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Jay R
2016-11-24, 08:44 AM
I'm playing an illusionist for the first time since the eighties, and I'm looking for inspiration.

Not advice - inspiration.

Please post your favorite stories about the most creative and effective uses of illusions that you've ever played or seen.

In original D&D, a friend of mine once created a Phantasmal Force of a lava flow coming down - and filling - the dungeon passage, to make the enemy flee in terror.

Squiddish
2016-11-24, 09:38 AM
In a heavily horror-themed one-shot, we were making something of a last stand in an abbey, fighting against two powerful creatures from another planet. With two of our party members unnaturally exhausted and fast asleep, and the rest heavily drained from a full day, and knowing that one of these creatures was enough to nearly kill us when we were all in fighting condition, we began to despair. My sorcerer and the party ranger got into position in the center of the room, ready to go down in a blaze of glory. Our bard hid in the corner, and cast silent image, forming a perfect image of the corner right in front of him. He had effectively created budget invisibility.

Inevitability
2016-11-24, 11:30 AM
Shout "SUMMON MONSTER", then create an image of a celestial bobcat or something next to an enemy.

It's even better than normal illusions at keeping foes out of the battle. After all, if you make a wall appear people can just go around, but an illusory monster is likely to both pin them down (don't want to take an AoO) and make them waste actions on attacks.

Calen
2016-11-24, 11:33 AM
In a game I was running a couple of casters teamed up using ghost sound, light, and minor illusion to create the impression of a friendly ship coming through a fog bank. They effectively drew the fire of the enemy ship they were fleeing from.

SpoonR
2016-11-24, 12:49 PM
Fiction not gaming, but still: In a modern setting, create the sound of a police siren coming your way.
Ars Magica: Blinding or VR goggles by creating a really small but detailed image, 1 inch in front of their eyes or closer. (Small and close means the illusion fills their field of view, but no one else sees the illusion)

Jay R
2016-11-25, 02:40 PM
Last weekend, our party saw the people planning to barricade the pass against us from a half mile away, and they saw us. I was certain that they had already counted the number of horses and riders, and since it was flat all the way up to where the road goes between two outcroppings, I couldn't really invent a large force to join us. But we were puling a cart. I created an illusion of three crossbowmen lying down in the cart. I didn't figure I could justify more than three.

Someday I want to have an infinite stream of fighting clowns coming out of the cart.

Yukitsu
2016-11-25, 03:14 PM
I like making mazes with real walls, shadow conjured walls and illusory walls as well as invisible real walls, invisible shadow walls and invisible illusory walls. You basically draw down 6 different mazes that overlap in funky ways and then hand it to your DM and then watch as he slowly rips it apart in front of you.

Inevitability
2016-11-25, 03:55 PM
I like making mazes with real walls, shadow conjured walls and illusory walls as well as invisible real walls, invisible shadow walls and invisible illusory walls. You basically draw down 6 different mazes that overlap in funky ways and then hand it to your DM and then watch as he slowly rips it apart in front of you.

I like you.

Also, don't stop at the walls with regards to illusions. Throw an illusion of a passage blocked by a wall of force on one of the walls, then watch the PC's inefficiently try to teleport past or even Disjunction through.

PrismCat21
2016-11-25, 04:32 PM
I tend to use Illusions more as distractions than anything else.
My favorite strategy is finding a decent hiding spot, casting a few Illusions or Mirror Images of myself, and using the metamagic feat to make every attack/action appear to come from the images.
- your targets spend the whole time chasing down your images while you're safe and secure hiding with mundane means.

Another one that gets people made at me is when I cast a huge transparent image over myself, and attack with weapons/items using Telekinesis. You telekineticly throw boulders or attack with huge weapons, and it simply looks like you've gotten big and strong since it looks like the image is picking them up and swinging them. (Thinknof the mutant 'Armor' from X-Men, or Apache Chief character from Young Justice)

Invisible Illusions of pits and cliffs are always fun. If you have see invisibility and no one else does, casting an image in the invisible creatures square is helpful to. :)

Hmmm... Semi-related question. How do illusions of reflected surfaces react to its surroundings? An image of a mirror or lake?

