I got a question about this encounter.
No. They wouldn't.
So who should run the duplicate characters?
Can the PC's distinguish the real PC from the duplicates?Should I have the PC play his duplicates and play them like he plays his character?
how tough is this encounter?
Do the duplicates only attack the PC? Or once other party members attack them, will they turn there attention to one of them?
There won't be any duplicate characters if the PCs don't see their reflections.
It is obvious the duplicates are not PCs, so the players do not get to control them. They appear out of the mirrors, so it should be equally obvious which is which.
As written, the duplicates only attack their identical PC counterparts, which is a mitigating factor, as the players can gang up on dangerous duplicates and otherwise use better teamwork and tactics. It is meant to be a hard fight, but not impossible.
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I should probably think about how I will run this encounter.
I think what I might end up doing is have the PCs roll initiative, but rule the dupes act on the original's initiative. As they're going at exactly the same time, the effects happen simultaneously. The player decides what they'll do (attack, cast a spell, use an item, etc.), and the dupes will perform the same action, though interpreted against the party. So, if the party fighter charges his dupe, one of them meets him halfway, and the other charges towards someone from the other side of the hall.
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I had the reflections look like the PCs want to see themselves.
Examples: The half-Orc barbarian was himself as a victorious brutal half-orc he wanted to be. The Cleric who used to be a Gnome but got Reincarnated into a halfing, saw himself a Gnome again.
This fight went bad for my party, the barbarian mentioned above moved into the hallway first, and rolls bad initiative, while the dups rolled well. Greater Beast totem gave both of them Pounce, which was a lot of damage.
My interpretation was the dups attack their real counterparts unless other PC are directly in the way. Example: The aforementioned barbarian actually survived one round, and ran behind a line of all the other party members. The dups could have tried to acrobatics through the party, but their skills mean it would not have gone well, so instead, they charged through the bard first, then finished off the barbarian.
My players were smart enough after that to know the mirrors were bad, and smashed one while covering the other with a wall of stone.
I should probably think about how I will run this encounter.
I think what I might end up doing is have the PCs roll initiative, but rule the dupes act on the original's initiative. As they're going at exactly the same time, the effects happen simultaneously. The player decides what they'll do (attack, cast a spell, use an item, etc.), and the dupes will perform the same action, though interpreted against the party. So, if the party fighter charges his dupe, one of them meets him halfway, and the other charges towards someone from the other side of the hall.
What if they realize what this person does the other duplicate does. So now he just stands there while the party just defeat the duplicate with no effort.
If the mirror creates an exact duplicate of the PC, if the PC was the first to enter the area by scouting ahead. I don't see how the original party will know who's who in the melee.
The other member's would see 2 PC's fighting each other.
It says: The duplicate has all the possessions and powers of its original (including magic). Meaning if the PC can cast spells, so can it. So it can speak.
So if PC's come up on 2 members in melee, I would assume they both will say, help me, he's trying to kill me.
Which puts a good twist on the encounter, since they won't know who to attack.
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Hmmmm, good point. Not sure if that would be a bug or a feature of the fight, though. Most players will initially assume any challenge is a fight (exactly one encounter in Runelords is designed to be an "outlast the baddy" encounter, after all), and engage the monsters once initiative is rolled. There's something fitting that if they think outside the box, they can defeat the encounter using few resources.
Then again, I suppose it isn't very satisfying, should they immediately hit upon the idea. Like I said, this idea is in the formation, so it might change as the encounter draws nearer in my game.
My PCs lucked out and only the rogue got duplicated. He was scouting ahead and peaked around the corner, creating two duplicates of himself. Before I revealed the creation of the duplicates, I asked if anyone else was peaking, too, and no one was.
As soon as they realized what was up, they all closed their eyes (other than the rogue) until they could smash the mirrors. The rogue still got dropped pretty early in the fight sandwiched between two copies of himself hitting him repeatedly with Sneak Attack. Once the rogue was down, I had the duplicates attack the rest of the party, which still hurt them a lot until they killed one of the duplicates, taking away their ability to flank and sneak attack.
Once your Rogue went down, the duplicates should have disappeared.
Upon the defeat or destruction of either the duplicate or the original, the duplicate and its items disappear completely.
For my group I know they will know the rules and about the mirror, so they know if that member goes down, then they duplicates will disappear.
However, if the PC defeats a duplicate, the other still remains until defeated. Because they came from 2 different mirrors.
Once your Rogue went down, the duplicates should have disappeared.
Upon the defeat or destruction of either the duplicate or the original, the duplicate and its items disappear completely.
For my group I know they will know the rules and about the mirror, so they know if that member goes down, then they duplicates will disappear.
However, if the PC defeats a duplicate, the other still remains until defeated. Because they came from 2 different mirrors.
I missed that part, apparently. Would have been pretty anti-climactic. It was a lot more fun for them to be duking it out with two copies of the rogue while keeping their eyes closed to prevent anymore duplicates from forming.
And if you players "know the rules" about the magic item from the PRD, so what? Who says Thassilonian magic items have to function identically to their modern counterparts?
True. I can always say it's similar to Mirror of Opposition.