Stealth rules don't make sense for poltergeists


Monsters and Hazards


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The Sneak action says that invisible creatures become Sensed when they perform any action that isn't Hide or Sneak. That makes sense in most cases for corporeal creatures. However for an incorporeal creature that cannot physically interact with most objects, it makes little sense. Makes even less for a poltergeist. It attacks with telekinetic projectiles that are presumably taken from the environment. What part of telekinetically picking up an object at range while invisible gives away the location of your square? Is there some sound effect that plays from the creature's space?

Either I play the creature in a bogglingly nonsensical way or I slaughter the PCs with an unbeatable god-assassin that can't be found unless they happen to be packing See Invisibility that day. I think that for this reason, it may be a bad idea to make naturally invisible incorporeal creatures.


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Your players can also always use the Seek Action to pick it out too. But I mean yeah, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to say they have some kind of magical emanation that indicates their location when they use magic. Magic used by corporeal creatures has similar manifestations after all.

Also worth noting, the Poltergeist has that Frighten ability that makes it visible until it deactivates its Invisibility with an action. You might say that isn't the best tactical choice but the Spooky Scary Skeleton isn't necessarily going to be thinking with perfect knowledge about the course of action that will give it the highest percentage chance of victory, it's going to fight as to its nature, and I think most Polergeists are about wreaking their wrath on any mortals around or just causing chaos. Both of which are served by its Frighten ability.

Interestingly the subject of how monsters and foes often aren't master tacticians and GMs should consider playing them based on their emotions or drives sometimes, including things like tougher players taunting enemies away from weaker or focusing especially on a foe who's hurt it in particlar, or say using a Fear-based ability in rage at intruders.

Sorry, bit of a rant there. TL;DR, it's reasonable to rule that there's a magical emanation when the use telekinesis as with any other magic or to have it reveal itself for fright but failing that PCs can still pin the creature's location down.


The Seek action is what I'm saying makes no sense. How is it being Sensed? I understand what the rules allow, I don't understand how the rules make any sense on this point.

The poltergeist's basic attack is magical in nature but not a spell. If it's meant to be one, that needs to be made clear somehow.

I strongly disagree with you on the tactics, at least in this case. If a creature with natural invisibility is only visible when they choose to be, they're generally not going to choose to be. I'm not going to have them be so incredibly stupid to not use their primary defense. A vermin's instincts could manage that, much less a sapient enemy with a -1 int mod. If a monster requires being played with the tactical acumen of a stone to be reasonable, then the monster needs changed.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Pandora's wrote:

The Seek action is what I'm saying makes no sense. How is it being Sensed? I understand what the rules allow, I don't understand how the rules make any sense on this point.

The poltergeist's basic attack is magical in nature but not a spell. If it's meant to be one, that needs to be made clear somehow.

I strongly disagree with you on the tactics, at least in this case. If a creature with natural invisibility is only visible when they choose to be, they're generally not going to choose to be. I'm not going to have them be so incredibly stupid to not use their primary defense. A vermin's instincts could manage that, much less a sapient enemy with a -1 int mod. If a monster requires being played with the tactical acumen of a stone to be reasonable, then the monster needs changed.

The poltergeist being sensed via the Seek action is pretty easy to narrate really:

Cold spots in the room,
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck,
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark,
the ambient light level of the spot dims,
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers,
Holy water starts to boil,
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air,
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) .


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DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
...there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) .

Ha!

Consider that stolen.
smurf


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Players can use Faerie Fire to change the poltergeist from unseen to concealed.


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DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
Pandora's wrote:

The Seek action is what I'm saying makes no sense. How is it being Sensed? I understand what the rules allow, I don't understand how the rules make any sense on this point.

The poltergeist's basic attack is magical in nature but not a spell. If it's meant to be one, that needs to be made clear somehow.

I strongly disagree with you on the tactics, at least in this case. If a creature with natural invisibility is only visible when they choose to be, they're generally not going to choose to be. I'm not going to have them be so incredibly stupid to not use their primary defense. A vermin's instincts could manage that, much less a sapient enemy with a -1 int mod. If a monster requires being played with the tactical acumen of a stone to be reasonable, then the monster needs changed.

