Charlie's Cheap Tricks: The Illusionist

[CharlieRock]

Some people will claim that the illusionist has no place in the hardcore dungeon crawler teams. Well I am here to say that they do. Every single party I have been in in C&C has had an illusionist or bard (generally both). And I've been in at least a couple of dungeon crawls. So I'm going to share a few of the tactics the illusionists I've traveled with use. I couldnt imagine going on an adventure without an illusionist along.
Tip #1

Color Spray.

This is just about the cheapest and quickest nuke there is. By quickest I mean you get it right off the bat. I would suggest every first level illusionist get this spell. Learn it, love it, listen to it sing to you at night. Charm Person is for sensitive types who need friends. Burning Hands doesnt do enough damage and encourages pyromaniacs. Magic Missles is alright if you just want to make yourself a target next round. Shield and Protection vs are pretty good but nobody ever got knocked out by them.

Color Spray has the capacity to end a fight right there. Did the fighter forget to heal up after the last fight? Color Spray. Did the bad guys sneak up behind us in a corridor? Color Spray. Forgot where you put your coin purse at the tavern? Color Spray.
Tip #2

Mirror Image

As soon as you can get this spell I would highly recommend you do so. There are not many spells out there that allows you to just totally shrug off an attack, regardless of the roll. Not even Barkskin. It lasts for a minute and a half at the least (since you have to be at least third level to use it). So you can put it on well before someone kicks in the door to the next chamber. It can seem like having extra lives.
Tip #3

Decoy

No thats not a spell name. It is refering to the practice of sending in a Silent or Minor Image ahead of you to spring any ambushes. You know those times when you open the door and the room beyond is quiet ... too quiet. And nobody wants to go in there first because the know that whatever critter lives in there is waiting to munch on your hide. Well send in the dummy. No, not the half-orc. The Image. You dont have to heal it and it wont complain or ask for dibs on the loot.

This also works the other way around. When you can hear the orc guards carousing in the next room but you know that the odds are going to be a little too even (I know I dont like fair fights). Try setting the image out as bait. You can make it a platter of steaks, a twinkling pile of gold and gems, or even noody half-elf maidens.

The point is that the first few rounds of combat when the whole party is bottle-necked up in the door really sucks. Your not going to win most fights until the entire team can lay down their respective smack-downs. So why not do it to the other guys. Make them all bottle-neck up into the doorway.

Just be carefule using them half-elf chicks. Some monsters may actually have experience in dealing with them socially and know how angsty they can get. This may just invite a ranged attack thus ruining the whole ambush.
Tip #4

You have to work with the GM a bit here. But find out what spells he will let you alter the appearance of your buddy the barbarian with. You may need prestidigitation, silent image, both, or a version of change self. Whatever works. As soon as you have the technique down, turn that barbarian into something else. I'd use the image of an adolescent boy in a pointy hat with glasses mumbling inane rhymes while balancing a book in one hand and gesturing with the other (practice making the gesturing hand glow). Nothing, and I mean nothing, begs to be smacked with a greatclub more then that.

Cost of getting a barbarian to join your party: one tankard of ale.

Cost of making said barbarian look like Harry: one low level spell.

Cost of seeing the hobgoblins face when that skeeny spellslinger turns into a musclebound, whiteknuckled, battle-axe clenching nord in horns: priceless.

That's all for now. It's getting late here. Hope this gave you a few ideas for other tactics.
_________________
The Rock says ...

Know your roll!

[DangerDwarf]

I'd just like to add that Color Spray and Mirror Image are indeed fargin awesome.

Love 'em.

[mr_pony]

An illusionist in a game I run used similar tricks in order not to be useless. When fighting zombies, he used silent image to make one of them look like a plump and tasty man.

While this is kind of a stretch, since the spell description says nothing about mapping the image onto a moving object and zombies should perhaps operate by sense of smell (or sense life), it was too cool to say "zombies don't care, they eat your face anyway" to. Plus, I encouraged the player to go with illusionist in my very undead campaign setting, so I'd be kind of a jerk not to let him do something.

And color spray has rocked their humanoid encounters pretty hard.

[CharlieRock]

mr_pony wrote:
An illusionist in a game I run used similar tricks in order not to be useless. When fighting zombies, he used silent image to make one of them look like a plump and tasty man.

While this is kind of a stretch, since the spell description says nothing about mapping the image onto a moving object and zombies should perhaps operate by sense of smell (or sense life), it was too cool to say "zombies don't care, they eat your face anyway" to. Plus, I encouraged the player to go with illusionist in my very undead campaign setting, so I'd be kind of a jerk not to let him do something.

And color spray has rocked their humanoid encounters pretty hard.

Mapping an image spell over a object or person, while not explicitely spelled out in the description, is entirely feasable under a variety of explanations.
Darkness is an area effect spell dealing with lighting. Whether it works by sucking photons, the particles that carry light, into a void by some sort of electromagnetic transferance or it inhibits the flow of photons through the area a silent image would work the same way. And people in the AoE of darkness certainly wouldnt stand out as being visible. The main difference is that you can certainly see some people as they cross the AoE of an image. If the image was conjured over the air around somebody you wouldnt see a true image (actual photon pathways) until something crossed that area i.e. you strike the decoy and your mace passes through it. Even then a failed save means you interpreted the image as having contact with your weapon at that point.

Which brings me to Tip #5:

The best illusion is one they dont want to look at. Try using a silent image of a medusa or other gaze attacking creature. Instead of peering at it and figuring out it is fake your enemies may spend the last few minutes of their lives looking away from your illusion. This grants a whole boatload of possible tactical advantages. A thief may take advantageof no-one looking in his direction (provided of course he approach from behind the fake medusa) to backstab opponents. A fighter standing directly in front of the medusa may get an AC bonus due to foes trying not to look too well in his direction and (falsely believe) turn to stone. A spellcaster may remain behind the medusa and cast with relative impunity as mortal enemies try to keep a safe distance and avoid meeting the illusions gaze.

Also, and this takes some practice, you can cast an additional image of someone in your party turning to stone. This assumes you can cast illusions over people. But this time the people are not mobile. Allies who are too injured to fight or even retreat make good statues (and the enemy may not even think to check them too well if they win he field of battle). A spellcaster is relatively motionless and could use the "cover" while casting a chain of his own spells. (the statue could appear to crumble as somantic components of spells start)
_________________
The Rock says ...

Know your roll!

[Piperdog]

Charlie,

that takes me back quite a few years (about 15 years actually) when my buddy ran me and another friend in an Assassin Campaign. We were the cliched reluctant killers, pulled into the the guild and all that. My buddy was a fighter/assassin but I was an illusionist/assassin. Through creative spell use, my character quickly became feared. Hell, I was scared of him, and he was my character. He would dodge the watch and slip into a run down building, and when one came in to nab me, he found only a sniffling little girl. Of course, he then got surprised when he was stabbed to death (yikes). I had a whole list of personas he would become, and began establishing a variety of secret identities around town.

But back on topic; the illusionist can be very deadly. It takes a creative and intelligent player to make full use of this class, more so than the others I think. As a player, I try to play a different class and personality type every campaign, but I remember the illusionist being really fun.
_________________
When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

[Relaxo]

Great thread, Charlie!