curtains and shutters from windows. Or, more subtly, just make it look like they've severely damaged the place when they go to check out. Make them gain a reputation as slobs until only filthy places will tolerate them.

Again, this takes being close by to pull off, but using major image - preferably a permanent one he "carries around" and uses Malleable Illusion to alter and reclaim - to create an extra coin purse or extra coins on top of their real ones when they go shopping, and then have the illusory coins disappear later on, will further damage their reputation. In fact, even if they're detected as illusions (admittedly unlikely for a high-level illusionist), that just makes it look like the party was purposely trying to pass off illusory coin.

Creation is also good for this, though harder to pull off, because coinage lasts only for minutes.

With limitless resources, he should confront them to taunt them regularly. Not only through project image, which means they'll have to attack it to make it go away (working nicely in combination with the seeming trick, above, where he makes one of them look like himself), but also through simulacrum. The simulacrum of him has limited spells, but is also entirely disposable if he doesn't care about the gp cost nor the time investment (nor the painful extraction of a cubic inch of his own flesh). But it also has Malleable Illusions, as well, and can manipulate his seemings, his permanent major images, etc., so could be used for these "have to be close by" tricks to torment them without endangering the illusionist, himself.

Moreover, a simulacrum could be simply assigned to harass them. Give it a few permanent major images and a mirage arcane to work with, and they'll likely hunt it down before the mirage arcane expires! They get to feel good about a brief victory...and then a few days later, the illusionist('s new simulacrum) is back, with more illusory torment.

[nickl_2000]

Illusions and dreams of their loved ones being in trouble/murdered are a traditional tool.

As is setting up illusionary traps. Oh this cave looks like a safe place to rest of the night? Illusion covering up a dragon's lair. This bridge over a raging river? Yup, doesn't actually exist.

Your allies who's beckoning you to come forward after scouting an area. Well they aren't actually the ally. That is a major illusion who is splitting the party and pulling the PCs into an area that is infested with spiders.

Illusionary attacks in the middle of the night during a long rest so the PCs all wake and fight and thus exhaustion slowly creeps in? Yup, doing that too.

Make those PCs paranoid so they never know what us real and what isn't and can't trust a single thing that is going on.

[Aett_Thorn]

Remember that the Illusionist can also make illusions OF THE PARTY.

Send illusionary party members in to places they frequent and have them act like jerks. Use Illusiory Reality to have the start fights, flip tables, steal things, commit crimes in front of guards, etc.

When the party keeps getting confronted by everyone they know in town for stuff they didn’t do, plus all of the stuff mentioned by others in this thread, they could find the place is more hostile than their liking real fast.

[Segev]

Remember that the Illusionist can also make illusions OF THE PARTY.

Send illusionary party members in to places they frequent and have them act like jerks. Use Illusiory Reality to have the start fights, flip tables, steal things, commit crimes in front of guards, etc.

When the party keeps getting confronted by everyone they know in town for stuff they didn’t do, plus all of the stuff mentioned by others in this thread, they could find the place is more hostile than their liking real fast.

Good ideas, though the OP says he's already used seeming to send minions disguised as the PCs to do this kind of thing. Sadly, Illusory Reality wouldn't work for this, since it can only make objects real. (Unless you rule that the objects-made-real still interact with the illusion as if part of it, in which case "real" gloves on illusory hands could do such things.)

[Sorinth]

Using Dream to prevent the party from getting a LR is always a solid plan. The party needs to burn through Greater Restoration spells to counteract it which depending on the size/composition of the party might not work. It also forces the party to burn through 100gp of diamond dust each casting. If the archmage commandeers/buys up all or even most the local sources of diamonds/diamond dust that presents a serious issue for the PCs. The cost will just get higher and higher as supply dwindles, and the PCs will eventually die from exhaustion.

You can have his apprentice(s) stalk the party so that they know when they attempt to sleep in order to time the Dream spells, but frankly the Archmage can cast it 7 times so they don't really even need to be sure the target is sleeping, they can just target two PCs and have 24hr coverage and a spell slot to spare.

If they don't already possess a piece of hair/nail of the PCs the Archmage should attempt to acquire it so that the PCs are saving those Wisdom saves at Disadvantage.

[Amnestic]

Moreover, its range limit is "sight." If the illusionist stands on a tower overlooking a major part of a city the PCs are in, and waits to have them in line of sight, he can cast seeming on every living creature he's surveying. He can then turn ANY of them into duplicates of the party. He can turn the party into other people.

Not sure if I'm missing something but Seeming's Range is 30' from what I can tell. You can affect any number of creatures within range that you can see, but it's still listed as 30'.

Might be a different errata'd version I'm looking at?

[Kvess]

If you’re going to go to all the trouble of tormenting the party, definitely give them a chance to confront the Illusionist’s simulacrum as they leave his realm. On the one hand, if they defeat the simulacrum it is a genuine inconvenience to the Illusionist — but your party may only realize it wasn’t the real Wizard when the body crumbles into ice and smoke. It’ll both be a satisfying boss fight and absolutely infuriating.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Mirage Arcane can be used for mendacious antics, and often with lethal result. Technically, Mirage Arcane doesn't offer a Saving Throw...the terrain changes seem real to all the senses.

Even if a creature has Truesight, that creature is still bound by the constraints of the illusion, despite being aware of the true nature of the terrain. Options include:

*In the middle of the night the Party is rudely awaken by finding themselves trapped underwater, under the ice of a mile square frozen lake. This can last for 10 days.

*While the Party is in hazardous terrain, (snowstorm, heatwave, etc), Mirage Arcane is used to make the party feel like they are in temperate weather, and thus not take appropriate precautions.

In the Harold Shea fantasy stories written by Sprague de Camp and Pratt the protagonists found themselves suddenly soaked and chilled to the bone, after what they thought had been a pleasant, warm, and dry night spent under a tarp shelter they had discovered, right before a rain storm in Jotunheim.

Turns out the shelter and dryness was all an illusion.

*If the Party owns a stronghold or Inn or other parcel of land, the Archmage can conceal it. Imagine going to where you house should be, but finding another structure, or lack of structure.

[Segev]

Not sure if I'm missing something but Seeming's Range is 30' from what I can tell. You can affect any number of creatures within range that you can see, but it's still listed as 30'.

Might be a different errata'd version I'm looking at?

No, you're right. That's my error. I was conflating it with Malleable Illusions. So technically, you can only cover every creature within a thirty-foot radius sphere of you with a casting. Certainly can cover the party and some people they're fighting, though!

[fbelanger]

Trap the party in an illusionary universe, make them change class! And solve the trap out!

[Segev]

Have an illusory merchant sell them creation-made supplies for a trip.