Mirror Image and Friendly Spells

[Roelandt]

Okay...this one has me puzzled. I'm working out a tactically challenging battle for the Players in an upcoming mythic encounter with the Mythic Boss (a Bard Trickster) and his buddies. One of the numerous "tricks" he is going to use is I am giving him a Mirroring Belt (Found Here) to give him mirror images that increase in number if he takes damage. He is going to attempt a suggestion, or other spell effect to cause one of the party members (the oracle, wizard, or bard) to "not attack him, and just buff (or heal) him with spells."

What's got me split is, assuming the character fails his save vs. the enchantment and starts casting Heroism, Haste, Cures, etc. on the badguy, how does mirror image affect them if they (essentially an ally) tries to touch him with a beneficial spell effect?

MIRROR IMAGE.

This spell creates a number of illusory doubles of you that inhabit your square. These doubles make it difficult for enemies to precisely locate and attack you.

On one hand, the rules as written seem to suggest that an ally would still need to randomly roll which "image/enemy" he hits, and if he hits an image, it would discharge the spell effect but would not destroy an image since it's not a harmful spell.

On the other hand, one might argue that since the text says, "target of a spell that requires an attack roll," and since most DMs (including myself) don't require the cleric to make an attack roll to hit the injured fighter with a Cure spell, then the "enchanted player" would be able to touch him with a beneficial spell circumventing the mirror images.

I'm fine either way since if the later is the case, worse case scenario it puts an enemy Player "out of commission" for a while and even has a small chance of actually buffing him if he gets lucky (and causing some serious havoc among the party in reacting to an ally aiding the enemy).

What do you think? I'm leaning toward Mirror Image works the same for friendly or enemy effects, but the fight would be even more challenging if the buffs aren't affected by the mirror image.

[Quandary]

I believe even Harmless/Friendly Touch spells require an attack roll, it's just waived in certain situations, or to be specific: made auto-succeed.
But that doesn't change whether the spell itself requires it.
I think the Mirror Image still applies. Same as if you are trying to cast a Touch spell on an Invisible ally you know the square of.
(although in that case, if the Invisible ally wanted you to do so, they could first touch/grab the caster so that Miss Chance isn't needed... slightly non-RAW, but not much)
That said, there is non-Touch buffs, namely spells that just target a character (or characters) without any Touch or Ranged Touch.

BTW, assuming a PC caster WAS so affected and forced to buff said BBEG, opting to cast a mult-target buff could at least also help their real allies.

[Captain Zoom]

A lot of buffs don't require an attack, just a "target". For example, Haste. So those wouldn't be affected.

On the melee touch, I'd say that you do not need to make an attack roll, BUT you still need to roll to see if you hit an image. My take on typical beneficial touch attacks is that you do need to make a touch attack, but your opponent can allow you to hit, so no need to make an actual attack roll. That's why clerics don't have to roll to hit an ally when they cast Cure Wounds on them. With Mirror Image, you can let your ally hit you without an attack roll, but your ally still must deal with the images, so they need to roll randomly. I guess if it was important, you could reverse this - cleric casts Cure Wounds, THEN the "target" using its action to touch the cleric's hand to get the spell (thus bypassing the Mirror Image).

As stated in the spell, a touch attack spell destroys an image and discharges the spell. I'd still have this happen with a non-harmful spell.

Just by 2 cents!

[Quandary]

Or instead of Mirror Image, have some way to put Blindness or Darkness on the area of the other PCs, but not the one that will be the charmed 'helper'. That imposes Miss Chance (and also prevent the others from using non-attack roll spells to Target the BBEG) but doesn't have the problems of Mirror Image re: (charmed) Allies.

[Roelandt]

I tend to agree, and appreciate your inputs. However, I'm not concerned with "effective ways a player can buff the bad guy with Mirror Image," since this won't be relevant. Any possible variations will depend on what spells the Player Character happens to have memorized at the time and how he chooses to play it. If he has no buffs or beneficial effects memorized at all, he'll be stuck using 0 level spells like resistance (again, depending on what he has). If I affect the Wizard and he has nothing at all, or I anticipate that he won't, I'll just word the command to include using Aid Another combat action if he has no viable buff spells.

@Captain Zoom, I can't concur with your conclusion on the touch attack destroying the image.

The spell states: "Spells that require a touch attack are harmlessly discharged if used to destroy a figment." Since a heal spell or Enlarge spell, is not being "used by the player to destroy an image," as I read it, the spell effect would both, not discharge and not destroy an image, if it happens to miss the bad guy and hit an image instead.

This is a good discussion in any case since I'm sure that after seeing how the Mythic Bard uses Mirror Image against the party, the Wizard will almost certainly be adding it to his spell list first chance he gets (particularly the mythic version which increases the max images to 12 and gives a Will save vs. dazzle to the enemy who destroys an image.

[Captain Zoom]

Roelandt wrote:

@Captain Zoom, I can't concur with your conclusion on the touch attack destroying the image.

