Can Trid Phantasm's effects be used to also duplicate the effects of Physical Mask or even Invisibility? I know its a different spell than those two but it seems like it is a more advanced version of those spells that can do what Mask and Invisibility can do plus mass illusions.

Yes a Trid Phasntasm can be used in place of Physical Mask,

No, Trid Phasntasm can not turn something or someone Invisible.

What he said.

Personally, to avoid power creep by Trid Phantasm (TP) into the realm of other spells, I specify that TP cannot be used to mimic the effect of any other Illusion spell. Since TP is a multi-sense, realistic illusion, you could conceivably use it to own all other illusion spells at once. Too many times did people try to logic their way into that with me so I just said that there are other illusions spells for a reason so TP is the spell to go to when you need a complex illusion of something that isn't covered by anything else.

That's totally what I did with my GM. I tried to logic him square in the face citing "well the drain is crazier and it just lets you do more with illusions" - I just needed to get some other opinions on it to see how others deal with spells that are very similar in function. just with expanded effects.

Possible fluff: Mask is really good at staying right in position over your face and across your body. Trid Phantasm would be fine if you just want a one-shot static image overlaid on your face, but if you want it to constantly stay aligned with your moving body, that's gonna take more than the -2 concentration penalty.

Compromise: it kinda works, but at, say, threshold 2.

With all magic questions, there's the difficulty of not turning to the real world to see how well you're simulating reality... though some GMs want simulation with, say, guns, and others want cinematic.

I ruled that Trid Phantasm can't duplicate Invisibility because TP only adds objects to a scene, it can't remove them (though it could retexture them, but that'd be like painting yourself to look like a brick wall in order to sneak around).

I like Riley's explanation, that mask specializes in the nuance of following your face and body with illusions. I also his threshold addition, so you can still jury-rig a similar effect with trid phantasm. Maybe, since Trid Phantasm does not incorporate invisibility, the mask-disguise you pick has to be a little bigger than your real body.

Yes and no. (I wish it was a more full no, due to this spell making most other illusions worthless but)

Yes it can make some one else look like something different. Heck it can make the whole team appear different.

It is an AoE sustained spell so it has two problems,

1. When you are trying to move the AoE, cause I don't know you are walking down the street it takes a complex action to move it.

2. If anything falls out of line of sight of the spell it drops from them. So your Sam turns the corner before you, hew is no longer looking different, someone falls behind you or you look behind you or anything else and poof it is gone.