The poltergeist being sensed via the Seek action is pretty easy to narrate really:

Cold spots in the room,
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck,
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark,
the ambient light level of the spot dims,
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers,
Holy water starts to boil,
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air,
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) .

Gusts of wind,

telekinetic disturbances in the form of vibrations or objects moving...


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
Pandora's wrote:

The Seek action is what I'm saying makes no sense. How is it being Sensed? I understand what the rules allow, I don't understand how the rules make any sense on this point.

The poltergeist's basic attack is magical in nature but not a spell. If it's meant to be one, that needs to be made clear somehow.

I strongly disagree with you on the tactics, at least in this case. If a creature with natural invisibility is only visible when they choose to be, they're generally not going to choose to be. I'm not going to have them be so incredibly stupid to not use their primary defense. A vermin's instincts could manage that, much less a sapient enemy with a -1 int mod. If a monster requires being played with the tactical acumen of a stone to be reasonable, then the monster needs changed.

The poltergeist being sensed via the Seek action is pretty easy to narrate really:

Cold spots in the room,
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck,
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark,
the ambient light level of the spot dims,
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers,
Holy water starts to boil,
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air,
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) .

That comes across to me as "come up with whatever you need to justify incomplete monsters." If there's no obvious reason why you would be able to notice a monster with a natural invisibility ability, provide one. Don't rely on GM fiat to finish the monster.


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Pandora's wrote:
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
Pandora's wrote:

The Seek action is what I'm saying makes no sense. How is it being Sensed? I understand what the rules allow, I don't understand how the rules make any sense on this point.

The poltergeist's basic attack is magical in nature but not a spell. If it's meant to be one, that needs to be made clear somehow.

I strongly disagree with you on the tactics, at least in this case. If a creature with natural invisibility is only visible when they choose to be, they're generally not going to choose to be. I'm not going to have them be so incredibly stupid to not use their primary defense. A vermin's instincts could manage that, much less a sapient enemy with a -1 int mod. If a monster requires being played with the tactical acumen of a stone to be reasonable, then the monster needs changed.

The poltergeist being sensed via the Seek action is pretty easy to narrate really:

Cold spots in the room,
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck,
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark,
the ambient light level of the spot dims,
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers,
Holy water starts to boil,
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air,
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) .

That comes across to me as "come up with whatever you need to justify incomplete monsters." If there's no obvious reason why you would be able to notice a monster with a natural invisibility ability, provide one. Don't rely on GM fiat to finish the monster.

It's not GM fiat, it's common sense. The monster being invisible doesn't mean you can't pinpoint its location roughly (as in within a 5-foot cube) in other ways. That's like saying that, say, a Panther fully hidden from your view behind a rock shouldn't be able to be Sensed because you can't see it. The book shouldn't have to tell you the exact way you can tell it's location by any method (for example the Seek action) that can take it from Unseen to Sensed. It's common sense that you can hear the Panther or in some other way get an impression of where it is.

Naturally invisible doesn't mean naturally completely undetectable. The only difference between Invisibility and any other method of visual hiding is that the monster doesn't require physical cover. It doesn't do anything to change non-sight methods of detecting and thus picking out the proximity of an invisible foe is fundamentally no different from picking out any other foe you can't see for whatever reason.

Also if we were to say that natural Invisibility makes you completely undetectable then you'd have to argue the same for a level 4 Invisibility spell. Just sayin'.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Pandora's wrote:
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
Pandora's wrote:

The Seek action is what I'm saying makes no sense. How is it being Sensed? I understand what the rules allow, I don't understand how the rules make any sense on this point.

The poltergeist's basic attack is magical in nature but not a spell. If it's meant to be one, that needs to be made clear somehow.

