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GrandMasterMe
2008-07-26, 01:43 PM
I have just started a campain where i am playing a elven illusionist. I have already used my illusions to intimadate the crap out of commoners into giving me their money. I have been attempting to, with no avail, think up clever uses of illusion spells. i would appreciate any suggestions.
Also the more funny the better.

Moofin Bard
2008-07-26, 01:51 PM
Well, an illusionist in one of my campaigns created an illusion of the mayor of the town we were in. The illusion mayor told the town that he was resigning and giving her position to our illusionist. Our DM did not expect this so now instead of running around doing our adventure, we just make people make things for us like forts. He's actually more of a dictator now.

ThePhantom
2008-07-26, 01:51 PM
Off the top of my head, there's the classic intellent use of illusion, covering a pit, and in a chase to make it seem like your'e ahead of the persob being chased or to throw people off your trail. Sorry if not really original.

CarpeGuitarrem
2008-07-26, 02:29 PM
Well, an illusionist in one of my campaigns created an illusion of the mayor of the town we were in. The illusion mayor told the town that he was resigning and giving her position to our illusionist. Our DM did not expect this so now instead of running around doing our adventure, we just make people make things for us like forts. He's actually more of a dictator now.
So what did you do with the real mayor?

Moofin Bard
2008-07-26, 02:44 PM
...we hog tied him and kept him in a closet for awhile. The we fed him a lot and we traded him to some nice goblins for safe passage through their lands.

OverWilliam
2008-07-26, 03:13 PM
Not because I'm especially creative, just because this particular type of creativity is my forte, I have quite a few ideas for what to do with illusions in a game... Unfortunately most of them require Major Image at the least, if not higher than that. I even have one that would require some kind of epic-level MASSIVELY whack illusion magic to pull off, but if it worked it would be dope. :smallbiggrin:

Examples include:

Creating an illusion of a chair and having somebody fall flat on their backs when they try to sit in it. :smallbiggrin:

Paying for a drink with illusory money.

Illusion over a whole room so that when someone comes in they immediately freak out and leave embarrassed (like, for instance, some couple having a 'moment').

Have an illusion hit on a hot girl at the bar

Make yourself look like you're not wearing any armor and have a pathetic weapon so your enemies get overconfident

Make an illusion of a life-threatening wound on yourself in order to get the hot cleric to 'save' you so that you have something to show your 'gratitude' for

Cast an illusion that makes you look like you have really cool eyes (like, when you look at them you see a night sky with stars or something) and then say you can 'see the future'

Cast an illusion that makes your sword look shorter than it is so they are surprised when it's actually long enough to cut them when they thought they'd dodged it

And then the Epic ones...

Cast an illusion of a mountain range over top of a town so that a rampaging army of orcs don't attack it and go somewhere else instead

Cast an illusion of the sun going dark and some writing showing up in front of it so that people will go blind when trying to read it

nobodylovesyou4
2008-07-26, 03:28 PM
this wasnt by me, but in one campaign i was in, the illusionist was always messing with people. one time he created the illusion of a massive meteor hurtling towards a heavily populated city, and as the crowd starting panicking, the meteor dispersed.
another time he needed to get into a place, so he created the illusion of himself being chased by an ogre and banging on the door, begging to be let in. the guards inside ignored him, so they heard horrible screaming noises and the sounds of a guy getting smashed to death, and when they opened the door they found a bloody puddle. then the illusionist walked up and said, "now can i come in?" they let him in.

Kool-Aid
2008-07-26, 03:34 PM
Have an illusion hit on a hot girl at the bar



This made me think of a funny one, disguise the biggest, meanest, half-orc at the bar as a beutiful woman. Funny if the guy gets the crap beaten out of him after asking the half-orc out (then cancel the illussion), HILARIOUS if the half-orc asks where they should go for their date. :smalleek: A funny idea from family guy would be make the ACTUAL hot girl look like Gene Shallot or something else disturbing.

Do something completely insane for an intimidate bonus, like make it look like you feel no pain by stabbing youself in the eye. The one I like to use is how gandalf turned the room black and made himself look awesome in the fellowship of the ring.

