At my table we go a little deeper than this. If you are concentrating on Detect Magic, and you use your action to watch a specific caster's aura, then you will be able to see them casting a spell even without verbal or somatic components, just by seeing how their aura changes! This interpretation of the rule lets you counterspell a subtle spell, but only with considerable preparation and sacrifice. Another common way to avoid being counterspelled is to stand 65 feet away. Funnily enough, distant spell metamagic negates this too. Making Sorcerer the best at both casting counterspell and avoiding counterspell!
I'd say that using displacer beasts and blink dogs will be very effective as distractions and you can even drop concentration on them because people expect them to disappear, so your targets will be less likely to be suspicious about fighting them and not being able to hit them or disappearing from view in an instant, as for favorite illusionist build got to go with a ventriloquist kenku so you throw your voice while mimicking whatever you are creating the illusion of
Tempestuous Magic not requiring casting a spell using a spell slot (like many similar features) is a good catch. Perfect fit for the at-will spells Warlocks invocations grant.
CLOUD GIANTS!!! Cloud Giants are big on illusion magic and they live in the clouds... where storms happen! A Goliath Storm Sorcerer that mainly casts illusion magic sounds like a really cool and flavorful build.
I really love the storm sorcerer subclass(my simic hybrid storm sorcerer was one of my favorite characters mechanically cuz of manta glide) I always like seeing new ways to use it and other underpowered subclasses. My favorite illusion build was a spirit bard summoner and illusionist Hybrid. They used a card game to summon and trick their enemies (yes the character is a yugioh reference) and use spirit tales and undead summons to cause even more distractions or support.
@@GentleBreeze-72 They were a changeling I would turn into people and use Disguise Self if I couldn't get the clothes I needed. My main summon was summon undead and animate dead that I would get from spirit session. I would use them while casting minor illusion to make them think I was near by while I would hide. My trap card was silvery barbs and other cc spells like hypnotic pattern. Tales from beyond was a set of equip, spell and trap card depending on the roll. When I got a equip card I would put it on my summon or ally to make it tanking and if it died I would make a phantasmal force clone to replace it the so they thought it rose back from the dead. It has been really fun to play so far and has and I really like the randomness from tale from the beyond it made me feel like I was drawing from a real card deck where I could get good and bad draws and it really fit imo.
It's very good to have your spells be so resource efficient, because you are going to want every last sorcery point you can spare for subtle spells. I do love this illusionist though, because you can pair it with such a high deception skill. Consider taking a few levels in Rogue. Expertise in deception and intimidation will really make this character sing. Cunning action can be great when need, and mage hand legerdemain can really help with justifying that mage hand/illusory humanoid combo, both making the hand invisible and also letting you control it as a bonus action.
If you already have the cantrip Mage Hand then when you take the Telekinetic feat your Mage Hand has a range of 60 feet, pair this with the Metamagic Distant spell and you get a 120 foot range Mage Hand.
@arcanerecovery2567 That's a very good point. This would increase the synergy with Major Image even further. Do you think this makes Distant Spell the best pick alongside Subtle Spell, over known powerhouse metamagic options like Twinned Spell? I've also thought more about the possible uses of Expertise on this build since leaving this comment, and I think Sleight of Hand is much better than Intimidation here. High Cha and basic proficiency is probably enough investment in Intimidation, and Sleight of Hand is really going to go hard on this build in some very fun ways. I think for level order, we go Sorcerer 5, then Rogue 3, and then back to Sorcerer. But I think in a lower level game you could easily justify jumping out of Sorcerer at 3 for those 3 levels of Rogue.@@arcanerecovery2567
Im kind of living the idea of all the illusion stuff with a bard that tells stories through the use of realistic and complex illusions using prestidigitation for smells and minor illusion for sound effects. Sounds awesome.
Ever since I first read the level 1 ability of the Storm Sorcerer, I've been thinking of fun ways to use it. The first and only time I played one, I chose a Mountain Dwarf to get medium armor and an axe so that I could kinda have a Thor-like build. I convinced the DM to let me learn Thunderous Smite and that's what I mainly used my spell slots for in combat.
Storm sorc is a fun synergy I never thought about. I've made quite a few support illusionist builds. It really boils down to INT spell saves made by your enemies, and providing heavy obscurities for your allies and controlling the map. Ultimately you can't really beat the capstone trait though for wizard when it comes to illusion but most campaigns never see that so other builds are just as viable most of the time. (Duplicitous Manuscript is Best in Slot- beg your DM for leads on how to get your hands on one within their setting if possible)
man I like how you think. I don't know how you can keep up with this prolific output, if D&D Daily turned into D&D weekly it's still be one of the best idea channels. Take a break sometime, don't burn out.
6:42 depending on how the DM rules it. You can use quickened spell on the first turn summoning the mage hand. So if your timing is perfect, you could theoretically use your action to command the image, and then bonus action summon and move the mage hand
I play a Daolock in the Strixhaven campaign I’m in and had Misty Visions from 2nd lvl and an imp familiar from 3rd. I used the invisible imp to make the sound effects for my silent images and simply held my action until the imps turn. Took a few hours of downtime across several weeks to be able to do this “training” to coordinate effectively, but it allowed me to intimidate someone by summoning a shadow demon at 3rd lvl.
Major image can only be cast to a point that you can see so you could not be talking to the king inside and have a dragon appear outside unless you walked to the window and looked out. So there are still limits
The bonus thing about most illusions is that fewer than a handful of people are going to question if they are seeing a hungry wolf to see if it's an illusion; they trust their sight: hungry wolf near, let me get away from it.
