No, because you attack the square and a blind person is specifically immune to the spell
The shooter is not blind. He is closing his eyes. Closing your eyes does not change your understanding of reality. It is entirely conceivable that you are still aiming at a space. Maybe I am thinking about this too On/Offishly? ie, free action to ignore your defense (or at least make it a paltry defense) and free action to un-set my 'disadvantage'
To me it is on the same line as Detect Magic finding an invisible target. I say no because Detect Magic is a 0 level spell, and should not be able to 'defeat' a 2nd level spell (or effect). (Also, in the case of Invisibility, there is a specific same-level spell made to defeat it.)
Or, I need a twenty to hit the AC of the target, so I will instead aim at the square he is in and rely on my 50/50 to hit? I am not aiming at *the Target* I am aiming at his *space* Seems a fair work around... (note: that is hyperbole, meant to show that *everything* has a rationalization...)
One last point, in all cases, if the DM says, "it is this way" let it be written, let it be done. :) We can always talk after the game and put forth the arguments and make a long term ruling.
No, because you attack the square and a blind person is specifically immune to the spellThe shooter is not blind. He is closing his eyes. Closing your eyes does not change your understanding of reality. It is entirely conceivable that you are still aiming at a space. Maybe I am thinking about this too On/Offishly? ie, free action to ignore your defense (or at least make it a paltry defense) and free action to un-set my 'disadvantage'
To me it is on the same line as Detect Magic finding an invisible target. I say no because Detect Magic is a 0 level spell, and should not be able to 'defeat' a 2nd level spell (or effect). (Also, in the case of Invisibility, there is a specific same-level spell made to defeat it.)
Or, I need a twenty to hit the AC of the target, so I will instead aim at the square he is in and rely on my 50/50 to hit? I am not aiming at *the Target* I am aiming at his *space* Seems a fair work around... (note: that is hyperbole, meant to show that *everything* has a rationalization...)
One last point, in all cases, if the DM says, "it is this way" let it be written, let it be done. :) We can always talk after the game and put forth the arguments and make a long term ruling.
I agree. The ranger already saw the target therefore he knows the illusion exsists. Just because he can hit the square the targets in doesn't mean he can hit the target. He closes his eyes and shoots. But he may have thought the target was in the left edge of the square when he was really on the right side.
I agree. The ranger already saw the target therefore he knows the illusion exsists. Just because he can hit the square the targets in doesn't mean he can hit the target. He closes his eyes and shoots. But he may have thought the target was in the left edge of the square when he was really on the right side.
Erm.. thats what the 50% miss chance is for
The character with his eyes shut IS blinded. This is raw. It has been looked up, pointed out, referenced, re rereferenced, even though trying to say otherwise is blatantly silly rules lawyering. The person can't see then they can't see. They're blind.
free action to ignore your defense (or at least make it a paltry defense) and free action to un-set my 'disadvantage' - It makes it a 50% miss chance, which is hardly paltry. Its better than +10 to ac in many cases.
- and as soon as you do that the mirror images all shuffle around and you loose track of them, as part of the spell.
No
YES. Movement is not limited to leaving the square. Also, water is either attacking the square OR the caster and thus might hit an illusion. You can't have it both ways.
I agree. The ranger already saw the target therefore he knows the illusion exsists. Just because he can hit the square the targets in doesn't mean he can hit the target. He closes his eyes and shoots. But he may have thought the target was in the left edge of the square when he was really on the right side.Erm.. thats what the 50% miss chance is for
The character with his eyes shut IS blinded. This is raw. It has been looked up, pointed out, referenced, re rereferenced, even though trying to say otherwise is blatantly silly rules lawyering. The person can't see then they can't see. They're blind.
free action to ignore your defense (or at least make it a paltry defense) and free action to un-set my 'disadvantage' - It makes it a 50% miss chance, which is hardly paltry. Its better than +10 to ac in many cases.
- and as soon as you do that the mirror images all shuffle around and you loose track of them, as part of the spell.
No
YES. Movement is not limited to leaving the square. Also, water is either attacking the square OR the caster and thus might hit an illusion. You can't have it both ways.
No. Because where the target can be in the right or left side, he could be in a number of different places.
Right
Left
Back right
Back left
Forward right
Forward left
Straight back
Straight forward
Much more than 50%
Instead of closing your eyes, try sending the barbarian with Great Cleave against the mirror-imaged enemy... With a very little luck he can wipe out all the images AND hit the enemy all in one single attack...
Does anyone remember a 2d ed Forgotten Realms spell, Scatterspray that did some minor amount of damage but each point of damage was considered to be a single, seperate attack? It was essentially a Stoneskin/Mirror Image stripper. (Back in the day, Stoneskin blocked X number of attacks, regardless of source, or amount of damage.)
