Last night I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in a D&D game.
I’m playing a gnome illusionist, and I usually do pretty well with him. I keep the illusions at a level where they are believable, choosing what appears based on what fits into the situation. [Sometimes I create an illusion of an animal that the druid has just summoned, so it’s believable that it appeared here and now.] And of course I occasionally mess up, and cast illusions that nobody believes, and so have no effect at all.
Last night I was able to make an incredibly effective illusion, because everything broke just perfectly.
Pirates had mined our ship, intending to blow it up. They had brought four large kegs of gunpowder on board, and lit the fuse. Then, of course, they all jumped off, swimming as hard as they could to get out of the blast radius.
Let me repeat that. Most of our enemies were in a single small area, their minds filled with the fact that there’s about to be a huge explosion, and worried that they are still in range of the blast. And illusions work on minds.
My illusionist flew in and pulled the fuse away from the gunpowder. Then I said, “I turn back to the kegs, so I know what they look like.” The DM looked quizzical, so I added, “That will matter in a few minutes.”
Then the illusionist flew out and over the pirates in the water. He cast his Major Image spell (which includes sight, sound, smells, and thermal), and called out, “Hey guys, you forgot these!” That was to get them to look up, and see the barrels they themselves had planted and lit, tied into a single bundle, falling down on them with very short lit fuses. I had the kegs explode right before hitting the water.
Most of the pirates failed their saving throws, and believed it – because they were *already* expecting that explosion. Every one who failed their save died – even the two minotaurs and the half-giant – because they were expecting a devastating blast.
The imminent explosion from those barrels was already in their minds, so it was devastatingly effective. That’s the strength of illusion spells, if you have the right setup. Of course the one that saved took no damage at all – that’s the weakness of an illusion. But everything came together that night to make that illusion work.
I could never in 100 years get a setup that good again, in which one illusion could do that much damage in a single go.
And then, to cap the evening, the party druid completely disabled the ship with the remaining pirates on it with a single 1st level spell.
