Mirror Image and Targeting

[Thurbane]

How about spells like Hold Person or Hideous Laughter that affect one target - does Mirror Image provide a defense against them? Since they don't cause damage, I assume they don't have any effect on the image. How about Slow, can the caster choose to affect all the images, including the real caster? What about beneficial spells like a Cure - if the caster "hits" a target with a Cure, does it vanish?

 

[eamon]

Enemies attempting to attack you or cast spells at you must select from among indistinguishable targets. Any successful attack against an image destroys it.

Emphasis mine.

Since the images are "indistinguishable targets", spells which require targeting must target a random image - and further, any spell which can target you can be wrongly targeted at these images. This much is clear from the spell description.

Open to interpretation on the other hand: An image is destroyed by being attacked, or - I presume - by being targeted, though that's not entirely obvious. Of course, it would truly be affected in the real sense, but that's not different from an attack: it doesn't have any hit points, isn't real, and yet attacks can destroy them. Hyp's interpretation that you need to choose randomly, but choosing an image has no effect makes sense too. In any case, the caster must randomly choose which image(s) to target. As green slime says, which way you go isn't that important, as long as you're consistent. I think you're better off popping images if they're targetted game-play-wise, but consistency rules!

Since the spell specifically refers to enemies, allies shouldn't be effected. You could imagine this being possible by you helping your ally identify the "real" you (eye contact? lines in the sand? merging temporarily with the images perhaps?)

Cleave specifically refers to dropping creatures, not popping images, and shouldn't be triggered by popping images IMHO.

You definitely can use Greater Mirror Image as a defense against spell casters, and yes, it is pretty powerful!

 

[mvincent]

From the 3.5 FAQ (if desired):
"For all intents and purposes, the figments from a foe’s
mirror image spell are your foes. You aim your spells and your
attacks at the figments just as though they were real creatures.
Any spell you can aim at a creature you can aim at an image.
When you use a spell that allows you to select multiple
creatures as targets, such as magic missile, you can choose
multiple images as targets.
If you have the Cleave or Great Cleave feat, destroying an
image with a melee attack triggers the feat (and your cleaving
attack might well strike the spell user instead of another
image). Likewise, you can use Whirlwind Attack to strike at
any image you can reach. A Whirlwind Attack almost certainly
will allow you to strike once at the spell user."

 

[eamon]

From the 3.5 FAQ (if desired):

That also sounds like an eminently playable interpretation. And I guess it does have the advantage that it doesn't rely on semantic trickery to circumvent PC abilities (like cleave)...