The spell states: "Spells that require a touch attack are harmlessly discharged if used to destroy a figment." Since a heal spell or Enlarge spell, is not being "used by the player to destroy an image," as I read it, the spell effect would both, not discharge and not destroy an image

Well, I guess we're going to have to disagree, at least in part. I go with the entire text of the spell, which ONLY requires the attack to hit to destroy an image, or put another way, it only says "If the attack hits"... there is nothing about having to do damage. In fact, there is nothing in the spell that implies that it takes even one hit point of damage to destroy an image.

I will give you that you could be right about the discharge of the spell, though. So you destroy the image by succeeding on the attack roll, but don't discharge the touch spell because the spell itself wasn't "used" to destroy the image.

[Majuba]

I do not believe that friendly touches... ahem... are affected by mirror image. Much like blur or displacement or just a really high dex/deflection bonus, it's assumed that the ally can 'tag up' correctly.

Of course, I think the opposite for ranged friendly touches, but that's separate.

Also, enlarge person is not touch, it's close range. No issue there.

[Roelandt]

Any effects for the party will need to be somewhat limited since the battle is going to be a "Performance Combat" To the Death situation set up by the Mythic Bard bad guy in a Town Square with about 500 spectators. Danger to the civilian crowd will (or better be) foremost in the heroes minds. So a poorly placed fireball or lightning bolt might just kill a few dozen spectators. The badguy will be influencing the crowd the entire time making performance combat checks (along with his performance combat feats) to gain bonuses from a cheering crowd. The Players will need to figure out that they will need to put on a good show or they will be disadvantaged. What better battlefield for a mythic bard? Hehe.

So effects like darkness, invisibility (or anything that blocks the view of the audience), will get negative reactions from the crowd. And since a major element of performance combat is audience reaction, everyone will be avoiding doing things that shift crowd attitude from their side.

Therefore the mythic bard will be casting spells and conducting actions that either make the Players look bad or are sufficiently spectacular as to get cheers for himself from the crowd (increasing his morale bonus/causing the party to lose theirs).

Any ideas for any tricks or actions the badguy can take to make either himself look good to the crowd and/or make the heroes look bad? One thing I'm going to do is have him use speak with animal on one of the many squirrels around town prior to entering the Square and convince him with a handle animal check to stay close to the Wizard, and cast mythic silence on it (which allows the caster to make himself and up to 1 target per tier immune). This will keep silence (that the bad guy will not be affected by) on the Wizard without giving him a savings throw until he or someone else figures out why the Wizard is quiet and can't seem to cast spells (I checked...the wizard has a grand total of ONE spell in his spellbook that has no verbal components).

The bad guy is a level 12 Bard, Mythic Tier 4 Trickster.

[Diego Rossi]

Quandary wrote:

I believe even Harmless/Friendly Touch spells require an attack roll, it's just waived in certain situations, or to be specific: made auto-succeed.

But that doesn't change whether the spell itself requires it.
I think the Mirror Image still applies. Same as if you are trying to cast a Touch spell on an Invisible ally you know the square of.
(although in that case, if the Invisible ally wanted you to do so, they could first touch/grab the caster so that Miss Chance isn't needed... slightly non-RAW, but not much)
That said, there is non-Touch buffs, namely spells that just target a character (or characters) without any Touch or Ranged Touch.

BTW, assuming a PC caster WAS so affected and forced to buff said BBEG, opting to cast a mult-target buff could at least also help their real allies.

PRD wrote:

Touch Spells in Combat: Many spells have a range of touch. To use these spells, you cast the spell and then touch the subject. In the same round that you cast the spell, you may also touch (or attempt to touch) as a free action. You may take your move before casting the spell, after touching the target, or between casting the spell and touching the target. You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.

AFAIK it don't care about mirror images or invisibility (as long as you can target the invisible creature). I assume that the willing target is stretching some limb or moving his body so that you will touch him, not one of the images.

Majuba wrote:

I do not believe that friendly touches... ahem... are affected by mirror image. Much like blur or displacement or just a really high dex/deflection bonus, it's assumed that the ally can 'tag up' correctly.

Of course, I think the opposite for ranged friendly touches, but that's separate.

Also, enlarge person is not touch, it's close range. No issue there.

That piece of the rules is about touch spells, but ranged touch is a subset of the touch range spells, not a different category.

- * -

About the suggestion, I don't think it will work unless you charm the caster first.

PRD wrote:

Suggestion

You influence the actions of the target creature by suggesting a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two). The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable. Asking the creature to do some obviously harmful act automatically negates the effect of the spell.

The suggested course of activity can continue for the entire duration. If the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends when the subject finishes what it was asked to do. You can instead specify conditions that will trigger a special activity during the duration. If the condition is not met before the spell duration expires, the activity is not performed.

A very reasonable suggestion causes the save to be made with a penalty (such as –1 or –2).

Sorry, but "I am trying to kill your friends, so hurry up and buff me." is far from being or sounding reasonable.

If instead it is:
Round 1 - charm person + "Friend, help me." so that the new friend will try to convince his old friends not to harm his new friend
then
Round 2 - suggestion "Buff me up, I will end this without killing anyone" (evil smile) it would work.

[Devilkiller]

We use crit and fumble decks, so if buff spells required an attack roll they could result in a fumble. I think some folks would really enjoy that.