Mirror image.. WHILE ON something?

[garhkal]

Brought out of a thread from DF.

IF a mage (2e) or an illusionist (1e), casts mirror image on himself, while
A) Mounted on a horse
B) riding in a wagon
C) riding in a chariot
D) Riding a carpet of flying
E) being given a piggy back ride by someone else.

WHICH OF The above situations, would (IF any), the MI spell, also duplicate what the mage is ON??

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I'd say all of those situations, otherwise the spell wouldn't be worth casting - everyone would know the individual wizard images, not on horseback or on a carpet or whatever, are fake. It says the images do exactly what the wizard does, so if the wizard is riding a horse, the images should be riding horses. That might seem to be adding more to the spell than the description details, but as far as I can see it's the only sensible solution. Wizard rides a horse, mirror images ride horses. Etc.

[garhkal]

So let's say a caster popps off a MI.. 2 rounds later, he jumps ON a horse (or someone picks him up).. Does he now create images o the horse (or the guy carrying him), or is it only when the spell got cast, does it include other thins?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Hmmm. That's a hard one because when he created the images of himself there were no horses around. But going by the spell, it says the images do what he does so the images would have to mount a horse. The problem is, can the spell create the mirror image horses after the fact? I'd have to think this one over, it's a real conundrum.

[garhkal]

So hal. What did you eventually come up with? Seems a little powerful if it not only duplicates YOU but your mount (or even wagon/cart)..

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I'm thinking, as you said, having it be able to make duplicate things like horses would make it a more powerful spell. But the spell has inherent problems. The spell says that the duplicates do exactly what the actual wizard does. So if the wizard mounts a horse, do all 8 images (assuming the max number for sake of discussion), also mount the same horse? That doesn't really make sense - how do 8 people fit on one horse? That just doesn't work. On the other hand, creating images of 8 horses seems not to fit the spell either. That's not really different than saying if the wizard holds hands with his team mates, does the victim also see 8 of each of his team mates? If the wizard summons a demon or elemental, does the victim see 8 wizards summoning 8 demons or elementals? That would make it way too powerful.

I don't think some of these spells, when written, were as well thought out as many of us think them out after the fact. I think the original intent was simply to duplicate the spellcaster so that while he is casting spells in melee, it's harder to target him because the victim sees multiples of the wizard. Remember, the spell has a 6' radius area of effect, so the duplicate images all have to fit into a 12' circle (12' diameter). That's like an average sized bedroom. At the max number (8 images), that creates 9 people in a 12' circle (8 images plus the actual wizard). A pretty densely packed area. Considering that, I think the intent of the spell was to protect the wizard once the enemy broke through into melee combat range.

Thinking of it that way, I'd say that if the wizard mounted a horse, the victim would see 8 images of the wizard (or however many he summoned) shifting on the horse, sort of a disorienting effect, so that he may end up attacking an image and not the wizard. He'll see 4, 5, maybe 8 "wizards" shifting on the horse. Does that make sense?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Also, looking back on your original post and the examples there, some of those situations simply would not work. The spell has a 12' diameter circle area of effect - a circle 12' across. No way could you fit 5, 6, 7, or 8 wagons, horses, chariots, etc. in that space. So considering that, it would by necessity only duplicate the wizard himself. Of course, there is the issue of fitting 5, 6, maybe even 8 wizards on a single horse or a flying carpet (even the largest flying carpet only fits 4 people). So the images would have to shift around, almost ghost-like, which would confuse the attacker as to exactly on what spot any image or the actual wizard is.