RoTRL: Great Cleave vs. Mirror Image


Playtest Reports

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

In our ROtRL PFRPG Beta Playtest session yesterday, a situation came up where a player used Great Cleave to get rid of the images from a Mirror Image spell and attack the spell’s caster.

Feat: Great Cleave
You can strike a number of adjacent foes with a single
mighty swing.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Cleave, Power Attack, base attack
bonus +4.
Benefit: As a full-round action, make a single melee attack
against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage
normally and can make an additional attack (at the same
bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the previous foe and
within reach. If you hit, you can continue to make attacks
against foes adjacent to the previous foe, so long as they
are within your reach. You cannot attack an individual foe
more than once in a round with this feat.
Spell: Mirror Image
School illusion (figment); Level bard 2, sorcerer/wizard 2
Casting
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Effect
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 min/level
Description
This spell creates a number of illusionary doubles of you that inhabit
your square. These doubles make it difficult for enemies to precisely
locate and attack you.
When mirror image is cast, 1d4 images plus one image per three caster
levels (maximum eight images total) are created. These images remain in
your space and move with you, mimicking your movements, sounds, and
actions exactly. Whenever you are attacked or are the target of a spell that
requires an attack roll, there is a possibility that the attack targets one of
your images instead. If the attack is a hit, roll randomly to see whether
the selected target is real or a figment. If it is a figment, the figment is
destroyed. If the attack targets you and misses by 5 or less, one of your
figments is destroyed by the near miss. Area spells affect you normally
and do not destroy any of your figments. Spells and effects that do not
require an attack roll affect you normally and do not destroy any of your
figments.
An attacker must be able to see the figments to be fooled. If you are
invisible or the attacker is blind, the spell has no effect (although the
normal miss chances still apply).

With pure Rules as Written, we come up with several issues with using Great Cleave to get rid of the figments. One, the figments occupy the same square, not adjacent ones. Two, the statement “You cannot attack an individual foe more than once with this feat.”

The player’s argument: A) Should smaller foes piling into the same square negate the use of this feat? B) It doesn’t grant my character multiple attacks on the same foe, since only one attack is directed at the real spellcaster, and the rest are directed at the figments.

And the “coolness” arguments C) My character spent a lot of time (RE: Feats) developing this feat and I want her to be able to use it. D) It’s in keeping with the “feel” of Great Cleave.

Extenuating circumstances: The party was down to 2 members fighting the spell-caster, with 2 others dead and 2 having fled. Both the Spellcaster and the Fighter were at near full health and had lots of options open to them, but the spellcaster was mathematically going to kill the two party members left if the Fighter had to wade through six figments (at two a round) while the spellcaster got three swipes a round on the fighter.

Spoiler:
that’s right, Xanesha.

In-game call: Yes, Great Cleave could be used, you get one of your hits.

Post Game Reclassification: In the future, I would rule that she would have to roll to hit the Spellcaster’s AC for each figment as she went’ so that if she missed in there somewhere before hitting the Spellcaster, the Great Cleave would end.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Reckless wrote:

In our ROtRL PFRPG Beta Playtest session yesterday, a situation came up where a player used Great Cleave to get rid of the images from a Mirror Image spell and attack the spell’s caster.

Feat: Great Cleave
You can strike a number of adjacent foes with a single
mighty swing.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Cleave, Power Attack, base attack
bonus +4.
Benefit: As a full-round action, make a single melee attack
against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage
normally and can make an additional attack (at the same
bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the previous foe and
within reach. If you hit, you can continue to make attacks
against foes adjacent to the previous foe, so long as they
are within your reach. You cannot attack an individual foe
more than once in a round with this feat.
Spell: Mirror Image
School illusion (figment); Level bard 2, sorcerer/wizard 2
Casting
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Effect
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 min/level
Description
This spell creates a number of illusionary doubles of you that inhabit
your square. These doubles make it difficult for enemies to precisely
locate and attack you.
When mirror image is cast, 1d4 images plus one image per three caster
levels (maximum eight images total) are created. These images remain in
your space and move with you, mimicking your movements, sounds, and
actions exactly. Whenever you are attacked or are the target of a spell that
requires an attack roll, there is a possibility that the attack targets one of
your images instead. If the attack is a hit, roll randomly to see whether
the selected target is real or a figment. If it is a figment, the figment is
destroyed. If the attack targets you and misses by 5 or less, one of your
figments is destroyed by the near miss. Area spells affect you normally
and do not destroy any of your figments. Spells and effects that do not
require an attack roll affect you normally and do not destroy any of your
figments.
An attacker must be able to...

Interestingly, this same question came up on another thread:

Dementrius wrote:


An interesting question with Mirror Image - how does it interact with Cleave and Great Cleave? At my table we've run it so that the Cleave/GC can drop multiple images until you eventually get to the caster.

On a technicality, Cleave/Great Cleave don't work on images, since the feat description stipulates reducing a "creature" to 0 hp - images being figments with no hit points don't qualify. By the same token, you couldn't attack an object (say, sundering someone's weapon) and then get a Cleave attack afterwards.

That said, this question came up some years ago in the campaign I was running and I ruled it was actually a great idea. GC is often hard to use anyway at higher levels, where you are often fighting larger/higher hp enemies and it's rare that GC will even come up.

Whirlwind Attack lets you attack "every opponent" within reach. Probably also a stretch of the rules as written, but one I think is perfectly sensible.

Now what GC and WA do against swarms and mobs... that's an interesting question in itself, but not really spell-related so I'll leave the musing at that.

Now, since you are using PFRPG the case is slightly different, because the doubles "inhabit your square" (so can you attack every creature in a square with GC, and if so what happens when you attack a swarm or mob?) and because you have to decide if each image counts as a "foe" to trigger your GC.

For reasons of flavor, though, I would say you made the right call. Let GC be a feat that is cool, and give fighters another tick on their side of the ledger in the ongoing battle of non-casters vs. casters! :)

Liberty's Edge

While I don't have a strong opinion on the technicality of the rules, I agree that there's not much harm in letting it work as far as game balance is concerned. By the time a fighter gets GC, it's reasonable that he has a way to thwart a 2nd level defensive spell. If mirror image were a "big gun" spell, I might feel differently, but casters just need to know that Mirror Image doesn't always negate the need for Mage Armor and Shield!


Why do people not actually READ the PF rules before they reply on rules questions and then quote the original 3.x rules. It can get truly confusing. /sigh

Cleave
Benefit
You can strike two adjacent foes with a single swing.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: As a full-round action, make a single melee attack
against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage
normally and can make an additional attack (at the same
bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also
within reach. Both of these attacks are made at your highest
attack bonus. You can only make one additional attack
per round with this feat.

Great Cleave
You can strike a number of adjacent foes with a single
mighty swing.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Cleave, Power Attack, base attack
bonus +4.
Benefit: As a full-round action, make a single melee attack
against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage
normally and can make an additional attack (at the same
bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the previous foe and
within reach. If you hit, you can continue to make attacks
against foes adjacent to the previous foe, so long as they
are within your reach. You cannot attack an individual foe
more than once in a round with this feat.

You will note the distinct lack of having to reduce a cerature to 0 hps anymore. All that is required is a hit.

Now in regards to the adjacent comment, I would hazzard an educated guess that the spirit or intention of the wording was not to be able to hit one foe in front of you, and cleave to the foe behind you.

I would say cuddos to the OP for allowing this, to me as a DM it seems a relatively straight forward call and completely within the spirit of the wording of the actual PF rules. :)


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I too have interpreted the rules to allow this.

Great Cleave will allow the owners of the feats to attack multiple times on mirror images.

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