I remember Scatterspray, but it wouldn't function with the modern Mirror Image, since area attacks do not cancel the figments (but they cancel quite well the wizard, anyway ^^)... Magic Missile is as good as always, though...
No. Because where the target can be in the right or left side, he could be in a number of different places.
Right
Left
Back right
Back left
Forward right
Forward left
Straight back
Straight forwardMuch more than 50%
This would be an interesting houserule, but it is not the rules of the game. In pathfinder you attack the square and take your 50% miss chance. If you want to say otherwise at your table go ahead, but that has no place in a rules discussion
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
That point would lead one to believe that shooting an arrow is considered one of the actions that rely on sight and therefore automatically fail.
Except that your suppositions (and that's what they are) are directly contradicted by the rules.
If a character tries to attack an invisible creature whose location he has pinpointed, he attacks normally, but the invisible creature still benefits from full concealment (and thus a 50% miss chance). A particularly large and slow invisible creature might get a smaller miss chance.
Total Concealment: If you have line of effect to a target but not line of sight, he is considered to have total concealment from you. You can't attack an opponent that has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies. A successful attack into a square occupied by an enemy with total concealment has a 50% miss chance (instead of the normal 20% miss chance for an opponent with concealment).
You can't execute an attack of opportunity against an opponent with total concealment, even if you know what square or squares the opponent occupies.
-pinpointed is, at several other points, defined as knowing the square the target is in.
I find the fact that you're trying to claim that any other view other than yours is "rules lawyering"
No. I'm trying to claim the idea that there is a functional difference between being blind and not being able to see, having a blindfold and not being able to see, and having your eyes shut and not being able to see is rules lawyering.
when you are obviously trying to get around a spell mechanic with a free action when even logically thinking about how the spell works would speak otherwise.
yeah, that's not rules lawyering. Rules lawyering is when the players (or the dm) try to reach ridiculous conclusions by tortured, erroneous, and bizarre rules interpretations. "he's not blind it's just dark" "I've disarmed the monk, he looses a limb" are rules lawyering. Using a fireball to try to clear out an entangle is not.
Trying to get around spells you don't have a direct counter for is part of the game. This isn't whitewolf, having 1 level of spell above the opposition doesn't mean you're immune to anything they try. Guard dogs can smell invisible wizards, buckets of paint do just fine once you locate them, regular torches work on web spells, and farie fire and see invisibility are both hell on people using greater invisibility.
Free Actions you can do an arbitrary number of times per round:
Talking
Shifting Grips (e.g. 1H > 2H > 1H) - this is James Jacob`s take on the subject
How is closing/opening eyes MORE strenuous than that? Obviously, it`s not.
Further, it`s obvious that in the real world we aren`t limited to opening/closing or eyes once every 6 seconds. More like once every half a second or less. It`s easily imaginable to closer your eyes, take a Move-Equivalent Action like drawing a Potion, open your eyes, quaff the potion as a Standard Action, and close them again before your next chance to act. Or any other reasonable combo.
It`s already established that allowing this doesn`t disrupt game balance, and isn`t in conflict with RAW, so I just don`t see ANY reason to not allow this. I think people´s problem is they are expecting a certain function from Mirror Image, and don`t like when it`s ¨bypassed¨ - bypassed in this case meaning affecting some people (who close eyes) DIFFERENTLY than those who don´t take that action, but both cases are still affected vs. a baseline of the spell not having been cast. So it still `works`. As already pointed out, if all enemies react in this way, you actually can get ALOT more mileage out of the spell over it`s minute/level duration (besides taking advantage of enemies` temporary blindness). Related to that, I think there may be a contributing misunderstanding of the fact that when an attacker is attacking blind (closed eyes), their attacks AREN´T stripping off images when they miss (since `the spell has no effect`, i.e. it`s rules for hitting images don`t appy, when the attacker can`t see) , which the open-eyed attacker DOES accomplish, even when they MISS by 5 or less (so a final iterative that will likely fail even without any miss chance, will probably have an effect vs. the images).
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BTW, somebody brought up Great Cleave. Paizo`s James Jacobs actually ruled in on that one, saying Cleave DOESN`T work to destroy images now. Now IMHO that ruling doesn`t correspond to the RAW, but that`s what he says. My basis for believing that you SHOULD be able to Cleave is that the spell says:
The images ARE `targetted`, and are destroyed by the attack. Notably, Cleave doesn`t depend on `doing damage` to allow subsequent attacks, it depends on HITTING a target, which you have done when you: hit the target AC and this is (randomly determined) to be an image. Cleave doesn`t care if the target you hit was different than the one you intended in your deep-down heart. Other abilities, e.g. Shielded Fighter, allow ´diverting´ attacks from one target to another... Such attacks should still count as valid triggers for subsequent Cleaves.
