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So here's a question: true strike states that "you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike concelament." But how does it work against mirror image? Mirror image, strictly speaking, doesn't provide concealment, but the roll to see which image you hit is effectively a miss chance. So does true strike allow you to attack someone with mirror image without possibly hitting a figment?
In this case, I'm using Pathfinder RPG and the copy cat domain ability, which duplicates i]mirror image[/i] with one image.
Any ideas?
I think the way True Strike works is: it allows you to hit the target you are aiming at. If that target is hiding in the bushes or in the dark, etc., you are still aiming at a single target, even if it has concealment. True Strike does not give you the ability to tell if your target is illusionary or not.
The way Mirror Image works is: it creates multiple possible targets for an opponent to aim at. Therefore, I would rule that True Strike does not allow you to ignore the false images and the chance of hitting a false image.
Does that sound right to you? Do my arguments make sense? Are my assumptions about how the spells in question work correct?
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Smilodan, that sounds right to me.
So, closing your eyes as you attack with True Strike should negate the influence of Mirror Image, because darkness creates a miss chance due to concealment.
Or am I just being perverse?
No, the rules are.
Although it is the Blindness condition for having your eyes closed, not Darkness.What is more perverse is that even though the Mirror Image spell text states it has an auditory component, because clarifications state that closing your eyes bypasses the effect, you can still target the subject of the spell perfectly with any hearing based blindsight.
Mirror Image suffered significantly from the standardization of 3E, and needs a rather significant rewrite including all flavor text to bring back in line with the original version.
So Rob, does Hammurabi have to close his eyes to bypass this???
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Smilodan, that sounds right to me.
So, closing your eyes as you attack with True Strike should negate the influence of Mirror Image, because darkness creates a miss chance due to concealment.
Or am I just being perverse?
No, the rules are.
Although it is the Blindness condition for having your eyes closed, not Darkness.What is more perverse is that even though the Mirror Image spell text states it has an auditory component, because clarifications state that closing your eyes bypasses the effect, you can still target the subject of the spell perfectly with any hearing based blindsight.
Mirror Image suffered significantly from the standardization of 3E, and needs a rather significant rewrite including all flavor text to bring back in line with the original version.
Mirror Image creates "illusory duplicates." These duplicates offer NO MISS CHANCE created by concelment because they are FIGMENTS.
True Strike grants you a +20 INSIGHT bonus to your attack roll AND you are not affect by miss chance when striking a concealed target.
If the attacker cant see it just has one 50% miss chance to hit the target provided he has the right square.
BUT my friend you miss the smoothness of it. Mirror Image says if you close your eyes then mirror image does not work against a blind opponet, but you THEN gain a concealment penalty; which true strike ignores I will post my points from our games discussion thread here for all to puruse....At any rat ethis is a neat play test issue.
So I looked into the rules this is a doozy! I have pulled the relevant selections and bolded appropriate text.
True Strike
You gain temporary, intuitive insight into the immediate future during your next attack. Your next single attack roll (if it is made before the end of the next round) gains a +20 insight bonus. Additionally, you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike a concealed target.
Mirror Image
An attacker must be able to see the images to be fooled. If you are invisible or an attacker shuts his or her eyes, the spell has no effect. (Being unable to see carries the same penalties as being blinded.)
Blinded: All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) to the blinded character.
so 1st Hammurabi closes his eyes, thus an attacker shuts his or her eyes, the spell has no effect.
He is blinded and suffers a total concealment penalty.
BUT true strike is in effect which means: you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike a concealed target.
SO I get a +1 Master Work weapon, +1 BAB, +2 STR, +20 Insight. I suffer a -4 NWP penalty still netting me an attack with Indo's temple swor at +20 that ignores concealment because I have shut my eyes... and put my faith into the Rainbow Serpent's divinations and the power of Indo's Temple Sword...
Rob, Guys is this how you see this attack taking place...It sure is a interesting issue and maybe one the Beta guys want to look at...
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So I looked into the rules this is a doozy! I have pulled the relevant selections and bolded appropriate text.
