D&D 3E/3.5 Your take on Mirror Image, 3.0 or 3.5

[Greenfield]

Consider these scenarios:

A mage, balancing on the tip of a pike, casts the spell. There's only one place for him to be.

A mage casts the spell then screams at the fighter, "Here I am! It's me, right here!"

How do we adjudicate, in advance, every possible rationalization anyone can come up with, including ones designed to break the rationale of the spell?

The obvious answer is to eliminate all magic, all Feats, all magic items, and all creatures that don't exist in the real world. Just to be safe, better get rid of those dice too, since someone might propose a scenario whose odds can't be represented with fixed increments of effect.
</rant>

Run it the way you like. Use your imagination as needed and get on with the game.

If there comes an odd situation where the mage is balancing on the tip of the pike, so there can only be one place for him to be, use common sense. If the mage is stupid enough to give away his position by screaming and waving, he deserves to get smacked.

As written, the images separate from the caster, then mimic his actions. The caster can swap with them only when he moves, and not until. As a general rule, roll a dice to see if someone succeeded or failed.

And remember that all of these have exceptions: Some images may look burned while others don't, if the Fireball only included some of them. There may be a circumstance or a caster's action that gives away his exact position, in which case dice rolls go out the window (until he can shuffle with his images again anyway).

The wording of the spell is vague enough that there can be more than one implementation that fits, and there's no reason to limit the scene to just one of them. Use the one that works this time and move on.

 

[Greenfield]

Silly thoughts: What if an archer with the Penetrating Shot feat fires a single arrow, as a Line Effect, down a row of images.

He has to roll an attack against each one, so t it counts as an attack and should pop images.. Yet, because it's an Area Effect - Line, it shouldn't pop images.

What does that prove? That the authors didn't consider every possible rationalization or scenario when they wrote the rules. (Note that that would take out the "all in one square" version as well. Or not. )

 

[Uller]

Run it the way you like. Use your imagination as needed and get on with the game.

Amen.

An engineering teacher once told me: if you're building a highway, build it where most people want to drive. If a few people want to drive down in the ditch, that's their problem.

Same with a game. No matter how you run it, people can find way's to break it.

 

[GaimMastr]

3.5 junk

Mirror Image is actually pretty easy to defeat. It's called Pierce Magical Concealment.

The "complete" series books, like 3.5, sought to nullify all the good stuff so as to make the game classes more "equal". This has always been a problem with my gaming group. Why have distinct classes? Just say your a lv 14 character with access to any rule mechanic you can afford.

 

[GaimMastr]

Overreading

Yoink!

I've always envisioned mirror image as a bunch of copies of the caster that move independently, constantly shifting in and out of the caster's true position in order to confuse an attacker. Having a 3rd level version that simply increases the area of effect of the spell (the area in which believable images roam) makes a lot of sense to me.

At first my players complained that I was over interpreting the spell description, then I argued why even read the spell descriptions then. Lets jut make up rules of the fly. They conceded to my point. I agreed that my interpretation was a bit more powerful than the simple version and thus Advanced Mirror Image was born.

 

[Empirate]

The "complete" series books, like 3.5, sought to nullify all the good stuff so as to make the game classes more "equal". This has always been a problem with my gaming group. Why have distinct classes? Just say your a lv 14 character with access to any rule mechanic you can afford.

wot.

I don't even...


Sorry, I cannot let this stand. You, sir, either don't know what you're talking about, or have some sophisticated argument hidden behind this where I, at least, can't see it. More equal??? No. No, the Complete series did not make the classes more equal. In fact, they provided a loooooooot of options to make individual characters within each class more diverse, to encourage multiclassing, to provide versatility etc. etc. etc.

How is variety bad? Do you seriously want to play a game where looking at the character sheet and seeing "Wizard" tells you everything about the character in question?

"Just say your [sic] a lv 14 character with access to any rule mechanic you can afford"... I don't know what to say to this. Character building simply doesn't work that way. You specialize your character, not generalize/normalize him/her. And that's where additional rules supplements (Complete series, but also others) shine.

 

[GaimMastr]

Partial agreement

wot.

I don't even...


Sorry, I cannot let this stand. You, sir, either don't know what you're talking about, or have some sophisticated argument hidden behind this where I, at least, can't see it. More equal??? No. No, the Complete series did not make the classes more equal. In fact, they provided a loooooooot of options to make individual characters within each class more diverse, to encourage multiclassing, to provide versatility etc. etc. etc.

How is variety bad? Do you seriously want to play a game where looking at the character sheet and seeing "Wizard" tells you everything about the character in question?

"Just say your [sic] a lv 14 character with access to any rule mechanic you can afford"... I don't know what to say to this. Character building simply doesn't work that way. You specialize your character, not generalize/normalize him/her. And that's where additional rules supplements (Complete series, but also others) shine.

I will agree that 3.5 and the "complete" series books introduced more variety, but it did add and detract enough from core rule mechanics to supplementary rule mechanics that the intention was to make no class more powerful than another. They had been headed toward 4.0 since the onset of 3.0. 3.5 and the supplements that came along with it were the first steps to that end.