The following wording:
DOES mean that attacks NOT requiring an attack roll (like Magic Missile) AREN`T able to strip off images, like they were in 3.5. But effects that DO use attack rolls (Scorching Ray, melee attacks, arrows, etc) clearly (per RAW) DO end up individually targetting images.
Note that allowing Cleave/Great Cleave makes NOT closing your eyes, and just attacking with a chance to hit images (and strip them off, even when you MISS by 5 or less) an even more attractive proposition - With Great Cleave, all your attacks are at Full BAB and each attack has an effective +5 to hit (at least an image), so you can VERY easily strip off all the images in one Full Attack if you don´t roll any 1`s and nothing else funky like Blink is in play.
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If people still want clarification on the subject from Paizo, really the best thing to do is click the `FAQ` button which may persuade Paizo do do an official treatment of the subject.
No. Because where the target can be in the right or left side, he could be in a number of different places.
Right
Left
Back right
Back left
Forward right
Forward left
Straight back
Straight forwardMuch more than 50%
This would be an interesting houserule, but it is not the rules of the game. In pathfinder you attack the square and take your 50% miss chance. If you want to say otherwise at your table go ahead, but that has no place in a rules discussion
You're trying to make a perfectly good 2nd level spell useless with a free action. Its like beating invisibility with detect magic. Its dumb. In this case house rulings DO belong in a thread as such for questions as how people view this and would deal with this. you wasn't a formal answer? Go to the faq and ask them. Not Get an attitude with people giving their opinions.
It´s not useless, as demonstrated. Closing your eyes results in a higher miss chance than blur (1st level spell) and the same miss chance as displacement (3rd level spell with shorter duration) and removes enemies´ capabilities to prematurely end the spell/reduce it´s effect (stripping images).
BTW, detect magic definitely does detect the aura of an invisiblity spell, that isn´t controversial. But Detect Magic isn´t remotely like true seeing, #1 because you you have to concentrate 3 rounds to get a location! And then you STILL have miss-chance even when targetting their square correctly.
If you´re paranoid about detect magic revealing your general presence, a *0th Level* spell, MAGIC AURA works just fine to supress the magic aura... It just takes an extra standard action to do so. (which shouldn´t be a problem, again, since Detect Magic localization takes 3 rounds). Or would you rather make Magic Aura a useless spell?, since you apparently think Detect Magic shouldn´t be able to detect magic aura´s, i.e. it´s entire purpose.
This would be an interesting houserule, but it is not the rules of the game. In pathfinder you attack the square and take your 50% miss chance. If you want to say otherwise at your table go ahead, but that has no place in a rules discussionYou're trying to make a perfectly good 2nd level spell useless with a free action. Its like beating invisibility with detect magic. Its dumb. In this case house rulings DO belong in a thread as such for questions as how people view this and would deal with this. you wasn't a formal answer? Go to the faq and ask them. Not Get an attitude with people giving their opinions.
ACTUALLY reading the OP´s first post, he welcomed people´s take on how they would house-rule it, AS WELL AS actual RAW-based references. So you´re welcome to share how you house-rule this in your games, but there´s no point ARGUING with people presenting the RAW function for this case, as sharing your house-rule is a simple and straight forward thing.
Read the above quote. YOU are obviously the one ´getting an attitude´ with somebody who said your point of view ´would be an interesting houserule´ (i.e. a valid houserule), and simply points out it doesn´t correspond to the RAW, which he has an interest in making clear. You obviously DON´T share that interest (which is fine), yet thru straw-men arguments are actually the one seeking to expel HIS perspective from the thread (even though the OP explicitly mentioned interest in RAW functionality IN ADDITION to various houserule takes on the subject). Believe me, your house-rule perspective on the subject HAS been well represented in the thread for anybody to read, so however BigNorseWolf pursues his exposition of the RAW functionality doesn´t impede that.
You're trying to make a perfectly good 2nd level spell useless with a free action.
No, I'm trying to figure out what the rules say on the matter. I don't have a horse in the race. Also, as i've stated repeatedly, a 50% miss chance is hardly useless, and closing your eyes , even for a second, leaves you VERY vulnerable to a number of counter tactics.
In other words, i'm saying that if the fighter wants to be clever and the wizard wants to rely on sheer power its ok if the wizard looses a slight advantage.
Its like beating invisibility with detect magic. Its dumb.