Step 1) high elf, cantrip with an attack roll Step 2) rogue 3-4 Step 3) any sort of caster, X Step 4) Elven Accuracy So whenever you have advantage you have double advantage, and you can take steady aim every turn while mounted and your mount moves instead. Paladins have good synergies with mounted combat if their mount is their summoned steed, although they lean towards melee combat.
I made a hexblade warlock with misty visions and grabbed minor illusion as a cantrip. Throw up illusionary darkness, or superimpose a scene of an empty hallway in front of the real one. Fire arrow from behind and smite
Okay, I watched this video a few days ago and I keep coming back to this idea in my head, it just won't leave me alone. The combination of Tempestuous Magic + Misty Visions is inspired and the use in combat is great, but thinking about it some more I was struck with a new realization: you could pretty much fly outside of combat washout any penalty. Keep recasting Silent Image over and over, no spell slots or components expended, and gain 10 ft. fly speed over and over again. I just can't see a reason why you could not scale walls or get to the top of a tower or across a chasm or whatever. Just free fly speed from level 1. That sounds crazy and kinda broken and... fantastic. I think I have found my next character. Mix in some Expertise and Skill feats and you can have a better Bard than a Bard.
My brain was turning your Dueling Fighting Style + spear + shield + Polearm Master combination around and thought, it would be sort of cool to do a quarterstaff and Shillelagh guy like that - so when he twirls his walking stick in one hand, both ends crank the rapscallion who has impeded his progress with a D8+spellcasting modifier with both sides of it. Unfortunately it is not anywhere near as clean to do a Wisdom or Intelligence based gish as a Char based one. I think you basically have to be either a Druid or a Ranger with Druidic Warrior fighting style who then picks up Dueling from a Fighter multiclass. It is however more doable than my Michelangelo the turtle Shillelagh idea, since one can not have more than one iteration of Shillelagh going at one time, so one could not fight with a pair of nunchuks and then flavour casting Shillelagh as beginning to spin one nunchuk.
@@nathans.3618 for some reason my brain hadn't been thinking of Magic Initiate as a way for Clerics to pick up Shillelagh. I guess it isn't a complete waste in that it would also partially turn on the Goodberry Life Domain combination, so instead of grabbing Goodberry off Quandrix or Witherbloom Student, you could take Mage of High Sorcery and go Nuitari to get Hex - then you'd get another Druid cantrip - Frostbite? - and one of the other Nuitari first level spells - Dissonant Whispers? - and maybe go Adept of the Black Robes at after War Caster - but it would mean that you wouldn't do the quarterstaff spin until L4, wouldn't be able to get up to Wisdom 18 coming out of the gates, and your bonus action would be pretty heavily occupied. First turn Hex, Frostbite, second turn Shillelagh, either Frostbite again or attack with quarterstaff, and only by third turn would you be spinning your quarterstaff on your action and bonus action for D8+D6+3. edit - correction, it would have to be Produce Flame, since Hex only applies to hits, and Produce Flame is the only cantrip that does a to hit roll rather than facing a save on both lists.
Silent image + telekinetic shove would work as a way to convince your foes that the illusion is real, since telekinetic shove is a bonus action; your dm might not allow it, but it would be more usable RAW than Mage hand for a handshake
I did something similar, 1 storm sorcerer level with misty vision and full creation bard to make real objects and fake ones. Oh look there is a bridge, was a fake one, but this one is real. Hey this is a spicky barricade, yep, this was real
I like the idea of a character that does illusion but a few things scare me away. Illusion has to have buy in from the DM, who gets to decide how NPCs react (your lich example touched on this), and sometimes my creativity is just tapped and I simply want to roll damage dice and not think about trying to be clever with an illusion.
How about a something like a dice manipulator, with 5or6 levels in bard lore, 14 levels in chronurgy or divination wizard and finally 1or0 level divine soul sorcerer
O can't help but still wondering the Tempest Cleric / Storm Sorcerer combo in this variation, creating for example an illusion of lightning falling or energy minions by your to scare low INT foes. Eventually when people start doubting you lightning army you do a Destructive Wrath + Lighting Bolt to reinforce the illusion are also real and that you mean business
So I like this idea. I know it would slow things but you could also start hexblade and later take resilient Con, or you could start sorcerer and add celestial warlock for even marie support - the idea of warlock being getting misty visions and mask of many faces and possibly eldritch mind, if you were to start at level 3 you could start with the two illusion invocations and then take metamagic adept or fey touched with command … there ARE many possibilities… AND you should also take quicken spell for when your illusions require your action for their continued use … BUT - doesn’t all this fall apart i tiers 3 and 4 with enemies with true sight ?
The issue I have with a lot of these ideas is that there is actually nothing in the spell description listing any form of save or DC for enemies to consider acknowledging the illusion as being an actual threat. It's like this for a lot of illusion spells. They've really nerfed illusion from where it was even in 3.5e. For targets too dumb to think, sure it can work. For enemies that are intelligent? Not so much. In 1st edition, illusions were terrifyingly powerful. In my 5e experience? The lower level ones are about as intimidating as a wet paper bag.
yeah, physically interacting breaks them: attack it and they know. But a commentator above mentioned displacer beasts which is a cool idea, maybe ghosts and shadows too.
You might need to read that spell description one more time for silent image. You can only create one thing, and if you calls it to move it uses your action. Do more research.
Problem with this is it is up to the DM to allow. Silent image used as a cantrip through the invocation but counting as a spell at the same time is a bit overstretching. I think I wouldn't allow it as a DM.
