Choose Blur over Mirror Image

[Bonedagger]

What is your primary concern, being the most versitile or the longest lived? If you can stay in back and not draw much fire, MI comes out on top. If all you do is buff yourself, though, you aren't helping your party as much as you could. MI is just plain shorter lived than blur. A couple archers could

Displacement beat blur. Displacement beats MI. Displacement is higher level, and therefore not part of this discussion. My general advice, take invis as your required spell, and then take other utility spells like the stat buffs.

What's your point about Displacement. I think I was the only one who mentioned Displacement and that only to compare Displacement and Blur.

Try and read the entire post before answering to it. .


Congratulation. I to can come up with a lot of spells that would be better to choise than Blur and MI. However. The question was to compare those two.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

I'd caution you not to compare blur and mirror image based solely on their ability to protect the caster, unless that's all you (*cough* selfish *cough* hand-and-a-half) intend to do.

That 20% miss chance makes the party fighter's hp stretch much farther than it will the wizard's, because he's got more hit points to start with. He's the guy who ought to be taking all of the attacks.

This is one reason I think it's a superior choice for sorcerers. They can productively use blur on multiple allies in the same fight, and sorcery is all about doing a few things many times. It's tricky to get as much mileage out of mirror image in terms of repeated casting. Of course, I suppose that implies that mirror image might be a better choice for the illusionist in question.

 

[Petrosian]

Someone mentioned that if all you do is stay back and draw a little fire them MI is best.

i think that is clearly wrong.

If you are going to draw few hits, then MI on you is probably a waste of time.

If you are in such a secure position, then wouldn't it be better to have 20% miss on your front line fighter who is taking multiple swings a round?

As a sorcerer, i would select blur ahead of MI at the drop of a hat. it serves far more than just being another mahe defense.

However, as i have said before, for second level sor spells, blur is a B list spell. There are much better utility type apells at second so that i wont usually take a defensive spell at this level.


between the two, blur.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

If you ask me, blur shouldn't even be on the list of potential spells to choose unless you're in a campaign that features lots of rogues on both sides.

Obscuring mist and fog cloud are better ways to deal with rogues on the other side since they protect everyone in the combat from sneak attacks not just one individual.

As far as blur goes for protecting characters, according to my calculations, it's not comparable to mirror image. . . .heck, it's not even comparable to mage armor or protection from evil. Consider what a 20% miss chance really means:

Best case scenario--opponent needs to roll a 2 in order to hit you.
In this case, a 20% miss chance is equal to 3.8 points of AC. (Of course, making sure your opponent only hits you on a 5 effectively is a waste of time--he's still going to hit you 75% of the time so you'd be better off doing something that reduced the number of rounds he'll be hitting you--like killing him with a magic missile).

A more common scenario--opponent needs to roll an 11 in order to hit the target. In this case, blur is equivalent to 2 points of AC. It's pulled even with protection from evil in terms of damage taken from weapons but protection from evil also protects from mental domination and gives a resistance bonus to saves.

As your opponent needs to roll higher and higher in order to hit you (as he probably will if you use the shield spell in combination with mage armor, bracers of armor, or a decent dex already), blur's 20% miss chance becomes less and less significant.

The bottom line? Blur is pretty weak--and would still be weak even if it were a first level spell.

So pick up mirror image or better yet pick up Invisibility. Both of them are far more useful and powerful than blur.

 

[Dwarmaj]

I chose MI for my sorcerer, the 20% miss chance would be nice for the party fighter, but the 50% miss chance associated with Improved Invisibility is much better. If you know you're going to be taking Imp Invis anyway (and what spell caster wouldn't ), then a sorcerer would be better off taking MI.

Since you're a wizard you'll eventually have both anyways, take which every helps your party survive the best.

Dwarmaj

 

[LokiDR]

Try and read the entire post before answering to it. .

Thank you for the flame bait. I will decline however.

Instead I will say that in a few levels this illusionist will be able to cast displacement, which is better than blur, if somewhat shorter lived. Displacement would make your blur more or less obsolete, which may be a consideration in choosing spells.

I don't use either MI or blur. Blur would obviously be best if you were facing a horde of weak creatures. MI works best for 1 powerful enemy. Blur can help allies, however, works with persistant, if that becomes an issue, and can be made to last a lot longer than displacement, through extend spell. A whole party walking around being immune to sneak attacks can be very usefull. On the other hand, MI can stop those pesky dispells from stoping all your buff spells. I do believe they need to pick the real person for a targeted dispel.

I guess I would go either way, from what I have seen of the arguements here.

 

[Stalker0]

Consider what a 20% miss chance really means:

Best case scenario--opponent needs to roll a 2 in order to hit you.
In this case, a 20% miss chance is equal to 3.8 points of AC. (Of course, making sure your opponent only hits you on a 5 effectively is a waste of time--he's still going to hit you 75% of the time so you'd be better off doing something that reduced the number of rounds he'll be hitting you--like killing him with a magic missile).

A more common scenario--opponent needs to roll an 11 in order to hit the target. In this case, blur is equivalent to 2 points of AC. It's pulled even with protection from evil in terms of damage taken from weapons but protection from evil also protects from mental domination and gives a resistance bonus to saves.

