I'm considering hitting the adventuring party with a mirror of life trapping, but I'm concerned that the number of variables involved may make the situation too hard to control; it could end up as a lot of easy XP for the group, or could get a couple of them killed (which wouldn't be desirable as this is intended to be mainly a delaying encounter before they fight the huge ancient white dragon whose lair the mirror is in.)
What I have in mind so far is this: standard mirror of life trapping, but covered by a permanent wall of force; since the wall doesn't block teleportation or similar effects, it won't interfere with creatures entering or exiting the mirror as per its normal effects, but it will make the mirror harder to break.
The party is 6 PCs (Fighter, Cleric, Sorcerer, Ranger/Bard, Rogue/Shadowdancer and Spellsword/Paladin, all 13th L) with no familiars or other accompanying creatures. Of the 15 cells in the mirror I plan to have 12-13 already populated. Based on how the mirror is described and placed, all 6 PCs will almost certainly see themselves reflected in it, but at their level I expect half or more to make their DC 23 Will saves to avoid being pulled in. On the off chance they all six get pulled in at once, they're boned.
Assuming at least one of them remains free, how many possible ways are there to deal with this?
(1) Break the force wall, then break the mirror. This would be bad, as it would release a bunch of monsters they can't deal with all at once.
(2) Identify the mirror to learn its command words, and release them that way. This is risky because you can't identify an item you aren't looking at, plus not everyone in the party has detect magic and ranks in spellcraft.
(3) Summon or otherwise gather small creatures to be trapped in the mirror; fill it to capacity and keep going, freeing one random prisoner at a time until you retrieve your buddies. Potentially very time consuming but could be worth a lot of XP as you kill the trapped monsters one at a time.
What else?
bump, because winter is coming. (Or at any rate, we're getting closer to the encounter with the ancient white dragon whose lair would contain this mirror.)
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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(4) Ignore the mirror entirely, thus avoiding the encounter (this is something my gaming group would be prone to do).
(5) Dispel Magic/Break Enchantment - potentially could work. You may have to drop a scroll into the adventure if you go this route.
(6) Use telekinesis to move the mirror out from behind the wall of force, then break the mirror.
(7) Place a blanket or other cloth over the mirror before anyone looks into it too closely.
Just a few off the top of my head. Not sure if this is what you are looking for, though, as these mostly cover ways to avoid the encounter/trap entirely.
(4) Ignore the mirror entirely, thus avoiding the encounter (this is something my gaming group would be prone to do).
(7) Place a blanket or other cloth over the mirror before anyone looks into it too closely.
"Any creature coming within 30 feet of the device and looking at its own reflection must make a DC 23 Will save or be trapped within the mirror in one of the cells. A creature not aware of the nature of the device always sees its own reflection."
So I don't think the party as a whole will have options (4) or (7). Option (7) might also be easily defeated by making the mirror unusually large, which is not unreasonable given that it would be in the lair of a huge and vain creature. They'll be forced to save the first time they see the mirror. After that --
"The probability of a creature seeing its reflection, and thus needing to make the saving throw, drops to 50% if the creature is aware that the mirror traps life and seeks to avoid looking at it (treat as a gaze attack)."
(6) Use telekinesis to move the mirror out from behind the wall of force, then break the mirror.
Clever, but I don't think the party Sorcerer has Telekinesis.
(5) Dispel Magic/Break Enchantment - potentially could work. You may have to drop a scroll into the adventure if you go this route.
Break Enchantment won't do anything, as it only frees creatures from enchantments, transmutations and curses, while the mirror is based on an abjuration spell, Imprisonment.
This group pretty much always has Dispel Magic available, but it'd be a DC 28 to suppress the mirror's abilities (the CL of the mirror is 17) so it might take a few attempts; it might be suppressed for as little as one round, and the freed PCs will need longer than that to recover the gear that dropped off when they were pulled into the mirror; and the most likely result of suppressing the mirror's magic would be to release all trapped creatures simultaneously, which could be a Very Bad Thing for the party. But yes, this is the thing they're most likely to try.
