Blade Barrier Question

[The Souljourner]

I like that idea, Icebear, taking the movement away from their move during their next turn. I just don't want the situation where you might need to retroactively inflict damage on someone. Retroactive stuff is really really bad.

-The Souljourner

 

[Hypersmurf]

It's a big mass of moving and interchanging images, all within (or very near) the same square. The chances of striking an image (and everything else about the spell) is unchanged.

Not so. Everything else about the spell is unchanged until an attacker closes his eyes.

When blind or atacking an invisible attacker, you choose the square into which you're making your attack, make an attack roll, and roll a 50% miss chance. If you choose wrong or fail one of the rolls, you miss.

If the images are in five different squares, when I close my eyes, I have a 1 in 5 chance of guessing the correct square. After that, the 50% miss chance is applied. That means I have a 20% chance of my attack roll being worth something with my eyes open, and 10% with my eyes closed.

If they're all in the same square, I know which square to direct my attack into. Once I close my eyes, my chance of getting to use my attack roll rises from 20% to 50%.

-Hyp.

 

[IceBear]

Hmmmm - that's a good point. But this spell gets REAL weird if you have the images in seperate 5ft squares -

1) Could it be used for flanking? Debatable - Ki Ryn's way makes it impossible

2) ah, the fighter hit the real mage when he attacked the image in square three, so everyone else will attack there. This will make the spell a lot less useful (maybe a good thing), or make it weird with the instant transport to other squares that was mentioned above.

Maybe I'll have to still apply the chance of hitting an image even with his eyes closed (which is against the wording of the spell I know).

IceBear

 

[Hypersmurf]

2) ah, the fighter hit the real mage when he attacked the image in square three, so everyone else will attack there. This will make the spell a lot less useful (maybe a good thing), or make it weird with the instant transport to other squares that was mentioned above.

No, that's exactly how the spell works as written. The images only shuffle when the caster moves... if the fighter hits the real mage in square three, the real mage is in square three until his next action. Once he moves, you don't know which one he is again.

-Hyp.

 

[IceBear]

Hmmmm, I guess myself and a few other DMs were thinking too much in the past editions on this one. The first few times someone cast the spell, I missed the images in different squares part so I just rolled for the random miss chance like in the old days. By the time I noticed we were doing it wrong, it was kind of ingrained (and no one had tried closing their eyes ). This makes mirror image less powerful (which is good).

You still have that flanking crap though I personally wouldn't allow it, but logically you should, because if that image doesn't flank you then you know it's an image. I guess what I'll do is allow someone to move the image into flanking position, but the defender will determine (via defending himself or someother BS reason ) that the image is an image, so all that using a 2nd level spell for flanking will do is reduce the number of images by one

IceBear

 

[Tom Cashel]

"Involuntary" movement

Related question: when you use command or suggestion on someone and tell them to fall, die, or anything that involves movement, does it happen on the initiative of the spell or on the victim's intiative? What if the successful suggestion involves movement and the victim has already moved that round?

 

[IceBear]

I think that since the spell is "suggesting" that you move, it's still you moving and thus not until your initiative count.

With blade barrier (and I think flaming sphere) the actual saving throw would seem to indicate that you have to more whether or not you have any movement left or if it's your turn.

IceBear

 

[Artoomis]

Hmmmm, I guess myself and a few other DMs were thinking too much in the past editions on this one. The first few times someone cast the spell, I missed the images in different squares part so I just rolled for the random miss chance like in the old days. By the time I noticed we were doing it wrong, it was kind of ingrained (and no one had tried closing their eyes ). This makes mirror image less powerful (which is good).

You still have that flanking crap though I personally wouldn't allow it, but logically you should, because if that image doesn't flank you then you know it's an image. I guess what I'll do is allow someone to move the image into flanking position, but the defender will determine (via defending himself or someother BS reason ) that the image is an image, so all that using a 2nd level spell for flanking will do is reduce the number of images by one

IceBear

Ah but nothing in the spell description even implies that the caster may position the images, thus he can't set up flanking opportunities. Also, since the character can't know if his attacker is gaining a flanking bonus, there is no issue with knowing that the "flanker" is an image. The player may know, but the [/i]character[/i] won't.

 

[IceBear]

I personally wouldn't allow it, and I don't have any rules lawyer players - YET, but I like having everything thought out beforehand in case someone tries to pull some bull. Given the LONG thread on this topic awhile ago I don't think it's that clear cut - hence why I was worried about it.

Some people will argue that the very fact that you get some random number of images that must be within 5ft of you or another image as implying that the caster gets to place them. They would say, if I get two images why would they have to be arranged (I=image, C=caster)

ICI and not CII

Thus, they would say that since the spell doesn't tell them where the images have to be placed, they can place them themselves.

These same people would then say that if the image is placed in a flanking position, why would the target not suffer flanking penalties (and sneak attack damage from a rogue).

All I'm saying that I would allow the caster to determine where the images are located but if he should place one in flanking position, it wouldn't flank and thus the target could eliminate one image as his target.

IceBear