I strongly disagree with you on the tactics, at least in this case. If a creature with natural invisibility is only visible when they choose to be, they're generally not going to choose to be. I'm not going to have them be so incredibly stupid to not use their primary defense. A vermin's instincts could manage that, much less a sapient enemy with a -1 int mod. If a monster requires being played with the tactical acumen of a stone to be reasonable, then the monster needs changed.

The poltergeist being sensed via the Seek action is pretty easy to narrate really:

Cold spots in the room,
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck,
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark,
the ambient light level of the spot dims,
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers,
Holy water starts to boil,
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air,
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) .

That comes across to me as "come up with whatever you need to justify incomplete monsters." If there's no obvious reason why you would be able to notice a monster with a natural invisibility ability, provide one. Don't rely on GM fiat to finish the monster.

The rules are clear that it can become sensed. That's not GM fiat. It's right there in the rules.


Fine, GM fiat doesn't apply to the narrative, only to mechanics, apparently.

The mechanics make no sense. Humans, and by extension most races in this game, have only 2 senses capable of evenly vaguely pinpointing someone at range: sight and hearing. If you've got neither, you can't pinpoint someone. All but two of your suggestions completely miss that. The remaining two effectively reverse the creature's natural invisibility, at which point I'm back to asking, why have it?

A human being able to pinpoint a silent, invisible creature when it performs an action that has nothing to do with its location is gamey. I don't like how that word tends to be used, so I rarely do, but in this case it is the literal definition. This mechanic is completely divorced from any story explanation. Either the mechanic needs changed to make sense, or the monster needs to be changed to make sense with the mechanics. As a GM, I don't want to have to come up with tortured reasons why the mechanics make a lick of sense. A good game doesn't require that, which is why I'm suggesting a change.


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
Pandora's wrote:

The Seek action is what I'm saying makes no sense. How is it being Sensed? I understand what the rules allow, I don't understand how the rules make any sense on this point.

The poltergeist's basic attack is magical in nature but not a spell. If it's meant to be one, that needs to be made clear somehow.

I strongly disagree with you on the tactics, at least in this case. If a creature with natural invisibility is only visible when they choose to be, they're generally not going to choose to be. I'm not going to have them be so incredibly stupid to not use their primary defense. A vermin's instincts could manage that, much less a sapient enemy with a -1 int mod. If a monster requires being played with the tactical acumen of a stone to be reasonable, then the monster needs changed.

The poltergeist being sensed via the Seek action is pretty easy to narrate really:

Cold spots in the room,
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck,
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark,
the ambient light level of the spot dims,
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers,
Holy water starts to boil,
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air,
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) .

Depending on who is doing the seeking, "Your paladin sense is tingling."

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Pandora's wrote:

Fine, GM fiat doesn't apply to the narrative, only to mechanics, apparently.

The mechanics make no sense. Humans, and by extension most races in this game, have only 2 senses capable of evenly vaguely pinpointing someone at range: sight and hearing. If you've got neither, you can't pinpoint someone. All but two of your suggestions completely miss that. The remaining two effectively reverse the creature's natural invisibility, at which point I'm back to asking, why have it?

A human being able to pinpoint a silent, invisible creature when it performs an action that has nothing to do with its location is gamey. I don't like how that word tends to be used, so I rarely do, but in this case it is the literal definition. This mechanic is completely divorced from any story explanation. Either the mechanic needs changed to make sense, or the monster needs to be changed to make sense with the mechanics. As a GM, I don't want to have to come up with tortured reasons why the mechanics make a lick of sense. A good game doesn't require that, which is why I'm suggesting a change.

If your story involves a poltergeist, and doesn't involve cold spots, weird flickering lights, having a spooky feeling or unusual electrical discharges then I'd say that narratively you're already using GM Fiat.

I gave you a half-a-dozen narrative explanations that use the fiction and lore of poltergeists to explain how the creature becomes "sensed", which still grants the creature a 50% miss chance, and it's incorporeality will protect it from most attacks.


