Is Invoke Duplicity "hot garbage" or really cool? Both, somehow?

[Segev]

This comes from another thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?633618-Nerfing-Twilight-Cleric-to-be-merely-very-good-instead-of-broken&p=25114323#post25114323), but would be a wild divergence there, so I thought I'd post a new one on the topic:


Because invoke duplicity is hot garbage and suggesting that other channel divinities should be more like it, and not less like it, is a slap in the face of anyone who wants to play a cleric

I'd like to ask Captain Panda to elaborate on his reasoning, and invite others to contribute.

I've always thought Invoke Duplicity was pretty cool, even with its limitations: a low-level version of prior editions' project image (in that it lets you cast from its position, something 5e's project image does not).

I think I can see some reasons to dislike it: its range means that it's mostly a "which one is real?" thing and less of a "remote presence" thing. And while I think it sounds neat, it's an open question how useful an illusory "you" is in most situations.

But it does give you a measure of safety, and it can be used as a distraction or for misdirection. The fact that it can turn touch spells semi-ranged, and serve as a place from which to cast spells without revealing your hiding place, is also nice.

What other uses do people have for it? What doesn't it do that it needs to to be "good?" How would you improve it to be on par with what cleric second level divine channel powers should be, or what makes it good enough to use as-is?

[Dork_Forge]

I don't think it's a particularly good CD, but it isn't bad at all and it's thematic for the domain. I personally like the idea of just projecting the image behind cover to make it irrelevant.

[Kane0]

I think it is in the middle, but then again last time I DMd a loki cleric i let dumber enemies try attacking the duplicate at least once or twice before they figured out it wasnt real, and the cleric could cast from its location for remote word of radiance or whatever. Which probably made it far more effective than originally intended

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'll preface this by saying that yeah, I feel like the Trickery domain is kinda trash. But a large part of that is because of the other abilities, even assuming that this one is awesome. Well, let's break it down.


Channel Divinity: Invoke Duplicity
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to create an illusory duplicate of yourself.

As an action, you create a perfect illusion of yourself that lasts for 1 minute, or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell). The illusion appears in an unoccupied space that you can see within 30 feet of you. As a bonus action on your turn, you can move the illusion up to 30 feet to a space you can see, but it must remain within 120 feet of you.

For the duration, you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space, but you must use your own senses. Additionally, when both you and your illusion are within 5 feet of a creature that can see the illusion, you have advantage on attack rolls against that creature, given how distracting the illusion is to the target.

So you're counted as concentrating on a spell, which kinda sucks. That means that you can't use any concentration spells while this is active. So nothing fancy like spirit guardians or shield of faith. As far as I can tell, no other CD require your concentration, so that means that this CD should be really, truly great. Fair assumption?

First thing that I see is that it's explicitly a perfect illusion. that's definitely a point in its favor. It's got an identical "move speed", so that won't give it away... unless you've got a greater than 30 foot move speed. In which case people might suspect that Something Is Up.

Being forced to use your own senses is kinda lame, and removes some of the utility from it. For example, you can't toss it through a keyhole and know what's in the room (Now, if you've got something like greater invisibility or the like it gets really cool, but that requires a 4th level spell slot from someone else). Also from what I can see, you can't communicate through it - it's literally silent image in terms of complexity.

Now, the most interesting part of this CD, imo, is the ability to cast through it. Now, you've still got to be able to use your own senses to target, and you cannot cast stuff like spirit guardians through it (which is, I suspect, the reason for the concentration mechanic here), but that still leaves some other interesting stuff open, like inflict wounds from relative safety or cheesing the hell out of the range of spells. It takes a lot of setup, but you can cast something like cure wounds from 120 feet away. Which is niche and cool as heck... and is also the same sort of feature that you get from find familiar. Honestly, it's kinda like the Echo Knight's feature, except kinda worse? It'd be a lot better if the cleric had a touch attack cantrip, but the closest that they get is the lame word of radiance.

The other unique bit about this CD is the added advantage in melee combat if you and your illusion are in close. This does mean that you're giving up something like bless or the infamous spirit guardians in favor of advantage to melee attacks. On the "stealth-focused" domain.

Depending on your DM, however, you can pull the "No, he's the clone" on enemies with regards to your explicitly perfect illusion. Enemies who didn't see you cast it might target the wrong one. Heck, even if they did see you invoke it, make it walk through your space and make the argument that enemies won't know which one is the fake one.

So I'm going to go with Option C: cool as heck and hot garbage.

[Kane0]

Honestly, it's kinda like the Echo Knight's feature, except kinda worse?

Might be on to something there, perhaps the Echo Knight mechanics can be ported back over to Duplicity?

[Dark.Revenant]

I wouldn't say it's hot garbage. I'd say, compared to all the other Channel Divinity options, it's about "average" in terms of overall usefulness. It has many limitations, true, but it does have a fairly flexible and useful effect. Over the course of a full campaign, I'd expect to get about as much use out of it as a typical "Turn X" style CD.

[RSP]

I’ve always found the issues with ID are in how a DM defines the illusion. A “perfect” illusion, by definition, isn’t going to be detectable as an illusion (it will successfully fool all senses, because, you know, it’s perfect).

That’s a big issue, and just aligns with an with illusions in general: they’re all basically DM dependent on how they’re run.

This feature would be significantly better if it didn’t require Conc, but, alas, that was baked into it.

It’s not a horrible use of a Channel Divinity, but unless your DM is good with it being “perfect”, it fails to work as I believe it was intended.

[MaxWilson]

It depends on a couple of things, not least "how does the DM interpret 'you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space' and does that apply to stuff like Booming Blade as well as Inflict Wounds/Bestow Curse/Contagion"?

Put me in the camp that think it's situationally useful and relies partly but not entirely on the DM's willingness to roleplay monsters instead of metagaming them (especially for dumb monsters), and partly on rulings like the above.

In a worst-case scenario where the DM rules unfavorably in every aspect it's... not terrible, not really good, but worth using in some scenarios, especially if you can get e.g. Mage Hand via race or multiclassing (to allow your illusory duplicate to actually manipulate objects, outside of combat). It's certainly better than hot garbage, unless your campaign is pure hack-and-slash, but that's a low bar to clear.

[Segev]

Thanks for the responses so far. Picking up this one primarily because I think it touches most of the points brought up in others, and it's the most detailed, though if anybody thinks I've missed a point, I am open to having it reiterated.