Its raw. Detect magic doesn't auto beat invisibility. The person needs to stand in the cone for 3 rounds in order to be pinpointed. If they're that dumb they deserve the great sword to the head.
In this case house rulings DO belong in a thread as such for questions as how people view this and would deal with this. you wasn't a formal answer? Go to the faq and ask them. Not Get an attitude with people giving their opinions.
I'm not getting an attitude. My previous response couldn't be more tone neutral. this is the rules forum. People assume you're speaking according to the rules of the game, not your houserules.
You told me "no" i told you yes that it was raw. I have no idea why on earth you would tell me "no" if you weren't giving what you thought was a raw answer.
I'm just saying that's my take on it and I'm being told that this is 1 not the thread for house ruling and 2 that I'm wrong. I'm just defending my opinion. I believe getting through a 2nd lvl spell with a free action is not right. That's my opinion. I believe if anyone would allow you to bypass mirror image simply by closing your eyes that you are taking away power from the spell casters, and making the spell useless because everyone would do it. You would have to rule that mirror image just gives u a flat miss chance to make it fair and I hate errata. Too much crap to sift through.
I believe all the classes are balanced and that no one class is better than the others rules wise. I also don't believe in RAW. When u read the rules, you are reading it as written and interpreting the rules. The only way u can get the BASE ruling on something would be to play with the developer that made that specific rule. House rules are part of the game and essential when subjects like this come up.
I also believe that with mirror image, if you close your eyes AFTER seeing the images, you are still subject to the spell. Closing your eyes would be adding a miss chance on top of the spells effects. That's my opinion and that's how I'm ruling it at our table, because I'm not gonna ruin a perfectly good spell with a weak area in the rules.
No, because you attack the square and a blind person is specifically immune to the spellThe shooter is not blind. He is closing his eyes. Closing your eyes does not change your understanding of reality. It is entirely conceivable that you are still aiming at a space. Maybe I am thinking about this too On/Offishly? ie, free action to ignore your defense (or at least make it a paltry defense) and free action to un-set my 'disadvantage'
To me it is on the same line as Detect Magic finding an invisible target. I say no because Detect Magic is a 0 level spell, and should not be able to 'defeat' a 2nd level spell (or effect). (Also, in the case of Invisibility, there is a specific same-level spell made to defeat it.)
Or, I need a twenty to hit the AC of the target, so I will instead aim at the square he is in and rely on my 50/50 to hit? I am not aiming at *the Target* I am aiming at his *space* Seems a fair work around... (note: that is hyperbole, meant to show that *everything* has a rationalization...)
One last point, in all cases, if the DM says, "it is this way" let it be written, let it be done. :) We can always talk after the game and put forth the arguments and make a long term ruling.
the images are constantly moving. Once he closes his eyes he has no idea where they are so he is shooting blindly(figuratively, and literally) into the square. That means only a 50% miss chance. Knowing the spell is up has no bearing on the results.
I'm just saying that's my take on it and I'm being told that this is 1 not the thread for house ruling and 2 that I'm wrong. I'm just defending my opinion. I believe getting through a 2nd lvl spell with a free action is not right. That's my opinion. I believe if anyone would allow you to bypass mirror image simply by closing your eyes that you are taking away power from the spell casters, and making the spell useless because everyone would do it. You would have to rule that mirror image just gives u a flat miss chance to make it fair and I hate errata. Too much crap to sift through.
I believe all the classes are balanced and that no one class is better than the others rules wise. I also don't believe in RAW. When u read the rules, you are reading it as written and interpreting the rules. The only way u can get the BASE ruling on something would be to play with the developer that made that specific rule. House rules are part of the game and essential when subjects like this come up.
I also believe that with mirror image, if you close your eyes AFTER seeing the images, you are still subject to the spell. Closing your eyes would be adding a miss chance on top of the spells effects. That's my opinion and that's how I'm ruling it at our table, because I'm not gonna ruin a perfectly good spell with a weak area in the rules.
The would make the person's eyes stayed closed until the beginning of their next turn. As I said before combat is constant, and even though we take turns in real life the characters don't so it would make sense that the opposition would attack anyone silly enough to close their eyes in combat. The only way to represent this in a turn based system is for the person to keep their eyes closed until their turn comes back up.
You're trying to make a perfectly good 2nd level spell useless with a free action. Its like beating invisibility with detect magic. Its dumb. In this case house rulings DO belong in a thread as such for questions as how people view this and would deal with this. you wasn't a formal answer? Go to the faq and ask them. Not Get an attitude with people giving their opinions.
Again, HOW DOES THE SPELL BECOME USELESS? Argh.
