What are the practical uses for Disguise Self?

[Quadsword]

I understand disguising yourself as a different race can open up different interactions and change the way people react to you, but unless you know ahead of time that a particular conversation favors a certain race, I don't see it being all that useful.

Kinda the same thing with the mask of the shapeshifter in D:OS2. It's initially hyped up as being this incredible tool (even though Fane repeatedly downplays it as nothing more than a child's toy), but even for undead, it's not that useful. I only really used it occasionally to turn somebody into an elf to take advantage of corpse eater.

[Farsha]

In EA there are some extra dialogues and some options.
For example you will have easier time getting into Goblin camp as a Drow.
But it's never your only option.

[WeenerTuck813]

In table top the uses are limitless, it may be my favorite spell.

In BG3 it’s only useful for like speak with the dead so you don’t look like the person who killed the corpse you’re trying to talk to.


In table top the BiS combo is to play Variant Human Warlock, take Actor Feat. Pick up friends as your other cantrip with Eldridge Blast. And finally, get Mask of Many Faces Eldritch Invocation (free cast disguise self).


This 3 part combo allows you infinite Face Changes to look like whomever, the ability to mimic people’s voices you’ve listened to and buffs your performance rolls, and allows you to use friends to not only pass dialog checks, but to piss people off at whomever you made yourself look like.

Listen to Person A, so you can mimic their voice.
Disguise as Person A
Go talk to person B, use Friends to make them give you info or gold or something.
Go around a corner, shift back to your normal face.
Friends wears off, Person B realizes Person A manipulated them with magic.

Now person B hates person A. The out of combat applications are limitless. Make a queen hate her guard captain, make a bartender not trust a patron, make a party member of a different group mad at another party member.

[Hobocop]

It's primary use in BG3 is to get you reactions or dialogue options based on your race and let you access areas that would normally be off-limits for others. Like being able to get easy access to the goblin camp if you disguise yourself as a drow, for example.

[Moifaso]

Pretending you are a drow or when talking to baddies is always a good choice. Same goes for changing appearances to use Speak With The Dead on someone you killed.

[Lightning Mcree]

Originally posted by WeenerTuck813:

In table top the uses are limitless, it may be my favorite spell.

In BG3 it’s only useful for like speak with the dead so you don’t look like the person who killed the corpse you’re trying to talk to.


In table top the BiS combo is to play Variant Human Warlock, take Actor Feat. Pick up friends as your other cantrip with Eldridge Blast. And finally, get Mask of Many Faces Eldritch Invocation (free cast disguise self).


This 3 part combo allows you infinite Face Changes to look like whomever, the ability to mimic people’s voices you’ve listened to and buffs your performance rolls, and allows you to use friends to not only pass dialog checks, but to piss people off at whomever you made yourself look like.

Listen to Person A, so you can mimic their voice.
Disguise as Person A
Go talk to person B, use Friends to make them give you info or gold or something.
Go around a corner, shift back to your normal face.
Friends wears off, Person B realizes Person A manipulated them with magic.

Now person B hates person A. The out of combat applications are limitless. Make a queen hate her guard captain, make a bartender not trust a patron, make a party member of a different group mad at another party member.

I actually did not know you could use disguise self to fool a Speak with Dead spell, that's very good info to have, thanks for the tip!

[Moifaso]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

It's primary use in BG3 is to get you reactions or dialogue options based on your race and let you access areas that would normally be off-limits for others. Like being able to get easy access to the goblin camp if you disguise yourself as a drow, for example.

Fun fact - some race-specific dialogue is changed if you are only pretending to be a certain race.

[cl656]

You don't have to spread warg poop all over your face to talk your way into the Goblin camp. Without disguise self to turn yourself into a Drow, you have to use the tadpole or be a Drow

[ExcaliburV]

You're right that in some cases it might take some meta knowledge, but in others it may not be a hard deduction.

If you learned that drow are operating with the Goblin tribe, turning into a drow before you approach them is something that makes sense to do. Likewise, it doesn't take too much foresight to reason that becoming a Githyanki when dealing with the Gith patrol could be beneficial. Etc.

[Ghost]

Get any/all Tieflings on your side.
Avoid attacks and/or humiliation by goblins.
Boss the 'lessers' around.
Pretend to be a Gith and get Lae'zel to shut it before she gets herself killed or imply that you're a fake / a Githzerai and get killed yourself.
Speak with your murder victims that would otherwise refuse.
Avoid consequences of your crimes.

The context is fairly consistent with what should work and what the game shows/tells you should work but it's obviously going to be limited by what gets written in as opposed to what you can convince your DM to let you get away with.

[Gaius]

Originally posted by Quadsword:

I understand disguising yourself as a different race can open up different interactions and change the way people react to you, but unless you know ahead of time that a particular conversation favors a certain race, I don't see it being all that useful.

Kinda the same thing with the mask of the shapeshifter in D:OS2. It's initially hyped up as being this incredible tool (even though Fane repeatedly downplays it as nothing more than a child's toy), but even for undead, it's not that useful. I only really used it occasionally to turn somebody into an elf to take advantage of corpse eater.

In theory it should change your character tags to allow more dialogue options and/or infiltration, etc.

Doesn't eem be be fully implemented yet, unfortunatelly.

[Erke]

Nobody seems to mention it here yet, but I just used it to fit through a hole, with Shadowheart, disguised as an halfling.

[Strez]

Using it for traveling halfling/gnome sized holes, if you aren't a druid that can wildshape into a small animal. Use it to disguise as a drow in Act 1 and walk past goblins at will, or more easily command and intimidate them.

[Emrys of Ailliau]

so if you raid the druid grove alone disguised as a drow will karlach and will still leave the party

[BeautifulFlowerField]

you can get into mouse sized holes if you disguise as a gnome/halfling and then use the reduce spell to shrink down even more from that.

[Lur Nen Rue]

there is an ox in grove that is suspicious, killing it will reward you with shapeshifting related item that boost your shapeshifting, you can also wait to kill said ox to get more item in act 2 but the shapeshifting item alone is big boon on act1

shapeshift into gith unlock the requirement of many gith exclusive equipment, same with drow exclusive weapon