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

If your story involves a poltergeist, and doesn't involve cold spots, weird flickering lights, having a spooky feeling or unusual electrical discharges then I'd say that narratively you're already using GM Fiat.

I gave you a half-a-dozen narrative explanations that use the fiction and lore of poltergeists to explain how the creature becomes "sensed", which still grants the creature a 50% miss chance, and it's incorporeality will protect it from most attacks.

Fine, I'll reply to your ideas individually to make extra clear the problem I have with them, although I already said this. My annotations in bold.

Quote:


Cold spots in the room, Wouldn't give you a location unless you were very near
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck, Doesn't give you a direction
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark, Doesn't give you a direction
the ambient light level of the spot dims, This effectively just makes the creature's appearance that of a dim spot; it is no longer invisible
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers, Doesn't give you a direction
Holy water starts to boil, Doesn't give you a direction
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air, So your dog gets the arbitrary ghost-sense instead of you. Better hope you have an animal along.
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) . You're adding a sense, that isn't mentioned anywhere, for sensing one specific creature so the rules make sense. This is the literal definition of fiat: purely arbitrary and at a whim. If this is how it should work, put that in the monster's entry.

I'm talking about how functional this monster is, in terms of understanding how to play it and ensuring that the rules represent a somewhat intuitive and consistent world. I don't watch horror. At all. I don't know what is tropy for a poltergeist, and my point is that I shouldn't need to. If this monster relies on some sense beyond vision and hearing to work (which, to reiterate, are the only senses humans can use to pinpoint anything at a distance and are the only ones assumed to be available to PCs), the rules should tell me that.


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Anyway, I'm done with this thread. It has become clear to me that my biggest problem is the interaction of the Stealth rules, invisibility, and silence effects and I've opened a different thread here to discuss that. I think the poltergeist, based on its abilities, suffers from these issues enough to try to get some dev attention for it, which was the purpose of this thread. With how this thread has devolved, there's little chance a dev will read it and I'm bored of being told how I'm not bending over backwards far enough to make nonsense rules make sense.


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Pandora's wrote:

Fine, GM fiat doesn't apply to the narrative, only to mechanics, apparently.

The mechanics make no sense. Humans, and by extension most races in this game, have only 2 senses capable of evenly vaguely pinpointing someone at range: sight and hearing. If you've got neither, you can't pinpoint someone. All but two of your suggestions completely miss that. The remaining two effectively reverse the creature's natural invisibility, at which point I'm back to asking, why have it?

A human being able to pinpoint a silent, invisible creature when it performs an action that has nothing to do with its location is gamey. I don't like how that word tends to be used, so I rarely do, but in this case it is the literal definition. This mechanic is completely divorced from any story explanation. Either the mechanic needs changed to make sense, or the monster needs to be changed to make sense with the mechanics. As a GM, I don't want to have to come up with tortured reasons why the mechanics make a lick of sense. A good game doesn't require that, which is why I'm suggesting a change.

You keep tacking on that the creature is invisible AND SILENT, which is presumably why you've ignored the posts about hearing the Poltergeist, but where are you getting the silent part? I don't recall the poltergeist entry mentioning silence and yet you're insisting it is while telling others off for assuming things that aren't explicitly stated in the rules. Not sure how that works.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My responses in quotes. :)

Pandora's wrote:
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

If your story involves a poltergeist, and doesn't involve cold spots, weird flickering lights, having a spooky feeling or unusual electrical discharges then I'd say that narratively you're already using GM Fiat.

I gave you a half-a-dozen narrative explanations that use the fiction and lore of poltergeists to explain how the creature becomes "sensed", which still grants the creature a 50% miss chance, and it's incorporeality will protect it from most attacks.

Fine, I'll reply to your ideas individually to make extra clear the problem I have with them, although I already said this. My annotations in bold.

