Disguise Self: It’s What’s on the Outside That Counts

Usable By: Artificer, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 1

School: Illusion

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self

Duration: 1 hour

Components: V, S

You make yourself—including your clothing, armor, weapons, and other belongings on your person—look different until the spell ends or until you use your action to dismiss it. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller and can appear thin, fat, or in between. You can’t change your body type, so you must adopt a form that has the same basic arrangement of limbs. Otherwise, the extent of the illusion is up to you.

The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection. For example, if you use this spell to add a hat to your outfit, objects pass through the hat, and anyone who touches it would feel nothing or would feel your head and hair. If you use this spell to appear thinner than you are, the hand of someone who reaches out to touch you would bump into you while it was seemingly still in midair.

To discern that you are disguised, a creature can use its action to inspect your appearance and must succeed on an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Listen, D&D is all about hijinks. It's silly by nature, and encourages all our intrusive thoughts to pop out into a pretend world and manifest in ridiculous ways. You’re going to get into trouble, or somebody else is going to GET you in trouble. Sometimes you’re out looking for trouble, itching to start a fight. Disguise Self will slide easily onto any character sheet where hijinks are happening. It gives you a simple, cheap, concentration-less tool for looking like somebody else, and that has SO much potential.

Like all illusion spells, how powerful it is directly tied to your DMs frequency of Investigation checks. Some DMs won’t ever check to see that you aren’t who you say, while others will sculpt a skeptical world influenced by illusions that trust nothing. Your mileage will vary depending on what table you’re playing at.

On top of that, Disguise Self deeply cares about details. It's a spell that can feel like an exact physical transformation if you are detail-light, whereas in games dedicated to each and every chair and table, every movement a character makes, every handshake and hug greeting, this spell is going to get harder and harder to use without very clever and careful play. It rewards players who record down details about people and places, and can be an incredible tool for the sneaky rogues and charlatans who want a million different personas. Sometimes you’ll have to work hard to make that happen with Disguise Self: other times it’ll just happen with next to no effort. Again, what table you’re at will influence this heavily.

Unfortunately, Invisibility is a near ubiquitous 2nd level spell characters eagerly pick up because it's BUSTED. A lot of the power in Disguise Self gets outshone almost immediately by Invisibility, which is a bit of a bummer. Even at the tables where it can be a challenge to make effective, Disguise Self is a really rewarding spell to make work. It encourages elaborate plans and engaging with characters and the narrative. It gets quickly replaced by an easier to use tool (Invisibility) that doesn’t require you to engage at all with those elements to find success, which is a bit of a bummer. Still, I think Disguise Self should find more homes on more character sheets. It has a deep well of opportunity for creative thinkers and note takers alike. I’d recommend it to most anyone.

5e Spells

Disguise Self: It’s What’s on the Outside That Counts