Mirrors and Illusions

[polymphus]

Hey all,

I'm planning a sorta murder-mystery session for my players. The basic idea I had is that there's a Medusa with the ability to cast a powerful version of disguise self that's very hard to see through, and this makes the curse easier for her to handle -- folks don't get petrified unless they see her true face. She stole the identity of a noblewoman and now lives a High Society life.

She's removed all mirrors from her mansion, but the real killer convinced her to host a masquerade, then started handing out shiny masks/spilling water near her etc.

So the question is, do reflections show the truth behind illusion spells? I wanted to have somebody catch her eye in a reflection and get petrified. Would that work?

I mean I could just say "DM RULES" and change it, but I want it to be something that wouldn't feel cheap, and that the players figure out for themselves -- the petrified targets always looking at reflective surfaces.

Thoughts on how to make this work?

[Azgeroth]

short answer, nope.

looking at things through a mirror, is the same as looking at them, just 'mirrored' the whole medusa's gaze doesn't work if you look at her through a mirror thing is lore specific to that monster (maybe basilisks as well?)

[Rhedyn]

I would rule that the reflections are subject to the illusions effect.

[JackPhoenix]

There's nothing in the rules suggesting that mirrors can be used to identify illusions. However, you're the GM: if you rule out that it works, it works. Perhaps it's the specific weakness of the unique spell the medusa is using and not something inherent to all illusions (I would recommend this approach, as it is important to be consistent, and if mirror was enough to see through all illusions, you bet your players will use it everytime they'll have a suspicion an illusion is present from that point).

However, there's still the mentioned problem that medusa's gaze doesn't work through reflection by RAW.