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Your take on Mirror Image, 3.0 or 3.5
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6256266" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'm not a 3E player but I don't mind heated discussion.</p><p></p><p>The following seemed to me some key features of the spell (from the SRD):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Several illusory duplicates of you pop into being</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">The figments stay near you and disappear when struck</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Enemies attempting to attack you or cast spells at you must select from among indistinguishable targets. Generally, roll randomly to see whether the selected target is real or a figment.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">While moving, you can merge with and split off from figments so that enemies who have learned which image is real are again confounded.</p><p></p><p>One thing I notice is that there's no indication as to who decides where the images are located. With 8 images, plus a caster, it seems they could be spread out over a 40' line. But that doesn't really make sense for many attack, especially melee attacks: presumably when a melee attack is made (which is targeting a particular entity in a given 5' square), the images all cluster together about the caster. But this doesn't really make much sense either: a blow against an illusory figment which is one of 8 in a 5' square, plus a caster, is almost certainly going to carry through and take out more figments (or the caster).</p><p></p><p>So maybe only <em>one</em> figment joins the caster, in the same square but (say) 2 or 3 feet away. But then the miss chance would only be 50%, not 1/(N+1), where N is the number of images.</p><p></p><p>My provisional conclusion: this is a spell whose mechanics made sense in AD&D, with abstract positioning and 1 minute rounds, but it really doesn't survive the translation into the much less abstract 3E positioning rules.</p><p></p><p>(EDIT to help warm things up: can we talk about Mirror Image as a "dissociated mechanic"?)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6256266, member: 42582"] I'm not a 3E player but I don't mind heated discussion. The following seemed to me some key features of the spell (from the SRD): [indent]Several illusory duplicates of you pop into being <snip> The figments stay near you and disappear when struck <snip> These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you. <snip> Enemies attempting to attack you or cast spells at you must select from among indistinguishable targets. Generally, roll randomly to see whether the selected target is real or a figment. <snip> While moving, you can merge with and split off from figments so that enemies who have learned which image is real are again confounded.[/indent] One thing I notice is that there's no indication as to who decides where the images are located. With 8 images, plus a caster, it seems they could be spread out over a 40' line. But that doesn't really make sense for many attack, especially melee attacks: presumably when a melee attack is made (which is targeting a particular entity in a given 5' square), the images all cluster together about the caster. But this doesn't really make much sense either: a blow against an illusory figment which is one of 8 in a 5' square, plus a caster, is almost certainly going to carry through and take out more figments (or the caster). So maybe only [I]one[/I] figment joins the caster, in the same square but (say) 2 or 3 feet away. But then the miss chance would only be 50%, not 1/(N+1), where N is the number of images. My provisional conclusion: this is a spell whose mechanics made sense in AD&D, with abstract positioning and 1 minute rounds, but it really doesn't survive the translation into the much less abstract 3E positioning rules. (EDIT to help warm things up: can we talk about Mirror Image as a "dissociated mechanic"?) [/QUOTE]
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