Illusion magic in Dungeons and Dragons is a powerful form of magic that creates hallucination-style effects, making enemies see things. Dragons are embodied by their natures, and only one dragon seems to be going against their old ways. Monsters with blindsight can perceive their surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius. Malleable Illusions can turn red balls into statues of dragons or something, effectively replacing existing illusions without re-casting the spell.
Illusion is one of the eight schools of magic in the game, and its spells can create hallucination-style effects. When cast, a huge illusion of a dragon appears, forcing enemies to successfully complete a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened. However, all dragons are completely immune to any Illusion spell, except invisibility and muffle. Illusion spells can be used to buff allies, but they cannot harm the dragon.
There are no actual creatures immune to illusion, though some illusion spells count as Charm. Many creatures are resistant or immune to Charm, which can be used to cast Illusory Dragon to conjure their own dragon. A successful save versus spell means the illusion cannot harm the dragon, but it does not disappear and can still hurt others.
Illusions are as powerful as the imagination or mind of the person experiencing them, and good illusionists don’t just cast a spell on you.
📹 How to Use Illusion Magic in D&D 5e
TIME STAMPS 0:00 – Sponsor 1:17 – Intro 2:34 – Breaking Down Illusions 3:04 – Classic Illusions 4:46 – Disguises 6:45 – Control …
📹 Minor Illusion is RIDICULOUS: How To Use DnD Spells #10
Minor Illusion is one of the most ridiculous cantrips in DnD 5e. I cover a few of my favorite ways to use this spell in a Dungeons …
A lot of these depend upon ignoring spell components. Ignoring spell components is a massive way to widen the disparity between martials and casters. Trying to hide that you’re palming an item while either flourishing a spellcasting focus or waving some fleece and making arcane gestures sounds a lot more difficult than just palming an item. Trying to present a minor illusion forged document after casting the spell directly in front whoever reads the forged documents is probably unworkable. A lot of the scenarios presented here become unfeasible or require additional setup to pull off when considering the requirement to use spell components. With that in mind – pretty much everything presented here that can be done while the caster isn’t observed are amazing ideas.
As others have pointed out, you can’t really use Minor Illusion to create a copy of the macguffin and then put it in your pocket or whatever, since it has to be stationary. You CAN use prestidigitation for that, though! One of the lesser-seen uses for Prestidigitation is to create a trinket small enough to fit in your hand (though it doesn’t have to BE in your hand) that lasts until the end of your next turn. You could even convincingly throw it off a cliff or eat it!
One of my first adventure league games. My way of the shadow monk dropped darkness around a lone centaur surrounded by orcs. After I cast minor illusion to create the sound of thundering centaur hooves and war cries coming closer. The DM rolled an INT save for the orcs and most ran for their lives, leaving us to mop up the rest.
Had a Soulknife rouge that would juggle illusionary knives. Killed an evil nobleman in the middle of a market while being the center of attention. Since he spent a while throwing the fake knives into the crowd and having various people play along or just ignore it. Then he threw the fake knife wrapped around his psychic blade into the noble, since it doesn’t leave a wound the illusion knife and psychic blade vanished and left a sneak attacked dead noble. The Soulknife just started pretending to be confused while the illusion knives juggled themselves. Took out a major obstruction with one attack and some deception and performance checks.
My current pc is a Kenku wild magic sorcerer but his background is criminal because he wanted to be a rogue until he discovered he was magical. He often employs the use of minor illusion in conjunction with his innate Kenku mimicry. In a game I DMd the arcane trickster rogue did steal a very important jewelry box from a banshee and use minor illusion to make it look like it was still there. However she immediately saw through that and gave chase. Same campaign a few sessions later the party quietly/quickly took down a room full of hobgoblins and then used minor illusion both from the rogue and the wizard while also moving the actual bodies into a corridor to make it appear that a collapsing ceiling trap had gone off killing them and lured the baddie leader into said trap who then took the full brunt of it coming down. Same campaign (and one of my favorite plans my players had come up with) in a goblin cave that was also home of 2 ogres they found a barrel of black powder. The two casters combined their minor illusions to make the barrel look like a sheep and used it as a lure for the ogres. When the ogres came to try and eat the “sheep” the wizard hit it with scorching ray and BOOM!
Some additional suggestions… For INTIMIDATION I like the sounds of heavy, menacing breathing, or perhaps a heavy (but nearly inaudible) heartbeat thudding away. For ESCAPING PURSUIT I’d adjust the Wile E. Coyote fake tunnel to look like a passwall spell with a glimpse of human shape on the wall’s other side, then the spell fades and the passwall “closes.” Other delays work on doors– swapping the visible location of the doorknob and hinges. This will only delay for a turn or two, but the confusion is good. Or, just cover the doorknob with shiny green very obvious contact poison. But I think the best use of illusion to confound pursuit is to… FAKE ANOTHER SPELL, since there are several spells that create motionless objects: grease, rope trick, spike growth, web, even the frequently mentioned pit trap. Rope trick is hard to manage convincingly, but you could potentially leave pursuers clustered around a location in space waiting for something that will never happen. Most of these will differ in detail (size and extent) from the real spells, but without arcana expertise, your pursuers probably won’t know. And if you can duck around a corner and burn the turn you just gained, you can use mold earth to make a REAL pit trap. Now the pursuers won’t know if any of your traps are illusions or real. (Or burn a slot and cast the real grease, web, whatever.)