As your opponent needs to roll higher and higher in order to hit you (as he probably will if you use the shield spell in combination with mage armor, bracers of armor, or a decent dex already), blur's 20% miss chance becomes less and less significant.

The main problem with this argument is as you get higher up in levels, usually teh attack bonus of an enemy tends to grow much faster than AC.

So in your scenario of needing a 2 to hit, the miss chance of 20% reduces a monster's 95% chance to hit to 76%, a 19% reduction. If the creature needed a 4 to hit (a +2 to AC) that would reduce it from 95% to 85%, a 10% reduction. But's that IF the +2 to AC actually required the creature to get a 4 or better. If his attack bonus is very high, even with an increase of +2 to AC, he may still hit on a 2 or better.

The other thing is that miss chances stack much better than many bonuses to AC. After a while, you may have plenty of AC bonuses from equipment and spells, and then slapping on a miss chance makes it even better.

I'm not saying that protection from evil and shield aren't great spells, and often should be cast first. But for an extra layer of protection blur can be nice.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It's not really a problem. Creatures' attack bonusses grow relative to an unmaximized AC. A maximized AC can stay level with or ahead of the attack bonusses.

Examples of this:
Wizard 14 dex, mage armor, shield, protection from evil, cat's grace, haste
Lvl 1 AC 16 or 19 (mage armor or shield)
Lvl 3 AC 17 to 25 (mage armor and cat's grace--sometimes add shield)
lvl 5 AC 21 to 28 (mage armor, haste and cat's grace, sometimes add shield)
lvl 7 AC up to 35 if the mage wants to polymorph himself into a troll.

Fighter 13 dex, dodge
Lvl 1 AC 18/19 (chain mail, shield)
Lvl 2 AC 19/20 (banded mail, shield)
Lvl 3 AC 21/22 (fullplate, shield)
Lvl 4 AC 22/23 (+1 fullplate, shield)
Lvl 5 AC 26/27 (+1 fullplate, shield, haste spell from wizard)
With expertise, this can reach AC 32

Both of these characters are relatively focussed on defense and have quite good ACs--particularly if the wizard or cleric buff the fighter as is seen in the last example. A typical troll (attack bonus +9) will have a lot of trouble hitting the 5th level fighter once the wizard casts haste on him.

Certain classes have trouble achieving good armor classes (barbarians and druids have difficulty) but usually, a defensively focussed character is more than capable of being quite difficult to hit.

For a high level example:
Fighter 13 dex.
+5 fullplate, +5 large shield, +3 ring of deflection, +3 amulet of natural armor= AC 37
Make it +5 mithril fullplate and give him gloves of dexterity of cat's grace and that's AC 39.
Cast Mass Haste and his AC is 43. Even the CR 18 and 20 creatures can't count on hitting him without a decent roll.

Your contention relies on AC buffing measures still allowing creatures to hit on less than a 10 or so because as soon as creatures need to roll a 16 to hit, blur only reduces the chance to be hit by 5%--which is hardly worth casting a spell for. Even if it is done before combat, an endurance or false life spell would make a much bigger difference at that point in the game.

The same is true, however, in the best case scenario for the spell. If the opponent could hit on a roll of -35 and consequently only misses on a 1 no matter what you do the character's AC, a 20% miss chance isn't going to help much. An 81% chance of taking damage is very similar to a 95% chance of taking damage--either way, the character will probably be hurt. In that situation, something that reduces the number of rounds for which the enemy attacks by reducing his hit points--Acid Arrow for instance--or something that gives the character more hit points so he can take more hits--endurance or false life for instance--will most likely be more effective than a 20% miss chance.

I'm not saying that a 20% miss chance isn't nice to have. Considering that the opportunity cost is a more useful second level spell--or even a first level spell--however, I don't think it's a good idea to cast blur in many situations. . . and there aren't enough situations where it is a good idea for it to be worth preparing.

If a spell is almost never worth preparing, it's probably not worth knowing. Buy a scroll, put it in Heward's Handy Haversack and if you ever have a round with nothing better to do--and something needs to be done--cast it. I'd bet that situation won't ever come up though.

As I said, I don't think blur would be impressive for a first level spell. My Living Greyhawk fighter/wizard probably wouldn't prepare it, even if it were in his spellbook and it were first level. There are too many better ways to spend a standard action (shield, dispel magic, haste, blink, glitterdust, magic missile, attack, etc)

The main problem with this argument is as you get higher up in levels, usually teh attack bonus of an enemy tends to grow much faster than AC.

So in your scenario of needing a 2 to hit, the miss chance of 20% reduces a monster's 95% chance to hit to 76%, a 19% reduction. If the creature needed a 4 to hit (a +2 to AC) that would reduce it from 95% to 85%, a 10% reduction. But's that IF the +2 to AC actually required the creature to get a 4 or better. If his attack bonus is very high, even with an increase of +2 to AC, he may still hit on a 2 or better.

The other thing is that miss chances stack much better than many bonuses to AC. After a while, you may have plenty of AC bonuses from equipment and spells, and then slapping on a miss chance makes it even better.

I'm not saying that protection from evil and shield aren't great spells, and often should be cast first. But for an extra layer of protection blur can be nice.

 

[incognito]

Duration?

Can someone verify that the duration in the SRD is perhaps a type?

I could've sworn that Blur was 10 min/level

 

[DarkJester]

My phb says 1 minute/level