Illusionists and Mirror Image

[lv99wizard]

How would Malleable Illusions (6th Level School of Illusion Arcane Tradition feature) interact with Mirror Image, if at all? Would it be within the rules to "refresh" duplicates which are destroyed as an action? Is there any part of the spell this feature can alter?

Thanks

[robbie374]

Good question! I look forward to the answer!

[Foxhound438]

eh, whatever you do with malleable illusions has to be within the peramiters of the spell, so that to me includes that after one image gets hit it's gone until you re-cast it.

That being said, I don't think it would be broken for you to refresh the spell when you consider that there's a lot of things that get around the effect, and if you're using your action to do that you aren't throwing fireballs. I would allow it by rule of cool.

[lv99wizard]

Here is the spell text:

M i r r o r I m a g e
2nd-level illusion
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 minute
Three illusory duplicates o f yourself appear in your
space. Until the spell ends, the duplicates move with
you and mimic your actions, shifting position so it’s
impossible to track which image is real. You can use
your action to dismiss the illusory duplicates.
Each time a creature targets you with an attack during
the spell’s duration, roll a d20 to determine whether the
attack instead targets one o f your duplicates.
If you have three duplicates, you must roll a 6 or
higher to change the attack’s target to a duplicate. With
two duplicates, you must roll an 8 or higher. With one
duplicate, you must roll an 11 or higher.
A duplicate’s AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier.
If an attack hits a duplicate, the duplicate is destroyed. A
duplicate can be destroyed only by an attack that hits it.
It ignores all other damage and effects. The spell ends
when all three duplicates are destroyed.
A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can’t see, if it
relies on senses other than sight, such as blindsight, or
if it can perceive illusions as false, as with truesight

So what are the parameters/nature of the illusion? It creates three images which mimic the caster, which the caster can dismiss as an action. As I see it, creating and removing these duplicates is what this spell does so Malleable Illusions would affect that aspect specifically. And Malleable Illusions says that you can affect any illusion spell with duration of 1 minute or longer so there must be some way the arcane tradition will affect this. Are there any alternatives?

[sir_argo]

To me, the effect of Malleable Illusion on Mirror Image would be that instead of the three duplicates running around you, you would have more control over their movements. Cause them to stop moving, or maybe run off in different directions. Nobody said that Malleable Illusion had to have a positive effect.

[8wGremlin]

Maybe it changes the illusion so that instead of you they look like something else.

Instead of 3 yous there are 2 medusa's and you...
or 2 trolls and you
or 2 yous that look all dark and evil with glowing eyes and wings the move menacingly towards them...

Will they check to see?

[Chugger]

Interesting replies, but I think we are ranging a little far afield, so to speak.

To get at what the OP wants, I think we need to deal with:

1. does the Illusionist mal. thingie allow a replenishment of a damage-zapped image in MI?

If so, does it require an action? I don't have my phb handy atm, so can't look it up.

2. does mal perhaps help "sell" the MI in any way (I'm not sure it would)?

I have a feeling that it wouldn't help MI in a meaningful way. If a dm were to rule that it does, I would imagine a player could possibly "repair" or restore one image (that's been lost) at the cost of an action but not a new casting of MI. That would on most melee rounds probably hurt the party, as you really want to be knocking down monsters ASAP - and a wiz not doing anything more w/ his action than repairing an image would probably be a waste. So this ruling might not effect balance or allow an exploit - at least not one I can see at this point.

[lv99wizard]

I am trying to gauge how people are parsing "nature of the illusion" with this spell.

And to complicate things a little more, imagine you cast Mirror Image (which doesn't require concentration) and then cast Blur (which does). Could an Illusionist Wizard use malleable illusion to apply Blur to the mirror images as well as himself?

[Dalebert]

RAW, Mirror Image does one specific thing. It creates three exact duplicates of the caster and they imitate his actions. There's no room for Malleable Illusions to alter anything. You could argue that he can refresh the images since that's within the parameters of the original casting, i.e. to create three duplicates of himself. I'd say that's up to the DM if he wants to or not. It's a bit of a stretch. Malleable Illusions is widely up to interpretation.


And to complicate things a little more, imagine you cast Mirror Image (which doesn't require concentration) and then cast Blur (which does). Could an Illusionist Wizard use malleable illusion to apply Blur to the mirror images as well as himself?

The images would already be blurred, illusionist or not, because they imitate the caster's appearance perfectly. If the caster casts Disguise Self and changes his appearance, the dupes would also change appearance accordingly. That's the point. The spell is worthless otherwise. Imagine how you could wound the caster and now he's bleeding. If the dupes didn't also start bleeding from a similar wound, the spell would stop fulfilling its purpose.