If your opponent closes his eyes, the spell suddenly becomes mechanically as good as Displacement, the opponent blinded himself for some retributive attacks by readied action AND Mirror Image doesn't lose images. It is still amazingly good.
The real problem here is that Mirror Image as written is stupidly overpowered for a second level spell and stays that way up until opponents routinely have True Sight, Blindsight, Tremorsense or Lifesense. As such, people try to get around its stupid overpoweredness by tricks like these, which turns the spells power into an equivalent of a third level spell... which again shows how stupidly overpowered Mirror Image really is.
In effect only Fly/Overland Fly is a better choice for the first defensive spell being cast in combat, because that one removes a slew of enemies completely from ones threat list. But in now 12 years of playing and GM'ing D&D and now Pathfinder I have always found that Mirror Image is the go-to spell for keeping oneself alive as an arcane caster. There's a good reason for that.
*edit*: Also: Greater Invisibility, which again removes tons of enemies completely from ones threat list. But Mirror Image is available as the first truly powerful avoidance-type defense of the Wizard.
Fnipernackle, if I can help clarify your mistake in over-reacting to others´ comments here.
You feel outraged that others say your ruling is ´wrong´, but of course house-rules CAN´T really be wrong because they are by their essense COMPLETELY subjective preferences divorced from the RAW. Which is FINE, and many have repeated that YOUR house-rule is PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE as a house-rule.
So when it is pointed out that what you have hysterically, and repetitively insisted in portarying as ´correct´ (as opposed to your personal house-rule) is in fact ´wrong´, the context for that is ´wrong compared to the RAW´... Which is the only valid basis for a determination of ´correct/wrong´, since those terms again don´t apply to house-rules.
As has been made clear, others are participating in this discussion in the ¨Rules Question´ forum from the basis of RAW, and as such, what is RAW and what isn´t is a valid topic. You personally may not care about the RAW in your game, but that doesn´t make it not a valid basis for discussion. You´re welcome to share your house-rules - I know I do when I feel like it - but getting hysterical when people point out that your house-rule is a house-rule and not RAW (and that they believe the RAW is compeltely functional) just isn´t very good messageboard manners.
How is closing/opening eyes MORE strenuous than that? Obviously, it`s not.
Well if you are the DM and said so it's obviously not more strenuous thant that...
As a DM if I have to rule it I can rule it the way I want... ;)Same with cleave "hitting" an illusion... If you consider the figment semi-tangible (or at least tangible enough to be "hit") you can consider that cleave work but if you consider it just intangible image (you hit nothing, the mere wind of your sword thrust dissipate the illusion) cleave doesn't work...
Since there's no raw on this it's a DM call...
I don´t think you´re familiar with the context of the Cleave issue.
JJ claimed that images are never individually targetted, when that is only true for NON ATTACK ROLL spells/effects, and the wording is very clear that images CAN BE targetted by attacks (you just can´t CHOOSE which one you target, but the wording clearly says the images are targetted).
When you MISS the caster´s AC by 5 or less (and thus destroy an image by a ´near miss´) that could definitely not count as a triggering ´hit´ for Cleave per RAW, but when you DO hit normal AC (of an image) when an image is randomly selected as your target, you HAVE succeeded on an attack roll against a target´s normal AC, which is the only reasonable RAW interpretation of when Cleave says ´if you hit´. As I wrote, other abilities exist to change the target of an attack, but I can´t imagine anybody claiming those would disqualify Cleave from working. The fact that images CAN be targetted by attacks also means that Whirlwind Attack should work to attack ALL images, since then the problem of CHOOSING (randomly) which image to attack is irrelevant: you can choose ALL of them.
MANY MANY other effects in the game use ´if you hit´ to mean ´if you beat the relevant AC for the attack type (AC, Touch AC), and randomly rolled/selected images ARE hit or not hit based on normal vanilla AC (including armor/nat armor bonuses, not just Touch), which is the relevant target DC / AC for melee attacks (that Cleave uses).
(Cleave doesn´t actually specify ´melee damaging attacks´, (Melee Range is implicit of the Reach reference), so it would seem that Melee Range attack-substitutable maneuvers like Disarm and Trip CAN be applied via Cleave. In that case, Mirror Images don´t have a CMD, so IMHO would be immune to that effect, and Image would not disappear since you didn´t ´hit´ it´s AC.)
I don´t think you´re familiar with the context of the Cleave issue [...]
