The master of illusion in Kingmaker, useful?

[Taku Ooka Nin]

I'm playing Kingmaker at the moment, and I just retired my Druid (For now, he's rebuilt as a cohort for later) to bring in an illusionist. We needed a high charisma person, so my old aged gnomish crafting illusionist is a False Priest Sylvan Sorcerer.

Here is my question:
How useful are Illusionists? Sure, he has a wide berth of spells, but we have some damage dealers (or should) so he is focused on everything that A) does not require attack rolls and B) requires a save.

So, how effective are illusions in combat? I took effortless trickery, so I could cast Silent Image the first round and then Ghost Sound the next to have them work in conjunction. My GM is fairly open minded.

If all else fails, that is what the Charm and Shadow lines are for.

[Dafydd]

Well, illusions are as powerful as you can imagine them to be.

Silent image, if used creatively can mimic many higher level spells.
Deeper Darkness by making the image a black sphere of appropriate size.
Wall of (pick something not damaging like stone or iron) that they can not destroy.
Pit for the foe to fall in. Funny to watch them try to climb the sides.

Any other spell that Makes some sort of physical effect. Sure they are not "real" and thus do no damage, but the foe does not know this till they try to interact with it.

Mind, as a first level spell, it is hard to keep the DC reliable. It's use is largely replaced by the shadow line once you can cast those simply because that +3 DC is needed.

[tonyz]

Illusions are as powerful as you can imagine, and as the GM will allow. Make sure the two of you are on the same wavelength with how you think they work.

That said, the best illusion tricks rely not on beating down enemy saves with a high DC, but on doing stuff that looks so plausible that the enemy never interacts with the illusion or tries to disbelieve, but just accepts it as fact and reacts as you desire. This requires a high degree of situational awareness and quick thinking on the part of the illusionist.