Our rogue once triggered a minor trap and alerted some goblins, he was able to get on the other side of a door with the rest of us and I used minor illusion to hide the trap & blood causing one of the goblins to step on it (not a lot of damage, but satisfying). Interestingly, the way the spell is written, you don’t have to be able to see where you’re creating the illusion, which opens up some additional possibilities
Hard to hide a pile of bodies with an illusion that has to fit in a 5 foot cube. Also hard to me or hide a doorway with a 5 foot cube unless you’re in a halfling town or something. It also does have somatic components so unless your DM is okay with ignoring that you technically have to move your hands around in a way that anyone who knows about magic might realize is you casting a spell. Still a fantastic cantrip but but only as powerful as your dm allows it to be.
Wait, you can’t hide behind or in the minor illusion if you are taller than 5ft unless you fall prone? Does that mean the simple act of crouching is considered being prone? In that case, would moving while sneaking (ie, walking around in a crouched position) be considered moving while prone (ie, crawling at half speed)?
In addition to the already mentioned limit of several of these uses ignoring Spell Components, if you create the illusion of an object, it can’t move… so you can’t put it in your pocket… You might trick someone by leaving an Illusory McGuffin on a table (for 1 minute), but you won’t be able to trick someone by showing it to them in your hand. In practice, I’ve always swapped out Minor Illusion for more obviously useful spells, after several months of not finding a use for it….
One thing I’ve wondered, is with minor or major illusion, where you can effect an area for a while and change it overtime; Could you make the effected are have no obvious effect, but when a creature casts something such as fireball into the area, you use the illusion to make it look like the fireball just fizzled out?
My ruling on the “objects only, no creatures” thing is that you can make an image of a creature but because it cannot move the utility is same as if you put up a photo of a creature, or a mannequin, not realistic enough to fool anyone close for more than few seconds and even at a distance people would quickly notice the guards are standing suspiciously still. Something like “you can’t target Create Water to create it inside someone’s lungs” makes sense because maybe living creatures have innate magic resistance and you need to design a spell to bypass that to use it for an attack, or they move too much to be considered a container you can direct the spell to fill, or you simply need to be able to see the location so someone’s insides cant be targeted, but Minor Illusion should be only limited by how realistic you can make the image or otherwise we have a situation where casting MI to make an image of a room will reveal the chest is a mimic and the statue is a golem because the spell image does not show them.
The text of the spell does not say the object can’t be moved or remains stationary. ———– You create a sound or an image of an object within range that lasts for the duration. The illusion also ends if you dismiss it as an action or cast this spell again. If you create a sound, its volume can range from a whisper to a scream. It can be your voice, someone else’s voice, a lion’s roar, a beating of drums, or any other sound you choose. The sound continues unabated throughout the duration, or you can make discrete sounds at different times before the spell ends. If you create an image of an object–such as a chair, muddy footprints, or a small chest–it must be no larger than a 5-foot cube. The image can’t create sound, light, smell, or any other sensory effect. Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion, because things can pass through it. If a creature uses its action to examine the sound or image, the creature can determine that it is an illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the illusion for what it is, the illusion becomes faint to the creature. -From the Basic Rules
Had an npc who hates my bard and pulled a “prank” on my by putting a glue trap of sorts over my mouth. Realized the only spell I had that did not require a verbal component was Minor Illusion. As I can use my instrument as the material component, I was playing my Kimbala (thumb piano) to create sounds of my voice so I could still talk. It was like a a mix of Steve Vai making his guitar talk, and Stephen Hawkins voice synthesizer. Was a great role playing experience, and my GM regretted doing that to me as apparently me talking like that the entire session was annoying as hell.
4:15 I disagree with the example of the hat. If you cast the spell on a surface it should stay on that surface if a minor illusion cast on yourself doesn’t move with you, does that also mean it would just float away if you were on a moving ship or carriage? Hell, just the rotation of the earth. The flowing river sounds more like RAW and RAI restriction. Using the hat example, you could make an illusion of a propeller hat, but the propeller wouldn’t spin
have a clown gnome artificer. uses minor infusions and minor illusions to put on a magic show with some flavor. flavor the illusions as him blown a balloon before the magic takes effect. or make a coin appear from behind an ear. make a rose in his hands, then clap his hands together, and it’s gone. make a small object fizz. or produce a puff of smoke. make whoopee cushion noises before someone sits down. make your own shoes squeak comicly when mime sneaking. make chicken clucking noises to intimidate someone into a fight. fake burps and farts to annoy. very immature pc behavior, but he is a clown.