I wonder if there's any justification for having the mirror release one random trapped creature per round while suppressed? That way, a maximum of four enemies would appear at once instead of twelve or thirteen.
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Personally, I think I would find a different method to make the mirror harder to break than putting it behind a wall of force. Make it of polished steel or some other hard material - put enchantments versus energy types on it. Otherwise, I forsee arguments about the mirror functioning through the wall. That is a poor lead-in to the climactic battle with the dragon.
I think I would create a custom, intelligent mirror of life trapping. Make it smart enough to control whether to suck in a specific creature and which creature or creatures to free to make room.
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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(4) Ignore the mirror entirely, thus avoiding the encounter (this is something my gaming group would be prone to do).
(7) Place a blanket or other cloth over the mirror before anyone looks into it too closely.
"Any creature coming within 30 feet of the device and looking at its own reflection must make a DC 23 Will save or be trapped within the mirror in one of the cells. A creature not aware of the nature of the device always sees its own reflection."
So I don't think the party as a whole will have options (4) or (7). Option (7) might also be easily defeated by making the mirror unusually large, which is not unreasonable given that it would be in the lair of a huge and vain creature. They'll be forced to save the first time they see the mirror. After that --
"The probability of a creature seeing its reflection, and thus needing to make the saving throw, drops to 50% if the creature is aware that the mirror traps life and seeks to avoid looking at it (treat as a gaze attack)."
Bold mine.
(4) would work for my group. The key is the "looking at its own reflection" phrase. Nothing there indicates that the PC is forced to look at the mirror if they come within 30 feet, only that IF they look at it, they have to make a Will save. My players would simply ignore the mirror and trudge past it - they wouldn't even look at it/notice it to have the chance to see their reflection (not sure how your group plays it). My players have a very linear tendency when it comes to goals - go to the solution in a straight line. Since you describe this as a delaying encounter, my guess is they can walk past it to get to the dragon, which is what my party would do. Now, if the only exit out of the room is behind the mirror, that's a different story...
Personally, I think I would find a different method to make the mirror harder to break than putting it behind a wall of force.
I don't think an argument about the mirror functioning through a force wall would last very long:
"Breath weapons and spells cannot pass through a wall of force in either direction, although dimension door, teleport, and similar effects can bypass the barrier. It blocks ethereal creatures as well as material ones (though ethereal creatures can usually circumvent the wall by going around it, through material floors and ceilings). Gaze attacks can operate through a wall of force."
Since the victim is transported into the mirror without gear or clothing, the easiest thing to imagine is a kind of transporter disintegration effect that leaves his gear falling to the ground where he stood. The mirror's power is handled as a gaze attack, requiring no physical contact, so it's not necessary that the victims pass bodily through the Wall of Force.
I will definitely consider your suggestion of making the mirror from some material other than glass -- too bad the old Glassteel spell didn't make it to later editions of D&D -- but I don't think it should be necessary to change its magical properties.
"Any creature coming within 30 feet of the device and looking at its own reflection must make a DC 23 Will save or be trapped within the mirror in one of the cells. A creature not aware of the nature of the device always sees its own reflection."Bold mine.
(4) would work for my group. The key is the "looking at its own reflection" phrase. Nothing there indicates that the PC is forced to look at the mirror if they come within 30 feet, only that IF they look at it, they have to make a Will save.
Ah, okay. My interpretation of the second bolded phrase above is that if you aren't aware of the nature of the mirror, you can't avoid seeing your own reflection, and thus having to make a save. I haven't drawn out the complete lair yet, but for the mirror placement I was imagining I'd place it at the bottom of a wide staircase that ends in a 'T' intersection; at the bottom of the stairs you can turn left or right, but the mirror is right in front of you and you'd be able to see your reflection before you reached the bottom of the stairs. I'm certainly open to other possible placements, but I specifically want to avoid situations where the group can completely bypass the mirror without having any idea that they are in any danger from it.
Another effective placement would be a smaller mirror inside a chest, one of several chests in a treasure room. But that only traps the Rogue, if anyone. I'd prefer to make it possible for several PCs to be trapped at once, though by putting enough creatures in the mirror ahead of them I can probably make sure not to trap the entire party at one time.