Yukitsu
2016-11-25, 07:52 PM
Invisible Illusions of pits and cliffs are always fun. If you have see invisibility and no one else does, casting an image in the invisible creatures square is helpful to. :)

Hmmm... Semi-related question. How do illusions of reflected surfaces react to its surroundings? An image of a mirror or lake?

This reminds me, I had a dungeon where there's a 10 foot wide chasm, and then behind that shadow ground. The big dumb athletes that hopped across stood on it fine but then when the others managed to get across the whole lot of them fell when they realized the floor was a lie.

It's sad, but shadow magic is completely banned at my gaming table these days.

clothaire
2016-11-25, 09:18 PM
Our party found itself in the way of a small hobgoblin war band, but definitely too many to fight. So we attracted their attention while the wizard used an illusion to create the appearance of metal glinting out in the forest along their flank. They assumed we were luring them into an ambush, so they retreated and got into a battle formation. While they did, we hightailed it.

shadow_archmagi
2016-11-25, 10:03 PM
Slow down cautious enemies with illusions that are identical to and overlapping the real thing. Maybe you'll get extra lucky and cause an existential crisis as they try to figure out how you're blocking True Sight.

Split your enemies up, then use illusions to convince both parties that you're using the other half as hostages. (Or, better yet, that they've been sold out!)

An illusion dynamite vest is much safer than a real one, but discourages knives just as much!

Illusion-cars can make people crash and or stop.

Darth Ultron
2016-11-25, 11:59 PM
I have always used illusions to intimidate the players (not the characters) and it has always worked out great. Illusions of skulls floating above a trap, for example. At the most basic level it can scare or delay and it can do a lot more. And even if they know it's an illusion, it is still a warning.

Any type of light show around a person also works great for intimidation.

Treasure of the type the target likes is always a good one. Whatever the target wants to see, they can see. A silver crown, gold coins, the white elephant, whatever. And the illusion can be made to roll down a hill or anywhere else. Even better it can ''fall out o sight'', like into a a dark pit.

SpoonR
2016-11-26, 10:10 AM
If you have see invisibility and no one else does, casting an image in the invisible creatures square is helpful to. :)

This. is. brilliant! :smallcool:

Inevitability
2016-11-26, 10:36 AM
Be a bard, use illusions to create a band to perform with you.

comicshorse
2016-11-26, 10:40 AM
In a game of 'Victorianna' in order to stop a demon ( who had just escaped being locked away in a casket since the death of Matthew Hopkins) that was carrying off one of the party into the skies over London my character created a huge illusion of a Arch Demon that convinced the first demon that his actions were running counter to the plans of Lucifer and he was pissing off Lord of Darkness big time !
Demon fled to hell immediately, sadly he didn't set the other PC down first :smalleek:

Inevitability
2016-11-26, 11:04 AM
Make circus performances seem more impressive with a few stationary illusions of burning rings, large pits or spinning blades. No danger, all the spectacle!

Lord Torath
2016-11-26, 02:28 PM
Need to beard the BBEG in his impenetrable base? Create an illusion that his minions have captured you, and have them escort you to him.

Or an illusion of a bag over the head of the most dangerous opponent you are currently facing.

CharonsHelper
2016-11-26, 02:51 PM
The most important thing is to talk to your GM about what you would allow.

The illusion rules, especially figments, are very subjective. You want to see what your GM will be okay with, and especially when they will give foes Will Saves & count evidence as "proof" of the illusion being fake.

Lord Torath
2016-11-27, 08:33 PM
Oh! An idea I got from Myth Conceptions (and also Megamind). After a round or two of combat (after everyone's had a chance to lose track of each other) cover the BBEG in an illusion that makes him look like one of you, so his own henchfolk will kill him for you!

Or maybe start by telling the henchfolk that they've been deceived, and they've been working from someone else all along. Then "dispel" the illusion cloaking him, "revealing" him to really be someone the henchmen will want to pound.