If you make a sound, that sound cannot be louder than a scream, and I suspect a dragon roar is a lot louder than a basic humanoid scream (I would allow them Int checks with adv to recognize the illusion). The noise also continues for the duration – you can’t shut it off, and it’s not concentration. Using this for communication is tricky. The message will repeat at a whisper for the entire minute duration, and you can’t shut it off. I’ve had conversations about this with players who want to use M. Illusion as an outright replacement for the Message cantrip.
My DM makes me roll a deception check for every minor illusion I cast. Is this a rule? This has discouraged me from even bothering to use it anymore. It seems overly burdensome considering there is already 2 mechanisms in the description for detecting minor illusions, physical interaction and/or investigation check vs spell save DC. It does not say to roll a deception check to use it. Deception check description is a little vague but doesn’t say to use it for illusions either. Several articles I’ve watched said that basically an npc should assume an illusion is real, even if it seems somewhat out of place, until they physically interact with it. They said that If a DM’s npcs aren’t suspecting real, conjured, nor summoned objects or creatures to be illusions then npcs shouldn’t be naturally suspecting illusions to be illusions without a very compelling reason like the caster is known to cast illusions. They said that illusions can only be discovered through physical interaction and/or a successful investigation check. No checks such as deception are needed or required by the caster.
A lot of missing rules here: 1) There can be only one effect at a time. So if you are in the box and the baddies are right next to you can’t make a sound to distract them. (lesson Minor Illusion is a spell made better with friends). 2) it can’t move. Not on your clothing and not in your hand to pocket things – there are other cantrips for that kind of thing 🙂 3) it has to fit in 5 feet. So tracks are nice but if you go left leaving 30 feet of tracks and they see 5 feet going into the center of the square – they are coming after you still. (Make sure the other path is plausible like into an open window or up to a tree) 4) it can’t duplicate higher level spells (and some DMs can argue other cantrips) so it is worth looking at the level 1 spells too see what you can’t do. 5) remember it takes a turn to set up and not a bonus action. Don’t make the mistake of setting up the box and thinking you can attack from it the same turn. 6) it does not Crete light, smell or sensory effects. If you make a teapot over a flame and the flame is not real there would be no heating effects. Cover up bodies and every dog, cat and dragon will immediately go to to the box of bodies because they can smell them. 7) The quality of the illusion is not a given. If you know how to draw because you got the Painter’s supplies I would be hard pressed that you can’s do a picture of a face – but if not make sure your dm is cool with that. Same thing happen with forgery and calligraphy in open books. It is a great spell but also it is an illusion will go a far way to helping you see how “strict” your DM is with illusions.
Minor Illusion can also be used to leave messages on walls/floors that disappear without a trace. Good for a scout moving only a few rounds ahead of the rest of the party. It is also good for a short-term cover for a pit trap, just as long as the pit’s width and length aren’t too much.. Note: the “show the BBEG you have the McGuffin, and then pocket it” doesn’t technically work, as the image must be stationary. You could have an illusion of the McGuffin sitting at the unstable edge of a cliff, however. Edit: Ok, so a few others beat me to the cover the pit trap trick.
Personally, I prefer to classify dead creatures as Creatures with the STATUS of Deceased. So doesn’t matter if you wanna make a living or dead creature if the spell cannot make creatures. Might be dead, but it’s still a creature. On the flip side, this means Locate Creature can indeed find a DEAD creature, though I would add a requirement that the creature must at least be identifiable, so a body that has been burned beyond recognition would STILL be considered A creature, just not THAT creature. It would go from Gerald’s Corpse to just Burnt Corpse, effectively. If you used Locate Creature to FIND a burnt corpse, that might work though. The spells in DnD are actually REALLY well designed (there are SOME exceptions, but not as many as most people think) They are given enough rules to prevent them from just being totally broken, but are also still flexible enough to be useful in a wide variety of situations. Even Fireball has it, despite being such a simple attacking spell. It sets things ON FIRE, which is a very useful thing in a variety of situations. It’s also quite loud, being an explosion. When people realize certain things about the spells in DnD, they learn they’re not as broken as they thought. One of my favorite examples is Banishment. It SEEMS like a really overpowered spell, instantly ending any fight against enemies from other realms and letting your entire team set up a dogpile assault against any single enemy that just fails a save. However, when you realize the material component CANNOT be replaced by a focus, it becomes vastly more balanced.
Minor illusions are good for the cast spells in Dungeons and Dragons. Depending on the characters would like to use many opportunities to cast minor illusions, but it does not create any creatures and monsters in the stream. Minor illusions are not a ridiculous cantrip throughout the Dungeons and Dragons campaign by Dungeon Master.:goodvibes::text-green-game-over: