[3.5] Mirror of Life Trapping

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

I have some questions about the Mirror of Life Trapping (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#mirrorofLifeTrapping), that I felt might go a bit beyond the scope of the Simple RAW thread.

Questions are as follows:


Does time pass for the creatures trapped in the nonspatial cells?
Do they need to eat and drink as normal?
If yes, does the Mirror provide any of these needs?
Can a creature with the ability to Teleport or Plane Shift use this to escape the mirror?
What other means can the trapped creatures use to escape the Mirror?

Cheers - T

[Hackulator]

Hey all,

I have some questions about the Mirror of Life Trapping (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#mirrorofLifeTrapping), that I felt might go a bit beyond the scope of the Simple RAW thread.

Questions are as follows:


Does time pass for the creatures trapped in the nonspatial cells?
Do they need to eat and drink as normal?
If yes, does the Mirror provide any of these needs?
Can a creature with the ability to Teleport or Plane Shift use this to escape the mirror?
What other means can the trapped creatures use to escape the Mirror?

Cheers - T

no

no

n/a

no

nothing, it states they are "powerless"

My answers are based on my experience with how DMs run it, the text of the item, and the fact that it requires the spell imprisonment to cast, so barring other data I use that as a basis. Obviously, this is all arguable.

[VisitingDaGulag]

I'm going to be literal about the core material, but also consider the RAI about mirrors planes:


Does time pass for the creatures trapped in the nonspatial cells?
Do they need to eat and drink as normal?
If yes, does the Mirror provide any of these needs?
Can a creature with the ability to Teleport or Plane Shift use this to escape the mirror?
What other means can the trapped creatures use to escape the Mirror?

1) Yes time passes, but it does the creature no good since the dimension is space-less.
2,3) There are no needs for a creature that does not occupy space. The answer is a vacuous "yes."
4) No. See MotP.
5) For a creature native to whatever plane the attack happens on, there is none. There's a reason this thing is 1 copper piece short of being an epic item. Unless you know to prepare for this specific attack, it wouldn't be the kind of thing you'd build to stop, even if you were super extra paranoid.

[tiercel]

Does time pass for the creatures trapped in the nonspatial cells?
Do they need to eat and drink as normal?
If yes, does the Mirror provide any of these needs?
Can a creature with the ability to Teleport or Plane Shift use this to escape the mirror?
What other means can the trapped creatures use to escape the Mirror?



Wow; I suppose (if nothing else, because of the price point) I'd never looked that closely at this item. Especially if one takes MotP to heart, everything plane/dimension-dependent is highly YMMV/campaign-dependent, but...

1-3) The item doesn't say anything about stasis per se, and clearly time must be able to pass, at minimum, when a trapped creature's reflection is called to the fore (and there's no word on coming out of/going back into stasis). The simplest way of handling the situation would seem, to me, to assume the extradimensional pockets have the Timeless trait of the Astral Plane (time passes, but no aging, hunger, thirst, etc.)

[Granted, this brings up the spectre of what happens to a creature trapped in long-term sensory deprivation... but there doesn't seem to be a general game mechanic for that. If that seems a little too Fridge Horror, a possible counterpoint is to say the item works off the Imprisonment spell and thus use those stasis rules instead.]

4) Moot if the creature is in stasis; if not? MotP p.154 would seem to indicate very likely not, since typically the Astral isn't coterminous to demiplanes, and Plane Shift is called out specifically as not working (unless "close" to a demiplane's coterminous plane, which seems problematic for a nonphysical extradimensional space). MotP has weasel words that would allow alternative interpretations, though, not least of all simply declaring that an extradimensional space isn't a plane per se. [Also, Plane Shift is moot if used as a spell, since no Focus items allowed.]

5). I'd be strongly inclined to let the Freedom spell work (not only because the item is based on the Imprisonment spell, but also the broader language of Freedom is highly suggestive that it SHOULD work); mooted for the trapped creature if in stasis.