I'll preface this by saying that yeah, I feel like the Trickery domain is kinda trash. But a large part of that is because of the other abilities, even assuming that this one is awesome.So would you buff this, or other abilities of the Trickery Domain? If other features, what would you buff/replace them with? (This is an open question to anybody interested in answering it, even though I am addressing Kuulvheysoon.)


So you're counted as concentrating on a spell, which kinda sucks. That means that you can't use any concentration spells while this is active. So nothing fancy like spirit guardians or shield of faith. As far as I can tell, no other CD require your concentration, so that means that this CD should be really, truly great. Fair assumption?Seems to be, yes. Though this does open an obvious avenue of improvement: remove Concentration from it. It's certainly a game-changer in terms of what other spells you could have up at the same time, or cast through it. Though is it really living up to "Trickery" if you're using it more to set a pick on a spirit guardians than as a deception?

Does it really DO the job of playing "tricks?"


First thing that I see is that it's explicitly a perfect illusion. that's definitely a point in its favor. It's got an identical "move speed", so that won't give it away... unless you've got a greater than 30 foot move speed. In which case people might suspect that Something Is Up.

(...)

Also from what I can see, you can't communicate through it - it's literally silent image in terms of complexity.Pulled the last sentence from later in the post for juxtaposition reasons. As Rsp29a notes, it being a "perfect illusion" means it covers all the senses. You absolutely can talk through it. Can't pick things up with it, but you can poke people and they'll feel it even if there's no real force behind it. And if they punch it, they'll feel it be punched. Fo


Being forced to use your own senses is kinda lame, and removes some of the utility from it. For example, you can't toss it through a keyhole and know what's in the room (Now, if you've got something like greater invisibility or the like it gets really cool, but that requires a 4th level spell slot from someone else).That is a drawback. I think being able to keep up a conversation through it while you're running the heck away would actually be an amazing use of it, well within its limits. Though they likely didn't want it used as a scouting tool. Especially since there's no listed way to destroy it.


Now, the most interesting part of this CD, imo, is the ability to cast through it. Now, you've still got to be able to use your own senses to target, and you cannot cast stuff like spirit guardians through it (which is, I suspect, the reason for the concentration mechanic here), but that still leaves some other interesting stuff open, like inflict wounds from relative safety or cheesing the hell out of the range of spells. It takes a lot of setup, but you can cast something like cure wounds from 120 feet away. Which is niche and cool as heck... and is also the same sort of feature that you get from find familiar. Honestly, it's kinda like the Echo Knight's feature, except kinda worse? It'd be a lot better if the cleric had a touch attack cantrip, but the closest that they get is the lame word of radiance.Yeah, the casting through it is mostly useful compared to a familiar due to helping with faking being "you," but I am unsure how often that's really useful.

A trick I just thought of with it though might be to cast disguise self through (and therefore on) it, and have it look like a second person. This isn't much better than major image, but it costs different resources available at lower level.


The other unique bit about this CD is the added advantage in melee combat if you and your illusion are in close. This does mean that you're giving up something like bless or the infamous spirit guardians in favor of advantage to melee attacks. On the "stealth-focused" domain.Yeah, this is...of questionable utility, unless you're multiclassing. If it could provide that advantage to others, it might be better.


So I'm going to go with Option C: cool as heck and hot garbage.Which ultimately means "hot garbage" at the table, because it's irrelevant how cool something is if you can't use it effectively. :(


Might be on to something there, perhaps the Echo Knight mechanics can be ported back over to Duplicity?Maybe. The question of whether it should be targetable and destructible becomes a big one, in this case. The Echo is well-focused for being useful in combat, as befits a Fighter Subclass feature.

Is there a way to just make the Trickery Domain - with or without improving Invoke Duplicity - better at being about trickery?

[MaxWilson]

Thanks for the responses so far. Picking up this one primarily because I think it touches most of the points brought up in others, and it's the most detailed, though if anybody thinks I've missed a point, I am open to having it reiterated.
So would you buff this, or other abilities of the Trickery Domain? If other features, what would you buff/replace them with? (This is an open question to anybody interested in answering it, even though I am addressing Kuulvheysoon.)

For thematic and balance reasons, I'd probably change the +d8 poison damage to +d8 psychic damage. It's not a big deal either way really because the spells are the main draw of Trickery, but about 30% of the monsters in the MM are immune to poison, and it would be a nice thing for Trickery not to have to deal with that. Also, I don't think "poisoned knife" says "trickery" anyway, but "I messed with your head"/gaslighting does say "blow your mind" = psychic, so psychic damage is thematically better than poison.

Personally I'm not inclined to change Invoke Duplicity itself. I am inclined to run the game in such a way that it's useful as written (and that applies to other illusions too including Major Image). If you Invoke Duplicity and run one direction while your image runs the other direction, it's going to be a 50/50% whether the monster chases the real you or the duplicate.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'd buff everything, I think.

Make Blessing of the Trickster apply to yourself as well as one other creature, so long as you're wearing light armor, or something? Trickery has been hit probably the hardest in terms of power creep relative to the other domains, imo, and the 1st level feature for the domain just looks anemic. Especially because the 2nd and 6th level features require your CD, whereas most have a non-CD 6th level feature (only Knowledge and technically War).

EDIT: Maybe give them Stealth and a Charisma Skill?

I'd be really tempted to switch the 2nd and 6th level features (give Cloak of Shadow at 2nd level, and a slightly buffed Invoke Duplicity at 6th). Really focus on that sneaking/trickery aspect, especially given how there's no trigger for Cloak of Shadows. No need to raise your holy symbol, no incantation, just gone. Probably my favorite part of the subclass, tbh.

Easiest fix would be to remove Concentration from Invoke Duplicity, but I'd go one step further. Keep the Concentration, but make it a projected image. Let you use your senses through it, and be able to speak through it and everything. Using it as a scouting tool is really pretty limited - it's limited to 120 feet away from you, and it must start within 30 feet and can only move that much per round, oh, and only lasts a minute. Make this a 6th level feature, and it's more than fair, imo.

I like the flavour of the poison-based divine Strike, but come on. Let's be realistic here. Give it Potent Spellcasting.

[Sorinth]

It's not terrible, out of combat it certainly has it's uses and in combat it's a decent defensive option since you are essentially imposing a 50% miss chance to the first (possibly more) attacks against you each round by having the duplicate run in/out of your square.

The issue is that it uses up too many resources. It's basically costing you 1 action to start, your concentration slot, and your bonus action most rounds.

[Captain Panda]

I'd like to ask Captain Panda to elaborate on his reasoning, and invite others to contribute.


My reasoning here is pretty simple.

It takes your concentration. Spirit guardians also takes your concentration, lasts a long time, and is a better option in any combat scenario unless you are conserving spell slots. But as spirit guardians is an extremely efficient spell (10 whole minutes!) it can usually last for a couple fights in an attrition-based campaign, leaving this channel divinity as a waste of your concentration and worse, a waste of your alternate use of channel divinity. It might have fun roleplaying applications, more power to you if you like it for that, but for combat it's just a big disappointment.

On my view, channel divinity is an important class resource, and if a subclass doesn't give a good one that's a pretty serious problem for the subclass. A niche use of channel divinity is bad; a niche use of channel divinity that eats up concentration, which is a resource that scales up in importance the entire trip to 20, is horrible. Frankly the only thing I think trickster clerics get that keeps them from being the worst cleric subclass is access to the polymorph spell, which is rock solid.

[Dork_Forge]

My reasoning here is pretty simple.

It takes your concentration. Spirit guardians also takes your concentration, lasts a long time, and is a better option in any combat scenario unless you are conserving spell slots. But as spirit guardians is an extremely efficient spell (10 whole minutes!) it can usually last for a couple fights in an attrition-based campaign, leaving this channel divinity as a waste of your concentration and worse, a waste of your alternate use of channel divinity. It might have fun roleplaying applications, more power to you if you like it for that, but for combat it's just a big disappointment.

On my view, channel divinity is an important class resource, and if a subclass doesn't give a good one that's a pretty serious problem for the subclass. A niche use of channel divinity is bad; a niche use of channel divinity that eats up concentration, which is a resource that scales up in importance the entire trip to 20, is horrible. Frankly the only thing I think trickster clerics get that keeps them from being the worst cleric subclass is access to the polymorph spell, which is rock solid.

Spirit Guardians comes online 3 levels later and is largely in the opposite spirit of Invoke Duplicity, you need to be amongst the hostiles with SG, whereas ID (can benefit you in melee) but largely encourages you to be at range.

How much would your view change if ten minutes wasn't commonly multiple encounters? For example in my games ten minutes is mostly just safe precasting time, two encounters in that time is pretty rare unless things are going badly or a dense dungeon.

[DarknessEternal]

I’ve always found the issues with ID are in how a DM defines the illusion. A “perfect” illusion, by definition, isn’t going to be detectable as an illusion (it will successfully fool all senses, because, you know, it’s perfect).


This guy has the reason for its power. There is no generic way to determine if something is an illusion. This ability has no specific way to detect it, so it has none.

You would need something that specified it can notice illusions like truesight or tremorsense (sort of).

No amount of Perception, Investigation, or physically interacting with this will reveal it.

[Jerrykhor]

Every time i see someone say 'Trickery is actually good/underrated', i take another look at their kit and still remain unconvinced. For a subclass that sells you on subterfuge, trickery and deceit, all its features are intended for combat. I think most people read Invoke Duplicity and expect it to be more like Major Image spell than the garbage it is. Which would be fine if they actually get Major Image as their Domain spell, but they don't.

The restrictions make it un-fun too.

Takes up concentration? Ok, but it better be worth it.

Cost bonus action to move illusion? That sucks, now i can't Spiritual Weapon and move illusion in the same turn.

The illusion must also remain within 120ft and can only move to a space i can see. That is... garbage. By RAW you can't tell the illusion to go around a corner or behind a wall. But even if they could, the illusion can't cast a spell from its location if it requires sight of the target, because the real you still can't see it. Utterly stupid.

Gives advantage on attack rolls when both you and illusion are within 5ft of it. Is it not as distracting if they are 10 or 20ft away...? Ok I'm done, this is F tier. Its just not fun to sacrifice Spirit Guardians AND Spiritual Weapon just to play your subclass. Their subclass features already don't add damage, but to actually use the features means doing below average damage. For what? A little smirk when the enemy whiff at the illusion? Now they will dogpile the real you. The "Aha, sucker" gets old real fast with no real substance.

[elyktsorb]

I played a campaign with a Trickery Cleric and I think they only thing they ever used Invoke Duplicity for was to cast spells but remain in a location that was more advantageous to them. Basically they'd summon the illusion in one location and cast a spell at X thing that they could both see from where they were. Then the actual Cleric would move behind full cover and just leave the illusion in it's spot. So anytime they needed to cast at something they couldn't see from behind the full cover, they didn't need to get any closer to do it. This also allowed them to cast touch healing spells from further away.

The other reason they did this was to avoid ever being Counterspelled, as they could be outside the ranger for counterspelling but the illusion would shoot out the spell from its location.

Usually what this did was create situations where they could casting healing spells, far from the actual fight, so if the enemy wanted to stop that from happening, they'd have to move away from the melee combatants.

Also I never saw them once use the "Additionally, when both you and your illusion are within 5 feet of a creature that can see the illusion, you have advantage on attack rolls against that creature, given how distracting the illusion is to the target." aspect of it.

I can also note that they didn't use it 'much' they however used Blessing of the Trickster pretty much any time our Rogue needed to scout things. For emphasis, this was a Druid/Rogue multiclass who had Expertise in Stealth, Pass Without Trace, would shapeshift into tiny spiders, and had advantage on Stealth rolls so that Rogue pretty much never got caught.

[MoiMagnus]

This guy has the reason for its power. There is no generic way to determine if something is an illusion. This ability has no specific way to detect it, so it has none.

You would need something that specified it can notice illusions like truesight or tremorsense (sort of).

No amount of Perception, Investigation, or physically interacting with this will reveal it.

The thing is, "perfect" is a very of a vague term. It's pretty much synonym to "as good as an illusion can be", which is very dependant on the GM.

Taking to the extreme, a "perfect" illusion:
(1) Would have a mind of its own, with the same personality of yours, to be able to react convincingly to interaction with other peoples, like answering simple questions immediately and naturally. "Simulacrum"* is an example of an illusion spell that create an entity with a mind of its own.
(2) Would not be detected by melee attacks or any physical interaction. Either like "Luke Skywalker illusion in SW8" where he avoid each and every strike, or by actually being material enough to parry or get hit and fake feeling hurt.
(3) Would be able to fake attacks of opportunity convincingly. Arguably, if a truly "perfect" illusion is semi-material, they should be able to land those opportunity attacks and do actual damage. Alternatively, one can go for "psychic damage" instead, as "Weird" is an illusion spell that is able to do damage, so illusion doing damage is not unprecedented.
(4) Would fake meaningful actions during his round, like faking the spellcasting of a healing spell, with weird consequences if someone tries to counterspell it.

On the other hand, a GM could simply assume that this CD simply simulate the effect of "Project image" with slightly less features about the senses, but without the "when it takes damage the illusion disappear" flaw. [Which seems much more reasonable than what I suggest above, but also make this CD mostly bad]

* I've never noticed that Simulacrum was actually an illusion spell. It creates an "illusionary duplicate" of someone, which arguably could raise the standard of what a "perfect illusion" is.

[RSP]

The thing is, "perfect" is a very of a vague term. It's pretty much synonym to "as good as an illusion can be", which is very dependant on the GM.


It’s a defined term, just not a defined game term; and I’ve never met a DM who plays it as “perfect”.

If trying to make it that ID is “better” in play, I’d just suggest any DM use it as its RAW: a perfect illusion. As MoiMagnus stated, you can either make it as good as any illusion spell in the game, or just make it so there’s no way to tell the ID from the character (illusion reacts to hits, etc).

If played this way, ID is a good ability (still sucks that it’s Conc, but a perfect illusion is nothing to scoff at).

[Segev]

It’s a defined term, just not a defined game term; and I’ve never met a DM who plays it as “perfect”.

If trying to make it that ID is “better” in play, I’d just suggest any DM use it as its RAW: a perfect illusion. As MoiMagnus stated, you can either make it as good as any illusion spell in the game, or just make it so there’s no way to tell the ID from the character (illusion reacts to hits, etc).

If played this way, ID is a good ability (still sucks that it’s Conc, but a perfect illusion is nothing to scoff at).

I'm actually not sure how ID is a good ability if the illusion is undetectable as an illusion. What uses does this open up that "less-than-perfect" implementations do not?

This isn't an argument against your point, for the record. I just am not sure I'm seeing whatever it is you're thinking, and would like elaboration.

[DarknessEternal]

I'm actually not sure how ID is a good ability if the illusion is undetectable as an illusion. What uses does this open up that "less-than-perfect" implementations do not?

This isn't an argument against your point, for the record. I just am not sure I'm seeing whatever it is you're thinking, and would like elaboration.

Every NPC must treat it as a real person at all times. DM's generally ignore illusions anyway, but this one has to rules to point out that those DMs are bad and should be better.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Every NPC must treat it as a real person at all times. DM's generally ignore illusions anyway, but this one has to rules to point out that those DMs are bad and should be better.

I think a lot of the debate here is stemming from the misconception that there's a fluff v crunch divide.

Some people, when they read this, have a tendency to consider descriptors like this to be purely descriptive. I don't think they're intended to be, especially in this case. It's supposed to be a perfect illusion, it's God powered illusion magic, it shouldn't be easily ignored for some unspecified reason like "it's reactions are strangely off" or "it casts no shadow" to list a few common reasonings I see for DMs to dismiss illusions.

[RSP]

I'm actually not sure how ID is a good ability if the illusion is undetectable as an illusion. What uses does this open up that "less-than-perfect" implementations do not?

This isn't an argument against your point, for the record. I just am not sure I'm seeing whatever it is you're thinking, and would like elaboration.

A SR, slotless perfect illusion of yourself can have amazing utility - and it’s available at level 2.

My last character had Major Illusion cast at 6th (permanent illusion, no Concentration). He made an illusion of himself that he took on all our adventures. Even if no RP situations ever came up where it benefited using the illusion rather than putting himself at risk (they did), just having a guinea pig to walk into the unknown and set off ambushes was well worth it.

Really it’s up to how creative the Cleric can be with that illusion. Distracting intelligent bad guys is a big plus.


It's supposed to be a perfect illusion, it's God powered illusion magic, it shouldn't be easily ignored for some unspecified reason like "it's reactions are strangely off" or "it casts no shadow" to list a few common reasonings I see for DMs to dismiss illusions.

Yeah, that kind of stuff very much seems like imperfections, which, RAW shouldn’t exist. But my experience is (and at least partly why I’ve never played a Trickery Cleric), that’s what DMs do.

[MoiMagnus]

Yeah, that kind of stuff very much seems like imperfections, which, RAW shouldn’t exist. But my experience is (and at least partly why I’ve never played a Trickery Cleric), that’s what DMs do.

While I agree, I kind of understand them too. "Perfect illusion" is essentially an oxymoron. An illusion is "fake", by definition. And it's abilities are necessarily more limited than the thing it copies.

Even more in this case of ID, which has explicit restrictions that contradict "perfect": the person that pilot the illusion cannot perceive through the eye of the illusion, so if a wall appears between the two, then suddenly the caster has to "guess" what is happening to pilot the movement of his illusion (which takes a BA). How can this result in a perfect illusion when it does not perceive whether or not the enemies are still there or are running away?

But even without considering those restrictions on ID, "perfect illusion" is precisely at the place where I cannot really determine how much the authors intended it to be material or . On one hand, an illusion that gets discovered when someone grabs it is definitely imperfect. On the other hand, an illusion that starts grabbing other creature or even decapitating them with its battleaxe seems like something that would explicitly be stated in the text of this CD.

[Segev]

While I agree, I kind of understand them too. "Perfect illusion" is essentially an oxymoron. An illusion is "fake", by definition. And it's abilities are necessarily more limited than the thing it copies.

Even more in this case of ID, which has explicit restrictions that contradict "perfect": the person that pilot the illusion cannot perceive through the eye of the illusion, so if a wall appears between the two, then suddenly the caster has to "guess" what is happening to pilot the movement of his illusion (which takes a BA). How can this result in a perfect illusion when it does not perceive whether or not the enemies are still there or are running away?

But even without considering those restrictions on ID, "perfect illusion" is precisely at the place where I cannot really determine how much the authors intended it to be material or . On one hand, an illusion that gets discovered when someone grabs it is definitely imperfect. On the other hand, an illusion that starts grabbing other creature or even decapitating them with its battleaxe seems like something that would explicitly be stated in the text of this CD.

A minor tangent, but the way I generally conceive of tangible illusions - that is, illusions that affect the sense of touch - is that they seem to "fail" at any action they attempt that requires them to be solid, but they're convincing enough to interact with as long as you're not trying to leverage them as tools.

So you can grab and grapple an illusion that's tangible, and if you grasp too hard or the like, it "escapes." If it tries to grapple you, you feel it try, but it fails. It can't pick anything up, and if it tries, it "fails," whether by seeming to break or by the item slipping out of its grip or...something.

