RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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What kinds of things do people typically do with this spell?
I've just recently started using it for the first time, and it seems like most often it's to put an illusory box or wall around/in front of an enemy so that they have to spend actions interacting until they can disbelieve - basically trading my actions for theirs while my party does whatever they need to do (like focus on another enemy first, etc).
How about the rest of you? Is this pretty much what the spell is typically used for, or am I way out in left field and missing the obvious?
Just curious. :)
Illusion spells are limited only by your imagination and the situation. Effective use of illusions generally requires a high degree of situational awareness. You're tricking the enemy, not incapacitating them.
Create concealment in which to hide an ambush, or something disadvantageous to the enemy. For instance, cover up a pit, or create an illusion that looks just lik the wall of the cave but two feet farther out so your party has room to hide between the illusion and the wall.
Create an illusion of your tracks leading into a nasty situation while you go the other way.
Create an image of a foe the enemy finds more fearsome than you, so they either run away or go after them instead of you. It helps if you know that the orcs are afraid of dwarves and that some are in the area so that its plausible for a dwarven paladin to come around the corner.
Set up something that looks dangerous but isn't so the enemy doesn't come around your weak flank. Say, an illusion of a wall of fire, or of a bubbling pit of green slime.
Create an illusion of yourself standing in the corner and gesticulating while you're really in the opposite corner, invisible and summoning things.
The trick to being a illusionist is to create something so believable that the enemy just accepts it as normal and doesn't try to interact with it. It also helps greatly if you and the GM are on the same wavelength with what illusions do and don't do.
Boxes are boring.
Bridges are my favorite.
Something to keep in mind about Silent Image is its massive range and relatively huge area. A LOT can be done with that. Also, the image doesn't have to be static (umoving) so long as you concentrate on it.
We've only had a Bard in our group with the spell, but its been used to create a signal for an army to attack (similar to fireworks in the sky), its been used to create a dragon made of fire flying back and forth over a goblin village to promote havok and chaos, its been used to make an small army of earth elementals appear to rise from the earth when menacing a besieged keep (following a handful of them summoned which actually attacked), created the illusion of the caster fleeing to draw guards after him while he stood by, invisible. Its been used in conjunction with a performance to 're-inact' a dramatic scene, been used to show a gathered city watch exactly what the criminal they are searching for looks like and to allow a reclusive sage to carefully examine a rune-covered obelisk we had discovered many, many miles away.
The uses really are only limited by your imagination.
