Cantrips get ignored a lot of the time because they’re not that useful compared to higher-circle spells. However, you can cast them as much as you want, all day long. And quantity has its own sort of quality.
One of the classics of the form is minor illusion.
Open-ended illusion spells are kind of a pain in the neck for GMs. If a GM lets an illusion do everything a player could imagine, it can take the place of a lot of other spells and solve problems too quickly. It can be hard to adjudicate how an intelligent creature responds. On the other hand, GMs don’t want to just say no because illusions are fun and let a player use creativity to solve problems.
For players trying to make the most of minor illusion, be prepared to make your case, and then be prepared to gracefully concede an argument. Being a good sport about justifying your illusions increases your chance of getting an OK for whatever reality-skirting thing you’re trying to pull off.
The Rundown on Minor Illusion
Only the action economy prevents you from using minor illusion from cockcrow to owl hoot. Since you only get one action per turn, you probably want a bigger gun when the claws come out. But arguably, minor illusion‘s best use is outside of combat anyway. When people are fighting for their lives, it’s a harder to get them to pay attention to subtle trickery.
The range is 30 feet, but that only matters for casting. Once it’s out in the world, you can walk away at a sprightly 60 feet per round to get a good tenth of a mile away before the illusion stops.
Interestingly, there’s no verbal component for this spell. If you cast it from hiding, there’s no reason anyone has to know you’re even doing it.
And, like mage hand, there’s no concentration on this 1 minute spell. You can set it and forget it.
What you can’t do is cast multiple instances of it. Figure out your image or sound at the start, because if you want to change it up, you lose the first one.
A creature you’re trying to fool must succeed on an INT (Investigation) check to determine that it’s an illusion. Interestingly, there’s no consideration for low-intelligence creatures, so the INT 3 (−4) ankylosaurus you’re trying to fool has a real good chance of burning a round or two figuring out what’s going on. That’s a CR 4 monster you’re slowing down with a cantrip! Not bad!
The illusion ends if you cast this spell again. But since it’s an action to dismiss the spell, you can change it up for the same effort as shutting it down. Might as well get some other use out of it if you’re going to spend an action to kill it anyway.
You can make an image of an object or a sound with this spell, but it’s only one or the other. Let’s talk images first.
Image Is Everything
Any physical interaction with an image reveals it as an illusion right away. So ideally, the image is something that a target only looks at and doesn’t expect anything else from.
Casting this illusion on stationary things is your best bet. The spell description doesn’t say anything about motion, but the examples (a chair, muddy footprints, and a chest) are all static images. This one’s a judgment call for the GM, but keep in mind, the more complicated an image, the more opportunities a target has to disbelieve it.
An image must be no larger than a 5-foot cube, but that’s not much of a limitation. Most up-close things you might want to fool someone about are smaller than that.
You can’t create light with this spell. But there’s nothing stopping you from moving light with it. The spell description says “things” pass through the illusion. Is light a thing? Signs point to no. You need light to bounce off of an object to be able to see it. So theoretically, there’s no reason you couldn’t create an illusion of a highly polished object—say a mirror—and redirect existing light wherever you need it.
Sound AND Fury? In this Economy?
It’s a little harder to come up with different uses for pure sound illusion, but at the same time, it’s probably a little easier to sell an illusion of pure sound. The listener fills in their own details. You just put the idea in their heads.
The spell description doesn’t specify what languages you can make voices speak in, but it’s probably outside its scope for you to make it speak a language that you don’t know. It’s well within the scope of the spell to use languages you DO know, though. All the more reason to learn the language of your enemy. And your GM might well allow you to pair this with a tongues spell to expand your options.
The spell description also doesn’t provide an upper limit to the volume you can set for a noise, but one of the examples is a lion’s roar, which can be as loud as 114 decibels. So it’s safe to assume you can crank it up. Not so much to cause deafness, but maybe loud enough to cover over some other noise you don’t want your target to hear.
Finally, making specific noises with minor illusion is a great tool for getting monsters to walk into your ambush. Why should leucrottas have all the fun?
Need more ideas? Here’s 24 of them!
The short version of how to think about using minor illusion is to think like your target. Then create an illusion of something it wants in place of something it doesn’t want or something it doesn’t want in place of something you DO want.
A GM might be within rights to ask for an ability check or allow a creature a save to accomplish the desired effect. A key thing to note when you’re casting illusion spells: you’ve got two audiences to convince. The first is the fictive enemy. The second is the entirely real GM who has to weigh your cantrip’s effectiveness against what’s reasonable and fair for the whole game. Be ready to sell the illusion for both audiences!
- Footsteps around a corner. Make it quieter or louder, or even change the volume, depending on how far away you want someone to think the steps are.
- Fists beating on a door. If whoever’s inside emerges violently, you’re still OK.
- Wailing and lamenting in an alley or outside someone’s window.
- Cries for help—in anyone’s voice!
- The sound of a creature’s boss shouting might motivate a monster to leave or hide.
- Appropriate growls and barks from another room can help convince monsters you haven’t killed their guard animals yet.
- Mood music with no instruments.
- Drum or trumpet sounds to communicate maneuvers to an army.
- Indistinct whispers tempt the curious to come closer.
- A sudden noise 30 feet away can draw attention away from your hiding spot!
- Cover over a sound you don’t want with a louder sound of your own devising.
- A motionless, inattentive spellcaster with its back turned to the enemy is a tempting target. An attack spent on an illusion is an attack you’re not taking!
- Make an image of a ghost. It doesn’t matter if creatures that sees it can’t touch it. They’re not “supposed” to touch it.
- Put a closed door where one is open.
- Change a sign to read something different to throw off pursuers.
- Make a mirror to put light where you want it.
- Mirrors also let you see around corners or under doors with a gap.
- Cover a pit or other trap with the appearance of a solid surface.
- You can also create an image of a trap. Enemies will spend time trying to circumvent it.
- Hide a lock on a door to make it even harder to open.
- Help sell or confuse a different spell. Alter self, invisibility, and silent image are all relatively low-level spells with concentration that you can augment with some extra noise or imagery.
- A sudden curtain, door, or wall can provide you with quick hide-in-plain-sight cover if invisibility isn’t an option.
- Tracks going in the wrong direction.
- Finally, it’s not always about tricking! You can leave a temporary sign or repeating verbal instructions in your voice for friends to come across if they’re following close behind you.
What else can you surprise your GM with?
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