Great Cleave vs Mirror Image

[Thanatosia]

Does 'killing' a Mirror Image trigger a cleave?

[Diarmuid]

Does killing a mirror image entail the following?:



Benefit: If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature within reach.


RAW, I would say no as you never deal any damage to the mirror image. As a DM, I would probably allow it as mundanes need more nice things.

[RolkFlameraven]

Nope, and sadly it doesn't make much since for them to do so.

They are swinging full bore at the image to hurt/kill the mage and are off balance for a bit once their sword hits no resistance.

Now if you want to house rule it to be so then more power to you, just keep in mind that if YOU can clave away all the Mirror images of an enemy mage, so too can an enemy Barb utterly destroy a friendly wizard's defenses as well.

[Vhaidara]

Nope, and sadly it doesn't make much since for them to do so.

They are swinging full bore at the image to hurt/kill the mage and are off balance for a bit once their sword hits no resistance.

Now if you want to house rule it to be so then more power to you, just keep in mind that if YOU can clave away all the Mirror images of an enemy mage, so too can an enemy Barb utterly destroy a friendly wizard's defenses as well.

You see, I think it would make sense to work. You swing at one, and , meeting no resistance, continue swinging through to the next one. In other words, you Cleave through one into the next.

[Dr_S]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/great-cleave-combat---final

This is specifically answered in the FAQ/Errata (in case you need an official source)
(I was just looking up cleave recently and remembered they had this mentioned specifically)


Can I use Cleave or Great Cleave to cleave to or from an image created by a mirror image spell?
No. If your initial attack hit the caster, you can’t cleave to an image as if it were an actual creature. If your initial attack hit an image, you failed to hit your intended target (the caster), and therefore can’t cleave. As you can’t specifically target an image (because you can’t tell the images from the actual caster), you likewise can’t aim for an image and try to cleave to another image.

[DeltaEmil]

If some melee guy managed to get into melee range with a spellcaster buffed with a mirror image, and the melee guy took Cleave AND Great Cleave, then yes, they deserve to instagib the mirror mages.

[Agincourt]

When I have DM'd, I have ruled that Great Cleave does work against images. The game term "drop" is never defined. When an image disappears, I believe that qualifies as "dropping" it, but reasonable people can disagree.

Regarding Dr_S's quotation of the FAQ,
I'm simply going to disagree with whoever wrote that answer. Nothing in the Cleave or Great Cleave description requires that you drop your "intended target." The answer is nonsensical. Once again, reasonable people can disagree with my interpretation, but the FAQ writer just made up the requirement about hitting your intended target.

Edit: If I was going to make the counter-argument, this is what I would argue: a figment is not a "creature." Cleave only works on "creatures."

Part of the reason I rule it the way I do is because as others have mentioned, melee characters deserve to have nice things.

[Segev]

Honestly, the investment required to get Great Cleave and the thematic fittingness of it working would cause me to rule, as a DM, that it worked. Few enough things have Great Cleave that I am not too concerned about rendering the mage's defenses useless with this.

[Dr_S]

Regarding Dr_S's quotation of the FAQ,
I'm simply going to disagree with whoever wrote that answer. Nothing in the Cleave or Great Cleave description requires that you drop your "intended target." The answer is nonsensical. Once again, reasonable people can disagree with my interpretation, but the FAQ writer just made up the requirement about hitting your intended target.


I think your point is reasonable and I have very little opinion on the matter; Just knew that there was a FAQ answer specifically. Just for the sake of Devil's Advocate (because a little debate will only deepen our understanding of the rules) despite the poor wording of their answer, couldn't the phrasing, "hit your intended target" be less about whether your target is the one you meant to hit, but rather the fact that you must as per the feat "hit" a target, and is swinging through a mirror image technically a "hit"? I mean you aren't "striking" anything. The wording of the spell suggests that it perhaps should be treated as a hit, but I could see an argument that it shouldn't as you can destroy an image without landing a hit. I don't know, something to think about.

[Giddonihah]

Well the Image is getting 'destroyed' by something, so I would argue that a strike/hit is going on.

I too, would GM rule this as working, Mirror Image is an obnoxiously good defense anyways, and the flavor of Cleave works perfectly here.

[Ravens_cry]

I'd allow it. Mirror Image is a really annoying spell, and Great Cleave is such an edge* case feat, that letting a mundane something awesome and heroic like shattering the defences of a mage like that, and in a way that makes a fair bit of sense, yes, yes I'd go for it.
*pun not intended but accepted.