Touch is still the most vulnerable of senses to detection, I think, but there are ways to run it for illusory purposes that don't automatically reveal it.

[Sorinth]

A SR, slotless perfect illusion of yourself can have amazing utility - and it’s available at level 2.

My last character had Major Illusion cast at 6th (permanent illusion, no Concentration). He made an illusion of himself that he took on all our adventures. Even if no RP situations ever came up where it benefited using the illusion rather than putting himself at risk (they did), just having a guinea pig to walk into the unknown and set off ambushes was well worth it.

Really it’s up to how creative the Cleric can be with that illusion. Distracting intelligent bad guys is a big plus.

Sure but a big part of the benefit there is because it was permanent, the duration of Invoke Duplicity limits that aspect to a large degree.

[MrStabby]

I have a few issues witht the trickery cleric.

I mean, it's kind of fine. I would say it is below average in power for a cleric - better than war but worse than tempest. However, at least until Tasha's, the clerics were really quite.well balanced with a pretty narrow gap between top and bottom so it was never an issue.

And cleric subclasses were generally having strong abilities or strong spell lists, and until this last round didn't get both. And trickery has an Awesome spell list which, in my eyes, made it OK.

So in balance, if invoke duplicity was weak, I think it would be OK. I would still rate it higher than the Nature CD for example and less situational than Forge.

So it isn't inappropriately weak.

I think it is a useful tool sometimes, but it's real value is it makes the cleric a lot more flexible. It gives an outlet for creativity and duplicity so it adds more fun than power.

[RSP]

Sure but a big part of the benefit there is because it was permanent, the duration of Invoke Duplicity limits that aspect to a large degree.

Sure but you only use it when you think you need it. Room ahead has hidden enemies prepared to kill you? Throw your ID in there, take the shots, then have the real characters counter attack.

Someone need to distract the BBEG while the others get the prisoners freed? You can buy them a minute without actually having to send yourself into certain death.

Yeah, it’s not permanent, but it’s also available at level 2, as opposed to level 11. Also, I’m not sure any CD should be as good as a 6th level spell.

[Samayu]

I'm DMing a group of newbies, one of which is a trickery cleric. Usually, the only time ID sees use is after an exchange like this:

DM: Cleric, you're up.
Rogue: I'm down!
Cleric: I can't get to you!
DM: If only you had some sort of divine power that would allow you to cast touch spells from a distance...

So I came here hoping I'd learn some tricks to give him, so this thing would see more use, but I guess I'm going to be disappointed. Though I need to figure out how the illusion part works and what he can get away with, and have a discussion about that. And I'll need to remind him about getting combat advantage.

Someone mentioned swapping ID to 6th level. I think it is more effective at lower levels. Or relatively less effective at higher levels. So I wouldn't move it.

I might buff it to not require concentration. Maybe say you can't cast concentration spells through it? I don't know. If I can get the player to use it more often, I can watch how well it works, and how much disadvantage that would alleviate.

[Segev]

I'm DMing a group of newbies, one of which is a trickery cleric. Usually, the only time ID sees use is after an exchange like this:

DM: Cleric, you're up.
Rogue: I'm down!
Cleric: I can't get to you!
DM: If only you had some sort of divine power that would allow you to cast touch spells from a distance...

So I came here hoping I'd learn some tricks to give him, so this thing would see more use, but I guess I'm going to be disappointed. Though I need to figure out how the illusion part works and what he can get away with, and have a discussion about that. And I'll need to remind him about getting combat advantage.

Someone mentioned swapping ID to 6th level. I think it is more effective at lower levels. Or relatively less effective at higher levels. So I wouldn't move it.

I might buff it to not require concentration. Maybe say you can't cast concentration spells through it? I don't know. If I can get the player to use it more often, I can watch how well it works, and how much disadvantage that would alleviate.

As a first, rulings-not-rules-changing step, I would lean into it being a "perfect" illusion. That is, while it can't pick things up or punch somebody, nor grapple somebody, nor the like, it does FEEL like the cleric if touched, if grappled and it deigns to remain in the grip it feels like the grappler is gripping something. If it is attacked, it either looks and feels like it took damage (so a club has a sense of being jarred by impact, for example), or it looks like the attack missed, and you should generally adjudicate that it will "look like it missed" any time there's no way for a hit to "look right," barring that also being impossible. If it moves away from a grapple, it should look and feel like it wrenched or wormed its way free legitimately.

This will make it a very useful thing for deception, with only attempting to do utterly impossible things with it giving it away. Be generous; if you can think of a way to make it look convincing, it does that rather than the obvious give-away.


As a first step into actual house ruling, I think lifting Concentration from it is a good one. I don't know how it will impact balance; I would go ahead and let him channel Concentration spells through it as he would any other, and see if this is truly overpowered compared to him using them from his own position.


Again, I don't know how broken or useful these will be. This is just how I'd conduct experiments with it if I were DMing in your position. How it will play out at your table is far more important than any theoretical discussion about how it should be balanced for the game in general.


As for useful tricks, I don't have any Invoke Duplicity-specific suggestions, but I do have a thread on illusionists (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?477658-Illusionist-Tricks) and their features that may have something you can adapt to what Invoke Duplicity allows. (Obviously nothing related to Malleable Illusions applies, but maybe there's something useful in there.)

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'm DMing a group of newbies, one of which is a trickery cleric. Usually, the only time ID sees use is after an exchange like this:

DM: Cleric, you're up.
Rogue: I'm down!
Cleric: I can't get to you!
DM: If only you had some sort of divine power that would allow you to cast touch spells from a distance...

So I came here hoping I'd learn some tricks to give him, so this thing would see more use, but I guess I'm going to be disappointed. Though I need to figure out how the illusion part works and what he can get away with, and have a discussion about that. And I'll need to remind him about getting combat advantage.

Someone mentioned swapping ID to 6th level. I think it is more effective at lower levels. Or relatively less effective at higher levels. So I wouldn't move it.

I might buff it to not require concentration. Maybe say you can't cast concentration spells through it? I don't know. If I can get the player to use it more often, I can watch how well it works, and how much disadvantage that would alleviate.

Ironically, your sample situation wouldn't work. You could ID, but that's your Action, and if they're more than 30 feet away (and thus within walking distance) you'd need your BA as well to move it, and still have to wait until next turn to heal.

Or they could just use the healing word spell that they'd be crazy to not have prepared and use that.