True Strike
You gain temporary, intuitive insight into the immediate future during your next attack. Your next single attack roll (if it is made before the end of the next round) gains a +20 insight bonus. Additionally, you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike a concealed target.Mirror Image
An attacker must be able to see the images to be fooled. If you are invisible or an attacker shuts his or her eyes, the spell has no effect. (Being unable to see carries the same penalties as being blinded.)Blinded: All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) to the blinded character.
so 1st Hammurabi closes his eyes, thus an attacker shuts his or her eyes, the spell has no effect.
He is blinded and suffers a total concealment penalty.
BUT true strike is in effect which means: you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike a concealed target.SO I get a +1 Master Work weapon, +1 BAB, +2 STR, +20 Insight. I suffer a -4 NWP penalty still netting me an attack with Indo's temple swor at +20 that ignores concealment because I have shut my eyes... and put my faith into the Rainbow Serpent's divinations and the power of Indo's Temple Sword...
Rob, Guys is this how you see this attack taking place...It sure is a interesting issue and maybe one the Beta guys want to look at...
The issue I am having with some of the interpetation is that being blind doesnt does NOT mean you pick the correct square. True Strike does NOT let you automatically pick the correct square your foe is in, it just eliminates the miss chance in THAT square.
If you see a foe using mirror image, THEN close your eyes to attack, then yeah thats all well and good because you know what square the enemy is in.
If you are blind from the start then True Strike does you no good because you have no clue as to where the enemy is standing, unless you have abilities like tremorsense etc.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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If you see a foe using mirror image, THEN close your eyes to attack, then yeah thats all well and good because you know what square the enemy is in.
If you are blind from the start then True Strike does you no good because you don't know which square to aim for, unless you have some other targetting ability like Tremorsense.
That's the way I understand it, as well.
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If you see a foe using mirror image, THEN close your eyes to attack, then yeah thats all well and good because you know what square the enemy is in.
If you are blind from the start then True Strike does you no good because you have no clue as to where the enemy is standing, unless you have abilities like tremorsense etc.
Yes, of course.
I expected that the person using this would first determine what square to aim at and then close his eyes.
True strike lets you ignore concealment (20% miss chance). That much is explicit in the spell description. Does true strike let you ignore total concealment (50% miss chance)? That may be a stretch.
As if we needed more confusion:
What about Seeking weapons? If a character has the seeking enchantment on his weapon and closes his eyes against an opponent with mirror image, does he suffer the 50% 'blindness' miss chance that is then negated by the seeking qualities of the weapon, as long as he aims in the right square?
(Since I just got that enchantment on my crossbow last night and my DM loves mirror image, I'd better go ahead and figure that one out!)
Fleece
There's a key component missing from the copied text of the Mirror Image spell:
Mirror image creates 1d4 images plus one image per three caster levels (maximum eight images total). These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you. You can move into and through a mirror image. When you and the mirror image separate, observers can’t use vision or hearing to tell which one is you and which the image. The figments may also move through each other.
As someone mentioned, teh true strike eliminates the miss chacne for a target in a particular square, but each image occupies a different square. So closing your eyes allows you to eliminate the miss chance for whatever is in that square, but whether it is the real target or an image cannot be determined.
Of course, in my experience in actual play, only once has a player actual plotted out the full complement of occupied squares. Most groups just tend to assume they are all in teh same square for ease of use of miniatures. Of course, if someone tried this trick in my campaign, i would immediately enforce the multiple contiguous squares of the mirror image and ask which one they were targeting.
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Of course, in my experience in actual play, only once has a player actual plotted out the full complement of occupied squares. Most groups just tend to assume they are all in teh same square for ease of use of miniatures. Of course, if someone tried this trick in my campaign, i would immediately enforce the multiple contiguous squares of the mirror image and ask which one they were targeting.
I was wondering if this would come up.
There is a FAQ entry addressing it, suggesting that all the images be treated as occupying the same square.
Functionally, I would laugh at a player who tried this. Occupying multiple squares this way is rather gratuitously easy to abuse, ensuring that players can never flank, hit the actual target in melee, fail to be the target in melee, leave valid charge lanes, or leave access to provide support for each other.
There's a key component missing from the copied text of the Mirror Image spell:
Mirror image creates 1d4 images plus one image per three caster levels (maximum eight images total). These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you. You can move into and through a mirror image. When you and the mirror image separate, observers can’t use vision or hearing to tell which one is you and which the image. The figments may also move through each other.
