Disbelieving Mirror Image?

Madfox · Mar 15, 2002

IMC scent and tremor sense though do work in localising the real person. Though I am not too sure on the scent thing and I would be willing to let myself convinced otherwise with good arguments.

Mal Malenkirk · Mar 15, 2002

Rules have already been provided.

Let me just add common sense;

When you see 7 identical twin moving in perfect sync, you know it's an illusion. That doesn't tell you which one is the real wizard!

When the PC told you he wanted to disbelieve you should have just done

and told him he can't do that because it made no sense. If he starts quoting rules, tell him you'll look into that after the session.

Use common sense when making call on the fly, read the rules carefully after the game and decide how you'll handle the situation from then on. A lot of players, consciously or not, regularly come up with plausible yet wrong interpretation of the rules that always seem to favor their PC (no kidding). Don't ever let them pull one of those during the session. Look over the rule with them afterward.

In the same vein, not long ago I had a rogue player say he was going to take a -20 to his Hide check to sneak attack a giant but remain hidden. This wasn't even an interpretation but it came from a splat book I hadn't read yet. I told him no, if he wanted to do that he should have talked to me about this tactic before the game. Never get bullied by rule lawyers.

gnfnrf · Mar 15, 2002

Zenon said:
For wizards and sorcerers it's a little easier, dump a magic missile barrage into the mirror images, one missile per image (and the caster may be included in there). When the missile hits and it's an image, it goes away automatically. If one actually happens to randomly hit the caster, he won't go away and you just pinpointed him for your friends until he gets to move/go on his round again and can mix himself back up with the images.

I don't think that this works. Magic missile can only target creatures, so would fizzle against the images. This may briefly tell you which is the real wizard, but not once they re-merge and sort again on his move.

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gnfnrf

Christian · Mar 15, 2002

Galfridus said:
"Can't use vision or hearing to distinguish," so that's not going to work.

Uh, yes it will. You need to look at that section in the context of the spell description ...

When the character and the mirror image separate, observers can’t use vision or hearing to tell which one is the character and which the image.

This is just explaining that these senses will not help you stay focussed on the original caster as the spell takes effect. And farther down in the spell description, it says:

An attacker must be able to see the images to be fooled. If the character is invisible or an attacker shuts her eyes, the spell has no effect, though being unable to see carries the same penalties as being blinded: In addition to the obvious effects, a blinded creature suffers a 50% miss chance in combat (all opponents have full concealment), loses any Dexterity bonus to AC, grants a +2 bonus to attackers’ attack rolls (they are effectively invisible), moves at half speed, and suffers a –4 penalty on most Strength- and Dexterity-based skills.

As it explicitly states, shutting your eyes counters the effects of the spell. It's a lousy way to counter them, especially if the wizard has friends who can whale on you while your eyes are closed, but it does work ...

Christian · Mar 15, 2002

gnfnrf said:
I don't think that this works. Magic missile can only target creatures, so would fizzle against the images. This may briefly tell you which is the real wizard, but not once they re-merge and sort again on his move.

For heaven's sake, don't start this argument again. Rest assured that some people will agree with you, some people will think you're deranged (me, for instance-magic missile is not a general 'detect illusion' spell), and nobody will ever be able to sway anybody else's opinion on the matter. Trust me.

gnfnrf · Mar 16, 2002

Christian said:
For heaven's sake, don't start this argument again. Rest assured that some people will agree with you, some people will think you're deranged (me, for instance-magic missile is not a general 'detect illusion' spell), and nobody will ever be able to sway anybody else's opinion on the matter. Trust me.

Other than the bit in parenthesis, you could say that about half the threads on this forum. We discuss things that we have no hope of resolving because other people, whose opinions are not yet fixed, need to have a good understanding of both sides of the argument. I might not change your opinion, and you might not change mine, but one or the other of us might convince Fred the lurker.

Now, to the bit in parenthesis, magic missile is not a general illusion detector. It fizzles when targetted against an object, real or illusionary. It IS an illusory creature detector. I just can't see any other way to read the rules.

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gnfnrf