Quote:


Cold spots in the room, Wouldn't give you a location unless you were very near "As your eyes sweep over the room you get a chill as they pass over this area."
Hairs standing up on the back of your neck, Doesn't give you a direction "The hairs on the back of your neck rise, you turn and hear a sound like static from this area"
Magic or alchemical items with electricity descriptors spark, Doesn't give you a direction "You notice your lightning rune give off sparks, resonant sparks seem to be coming from "this spot"."
the ambient light level of the spot dims, This effectively just makes the creature's appearance that of a dim spot; it is no longer invisible "When your eyes scan over the room, whenever your eyes move over this area the light from your torch or light spell starts to dim."
your sunrod or light spell suddenly brightens or flickers, Doesn't give you a direction "See previous"
Holy water starts to boil, Doesn't give you a direction "Your holy water starts to boil and press up against the bottle as if moving away from this square."
Animal companion or familiar starts growling at a seemingly empty spot in the air, So your dog gets the arbitrary ghost-sense instead of you. Better hope you have an animal along. "Your animal growls at the empty air, like it's an animal in a horror movie. You know like the fiction that RPGs try to emulate when they use monsters like poltergeist."
You suspect there's something strange in the neighbourhood (of the sensed square) . You're adding a sense, that isn't mentioned anywhere, for sensing one specific creature so the rules make sense. This is the literal definition of fiat: purely arbitrary and at a whim. If this is how it should work, put that in the monster's entry. "I make an obvious joke and this is the reaction I get."
I'm talking about how functional this monster is, in terms of understanding how to play it and ensuring that the rules represent a somewhat intuitive and consistent world. I don't watch horror. At all. I don't know what is tropy for a poltergeist, and my point is...


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Personally, I like that invisibility in all its forms now requires you to spend actions to resume being unseen after you've acted. Few things frustrate players more than a foe they cannot sense.


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Pandora's wrote:


Either I play the creature in a bogglingly nonsensical way or I slaughter the PCs with an unbeatable god-assassin that can't be found unless they happen to be packing See Invisibility that day. I think that for this reason, it may be a bad idea to make naturally invisible incorporeal creatures.

As adventurer's start to get higher in level not preparing for certain eventualities is foolish. While there are a few ways to deal with invisibility in mundane ways (spend actions to seek, forming a picketline and sweeping the room, throwing flour on the floor), coming to a mid-level adventure without additional anti-invisibility options is the real "bad idea". There are plenty of options here, so its not like the adventurers have anything to complain about: see invisibility, faerie fire, glitter dust, Revealing Stab. My short list and common counters to ALWAYS be prepared for is:

getting hurt/losing hp: heal, sooth, lay on hands
Invisibility: see invisibility, faerie fire, glitter dust, Revealing Stab
Flying: earthgrab, paralyze, felling strike/shot
Incorporeal: ghosttouch
Falling: featherfall, catfall, flying
Suffocating: airbubble
conditions: restoration
poison: neutralize poison
disease: remove disease
curse: remove curse
mirror image: magic missile

In my mind this is Standard Adventuring 101: how not to suck and die.

Silver Crusade

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Starfox wrote:
Personally, I like that invisibility in all its forms now requires you to spend actions to resume being unseen after you've acted. Few things frustrate players more than a foe they cannot sense.

Well it seems like enemies would have to use the seek action, but that is still way better than the the old rules ^^

Silver Crusade

Snickersnax wrote:
Pandora's wrote:


Either I play the creature in a bogglingly nonsensical way or I slaughter the PCs with an unbeatable god-assassin that can't be found unless they happen to be packing See Invisibility that day. I think that for this reason, it may be a bad idea to make naturally invisible incorporeal creatures.

As adventurer's start to get higher in level not preparing for certain eventualities is foolish. While there are a few ways to deal with invisibility in mundane ways (spend actions to seek, forming a picketline and sweeping the room, throwing flour on the floor), coming to a mid-level adventure without additional anti-invisibility options is the real "bad idea". There are plenty of options here, so its not like the adventurers have anything to complain about: see invisibility, faerie fire, glitter dust, Revealing Stab. My short list and common counters to ALWAYS be prepared for is:

getting hurt/losing hp: heal, sooth, lay on hands
Invisibility: see invisibility, faerie fire, glitter dust, Revealing Stab
Flying: earthgrab, paralyze, felling strike/shot
Incorporeal: ghosttouch
Falling: featherfall, catfall, flying
Suffocating: airbubble
conditions: restoration
poison: neutralize poison
disease: remove disease
curse: remove curse
mirror image: magic missile

In my mind this is Standard Adventuring 101: how not to suck and die.