Now granted 4.0 totally tore asunder the gamer base and detracted from the games overall popularity. It was the final nail in the coffin in my opinion and a vast majority of other gamers as well. It sought to make the game appeal to the younger more simple game oriented "WoW" freaks. To hell with the old crowd. We often to call them "twitch" gamers. It is further worse than the nerfing 3.5 brought with it.

 

[jasper]

Yeah, ruling that they're in the same square is simpler, but opens it up to the "Why can't I just swing my pole arm through the entire square?" argument.
.... Because your pole arm is a 1 inch wooden shaft with maybe a 2 inch thick piece of metal at the end. the images will duck dodge.
Or. Fine the giant sweeps his polearm thru your 5 foot square and auto hits you think that you are a mirror image. You fall in the lava. Roll up new pc.
... I always try to balance RAW and RAI. Because I had rules/grammar lawyers gripe to get their way but stay mute if their argument used against them would hurt their pc.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Since we discussed Penetrating Shot, I figured I'd ask a few more questions:

Scenario 1) A mage casts Mirror Image and a bunch of illusions pop out. Another mage casts Whirling Blade and hurls his weapon at them. Since the blade magically strikes all enemies in range, can it make all the images go poof and strike the caster?

Scenario 2) A mage casts Mirror Image and a bunch of illusions pop out. An archer with the exit wound property on his bow takes aim and shoots. Can he pop all the images, assuming sufficient rolls, and hit hit the caster?

Be sure to discuss whether image placement (clustered in square or in a line) affects the outcome.

List all assumptions.

Show your work.

50 points.

 

[N'raac]

Where are people getting this idea that the spell is like Blur? That the images are all in your square?

They SEPARATE FROM YOU. They aren't overlayed with you in your square.

Are you the same Greenfield who posted on another thread what a huge break in your immersion it is that an arrow traveling through a series of 5' x 5' squares has a chance to hit each creature in each of those squares, weaving through them as they pass down this hallway-wide area? It does not seem like each image needs its own square, nor does that seem consistent with "you have an equal chance to his the original and each image". No melee combatant without Reach can be able to strike at any of the 8 images, plus the original character, at the same time if each needs its own square. They fill a 3x3 grid of squares! If they are in such a grid, and our actual Wizard is in the lower left grid space, he can take a 5' step to move 20' by moving the whole grid 1 square diagonally to the upper right, then shifting himself to the upper right grid space? That could be a full move action for some wizards, taken as a 5' step. In a 5' wide hallway, he an his images fill an area 45' long - he can take a 5' step backward when at the front of the line, then shift a further 45' to be at the back of the line? A 50' move as a 5' step?

Add in other objects or creatures in the area, and how do we find 8 empty squares for the images to fill?

How do the wizard and 8 images appear in a single 5' square? You answered that yourself in addressing targeted attacks versus areas:

Because the spell says so.

Separate from you is not the same as 5' away from you and each other image.

Yeah, ruling that they're in the same square is simpler, but opens it up to the "Why can't I just swing my pole arm through the entire square?" argument.

Well,

Because the spell says so.

You can target one image with one attack. A wild swing through the entire square? OK, you see several of the wizards dodge your wild swing, and a few others are struck by the shaft of the pole arm, rather than its head, which does them no harm, while one is struck and either they all bleed, or the one struck dissipates. Why can't I swing my pole arm through the entire square holding a rat swarm and hit all the rats?

I find the statement that the figments stay within 5' of one another problematic as it implies a pretty wide space. Can I line them up single file, walk at the back and use them to attract attacks from hidden enemies as we go around a corner? What if there aren't enough spaces for all the figments to manifest within these parameters? The spell just fails? "Within at least 5'" at least implies they can be closer than "within 5'". Within 2' can place them all in the same square, constantly moving and repositioning. Just like the game does not assume PC's move 30' instantaneously and then stand stock still for the rest of the round (despite appearances on the battlemat), I assume the images themselves keep moving, just like the wizard does. They will merge with, and split off from, the caster as they weave about trying not to get hit in their 5' square. (like all the other combatants).

You want to close your eyes and swing blindly? Your call. You will not be distracted by one or another figment seeming an easier target, but you also have that flat 50% miss chance, along with all the other benefits of being blind, until you open your eyes on your next action. You can't target, then close your eyes in mid-swing, immediately reopening them - your targeting is then influenced by the cluster of images.

There's certainly a level of abstraction here, just as with much of the rest of the game. Overanalyzing that abstraction tends to have poor results - much like trying to work out the physics of magic to make it more realistic (whatever "realistic magic" is - pick a card, any card?; watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?).

To some extent, the spell is a victim of overdesign. What was the benefit of stating "each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you" rather than "remaining in close proximity to the caster and the other figments", perhaps even specifying "within the same square"? What purpose does "While moving, you can merge with and split off from figments so that enemies who have learned which image is real are again confounded."? There are no rules that allow you to learn which is the real wizard. Aren't all combatants assumed to always be moving? You hit the wizard with your first attack - well done! Now, nine separate visions of a bleeding wizard mill about, around and through one another as you aim your next attack, so you need to again select one of nine indistinguishable targets.