Flanking with Mirror Image?

[KarinsDad]

Back on the original topic here, I also agree that Mirror Images cannot flank.

My reasoning bascially matches jgsugden's.

Nice thorough post jgsugden.

 

[Stalker0]

There's a big difference between "useless" and "you can't do it" Casting a fireball at a salamander is useless, doesn't mean you can't do it.

An illusion can make all the melee attacks it wants, it's just useless... it'll never do damage.

Here's the thing, though - I think the person being attacked by the illusion would very quickly realize it's an illusion. Why? Because normal combat requires a lot of contact - you block sword blows with your shield, parry with your sword.... so unless the illusion was attacking a Monk with a huge touch AC, it's going to be quite apparent that it's not real, since it keeps missing your 11 touch AC, and yet manages to completely dodge your attack that hit AC 20 without even parrying with its sword.

-The Souljourner

That's the whole point of will saves, because the combat is so unlike real combat, is the spell powerful enough to continue to fool your mind?

A weak illusion, you see the illusion just wif right through your sword and go on to hit you and not do any damage.

A strong illusion might appear to be a dextrous fighter, who instead of parrying your attacks just dodges them, and every attack he makes bounces off your armor- believable enough to continue fighting it.

You can go even futher, the illusion might appear to be a fighter whose sword hand is weakened.. so taht while he's dodging alright, he can't make very good attacks. You can tell it to the players however you want... but if they fail the will save they believe its real.


As for mirror images flanking... don't get into that mess. Just assume the images stay near the caster, its way too complicated to beef up an already very good spell.

 

[Stalker0]

By the way, since I'm reading up on the spell now, is there anything against casting multiple mirror images, to get twice the number of guys?

 

[KarinsDad]

By the way, since I'm reading up on the spell now, is there anything against casting multiple mirror images, to get twice the number of guys?

For all I know, you could cast the spell a dozen times and get dozens of images.

Each spell is limited to creating 8 images, but nothing indicates that more could not be done.

There is a rule that bonuses or penalties do not stack, but these are not bonuses or penalties.

There is also a rule about same named spells having only the best spell operating at one time, but the moment it is gone, any other remaining spell takes over.

With this rule in mind, there would be a slight difference.

You could have 3 mirror image spells up at the same time, one with 3 images, one with 4 images, and one with 5 images. Theoretically, any attack would resolve against the 5 images (i.e. one in 6 chance of getting hit), not one in 13. Once that spell is down to 3 images, again the most powerful spell would take over and it would be be the 4 image one (i.e. one in 5 chance of getting hit).

So yes, you could cast the spell multiple times. However, only the currently most potent one would affect combat at any given time.