Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hypersmurf" data-source="post: 3506207" data-attributes="member: 1656">Interestingly, in the first printing of the 3E PHB, the Figment subschool noted that figments cannot illuminate darkness.  Which was a problem, since spells like Continual Flame and Dancing Lights were figments.So in the second printing, they changed those spells to Evocation [Light].  ... and also removed the line that says figments cannot illuminate darkness!Before this change, a spell like Faerie Fire could be useful for determining which was the real caster.  You'd cast Faerie Fire, the real caster would be limned in green flames that cast light as a candle, and the duplicates would visually mimic the effect, becoming limned in green flames that could not illuminate darkness.  If the fight was taking place under poor lighting conditions, you could then attack the one that was glowing, and ignore the ones with the flames that cast no light.But with the removal of that line, the trick ceased to work - there is no longer a prohibition on figments illuminating darkness.Note that Hyp's "stab the shadow" interpretation says that stabbing a shadow will only dispel a figment if that shadow is illusory.As far as I'm concerned, it isn't; the illusion of a person casts a real shadow because it is opaque to whatever light sources are present.  But if, for some reason, the DM ruled that the shadow is magically created by the Mirror Image spell as part of the dupication process, then successfully attacking that shadow is successfully attacking a figment, and that figment is dispelled.Regardless, the AC of the figment (whether you're attacking his head, his blanket, his cotton candy, or his magically-created shadow) is 10 + Dex mod + size mod.  It's no easier to attack his shadow than to attack his head.-Hyp.</blockquote>

Verification