Illusory Creature is pretty neat as far as summoning spells go - with enough imagination you can effectively see it as "spend an action to hit the monster's weakness, whatever it may be". What really dampens its effectiveness is the fact that it disappears the moment it gets hit by anything, but... it doesn't seem like there's anything indicating that its Strikes must be melee? Maybe I'm missing something, which is why it's in Rules Discussion. But if I'm right then Illusory Creature looks much more attractive if you can make it a pixie shooting flaming arrows from cover.
I actually don't see any reason why you couldn't outfit your illusionary pixie with a flaming bow. That is neat. The spell calls out an illusion wielding a Warhammer after all, so why not a bow?
Good catch.
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I don’t see any reason it couldn’t make ranged attacks, but I also don’t see why ranged attacks wouldn’t interact the same way melee attacks would, so if melee attacks trigger a save, I think ranged would too. Until I read your post, though, I hadn’t interpreted “touch” as passive. But instead as active. So I didn’t think the Illusory Creature’s melee attacks would trigger the save, but that the enemy’s own melee attacks against the Illusory Creature would.
As written I don't believe the illusion's attacks do give them a save. In the example about the dragon, it wasn't the attack that gave the save. it was that a dragon only did 5 damage.
I would say that if you have your pixie stick an enemy with an arrow, that enemy could examine the arrow or try to pull it out and get a save maybe.
Would still cost an action, as would attacking the illusion, which I believe would only grant a save if the enemy actually has physical contact with it. After all the illusion, "generates the appropriate sounds, smells, and feels believable to the touch." So why would striking it with a sword give a save? A monk punching it with a bare hand may though.
If on the other hand you make a nasty little gnome wizard that throws around magic missiles... well, those don't leave much trace, and do a believable amount of damage. :)
Yeah, the save is a "save to disbelieve" in the case that the creature you made is wildly unrealistic for the amount of damage you're dealing. The damage is done via attack roll equal to your spell attack modifier.
Summoning an adventurer of some sort is likely the easiest way to deal believable damage that will also hit weaknesses. Summoning a Cleric that appears to spam bolts of positive energy at the zombie horde, for example.
Some time ago I asked the same question and the only restriction someone mentioned was that the target of the bow attack also has to be within the spells range. I think this restriction makes sense, the arrow would disappear mid air when leaving the spells range.