Arg... you make me re-read power attack, cleave and great cleave... ;)
And it appears that you are right sir, my apology, I should have read them before opening my mouth, sorry... :)
I do agree that cleave should (and will in my game) work with mirror image... :)
You re-read Power Attack TOO...? I SERIOUSLY didn´t intent THAT, believe me! ;-)
But yeah, it seems pretty clear-cut, 110% so for Whirlwind attack, which hits all targets, making selection irrelevant. I mean if somebody is Confused and is randomly rolling which target to attack (just like MI, though restricted to Caster and their Images), that doesn´t mean they can´t Cleave, right? Same here... It´s not even like the Images are Touch AC, the ´Destroy on Miss by >5´ is a separate effect than really hitting the normal AC of an Image. (IMHO, the ´near miss´ would be grey-area house-rule territory whether that would trigger a Cleave or not)
It´s a wierd one, because I definitely think the RAW supports what I layed out, yet JJ is the most ´official´ Paizo opinion we have on the subject, and he rolls the other way. (I´ve notice that JJ tends to comment more from ´how he reads it as a GM´ and not so much deal with each and every technical aspect per RAW, which is fine but not always the best approach for questions about RAW.)
For what it´s worth, I believe JJ expressed that some of the current functions of Mirror Image RAW are in large part accidental - the main intent (in the 3.5>PRPG change) was removing the aspect of images being in different squares (this also applied to Displacement) because of perceived problems with that in-game, and the rest of the wording was just a vehicle to that end.
You re-read Power Attack TOO...? I SERIOUSLY didn´t intent THAT, believe me! ;-)
Yeah, since Cleave is a chain feat I was wondering if you could cleave with a bow with safe shot... ;)
I think you can't since power attack need a melee attack and that cleave say : "You can strike two adjacent foes with a single swing." and you don't "swing" with an arrow... :)
Yeah, yeah, THAT... 8-P
There was another thread on that where somebody asked if Ranged Cleaves were possible. (no)
You don´t have to USE Power Attack (that´s just a Pre-Req), it´s mostly because it says ´within Reach´ which is something inapplicable to Ranged Weapons (though some Bows can be used AS Melee Bludgeoning Weapons I believe), so it only applies to ´melee range´ attacks (which could include Trip and Disarm).
I'd allow closing eyes to work and still allow to take down images if you miss by 5 or less (if you beat the 50% mischance).
That said many characters would not know that closing their eyes would be a viable tactic without some significant grasp of spellcraft.
The images do appear to make sound till you actually close their eyes, so there is no real reason to assume it would help you locate the real target. Based on that I'd require a spellcraft check or prior experience with such a tactic defeating the spell.
The mirror image spell isn't perfect as it is now due to some mechanical, logical clashes caused by putting all the images in one square, but it works well enough to not bother rewriting it to fit me and it did make the spell easier to play with than previous versions.
Fnipernackle, if I can help clarify your mistake in over-reacting to others´ comments here.
You feel outraged that others say your ruling is ´wrong´, but of course house-rules CAN´T really be wrong because they are by their essense COMPLETELY subjective preferences divorced from the RAW. Which is FINE, and many have repeated that YOUR house-rule is PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE as a house-rule.
So when it is pointed out that what you have hysterically, and repetitively insisted in portarying as ´correct´ (as opposed to your personal house-rule) is in fact ´wrong´, the context for that is ´wrong compared to the RAW´... Which is the only valid basis for a determination of ´correct/wrong´, since those terms again don´t apply to house-rules.
As has been made clear, others are participating in this discussion in the ¨Rules Question´ forum from the basis of RAW, and as such, what is RAW and what isn´t is a valid topic. You personally may not care about the RAW in your game, but that doesn´t make it not a valid basis for discussion. You´re welcome to share your house-rules - I know I do when I feel like it - but getting hysterical when people point out that your house-rule is a house-rule and not RAW (and that they believe the RAW is compeltely functional) just isn´t very good messageboard manners.
no one is getting hysterical. i have argued what i think to be a valid rule to your RAW and i have presented my solution to it when i run games, which i was told in earlier posts that wasnt acceptable. so as such i defend my post. not hysterical.
and it does become useless because if you no longer get the effects of spell, then whats the point in casting it. its not a broken 2nd level spell, but it is a good one, but when you can negate it as a free action, it becomes useless. yes they close their eyes and get (as you say) 100% concealment, but then if you arent subject to the spells effects, then the caster isnt getting the benefits of the spell, therefore its useless. all you have done is made someone close their eyes. not worth a 2nd lvl spell if you ask me.
and as for my house rule, just because you cant see the figures doesnt mean they arent there. they are still in the square. here is where you have to add a little bit more depth to the rules. the target could be anywhere in that square along with the figments. just because you hit the square with a 50% miss chance doesnt mean you hit the right target IN the square, and if you do then you have to hit their ac. thats my justification on the subject.