[MaxWilson]

As for useful tricks, I don't have any Invoke Duplicity-specific suggestions, but I do have a thread on illusionists (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?477658-Illusionist-Tricks) and their features that may have something you can adapt to what Invoke Duplicity allows. (Obviously nothing related to Malleable Illusions applies, but maybe there's something useful in there.)

That is a really, really good thread. +1 to the recommendation to read it.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Does anyone have any personal experience in altering Invoke Duplicity, so that the ability does not require Concentration?

I'm tempted to make the change, myself, as a DM, but in my current campaign there is no cleric PC.

I haven't asked the DM in the campaign I currently play a Cleric of Trickery in, if we can waive Concentration. The issue, I see is it allows for solo combos like Silence + Perfect Illusion...which can get exploitive, and some DMs hate 'game hacks' like that.

The ability itself is great, up to 4th level....when Concentration conflicts, encourage the ability to sit on the back burner a bit.

If you have Disney+ the Loki show has a good comedic bit about the difference between "Duplication" Casting and Illusion Casting.😁

Invoke Duplicity is Duplication Casting.

In combat, I've found Invoke Duplicity, to be quite effective....especially if you are trying to 'hold' some real estate....such as a sally port or other critical piece of terrain.

One can use the perfect illusion as a decoy, that draws fire, and reveals the position of enemy snipers.

The Advantage granted by being next to the Illusion, applies to all attacks, including spell attacks.

Achieving critical hits on an Inflict Wounds spell and a Spiritual Weapon attack during the same turn, is memorable (and devastating) at 3rd level.

I would suggest that Blessing of the Trickster be changed to also grant the cleric the Minor Illusion Cantrip.

The Mark of Shadow Elf from Eberron is a great race for a Cleric of Trickery.
You become a pretty good illusionist, and master of misdirection.

[RSP]

One other way to help the Trickery Cleric: give them decent weapon proficiencies. You get Adv on attacks with your ID present, but no good weapon profs to assist this.

At least weapons that mirror the Rogue should be available, in my opinion.

[Kuulvheysoon]

One other way to help the Trickery Cleric: give them decent weapon proficiencies. You get Adv on attacks with your ID present, but no good weapon profs to assist this.

At least weapons that mirror the Rogue should be available, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's one of the really weird way in which the domain Tricks our expectations.

Sure, let's give it no bonus weapon/armor proficiencies, and give it Divine Strike. No, we don't care if it's the only domain that gets that particular combo, and let's further trick them by giving them the worse damage type for Divine Strike.

[Thunderous Mojo]

One other way to help the Trickery Cleric: give them decent weapon proficiencies. You get Adv on attacks with your ID present, but no good weapon profs to assist this.

At least weapons that mirror the Rogue should be available, in my opinion.

When there was just the options from the PHB available, this suggestion, might have had more impact. Today, however, when cleric's have access to the Toll the Dead cantrip, the extra 1 to 2 points of damage from a d8 weapon...may not keep up with the damage from Toll the Dead.

Personally, if you want a cleric of Trickery to have a more Sneak Attack feel, (or want to harken back to 1e's Cleric/Assassin Multi-class combination), I would recommend replacing one of the Second Level Domain spells with Shadow Blade.

Shadow Blade is a decent analogue for Sneak Attack...and upcasting spells is very much part of a cleric's wheelhouse.

[ProsecutorGodot]

When there was just the options from the PHB available, this suggestion, might have had more impact. Today, however, when cleric's have access to the Toll the Dead cantrip, the extra 1 to 2 points of damage from a d8 weapon...may not keep up with the damage from Toll the Dead.

Personally, if you want a cleric of Trickery to have a more Sneak Attack feel, (or want to harken back to 1e's Cleric/Assassin Multi-class combination), I would recommend replacing one of the Second Level Domain spells with Shadow Blade.

Shadow Blade is a decent analogue for Sneak Attack...and upcasting spells is very much part of a cleric's wheelhouse.
It would still have plenty of impact, they have divine strike, they're already given more incentive to use weapons despite not getting any martial weapon proficiencies.

[Segev]

Maybe it needs more blessings for Blessing of the Trickster?

Bonus Proficiencies
Choose one of the following:
You gain proficiency with Stealth and Sleight of Hand.
You gain proficiency with Deception and Persuasion.
You gain proficiency with Martial Weapons.

Blessing of the Trickster
Starting when you choose this domain at 1st level, you can use your action to touch a willing creature other than yourself to invest it with your god's mischievous power. The recipient of this blessing gets advantage on ability checks using the skill proficiencies you chose as your bonus proficiencies. If you chose martial weapon proficiency, the recipient instead receives advantage on attack rolls against Surprised creatures.

In addition, when you cast a Domain spell on yourself, you may choose to have it also affect the recipient of this blessing.

This blessing lasts for 1 hour or until you use this feature again. You may cast disguise self without using a spell slot, but only to alter your appearance to match that of the recipient of this blessing. If you cast disguise self in this way, the recipient of this blessing instead appears to be you. When you share spells through this blessing, they end for both of you if the blessing ends for the person with whom you're sharing them.

Invoke Duplicity
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to create an illusory duplicate of yourself.

As an action, you create a perfect illusion of yourself or the recipient of your Blessing of the Trickster that lasts for 1 minute. The illusion appears in an unoccupied space that you can see within 30 feet of you. On your turn, you can move the illusion up to 30 feet to a space you can see, but it must remain within 120 feet of you.

For the duration, you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space, but you must use your own senses. Additionally, when both your illusion and the person it looks like are within 5 feet of a creature that can see the illusion, the person it looks like has advantage on attack rolls against that creature, given how distracting the illusion is to the target.

Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with poison—a gift from your deity. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 poison damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8. If you have poison on your person, or are suffering from the effects of a poison, you may have that poison be inflicted by the strike instead of the extra poison damage. This consumes a dose of the chosen poison (incidentally removing any in your system from your system, effectively preventing further harm from it). As a reaction, you may share the poison with the recipient of your Blessing of the Trickster: their weapon becomes coated in the poison you choose, or deals the extra poison damage. You still must be carrying or suffering the effects of the poison chosen, and it uses up that dose.

Improved Duplicity
At 17th level, you can create up to four duplicates, instead of one, when you use Invoke Duplicity. On your turn, you can move any number of them up to 30 feet, to a maximum range of 120 feet.
This may now be a bit overtuned, overall, but I want to throw some things at the wall to see what sticks.

