Mirrors and Targeting?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Let's say there's a mirror on the wall. And let's say you have an enemy that can only be seen via the reflection in the mirror.

If you're looking at the mirror, is your line of sight and/or effect towards the mirror or towards the target creature? Because technically you're not looking directly at the targeted creature...

 

[Moon-Lancer]

set up a mirror thats reflecting something far away. You will find that your eyes need to adjust as if it was seeing the far away object rather then the mirror itself. you can actually choose to focus on the mirror (the (spots of dirt on said mirror) or whats being reflected on said mirror. When you focus on the dirt, the object in the mirror is out of focus. when you focus on the object, the dirt is out of focus.

So i say you have line of sight. The question is, do spells travel like light to allow for line of effect?

 

[DiceGolem]

I'd allow you to have line of sight only IF you have the mirror oriented just right. You still wouldn't have line of effect if there was something in the way, as normal, since you can't just bounce spells off a mirror. It seems too situational to be of any real use, though, and only if the DM says you're at just the correct angle to see the target.

Imagine a U-turn dungeon corridor with a giant mirror for back wall. You get close enough to see an Ogre, but there's still a wall in between you two. Unless you have something like a Burrowing psionic power (to get through the wall) or a spell that ignores line of effect (I think a good example is call lightning, which comes down from the sky and only works if there's no roof) there's not a lot that you can do.

Although, it's arguable if a mirror would allow you to accurately target creatures. I mean, it seems like something a movie trickster would try to do. I'd make it a Skill Trick: Reflection Targeting (requires, say, Spot 5 ranks). "You have line of sight to a creature if you have line of sight to it's reflection. If it's reflection has cover (say, you only have a small mirror and can only see part of the creature) the target creature has the same cover. If the reflection is of poor quality (that is, moving water, a thin sheet of ice, etc... anything less than a clean mirror) then the target creature has cover."

That way, you could only really use it once per encounter without specializing.

 

[Hypersmurf]

You still wouldn't have line of effect if there was something in the way, as normal, since you can't just bounce spells off a mirror.

Right - it's the sort of thing that would be most useful if there were intervening concealment, like a fog cloud, rather than intervening cover, like a wall.

If you can see around the fog cloud, you should be able to Magic Missile through the Fog Cloud. But even though the missiles can go through, you can't target if you can't see (unlike, say, a ray, which you can aim blindly).

-Hyp.