as for RAW though, i have picked a side an i am arguing my point as to why i came to that decision so that we can get a better understanding of the problem and come to a solution. i use these boards to add depth to my games, so thats why i check this place out.
also, illusion IMO is already a weak school since you can get through most of the effects with simple tricks. to tell you the truth, i wouldnt even take mirror image if it works this way. id just take Displacement. by RAW you can target an invisible attacker (and there are feats in 3PP we use that gives you the 3rd round effects on the first round with detect magic) with detect magic. doesnt make invisbility useless, but i dont like the fact (but ill deal with it) that a lower level spell trumps a higher level spell unless it specifically states that it does or it is something like dispel magic.
besides, we are talking about an illusion spell. there are ways in which to take away a spells aura and it would only be a minor incantation to do so. dont you think wizards and sorcerers would have thought about that when they crafted the spell? like i said, i add a little bit of depth to the game where the rules contradict each other.
the images are constantly moving. Once he closes his eyes he has no idea where they are so he is shooting blindly(figuratively, and literally) into the square. That means only a 50% miss chance. Knowing the spell is up has no bearing on the results.No they aren't. Again, "These images remain in your space and move with you, mimicking your movements, sounds, and actions exactly." This does not mean they move and shuffle around. They move with the caster or it would be pretty obvious who is who.
the opponent blinded himself for some retributive attacks by readied actionMaybe after the first couple times the ranger tries this trick will the enemy really get the idea to ready an action to hit the ranger when he closes his eyes, but honestly I don't think this is a tactic worthy of mention when it comes to the drawbacks of closing your eyes.
The real problem here is that Mirror Image as written is stupidly overpowered for a second level spell and stays that way up until opponents routinely have True Sight, Blindsight, Tremorsense or Lifesense. As such, people try to get around its stupid overpoweredness by tricks like these, which turns the spells power into an equivalent of a third level spell... which again shows how stupidly overpowered Mirror Image really is.The weakness is in it's duration. Mirror image can be gone in one round. Displacement is 1 round per level.
The problem with this is you're letting lack of common sense cloud your interpretations of the rules as written. When I read "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" I read an implied "at the time of casting this spell".
Ranger sees wizard.
Wizard casts mirror image.
Ranger sees 8 Wizards.
Ranger closes his eyes.
Ranger's mind sees 8 wizards.
Ranger shoots into Wizard's square.
Ranger still doesn't know which wizard is real.The confusing effect...
+1 this would be my major arguement but im not too good at debating. thanks for putting the words i couldnt say in a post ;)
@Trista1986
i agree. just because you hit the square doesnt mean you hit the caster. there are still figments in the square that you can still hit. just because you cant see the figments doesnt mean they arent there.
I don't know why you guys are entertaining the thought of this."I close my eyes and shoot."
"Ok, you miss."
"What do you mean? The rules say I only have a 50% chance of missing. Shouldn't we roll dice?"
"No. That would be stupid. Archers don't close their eyes."
Ever heard of William Tell?
The rules are set up to handle not being able to see your target, and include ranged attacks.
If you were to house-rule it this way, you would need to take out total cover/concealment entirely, which also makes quite a few feats worthless.
Ever heard of William Tell?
The rules are set up to handle not being able to see your target, and include ranged attacks.
If you were to house-rule it this way, you would need to take out total cover/concealment entirely, which also makes quite a few feats worthless.
+1
If you were going to let him, I'd hit him with the following modifiers to his attack beyond the 50% miss:
Non proficiency: The ranger doesn't train with his eyes closed, so he doesn't know how to do it.
Dex effectively three: you can't take advantage of those reflexes when your eyes are closed.
The wizard gains a +4 circumstance bonus to his AC: his attacker closed his eyes.
Otherwise known as the "pull rules out of your ass to screw over your players" school of DMing?
I don't know why people are going to such bizarre twists of language in this thread ("blind" =/= "blinded" and other such absurdities) to fix a problem that doesn't exist. If you can't see your opponent but know what square to aim at, you have a 50% miss chance. You lowered the miss chance from the spell in exhange for giving up the opportunity to explode images on a miss, so you aren't helping your fellow PCs reduce their miss chances. Also you're blind to any ready actions or other such your foes might take when they realize your clever strategy. And can't use precision (sneak attack, etc) damage if you have it. It seems a fair tradeoff to me, and it's OK by the rules.
How are 7 images of the guy fitting in the same square?
The spell explicitly says that they remain in the same square. I've always presumed that it's because they're all swooping through each other and circling and such in order to make distinguishing between them difficult (whereas it would be easy if they all kept to different squares), but in any case, they're all in the same square.