All I can think of right now, but I may remember more.

CockroachTeaParty
2008-07-26, 04:28 PM
I like to make Silent Image useful, it being the most humble of illusion spells aside from Ghost Sound.

Creating an illusion of barbed wire across a doorway, or even surrounding an enemy, can make a nice temporary battlefield control-type trap. Nobody wants to touch razor wire.

It's also good for making extra cards appear in people's hands during tavern card games. It's pretty much a brawl starter.

Creating an illusion of a stone bridge over a gap or canyon can be worth a few laughs as the first few enemies pursuing you fall to their deaths...

DiscipleofBob
2008-07-26, 04:36 PM
Not really creative, but the end result was priceless:

While myself and the rest of the party was in an invisibility sphere, I used Ghost Sound and Silent Image to create basically a Scooby-Doo-esque ghost to frighten some kobold guards. They all run around panicked and frightened until they just run into each other or walls and knock themselves out.

LibraryOgre
2008-07-26, 04:37 PM
An illusion of an old rockslide (or deep forest) covering your group during an ambush. Arrows start flying out of a hillside. (Silent Image/Phantasmal Force)

Chronos
2008-07-26, 05:10 PM
Globes of blackness around all of the enemies' heads. Blind all of your enemies at once, with a single spell. Sure, you need to maintain concentration on it, but still, it's a first level spell and can affect everyone. And at first level, maintaining concentration on a spell is hardly a waste of actions, since you probably don't want to spend more than one spell on a single battle, anyway.

For style points, instead of globes of blackness, make it anything opaque. Eldritch things with too many tentacles engulfing peoples' heads, Disneyworld-style oversized cartoon character faces, piles of bricks, whatever you feel like. The effect is still the same.

KIDS
2008-07-26, 05:26 PM
One very interesting illusion that I've seen lately was from a sorceress in my party... we were fighting an ogre, and she created an illusory sack over the ogre's head!

sleepy
2008-07-26, 05:35 PM
I like to make Silent Image useful, it being the most humble of illusion spells aside from Ghost Sound.

Creating an illusion of barbed wire across a doorway, or even surrounding an enemy, can make a nice temporary battlefield control-type trap. Nobody wants to touch razor wire.

It's also good for making extra cards appear in people's hands during tavern card games. It's pretty much a brawl starter.

Creating an illusion of a stone bridge over a gap or canyon can be worth a few laughs as the first few enemies pursuing you fall to their deaths...

Speaking of which with the Disguise Spell skilltrick and minor image you could win a lot at dice games.

quiet1mi
2008-07-26, 07:39 PM
illusionary combatant and waste you opponents resources

illusionary walls are nice when you need somewhere to hide

cast silent image on a door, open door (silently). spy on the enemy and prepare to ambush the enemy...

illusionary darkness might//(will) cause a disbelief save,require concentration but will provide one way concealment...

Don't forget unintelligent constructs and undead automatically fail their disbelief save, so the sky is the limit. (illusionary wall and take potshots at the unintelligent enemy or illusionary combatant that is too hard to hit and leads them into a group for fireball or down a pit.)

mirror image//major image and goad combo creates a lightning rod for enemies to hit...

beguiler is the key to all those shenanigans... they may not kill their target but they will make them useless against your party

Ceric
2008-07-26, 08:24 PM
I've never done this one, but I imagine it'd be pretty painful if you made a Major Image of anything along with a temperature of 1,000,000+ degrees C, and then ran it through enemies.

Tallis
2008-07-26, 10:10 PM
Make yourself look like you're not wearing any armor and have a pathetic weapon so your enemies get overconfident

If you're casting illussions there's a pretty good chance you really aren't wearing armor and you really do have a pathetic weapon.:smallwink:

If your enemies are in a good defensive position (cave, behind a wall, etc) use an illusion to draw them out. Use whatever would be likely to draw their interest (you, a woman, a child, a heavily laden merchant wagon). If you play it right you can draw them right into an ambush.

Embarass powerful people with illusory clothing malfunctions.

