The Ventriloquism spell has been knocking around D&D gameplay since 1979 (Supplement 1: Greyhawk). Throughout all the editions since then, I've really only seen it cast a few times over the years. Primarily because the spell level slot it uses (1st, in Pathfinder) tends to always have more optimal spells as a better choice.
Upon close observation of the spell's text, it doesn't offer very detailed game mechanics for how its distraction usage manifests in game play. Ideally, a caster would hope to distract/mislead opponents and gain some sort of action-economy benefit. But again, there's no help on how that actually plays out. I'll assume such a ploy gets adjudicated differently from GM to GM, table to table. And it's clearly a spell for players & GMs who love a good creative & deception-game challenge, as are many illusion spells are wont to do.
So my question to all of you is .... how does you & your group apply game mechanics to Ventriloquism's potential ability to "distract" opponents? Testimonials are definitely welcome.
Basically most of your figment illusions aren't really usable in combat.
You have to think of more inventive uses of it.
And usually it requires buy in from your GM to make it work.
Wait, I have an evil twin? Or are you just referring to me? I'm a little confused.
I unfortunately don't really have useful advice on most illusions...because our group largely avoids them unless their affect is more explicit. Mostly because we can never seem to get a group consensus on how it should work.
It always seems to be interpretations of illusion magic make it either completely overpowered or powerless. And I admit I definitely have the problem of making them nearly powerless. Ultimately there really hard to adjudicate, and I hope in PF2 that the rules regarding them become more detailed.
Depends on what "mechanical" means, I guess. If you define it to mean "numbers" or "doesn't require GM adjudication", you're out of luck--most illusion spells aren't meant to exist in an interpretive vacuum. That said, while I've gotten a lot more combat use out of ghost sound, I could see ventriloquism also being situationally useful.
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You can use it to talk while invisible without revealing your position. Useful if you want to cast spells with vocal components or communicate with other party members while invisible.
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Now you've done it! You've opened the "can people see a spell being cast if its caster is invisible" can of worms! The resulting threadstorm will destroy us all!
That's certainly how it was used in Red Hand of Doom, written by James Jacobs.
The OP here.
With Ventriloquism active, one scenario I could see where game-mechanic issues would be interesting ... is when the caster is throwing her voice to attempt to get, say, a band of orcs to turn their heads (and attention) to a spot far away from the actual party.
With the lack of facing rules in PF, this in and of itself doesn't accomplish much. But maybe a DM would interpret this as having a mechanical effect on Initiative numbers (like in a surprise round) or compelling a few of the orcs to split-off to go investigate the elvish-accented voice coming from the bend in the tunnel where the thrown voice is emanating.
Could also be interesting to see it used to speak to a target from right behind them, providing flanking or an AoO for the rogue in front of them.
Interesting! That might be worth a one-time Bluff check similar to a feint to set up a sneak attack.
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Could also be interesting to see it used to speak to a target from right behind them, providing flanking or an AoO for the rogue in front of them.Interesting! That might be worth a one-time Bluff check similar to a feint to set up a sneak attack.
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If I recall correctly, it's near the territory of the Threatening Illusoins metamagic. Which is a terrible metamagic in the first place. But there are sort of provisions for what is being suggested.