Whom here has played the 1st edition illusionist?
Never played it personally. I initially had no interest in it when 1E was current and neither did ANYBODY else I gamed with. Then I became a DM and still none of the players cared. Eventually one player tried one in a game I ran because I'd been commenting nobody ever HAD tried it. It was not a good experience for either of us and he quickly dropped the character and made a different one. Then 2E made them specialists which only made them LESS attractive to anyone as a concept...
Are there any ways to update this concept in a way that reflects the original 1st edition feel?
After literally decades of wrestling with it, my conclusion regarding the
1E illusionist is that their only real problem is the f'd up nature of the Phantasmal Force spell and the higher level versions of it (Improved PF, Spectral Force, Permanent Illusion, Programmed Illusion). It has no guidelines for its uses by a player or adjudication by a DM, so it can do anything, or be limited to doing nothing, or unpredictable and inconsistent results anywhere in between. However, once you FIX THAT, nothing else about the class is really a problem, other than perhaps it's still generally weaker in
typical play than a magic-user. All their other spells are quite adequately defined in what their resulting illusions will and WON'T do and how they do it. 1E doesn't have specific rules for how ALL illusions work because illusion spells themselves describe HOW they work and what they are limited to accomplishing... all except Phatansmal Force which in practical terms
has no rules at all.
Simply changing how that spell works (and thus all higher level versions of it as well), DEFINING what it can do and can't do and why, wiped away all the issues I EVER really had with the class. Those changes include PF not encroaching into territory covered by other
higher level illusionist spells, especially shadow monsters and shadow magic. I did give them a few other minor tidbits to differentiate them from MU's in ways OTHER than just their available spells. Also, I came up with this to say to players about possibly playing illusionists; something that really should have been emphasized in the general description of what the class even is:
"Illusionists
could be as potent at high levels as magic-users, but will
never be able to compete with magic-users in terms of raw destruction. Only a foolish player would even try. The power of illusionists lies in using their spells with strategies and tactics of deception, confusion, misdirection, delay, obfuscation, concealment and disguise. They do still have damaging spells, but that is seldom going to be how they succeed. They are just not designed for plentiful infliction of hit point damage, and it should rarely, if ever, be an illusionists goal to gain victory by brute attrition."
What that means is that if you're going to create illusory monsters with an illusionist spell, then you should almost always be attempting to have the presence of those monsters accomplish some other goal than only inflicting massive damage upon as many enemies as possible. If those are the kinds of spells you want for your character, then ILLUSIONIST is the wrong freakin' choice of class and you'd best re-think your character pronto. Deception. Confusion. Misdirection. Delay. Obfuscation. Concealment. Disguise. That is what illusionist spells are overwhelmingly geared for.
