Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks How do you use Minor Illusion in game?

I think I picked up Minor Illusion at the start of the game because on the tabletop it's a good, standard bard spell; and I understand why it isn't as flexible in a video game. But I never really figured out what it's for. It always seems that I place it somewhere, then at least one enemy passes the saving throw and it instantly disappears for everyone. Does it still have any game effect if it disappears immediately, like distracting the enemies for a round? How have people successfully used it? I basically found myself ignoring it unless I couldn't think of anything else for my leader to do in a round.

It's good for out of combat shenanigans.

Such as moving potential enemies to dangerous areas (For example, when helping Karlach take out the paladins, you can use Minor Illusion on the wooden platform outside the rear door to make the shop keeper and ranger lass run out there and then you can enter Turn Based mode and use Thunderwave to send them both hurtling to their death. Thus allowing you to take on Mr Smites-a-lot on his own)

It can be used to aid with theft (Such as luring the Thiefling children away from their chest in the Grove so you can pick up the amulet to give back to the guy)

It can be a general use stealth aid to help an Assassin get a first strike off without the need of more limited Invisibility sources (Get people to turn around > Enter TB mode and walk your Assassin in for the attack)

You can sometimes group enemies up before initiating combat allowing you to get good AoE value at the start of a fight.

As mentioned above, there are a lot of fun uses. You can get Zhents to walk onto a bridge that you can then collapse. It's just a great little spell.

Does it stop working for everyone as soon as someone sees it? So you'd be better off only showing it to a few enemies at once so there's less chance they make the save and break the illusion for everyone?

Aye, once someone succeeds the investigation check it disappears.

Though for most uses, this doesn't matter too much, since the check only happens when they're gathered around it already. Hence why activating Turn Based mode is really good because it stops NPC's from moving while you take a turn of actions meaning they're still gathered in a location/facing a direction even if the illusion disappeared immediately.

There's a certain boss battle that involves a hammer and a creature that can take a hit from said hammer and there's a strat you can do to make the creature position itself so you can hit it.

You can also set up some other fun environmental damage interactions, like get everyone together to wet them and hit them with lightning or ice.

Also, in out of combat situations you can use it when you want to steal something.

i used it to pull the bulls into the lighttrap at the underdark fort and its great for splitting up guards to kil one at a time but pulling a certain X under a big hammer isn't very sporting of you