And you can only defeat it through closing your eyes by taking other penalties, which are sometimes better, sometimes worse for the situation you're in. I imagine that's why they didn't call it your name. Oh, and also because it produces mirror images of the caster? They didn't call Fireball "Damage spell - uses d6s" either.
If your suggestion is "the whole system is borked", then it doesn't really help with the interpretation of the rules.
Not trying to be snarky, but it doesn't help find what is correct within the rules.
So the effect of the spell (fitting 7 intangible objects into a five foot, ground level box) doesn't fit with the physical reality of the spell (swinging a single 5' long object through the box only dispels one of them).
Well to be fair you're often going to get more than one image on a full attack. Last time our party fought mirror image using creatures (six or seven mirror-imaged vrocks) the fighters were popping two to four out of five images per full attack, while our flurrying monk was quite capable of popping all five in one round. We decided not to close our eyes, btw, feeling that getting rid of the spell right away through destroying all the images was preferable to dealing with a 50% miss chance for rounds on end.
Wait - you let a monk do monk stuff? That is crazy! (:
It's not just that, either. We let him do other monk stuff too. I don't know what we were thinking. ;)
So you're really willing to just disallow this as an option? I mean, there's even a blind swordsman fantasy icon. As previously stated, what about the whole William Tell thing?
There is scene after fantasy scene of a hero closing his eyes to do just this in movies/cartoons/books.
Why would you limit one of your players from getting to do the same? Especially when the rules cover it just fine?
I mean, if I'm the archer. I know where he is... he's roughly in that five foot area. I close my eyes to remove the distraction of all those crazy mirror images, shooting for where I hope his center mass is. I have about a 50/50 shot of making it if I'm willing to actually close my eyes in battle and hope someone doesn't hit me while i do it.
You can't expect everything in a 600 page fantasy world simulation to make sense. When you find it, like people shooting arrows from 200' with their eyes closed at wizards running around on a battlefield, expecting to get a better penalty out of it - you just have to take a step back, close the rule book, and make a ruling.
Perhaps I disagree with you then. Green Arrow could probably pull this off. I bet Robin Hood would have stood a chance at it too. Legolas, that snob, probably would have done it while surfing on a shield too. I wouldn't be inclined to make it impossible, or to throw up arbitrarily steeper barriers than the rules already impose. Which he's already facing distance penalties and a 50% miss chance; that's severe enough in my opinion.
In all fairness it is silly to have to close your eyes just to attack a square, if you know which square to attack might as well shoot an arrow through it without closing your eyes and hope for the best.
Power Charging the spell by not allowing it is also not much of an option imo, maybe we should just ban the spell from use so everyone is happy, that takes care of all our problems. ;)
Just to clarfify, as I've seen this misconception a few times in this thread.
The 50% miss chance is BEFORE rolling to hit
Oh, so robin hood and joe blow both miss the same number of arrows when shooting AC 5 watermelons through a fog? These rules and their associated feats are the main culprits.
Joe Blow probably hits less than 40% of the time (depending on how awful he is)
Robin Hood probably hits 48.5% of the time (assuming he hits on a 2+)So... making a judgement on something like this requires a careful inspection of the rules. Hopefully this thread can provide some insight to those who have to make such judgements. Heck, they even have a variety of interpretations to choose from.
Re: Cleave
As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also within reach. You can only make one additional attack per round with this feat. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.
I'd say you couldn't cleave to an image, because they're not adjacent to the target you attacked (in the normal sense of the word adjacent within the rules).
You can't expect everything in a 600 page fantasy world simulation to make sense. When you find it, like people shooting arrows from 200' with their eyes closed at wizards running around on a battlefield, expecting to get a better penalty out of it - you just have to take a step back, close the rule book, and make a ruling.Perhaps I disagree with you then. Green Arrow could probably pull this off. I bet Robin Hood would have stood a chance at it too. Legolas, that snob, probably would have done it while surfing on a shield too. I wouldn't be inclined to make it impossible, or to throw up arbitrarily steeper barriers than the rules already impose. Which he's already facing distance penalties and a 50% miss chance; that's severe enough in my opinion.Well, those characters would all just fire and hit with a dozen arrows in one round and eliminate all of the images. Why not? That's fair. The wizard spent one action protecting himself. The fighter spends one round removing it. People should be ganging up on the wizard anyway, and if they aren't, they are probably already losing.
If you want to put blind sight on someone and make them like Green Arrow or Legolas, be my guest. I just don't think people should be firing arrows at moving targets 200' away with their eyes closed and hitting half the time.
They're not really hitting half the time though. Just half as often as they would with their eyes open.