Just so it isn't missed: Invoke Duplicity has lost the Concentration requirement, and is a non-action to move about on your turn, in addition to the other changes.

[Thunderous Mojo]

It would still have plenty of impact, they have divine strike, they're already given more incentive to use weapons despite not getting any martial weapon proficiencies.

The average difference in damage between a dagger and a rapier is 2 points. A 14th level Cleric of Trickery, with an investment in having a 20 Dexterity score is doing 3d8 +5 with a Longbow or Rapier.

Of course 2d8 of the aforementioned damage is Poison damage.
(Cue Sad Trombone).

Toll the Dead at the same level, is likely doing 3d12 Necrotic damage with an additional 1d8 Radiant Damage from Blessed Strikes.

The actual damage output of course is going to depend on the targets AC or Wisdom Saving Throw Bonus.

The difference in damage die and range between a Longbow versus a Shortbow...isn't so immense to require Clerics o' Trickery to need martial weapons.

High Elf with Elven Accuracy and Booming Blade is all you need. Of course melee subjects the cleric to melee dangers.

Cloak of Shadows can be used to setup Sniper Shots for ranged attacks.
A C.o.T. Archer could be interesting.

Now if Divine Strike instead added Psychic damage as Max Wilson suggested, I think the ability becomes much more appealing.

[Dork_Forge]

The average difference in damage between a dagger and a rapier is 2 points. A 14th level Cleric of Trickery, with an investment in having a 20 Dexterity score is doing 3d8 +5 with a Longbow or Rapier.

Of course 2d8 of the aforementioned damage is Poison damage.
(Cue Sad Trombone).

Toll the Dead at the same level, is likely doing 3d12 Necrotic damage with an additional 1d8 Radiant Damage from Blessed Strikes.

The actual damage output of course is going to depend on the targets AC or Wisdom Saving Throw Bonus.

The difference in damage die and range between a Longbow versus a Shortbow...isn't so immense to require Clerics o' Trickery to need martial weapons.

High Elf with Elven Accuracy and Booming Blade is all you need. Of course melee subjects the cleric to melee dangers.

Cloak of Shadows can be used to setup Sniper Shots for ranged attacks.
A C.o.T. Archer could be interesting.

Now if Divine Strike instead added Psychic damage as Max Wilson suggested, I think the ability becomes much more appealing.

w/regard to giving a Trickery Cleric Shadow Blade: Unless Invoke Duplicity is altered to remove concentration this isn't as synergistic as it culd/should be.

I think a Trickery Cleric is already incentivised to go into melee though personally, between Divine Strike and ID's advantage they can make a decent showing of it as long as they haven't neglected their physical stat.

[Thunderous Mojo]

w/regard to giving a Trickery Cleric Shadow Blade: Unless Invoke Duplicity is altered to remove concentration this isn't as synergistic as it culd/should be.

I think a Trickery Cleric is already incentivised to go into melee though personally, between Divine Strike and ID's advantage they can make a decent showing of it as long as they haven't neglected their physical stat.

Ohh...there is no synergy at all between Invoke Duplicity and Shadow Blade...
In Dim Light or darker lighting conditions my Cleric will use Shadow Blade, (if I have it prepared...swapped the duplicate PW/OT received from the Dragonmark of Shadow with Shadow Blade).

In bright light I use Invoke Duplicity....though honestly....my Concentration has been focused on spells, so I've probably not used Invoke Duplicity in 4 mos. of real time.

Cloak of Shadows is a nice Channel Divinity though...😁

[Guy Lombard-O]

One of my favorite characters of all times is my Trickery cleric. And I really, really want to like Invoke Duplicity. But it's just so hard to effectively use in most circumstances due to the clunkiness of the mechanics.

The main problems I found with it in combat is like everyone says - it takes your bonus action to move it into position, and it uses your concentration.

Clerics are pretty reliant upon Spiritual Weapon to do good damage in combat, so if you're going to do something else with your bonus action it needs to be pretty impactful. Unfortunately, I've found that it's pretty hard to use the duplicate for touch spells (the primary reason to have the duplicate exist in combat) in many/most encounters, unless you can repeatedly move it into position. Either you want to move it to get flanking (which is how about 50% of people seem to play) for an inflict wounds, or you want to place the duplicate in the absolute best position for a (still kinda lame) Word of Radiance (very)mini-AoE. In my experience, this means that you end up choosing between the two, Invoke Duplicity or Spiritual Weapon. And this bonus-action clutter isn't even taking into account the need to Healing Word on occasion.

As for using your concentration, that's also a big issue. Clerics have a few really good options for their concentration already. Bless is good when you want to stay out of melee, and Spirit Guardians is great when you want to be in melee. And of course a whole bunch of others.

Out of combat, the lack of perception and the inability to speak through the duplicate (other than the V components of spells, because that's all the RAW text actually gives you) make it very, very hard to use for actually tricking folks.

The main buffs I'd wish for are the ability to at least speak through the duplicate (perceiving through it would be great, of course), and the ability to move the duplicate for free without it consuming your bonus action. Those two things alone would make it easier to use both in and out of combat (although it's probably still a worse combat option than doing the standard cleric things). Removing concentration would of course be a major buff, but I personally feel like it might be a step too far. Having a mobile focal point for a Spirit Guardians, which can only be disrupted with either Dispel Magic or searching for the actual cleric and smashing them until concentration drops, seems a bit too powerful (and honestly not particularly "trickery" related).

As is, it's a really cool pile of luke-warm, day old leftovers. Not quite garbage, but nothing you really want, either.

[Segev]

One of my favorite characters of all times is my Trickery cleric. And I really, really want to like Invoke Duplicity. But it's just so hard to effectively use in most circumstances due to the clunkiness of the mechanics.

The main problems I found with it in combat is like everyone says - it takes your bonus action to move it into position, and it uses your concentration.

Clerics are pretty reliant upon Spiritual Weapon to do good damage in combat, so if you're going to do something else with your bonus action it needs to be pretty impactful. Unfortunately, I've found that it's pretty hard to use the duplicate for touch spells (the primary reason to have the duplicate exist in combat) in many/most encounters, unless you can repeatedly move it into position. Either you want to move it to get flanking (which is how about 50% of people seem to play) for an inflict wounds, or you want to place the duplicate in the absolute best position for a (still kinda lame) Word of Radiance (very)mini-AoE. In my experience, this means that you end up choosing between the two, Invoke Duplicity or Spiritual Weapon. And this bonus-action clutter isn't even taking into account the need to Healing Word on occasion.

