Minor Illusion

Category: Baldur’s Gate Spells

Cantrip Illusion spell available to Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards. It plants a distracting illusion that pulls enemies over to investigate, and you can cast it without breaking Stealth.

Spell description: Create an illusory image that distracts nearby creatures, compelling them to investigate. You can remain hidden while casting this spell.

Spell properties

Range: 18m (60ft)
Duration: 10 turns
Cost: Action
Recharge: Per action

Spell upcasting

This cantrip does not scale. Illusion School Wizards can cast Improved Minor Illusion as a Bonus Action, lasting 20 turns.

How to obtain Minor Illusion

Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard at Class level 1
Eldritch Knight (Fighter), Arcane Trickster (Rogue), and Way of Shadow (Monk) at Class level 3
High Elf and High Half-Elf at Character level 1
Granted by features: Magic Initiate: Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard

Create an illusory image that distracts nearby creatures. You can remain hidden while casting this spell.

Range: 18m (60ft)

Duration: 10 turns

When to cast Minor Illusion

This is a stealth-run staple. Drop the illusion in a corner and the guards wander over to look at it, opening a path for your party to slip past, or clustering enemies together for an opening Fireball.

Because you stay hidden when you cast it, you can reposition an entire encounter before it starts. It is quietly one of the best setup tools a sneaky party has, and it costs nothing but a cantrip.

Looking for more spells? Check out our full sortable and filterable list of all BG3 spells in the database.

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Spell properties

Level

Cantrip

School

Illusion

Casting resource

Action

Damage type

Range

18m (60ft)

Duration

10 turns

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Notes & sources

RPGWire’s BG3 Wiki is an independent fan resource maintained by a small team. We do our best to fact-check all content against in-game testing and official Larian sources. Errors can happen. If you spot one, or want to contribute to the wiki, Contact us here.

Spell mechanics, descriptions and values are based on Baldur’s Gate 3 version 4.1.1.7209685 and may change with future patches. Where applicable, sources are cited within each article.

Copyright disclaimer & licensing

Some or all of this work is © Larian Studios. Some spell icons and game data are property of Larian Studios and used here under their fan content policy. Any fan-created works using content from Larian fall under: Larian Fan Content Policy and / or Baldur’s Gate 3 Fan Content Terms. Some of the icons used in these spell cards were downloaded from Sammy8932 on NexusMods.

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