D&D 1E How do you play an illusionist?

You can blame Ben Riggs for waking my memory of this old class.

I never tried this class back in the day so curious?

Whom here has played the 1st edition illusionist?

How did it differ from a standard Magic user?

Are there any ways to update this concept in a way that reflects the original 1st edition feel?

I played one, one of the things is that it relied a lot on a compliant DM. For instance, casting illusions of medusa that would convince enemies that they had turned to stone.

You had to be creative, since many spells were open to interpretation

I've been playing an illusionist since 2006. And yes, it's all about the DM and player reaching a mutual understanding.

If every NPC immediately sees through illusions, even when it's nothing they'd find suspicious, it's going to be a pretty unpleasant game.

Simultaneously, the player has to remember that they're not slinging around Wish spells. The best illusion is the one the targets would never suspect of being an illusion.

Most DM's, in my opinion, are pretty strict about illusions. Their NPC's will use illusion magic rather liberally, and the DM will be irritated that you don't believe in the illusion, but meanwhile, anything you try to do with an illusion gets a lot of pushback.

I don't attribute this to any specific malice, really, I think it has more to do with human nature. Humans are very gullible creatures, yet we hate to admit that we can be easily tricked or conned. We like to pretend that we'd be much more discerning than most of us really can be- and so, DM's hate to be tricked, and by extension, they hate to have their NPC's tricked.

It's the same problem with debates about deceit-type skills in other editions.

It doesn't help that many illusionist players, seeing how open-ended their illusion spells are, tend to go for grandiose effects. Rather than create an illusion of a town guard or a zombie, they want to create illusions of Balrogs or Dragons- the kind of thing that might be somewhat eyebrow raising.

I would think the best illusionist would try to be subtle, and not stretch the boundaries of belief too much.

Of course, D&D being a world where the fantastic exists, a dragon or demon could appear in a town and spells that conjure monsters or beasts totally exist make this more problematic.

It doesn't help that a well-used illusion can punch well above it's weight compared to other spells of the same level, the kind of thing any DM would be suspicious of allowing (even when they shouldn't be).

Simply put, I've often wanted to play an illusionist, but I usually balk at it, because spells with real effects also exist, and are put under less of a microscope. Even if my DM was one I knew would be amenable to my use of illusions to deal with problems, the monsters aren't necessarily complicit- they might have special senses or abilities that allow them to realize "hey, that thing isn't real/is hella sus" as a matter of course!

I have an Enchanter in a 2e game that has very similar problems- her spells don't say "creature x, y, or z are immune"; that information is in the monster writeup, something you might not realize until it's too late.

All magic has risks, of course. Any monster could have Magic Resistance or special immunities, but it's usually a lot easier to realize something is immune to fireball than to know if I should use hold person, slow, or fumble against an enemy.

You didn't have a lot of direct damage dealing ability until high level, but then again, it wasn't common to rely on magic-users to regularly expend fireballs, either. You had a few basic jobs. First, you could do creative things with illusions. An illusion of a spectre, for instance, would be enough to scare off some goblins. Second, you have some spells that directly affected the mind or senses, like fear, confusion, and paralysis, so you were very effective against humanoid opponents and NPCs. Third, you had a lot of buffing capability, especially through the use of invisibility and so forth.

Then in the lower mid levels, you began summoning semi-real monsters and using shadow magic, and you became a weird, but fully featured, wizard type character.

I played a gnome illusionist for a long while. Color Spray is great as are some of the pattern type things.
Just make your illusions/ phantasmal forces logical and believable.
Maybe chat with DM before hand to set some guidelines

I ran a gnomish Ftr/Ill who used alchemical grenades of various kinds- simple clouds, poisons, glues, greases, incendiaries, etc.- and often chose illusions that were related to the grenades he used.

Then he’d attack with short swords & darts while they were distracted.

As James said, Illusionists have always been difficult to run and play due to the unpredictability of their adjudication. There can be a pretty wide difference between the expectations of the player and DM about how effective they can or should be.

The fact that there is a lot of space for improvisation with them means the possibilities are exciting, but it also means more work for the DM to judge and make rulings and try to thread the needle between letting the player have fun without letting their spells be more powerful than they should be.

Dragon Magazine 130 had a really good article (called "Hold onto your illusions!") giving substantive guidelines and expanded rules for adjudicating them. I think I would use that article if I were DMing an old school game with a player who wanted to use illusions a lot.

I've mentioned this before, but for some reason the following illustration in the AD&D (1e) Rogue's Gallery really got to me-

(Artist: Jeff Dee)

I loved illusionists, and I have played several. A few notes-

1. The dexterity requirement is a killer, but you need to use it to your advantage. Think missile weapons (I threw daggers, because we weren't playing the dumb dart game, and I could also use them in melee if needed given the single proficiency).

2. Review the magic items restrictions- by the letter of the rules, you can use a Ring of Wizardry if you can find it, but the rod/staff/wand restrictions are more severe than you think

3. Your XP tables make no sense. Some levels require less than a MU, some require more. That said, the very good news is that if you get into high level-play (beyond 12) you need a lot less from that point on than a MU. To hit 19th level, you need 2.22 million XP. A MU needs 3.75 million XP.

4. Finally, your spells are either going to be awesome, or crappy, depending on the DM and campaign. While some of your spells are fairly standard and do not require adjudication, many of your best and most powerful spells that are your bread and butter (and fun) will often depend on how the DM chooses to construe the rules regarding illusions.

So, based on (4), I would make sure to discuss with the DM to make sure that you don't have mismatched expectations. The illusionist can be so much fun to play, but if the DM isn't on-board with creative solutions and illusions, then the other restrictions in the class will turn your experience sour.

In short, the class can either be a powerful and fun alternative to the standard MU, or a terrible, bad, no-fun experience that will make you wish you had taken that high dexterity and chosen a different class.

Jeff Dee should do more uninked art.