As for using your concentration, that's also a big issue. Clerics have a few really good options for their concentration already. Bless is good when you want to stay out of melee, and Spirit Guardians is great when you want to be in melee. And of course a whole bunch of others.

Out of combat, the lack of perception and the inability to speak through the duplicate (other than the V components of spells, because that's all the RAW text actually gives you) make it very, very hard to use for actually tricking folks.

The main buffs I'd wish for are the ability to at least speak through the duplicate (perceiving through it would be great, of course), and the ability to move the duplicate for free without it consuming your bonus action. Those two things alone would make it easier to use both in and out of combat (although it's probably still a worse combat option than doing the standard cleric things). Removing concentration would of course be a major buff, but I personally feel like it might be a step too far. Having a mobile focal point for a Spirit Guardians, which can only be disrupted with either Dispel Magic or searching for the actual cleric and smashing them until concentration drops, seems a bit too powerful (and honestly not particularly "trickery" related.

As is, it's a really cool pile of luke-warm, day old leftovers. Not quite garbage, but nothing you really want, either.
Most of this is full of good points and concerns about its utility, but I feel the need to point out that the bolded part is not supported by the text. The RAW give you "a perfect illusion." At no point in the rules does it say that it lacks any sensory element. Nowhere does it say it's a visual-only image. And the illusions that are visual-only go out of their way to say so.

As a "perfect illusion of you," it would speak if you wanted it to, and it would speak in your voice.

[Kuulvheysoon]

See, this is another weird area of ID that I'm not happy with. You have to use your own senses so you can't see what it can see, but you can (probably) talk out of it. Which is just plain weird.

So you could toss it around a corner with a mirror or something, and not be able to look at whoever is speaking to your ID duplicate. I'm not a fan of the interaction, but hey - it's a PHB subclass. You kinda have to expect some jank.

[Guy Lombard-O]

As a "perfect illusion of you," it would speak if you wanted it to, and it would speak in your voice.

Sadly, this isn't a given. I certainly agree that the duplicate is basically required to make some sounds: when it walks on cobbles, you hear the footfalls. And there's little doubt that the V components can come out of its mouth, since "you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space" more or less requires that the "perfect illusion" must appear to be casting the spell (although I can imagine even this being argued by some) and therefore it's capable of making word-sounds. But it's actually another step further for some DMs to allow you to speak through the illusion. None of the text of the ability actually spells that out in black and white. So a more restrictive, RAW DM could semi-reasonably decide that since that additional ability isn't written into ID, then you can't do that. I've literally been told that spell-component words are the ONLY things the duplicate can say.

I certainly do think that it makes perfect sense, and is strongly implied in the ability. But if it's not spelled out in black and white, then some DMs will disallow it.

-------------------------------------------------

BTW, I forgot to mention one other concern about ID - your spell loadout needs to be tailored to use it in combat.

The thing about using touch spells in combat is that you need to have the right spells prepared if you're going to do that. Admittedly, we're probably only talking about 2-3 spells max here: Cure Wounds and Inflict Wounds. These are two spells that I will basically never use or prepare on a standard cleric, because I generally have something better to do. If I'm a stay-at-range type cleric, I'm using Guiding Bolt and Healing Word. If I'm a melee type cleric, I'm using a weapon attack and Spiritual Weapon, possibly bolstered by Spirit Guardians if I'm off the right level, have a decent Con save, and it's a serious combat. I'm almost never wasting a spell or prep slot on Inflict Wounds, and I rarely prep Cure Wounds because I already have an almost-as-good healing spell, so I prep something else that's less duplicative.

Of course, YMMV depending upon how you feel about those spells in general. But attempting to use ID in combat forces me to carry those two spells on my prep loadout. Which is just another drawback that I find annoying.

[Segev]

Sadly, this isn't a given. I certainly agree that the duplicate is basically required to make some sounds: when it walks on cobbles, you hear the footfalls. And there's little doubt that the V components can come out of its mouth, since "you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space" more or less requires that the "perfect illusion" must appear to be casting the spell (although I can imagine even this being argued by some) and therefore it's capable of making word-sounds. But it's actually another step further for some DMs to allow you to speak through the illusion. None of the text of the ability actually spells that out in black and white. So a more restrictive, RAW DM could semi-reasonably decide that since that additional ability isn't written into ID, then you can't do that. I've literally been told that spell-component words are the ONLY things the duplicate can say.

I certainly do think that it makes perfect sense, and is strongly implied in the ability. But if it's not spelled out in black and white, then some DMs will disallow it.I don't doubt that some DMs disallow it, but they're not correct for doing so and are essentially house ruling a nerf. The same logic used could be used to say that it doesn't have a visual component, since nothing in the description spells out that it's a visible illusion. Perhaps it's a "perfect illusion" of your odor and only your odor.

It might help to think of it not as "talking through" the illusion, but as "making the illusion talk." You're not "talking through" a major image that you have giving a distracting speech, but you are choosing its words, so you may as well be talking through it.

Invoke Duplicity, as written, is expressly not remote presence. It's an illusion to trick people into not realizing that you're not there. Or to confuse them as to which is the real you. It has loads of flaws, but being unable to have it engage in behaviors that you can engage in, at least insofar as any senses observing it are concerned, is not one of them.


BTW, I forgot to mention one other concern about ID - your spell loadout needs to be tailored to use it in combat.

The thing about using touch spells in combat is that you need to have the right spells prepared if you're going to do that. Admittedly, we're probably only talking about 2-3 spells max here: Cure Wounds and Inflict Wounds. These are two spells that I will basically never use or prepare on a standard cleric, because I generally have something better to do. If I'm a stay-at-range type cleric, I'm using Guiding Bolt and Healing Word. If I'm a melee type cleric, I'm using a weapon attack and Spiritual Weapon, possibly bolstered by Spirit Guardians if I'm off the right level, have a decent Con save, and it's a serious combat. I'm almost never wasting a spell or prep slot on Inflict Wounds, and I rarely prep Cure Wounds because I already have an almost-as-good healing spell, so I prep something else that's less duplicative.

Of course, YMMV depending upon how you feel about those spells in general. But attempting to use ID in combat forces me to carry those two spells on my prep loadout. Which is just another drawback that I find annoying.Eh, while I agree that it shapes your spell choices, the real limit is that you avoid Concentration spells. You can cast ANY spell you have prepared from its location, not merely touch spells. You can extend your range on a toll the dead with it by up to 120 feet, for instance.