Have an illusion of a dragon come over the hill behind you to intimidate you're enemies.

Use illusory fire to channel your enemies into the path you want them to take. Preferably the path with the traps.

llamamushroom
2008-07-27, 02:01 AM
When somebody disbelieves an illusion, does it 'disapear' for them? Because if it doesn't, all you do is make an open pit-trap and put over it an illusion of an open pit-trap. When the enemies disbelieve the illusion, they will (naturally) travel along the path they think you don't want them to... and fall in.

TheOOB
2008-07-27, 02:05 AM
When somebody disbelieves an illusion, does it 'disapear' for them? Because if it doesn't, all you do is make an open pit-trap and put over it an illusion of an open pit-trap. When the enemies disbelieve the illusion, they will (naturally) travel along the path they think you don't want them to... and fall in.

When someone disbelieves an illusion you can still see it's presence, but you can also see through it, kinda like it being transparent. You still know it's there and what others are seeing, but it doesn't inhibit any of your senses in any way.

Pronounceable
2008-07-27, 05:41 AM
Cast invisibility on hot chicks' clothes.

Cast invisibility on a part of wall for a magic window (may need DM persuation).

Play dice. You need silent and stilled spells to pull it off, but it's fun.

Win all coin tosses.

Make all cp into gp. OR make merchants' gp into cp and be enraged at attempted trickery. If paper money has been invented, so much the better.

Put an illusion of yourself over you for upsetting diviners.

Mess with people's shadows for fun and profit.

Put on illusory clothes and go naked, especially if you're an ugly old man, to piss off diviners even further.

Similar can be done by hot females for added sexy points.

Put a wall behind a door.

Get a fly/worm/dead rat/etc in your meal and demand a refund.

Become a leper to walk unmolested.

Use higher illusions (ones that provide tactile input) to make all sorts of touch only hazards (needles, spikes, walls, blades). How can a tactile only illuson of a crushing ceiling be disbelieved?

"How exactly disbelief works if the illusion is invisible?" is a question that's ripe with oppurtunities.

With a properly beguiled DM, you may be throwing invisible death traps left and right.

DrowVampyre
2008-07-27, 05:48 AM
Corridor + prismatic wall + illusion of corridor on the other side of prismatic wall = fun times...for you...on the -other- side of the prismatic wall. :smallbiggrin:

Blanks
2008-07-27, 07:51 AM
silent image way in the air for long range communication - rip off from OOTS :)

_Puppetmaster_
2008-07-27, 11:33 AM
silent image way in the air for long range communication - rip off from OOTS :)

Actually, that was dancing lights.


A illusion that I've done was to cast silent image of a bunch of beer bottles and bare ground right on top of a campfire. The orcs never knew what hit them.

Tycho
2008-07-27, 05:35 PM
Images make great bait.

My fighter/wizard was getting a reputation for never casting damage spells, so finally I handled one fight the direct way: we were dealing with a bunch of derro, so I prebuffed with Invis and Fly, went airborne above their camp, and produced a Silent Image of a wrecked trade caravan with the driver trapped inside and struggling.

One Quickened and one Empowered fireball later... :smallbiggrin:

EagleWiz
2008-07-27, 05:47 PM
Illusion of a pit trap over an illusion of a normal hallway over a real pit trap.

Kool-Aid
2008-07-27, 07:16 PM
Coordinate a multi-person dance scene, that's begging for money with STYLE.

Just to mess with someone, make the enemy look like you, then watch as the enemies kill their friends and/or loved ones without knowing it, until it's already too late.

Disguise something as food, funny watching the king take a bite of his mutton when he finds out that...it isn't mutton.

Make the tiger appear to be a small kitten, tell the fighter to go pet the kitty.

aaron_the_cow
2008-07-27, 08:01 PM
if you are being chased by non inteligent undead...

make an illusionary wall, they arn't going to disbelive...

Jack_Simth
2008-07-27, 08:43 PM
Don't forget unintelligent constructs and undead automatically fail their disbelief save, so the sky is the limit. (illusionary wall and take potshots at the unintelligent enemy or illusionary combatant that is too hard to hit and leads them into a group for fireball or down a pit.)

