The Gaming Den

I'm curious as to what kind of hidden power lies in illusion I see K talk about every so often. I'm aware of the strength inherent in Color Spray and the Shadow line, but there seems to be a deep respect for even stuff like silent image, even being placed in his personal "spells that fvcking kill people" list.

While I can see its utility or even distracting a monster for a round, I'd love to see what options are there that make this such a powerful spell in your eyes. Is there some secret tactic I'm not aware of?

For lots of monsters a solid wall makes them go away. Disbelieving an illusion requires interaction, if its mindless it won't interact with the wall unless told to. Thats one of the thinks they've posted. I'm sure theres others I've forgotten.

Because you automatically believe the illusion unless you interact with it, and even then it's not a 100% chance for disblief. At the very worst that means trading actions but usually you can get a monster to believe what you want.

Note, however, that Illusion is second only to Enchantment in the "likely to be stealth-nerfed by your GM" sweepstakes. I've found it common for GMs to just naturally assume that the monsters are likely to interact with the illusion on their next action; to define "interact" down so far that it doesn't cost an action for them to do it; or to just plain give monsters an "interaction" saving throw as soon as you finish casting, and to hell with the rules.

This may be a holdover from previous editions. If your GM plays by the rules, though, or something closely approximating them, Illusion rocks.

--d.

Ok, this question comes up every once in a while.

First thing, illusions are very powerful in the hands of a creative and devious player, so DMs stealth nerf them all the damn time, which often means saves every round or even multiple saves a round or auto-saves for things that don’t make sense.

Here are some things you can do:

-Hunter’s blind. Yes, the spell’s duration is Concentration so you can just sit down, create a snow bank or some bushes and the party now has complete concealment, but since they eventually make their saves, they can see through it. Perfect for ambushes.

-Blinding: Create a mist or smoke or something crazy like opaque bubbles and enemies are blinded and you are not. It’s an easy way to give your PCs concealment bonuses.

-Misdirection: It may be an ambushing tactic like a illusionary town festival to redirect pirates into the killing field in the center of town, or even just copies of the party members that stand around so that enemies attack the wrong guys, but its wasted actions for, and redirection of, the enemy.

-Circumstantial crazy: Burn down the bridge, then create an illusion of the bridge, an watch some enemies fall to their deaths when they come around later to walk on it. Circumstances will often make illusions very powerful, since having people believe that something that isn’t real actually is can be useful.

-No saves sometimes: The real strength of illusions is that they last so long, can look like anything you can imagine, and some things just won’t make save or won’t even get a chance to save. If a band of horsemen see an illusionary caravan of refugees from several miles away, most DMs won’t even give them a save until they are close enough to touch the caravan.

K mentions a lot of good habits to get into with illusionists.

It's worth mentioning, although this goes without saying for people who've done illusions for a long time, that illusions are generally best used for ordinary things, rather than for extraordinary things. The better your illusion blends into the real world, the more effective it is. Conjuring illusory dragons out of thin air will have even the most liberal GMs ladling out the Will saves to the enemy. Sealing off an alcove with an illusory wall rarely even gets a second glance unless your GM is determined to be a jerk about the whole business.

And remember, a la the burned-out bridge example, that illusions are not just capable of creating things that aren't really there; they're also capable of concealing things that are. That is, they can't just create the illusion of presence, they can also create the illusion of absence. Present the enemy with one obvious course rather than multiple possibilities, and all but the most paranoid will take it.

Finally, don't be contemptuous of illusions that attract one attack and then go away. True, it's not as good as convincing the enemy frost giant that he really is trapped inside a Wall of Stone, but on the positive side, all you used was a first level spell slot. As long as you outnumber the enemy, it's almost always a worthwhile exchange to use up one of your actions in exchange for getting them to use up one of theirs.

--d., posting from work

I've played with DMs where this scenario happens:

Step 1) Player casts an illusion spell
Step 2) Enemy makes Spellcraft check to know the spell
Step 2b) That enemy automatically succeeds on their save
Step 3) The enemy yells to his entire invading horde that X is an illusion
Step 3b) the entire invading horde automatically succeeds on their saving throw

All of these steps occur on the player's turn in combat.

Is that legit....

No, wait, the Enemy Talking can only be done as a Free action.

Meaning only in their own round.

Not legit. Not legit at all.

I've also had the illusion smoke get nerfed on me once.

Only it was a column of brilliant coloured lights, so you can't see while in it or through it, but my character could.

SRD wrote:In general, speaking is a free action that you can perform even when it isn’t your turn. Speaking more than few sentences is generally beyond the limit of a free action.

Remembering the old days of First Edition AD&D where the Illusionist was its own proper class with a full set of powerful illusionist spells to work from I tend to find the current illusion spells flat and not all that interesting. Illusion spells, at least in my mind, represent the ultimate ideal of first edition design philosophy, which depended on seat of the pants gaming and dungeon mastering.

The first significant opposition came in the early AD&D computer games. Simply put, no one could really figure out how to code a good illusion spell into the computer game as they all depended on the imagination of the illusionist. The early games simply omitted them completely. Removing the Illusionist as a class didn’t help either.

Computer games and the evolution of the system have led to a notion of predictability. We desire to know that “spell X” does “effect Y” and illusions that depend on imagination and creativity go “out of the box” as it were of our typical predictable responses.

Zherog at [unixtime wrote:1173820601[/unixtime]]

SRD wrote:In general, speaking is a free action that you can perform even when it isn’t your turn. Speaking more than few sentences is generally beyond the limit of a free action.

Meh.

You waste an action, they should do at lest the same.

I mean, seriously, if I ilusion up a wall of fire, or just a fire; no one will simply run through it right away.

I agree. I can sort of live with somebody making their Spellcraft check and being granted auto-success - though even that sucks bantha balls. I have a huge problem, though, with one person calling out to his posse and then everybody auto-saving.

Considering that being told it's an illusion only gives them +4 to the will save instead of auto-saving, I agree with you.

Oh, I'm sure they don't officially auto-save. I'm envisioning more the GM rolling behind a screen. "Yup, saved!"

Nope, I was there; it happened to me. No rolling. Dude made his Spellcraft check, which made him immune, then he yelled out it was an illusionary wall, and suddenly all his mooks ignored the illusion completely.

Meh, your players ignore the damage dealt for the first round if your DM is being stupid.

It's essentially what would happen. One more round of no damage.

So this is what you do: You get someone to cast an illusion of you casting an illusion spell (or whatever). You can probably also do this with programmed illusion. You then cast Wall of Stone.

Enemy spellcaster sees "major illusion" being cast, and tells the mooks its an illusion. They run into the wall of stone. Hilarity ensues.

(Alternately, do the reverse, and they think the illusory wall is real - they should get a circumstance penalty to that will save - the spellcaster *told* them it was a real wall!)

The problem with DMs who intentionally fuck over illusionists is that they aren't willing to carry things both ways. Example:

You dominate some enemy and have him say 'the prismatic wall is an illusion!' and all the mooks automagically succeed at disbelieving.

So how does disbeliving work with illusions that have sound/other senses?
I'm guessing that the Heissenberg rule isn't in effect here.

Well, interaction is really poorly defined in the rules, which leads to people like Zherog's DM (inadvertently) stealth nerfing the crap out of the Illusion spells.