[Dr_S]

But a miss can still destroy an image if the miss is by less than 5.
It seems obvious to me that, in this case, cleave wouldn't be triggered, but under a strict reading of your post (obnoxious I know, I just really like devil's advocate >.<) something is destroyed and therefor must have been hit, and thus triggering an additional attack.

Mirror images are not solid, you're weapon isn't so much interacting with the image as it's swinging through the space it occupies, so in my mind you're not hitting anything. If there was a feat or class ability that allowed you to pick one of your attacks and if that attack "hit" immediately fire off another attack (ranged melee whatever) on the attack in question I fire a non-magical Arrow THROUGH a ghost, would you rule I get another attack?

However multiple rereads of that FAQ make me realize that "You must hit your intended target" should either be added in via some sort of Errata, or that the author of the FAQ is stupid... because the answer is actually making intent the determining factor.

[Zanos]

When I have DM'd, I have ruled that Great Cleave does work against images. The game term "drop" is never defined. When an image disappears, I believe that qualifies as "dropping" it, but reasonable people can disagree.

Regarding Dr_S's quotation of the FAQ,
I'm simply going to disagree with whoever wrote that answer. Nothing in the Cleave or Great Cleave description requires that you drop your "intended target." The answer is nonsensical. Once again, reasonable people can disagree with my interpretation, but the FAQ writer just made up the requirement about hitting your intended target.

Edit: If I was going to make the counter-argument, this is what I would argue: a figment is not a "creature." Cleave only works on "creatures."

Part of the reason I rule it the way I do is because as others have mentioned, melee characters deserve to have nice things.
The term "drop" is defined in the text of the cleave feat as reducing a creature to below 0 HP or killing it. Mirror images do not have HP, and therefore neither of those conditions apply to them. I suppose you could argue that the feat says those are "typically" what dropping means, but then you run into that cleave only works on creatures, not objects or illusions or spell effects.

RAW you can't cleave mirror images. It's reasonable to houserule otherwise because mirror image is one of the better defensive buffs in the game and martial characters need love.

[Dr_S]

I second your conclusion.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I agree that the rules say no.

I could also see allowing someone with Cleave/Great Cleave to get away with it. But on the other hand, and at the risk of introducing arguments about the "Real world," you aren't actually hitting anything solid; your weapon is meeting no resistance. You don't need a special ability to swing through empty space, so why would you need a feat to cleave through the insubstantial images?

[linebackeru]

It shouldn't work.

Mirror Image is an Illusion. The attacker believes that something is there, but there isn't really something there:

-If the attacker were to swing at an empty space next to a wizard, he wouldn't get to leverage his Cleave feat. Swinging at a fictitious Mirror Image should be no different.

-Imagine that the Wizard was invisible. The attacker swings at a square that he thinks the wizard is in. He doesn't hit anything. Should he now get a Cleave attempt against another square because he thought the wizard was in the first square?

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I N+1nd No by RAW, reasonable houserule.

I'd just like to add my own counters to some of the counter arguments.

If the attacker suspects illusions they shouldn't be thrown off by chopping through nothing, and this is a case where the fluff of Cleave should be cutting through one thing into another. Also in a different scenario, you could cleave through animated paper towels with one hp each.

While "reduce to 0 hp" is still a catching point you are in fact destroying your target. Your target was the image you aimed at hoping it was the caster. Mirror Image says "Enemies attempting to attack you or cast spells at you must select from among indistinguishable targets." It also only gives the method "Generally" use to adjucate. Presumably the attacker is entitle to attack "the second from the left" after you've secretly determined which image is real. This would actually create parity with other methods of providing identical targets.

[Thanatosia]

A'ight, thanks for the feedback all.

For those curious, the situation is that I'm designing an encounter against a party who's most effective member is a big lv 11 half-orc fighter/barbarian with an oversized spike chain and great cleave. I'm making a big bad who's a gish sorceror Swiftblade/abjurant champion (the other party members are a suprisingly well optimized monk that can put out some crazy damage but is somewhat squishy, a super anti-optimized druid [astonishingly sub-par for a t1 class], and a rogue). The Big Bad doesn't have a ton of spell known slots, and I was considering giving him Greater Mirror Image, but it would be a non-issue if the half-orc just insta-cleaves all of the images until he hits the caster (his Hit bonus is high enough there's pretty much no chance he'll miss an image on anything but a natural 1, since images don't seem to inherent anything but the casters dex bonus armor wise).

I'm currently considering going with a ruling against Cleaving Images, and giving the big bad the Spell, because it looks like a great way to draw out the fight while adding fewer extra mooks.