As Samuel said I believe they are all treated as being in one square, where the images and caster move in and out of one another never straying more that 5 feet and preventing the "I hit him, its that one" scenario.
As far as true strike I look at it this way and it may not be by the RAW but my take. For someone using ranged attacks closing your eyes prevents you from targeting a specific square IMHO, so True Strike does nothing for you. I guess you could use splash rules to see which square you target and if are lucky enough to target the correct square then True Strike works. If melee then you face the square you are targeting and then close your eyes and attack the square directly in front of you in which case the True Strike would work.
In any case, the caster used a spell to hit once which is basically what the spell is intended for. No images disappear and the caster got hit once, no big deal (granted if I was the caster it might be a big deal to me ;P).
Now if you have a Seeker weapon and are in melee then yeah that caster is screwed, but it's no worse than someone with the Scent ability or Tremoresense. In D&D there are just some cases where the spell won't save you.
True strike lets you ignore concealment (20% miss chance). That much is explicit in the spell description. Does true strike let you ignore total concealment (50% miss chance)?
Yes.
How does the true strike spell work against invisible opponents? Do you have to know where they are to shoot them? Please explain how you would handle a character trying to use true strike against an invisible foe. I know the spell is supposed to negate any miss chance the attacker has, but what exactly does that mean?
When you use a true strike spell against an opponent you cannot see, the procedure is exactly the same as it would be if you attacked without the benefit of the spell. You must choose a space to attack. If you chose the correct space (the one your opponent occupies) the true strike spell negates the 50% miss chance you would normally have for attacking an unseen foe, you roll normally to hit, and you get the spell’s +20 insight bonus on the attack roll. If you attack the wrong space, you neatly hit the space you’re aiming at, but if there’s nothing there, you hit nothing.
The true strike spell negates any miss chance you might have for the target’s concealment, but not any other miss chance. For example, true strike would negate the miss chance from the displacement spell or the miss chance for attacking in fog or an obscuring mist spell because both of those effects conceal the target. True strike does not negate the miss chance from the blink spell or the miss chance when attacking an incorporeal creature because those miss chances don’t have anything to do with concealment.
2nd level spell beats 1st level spell.
I always us that as my rule of thumb when DMing, but there are plenty of exceptions.
So many, actually, that I don't understand why anyone would even use it as a "rule of thumb."
Tie-breaker, perhaps...but rule of thumb?
In our group mirror image takes up one extra five foot square per image created. You have five images you take up six squares. I realize that this isn't quite what the spell says, but it makes sense from a mechanics point of view and helps clear up these questions... as far as which image is the real one at any given point in time, we just number the images and roll a die.
Hit them with a area effect weapon such as Fireball instead of true strike
I always us that as my rule of thumb when DMing, but there are plenty of exceptions.So many, actually, that I don't understand why anyone would even use it as a "rule of thumb."
Tie-breaker, perhaps...but rule of thumb?
Exactly. Use that logic to explain dispel magic.
In our group mirror image takes up one extra five foot square per image created. You have five images you take up six squares. I realize that this isn't quite what the spell says, but it makes sense from a mechanics point of view and helps clear up these questions... as far as which image is the real one at any given point in time, we just number the images and roll a die.
So once they have hit the caster they know which square he/she is in? If the constantly the caster and the images constantly switch squares then do you do AoOs? The all being in one square while visually seems like it may be strange seems to jive better with the other combat mechanics. At least to me :).
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In our group mirror image takes up one extra five foot square per image created. You have five images you take up six squares. I realize that this isn't quite what the spell says, but it makes sense from a mechanics point of view and helps clear up these questions... as far as which image is the real one at any given point in time, we just number the images and roll a die.So once they have hit the caster they know which square he/she is in? If the constantly the caster and the images constantly switch squares then do you do AoOs? The all being in one square while visually seems like it may be strange seems to jive better with the other combat mechanics. At least to me :).
You always know what square the caster is in. The images just weave in and out within the square so that you can never get a true placement of the enemy. I always think of it as when you see a cartoon and the character gets hit in the head and he sees like 2, 3 , 4 etc guys in front of him. I guess you can think of it as poor man's concealment. And yes you get an attack of opportunity against him, provided he does something to provoke it.