Do you have a page reference on this?

Corridor + prismatic wall + illusion of corridor on the other side of prismatic wall = fun times...for you...on the -other- side of the prismatic wall. :smallbiggrin:
Slight problem:

Figment: A figment spell creates a false sensation. Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment. (It is not a personalized mental impression.) Figments cannot make something seem to be something else. A figment that includes audible effects cannot duplicate intelligible speech unless the spell description specifically says it can. If intelligible speech is possible, it must be in a language you can speak. If you try to duplicate a language you cannot speak, the image produces gibberish. Likewise, you cannot make a visual copy of something unless you know what it looks like.

Because figments and glamers (see below) are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. They cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding or delaying foes, but useless for attacking them directly.

A figment’s AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier.

Glamer: A glamer spell changes a subject’s sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear.
You can't use the Image line to make the Prismatic Wall go away - that requires a Figment, like Invisibility, which can't target the Prismatic wall.


Not because I'm especially creative, just because this particular type of creativity is my forte, I have quite a few ideas for what to do with illusions in a game... Unfortunately most of them require Major Image at the least, if not higher than that. I even have one that would require some kind of epic-level MASSIVELY whack illusion magic to pull off, but if it worked it would be dope. :smallbiggrin:

Examples include:

Creating an illusion of a chair and having somebody fall flat on their backs when they try to sit in it. :smallbiggrin:

Silent Image will cover this.


Paying for a drink with illusory money.

Kinda hard, seeing as how the barkeep touches it. Still, if you find a glammer that works on coins, that'd do the job... provided the barkeep doesn't make the Will save (touching is interacting, after all).


Illusion over a whole room so that when someone comes in they immediately freak out and leave embarrassed (like, for instance, some couple having a 'moment').
Minor Image can do it, if it's a reasonably small room.


Have an illusion hit on a hot girl at the bar

Requires Major Image, but quite doable.


Make yourself look like you're not wearing any armor and have a pathetic weapon so your enemies get overconfident

That'd be Disguise Self.


Make an illusion of a life-threatening wound on yourself in order to get the hot cleric to 'save' you so that you have something to show your 'gratitude' for

This could be Disguise Self. The Image line won't work for it, though, as you can't change the appearance of existing things with Figments.


Cast an illusion that makes you look like you have really cool eyes (like, when you look at them you see a night sky with stars or something) and then say you can 'see the future'

Disguise Self will cover this.


Cast an illusion that makes your sword look shorter than it is so they are surprised when it's actually long enough to cut them when they thought they'd dodged it

Just cast Invisibility on the silly thing.


And then the Epic ones...

Cast an illusion of a mountain range over top of a town so that a rampaging army of orcs don't attack it and go somewhere else instead

Mirage Arcana is Sor/Wiz-5, and can change buildings - although you'll need a very high caster level (or lots of castings) to do a town of significant size.


Cast an illusion of the sun going dark and some writing showing up in front of it so that people will go blind when trying to read it

Best done from indoors, through a window (as you can't cover the entire sky!), and methinks they'd get an interaction save when they started trying to read, seeing as how that includes "examine closely".

EndlessWrath
2008-07-27, 09:44 PM
We had 1 guy make himself look uber powerful... by making an illusion of meteor swarm style spell and then him rushing in and knocking it away with a gesture of his hand. Expansion on this would be appearing as if you cast of other schools of magic... Such as appearing as if you've summoned a fireball or summoned a giant.

of course... I love the idea of a person thinking he's falling into a hole that leads straight to hell....

caith
2008-07-27, 10:07 PM
We were fighting some time altering creature that would phase people out of the current time stream(yes, we're in a time traveling camp =(), who was guarding a cave exit. So one of our casters threw up a silent image of 30 or 40 doubles of our entire party and had them run past this creature while we ran in with the images. The thing tried to AoO us but had like a 2% chance to hit a real person. Needless to say he failed. It was pretty much amazing...