Some good suggestions not sure about magic missile since no attack roll is involved (in PF1 I ruled differently based on a few factors, but I would not mind a counter to that damn spell). Also be careful with the current counteract rules, a scroll at base spell level might be next to worthless against some negative effects.

Other than that pretty good list ^^


Sebastian Hirsch wrote:


Some good suggestions not sure about magic missile since no attack roll is involved (in PF1 I ruled differently based on a few factors, but I would not mind a counter to that damn spell). Also be careful with the current counteract rules, a scroll at base spell level might be next to worthless against some negative effects.
Other than that pretty good list ^^

Good point about magic missile, it is however a spell that does full damage to a mirror imaged target.

Spell scrolls don't really have base level in PF2 like PF1, see table 11-5.

In general, most of the negative effect removing spells are best cast using Channeled Succor (level 8 cleric feat) in order to be able to cast them in 1 action instead of 10 minutes.


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Sebastian Hirsch wrote:


Some good suggestions not sure about magic missile since no attack roll is involved (in PF1 I ruled differently based on a few factors, but I would not mind a counter to that damn spell). Also be careful with the current counteract rules, a scroll at base spell level might be next to worthless against some negative effects.
Other than that pretty good list ^^

So interestingly enough this actually came up in the game I ran last night.

DM (me): The cloaked figure casts a spell and you see 4 images of him, they seem to shuffle back and forth and you can't tell which is the real creature

Player: I shoot magic missile at 3rd level. I'll target one missile at each of the 4 images.

DM(me): hmmm... I just had this conversation on the forums. Let me look at the spell description. Oh.. you can only target a creature.

Player: I can't target an image? So my magic missile spell detects illusions?

DM(me): Scrambling now because I want magic missile to be able to do exactly what the player is also thinking magic missile will do. If I disallow it then its going to be a problem down the line. Magic missile now doesn't work if cast at an illusion. I settle on a compromise. You target the first missile, I'll roll a d4 to see what it hits. 4 missiles later there are no more mirror images.

Does this satisfy the language of mirror image working against "attacks", NO. But in my mind its the best solution because otherwise I get into a mess, and also because I hate literal magic. How the spell is written using specific artificial definitions is way less important to me than having the rules follow a certain spirit. I have no idea what is actually intended here for the interaction between magic missile and mirror image, but my players and I are both satisfied with how it worked in the game.


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I haven't looked into it for PF2, but PF1 Magic Missiles can't detect illusions, nor can they see illusions. They can't see at all, because they don't have eyes. They home in on the creature targeted, by magic. This is the way I've always thought of it working.

I could argue that the way you're doing it spoils the intended balance by making Magic Missile stronger and Mirror Image weaker... but honestly the balance was never that great in the first place.

Silver Crusade

Snickersnax wrote:
Sebastian Hirsch wrote:


Some good suggestions not sure about magic missile since no attack roll is involved (in PF1 I ruled differently based on a few factors, but I would not mind a counter to that damn spell). Also be careful with the current counteract rules, a scroll at base spell level might be next to worthless against some negative effects.
Other than that pretty good list ^^

Good point about magic missile, it is however a spell that does full damage to a mirror imaged target.

Spell scrolls don't really have base level in PF2 like PF1, see table 11-5.

In general, most of the negative effect removing spells are best cast using Channeled Succor (level 8 cleric feat) in order to be able to cast them in 1 action instead of 10 minutes.

The spell roll cap is a factor, but I was mostly talking about the effective spell level (so heightened condition remover or not) trying to remove an effect with a counteract level of 5 with a level 3 scroll, that check is almost impossible (see counteracting on page 319).

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