nargbop
2008-07-27, 10:13 PM
My high-level group was being chased through a Gate by many, many undead and spellcasters. They were mostly flying, that is, the ones who could make it through the massive diversionary fight at the Gate were flying. I'd already laid a Spiritwall floating off the ground on my side of the Gate to kill what turned out to be a ruse (I know, I know, Spiritwall is supposed to be on the ground; I misunderstood and my DM just ran with it).
I laid a Retributive Image of illusory hill leading upward on my side of the Gate. Either the first one to cross over would fail the Will save, believe the illusion, and fly up into the nasty nasty Spiritwall, or would succeed at the Will save, disbelieve the illusion, and take damage and get dazed.
We were playing a semi-evil game with significant intraparty fighting. One of the other PCs stepped through the Gate first, and, optimized caster that she was, succeeded on the Will save. Hooray for getting dazed before being trampled by your own undead horde!

DrowVampyre
2008-07-27, 10:17 PM
You can't use the Image line to make the Prismatic Wall go away - that requires a Figment, like Invisibility, which can't target the Prismatic wall.

Nono, you don't cast it on the wall to make it go away, you create an image (flat but foreshortened and such) directly in front of it. Assuming a wizard is doing this, they should have enough Int to get the proportions right to make it look good enough to last a few seconds. Which is all you need, cause they'll be walking through it then. :smallwink:

Chronos
2008-07-27, 11:58 PM
Assuming a wizard is doing this, they should have enough Int to get the proportions right to make it look good enough to last a few seconds. Which is all you need, cause they'll be walking through it then.If the folks you're trying to fool are cyclopses with bad brakes, sure. But a few inches of movement would be enough to throw off the perspective enough to make the illusion completely, utterly obvious, and a normal creature with multiple eyes wouldn't even have to move at all, since one eye would already be enough out of position. The sidewalk art you've probably seen pictures of on the Internet doesn't suffer from this problem, since the cameras used to take the pictures are very carefully and precisely aimed, and only have one lens.

Blanks
2008-07-28, 03:27 AM
Actually, that was dancing lights.
I know, but illusions are better because you can write stuff. Signalling to people miles away with neon signs :)

Curmudgeon
2008-07-28, 03:58 AM
Well, I had a Gnome Illusionist back in the days when this was an obvious combination :smalltongue: who liked to fish. He'd illustrate his fishing tales with his illusions. Anyway, our party was invited once to a midnight meeting in a dark alley. While enroute to the obvious ambush, my guy was talking about catching a large perch. As the fish story unfolded, the illusionary fish on the line grew, as often happens :smallbiggrin:, and was about 6' long by the time we turned the corner to discover -- Surprise! Surprise! -- we were in the sights of four crossbowmen on opposite roofs. The thing was, on the surprise round my guy already had a spell in place and just needed a bit of concentration to make it dive-bomb the two crossbowmen on one roof. One of them failed a Reflex save and toppled off, and the other caught himself but lost his crossbow. So my Gnome neutralized half the ambush force, on the surprise round!

AslanCross
2008-07-28, 07:51 AM
The best use of illusions in my campaign so far:
The wizard used silent image to create a colossal illusion of Ravana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravana) in the middle of a riot to disperse it. The PCs were holed up inside a castle with the townspeople rioting outside thanks to an incite riot spell cast by one of the villains. There was no way out and they hadn't prepared fly, and they didn't want to hurt any civilians.

PhallicWarrior
2008-07-28, 08:27 AM
I think the best so far was the time my illusionist took out an entire kobold raiding party. 15 kobolds (mostly warriors, but one sorceror and a few clerics.) vs one 10th level Illusionist.

1st round: disguises self as kobold. Kobolds arrive, and all fail save to disbelieve.

2nd round: cast major image to make the half of the kobolds look like humans, causing them to fight. Sorceror makes his save.

3rd round: Kobolds nearly wiped out. major image again to make them run away from the "troll" right off a nearby cliff.

4th round: Only the sorceror and a few clerics left. cast shadow evocation of a fire ball and they fail their saves. Game over.

It was brilliant to watch, although the other PC's complained that I was making them redundant.