Just an idea. How about a new spell named mirror image where you can create a another image of yourself so that the other person or mob does not know which image of you is doing the attacking. Maybe even make this an ability for the 'shapeshifter' class that I've heard about.

So, were you imagining something like this?:

yeah, you got the idea. You think that's doable?

Sure, just about anything is doable. But you'll need to give me a more complete description of how it works - think of a bunch of cases and how it will interact with the spell.

For example, if the images are killed in a single hit, would a room-damage spell get rid of them all? Does it create a bunch of images and then make the "real" you a random one? Would monsters who are already attacking you randomly attack images until they found the right one? (that part would be tougher to code). If you were to say something, would all the images say it? That'd be a lot of spam. Does only one random image say it?

Think on it some more, give me some more details and I'll tell you how tough it would be to code. I like the idea! I think it would work pretty well for PKilling, but not so well for combat - if you made 4 images, you'd have a random chance of missing 0-4 attacks before the monster starts hitting you.

Dominus wrote:

Sure, just about anything is doable. But you'll need to give me a more complete description of how it works - think of a bunch of cases and how it will interact with the spell. For example, if the images are killed in a single hit, would a room-damage spell get rid of them all? Does it create a bunch of images and then make the "real" you a random one? Would monsters who are already attacking you randomly attack images until they found the right one? (that part would be tougher to code). If you were to say something, would all the images say it? That'd be a lot of spam. Does only one random image say it? Think on it some more, give me some more details and I'll tell you how tough it would be to code. I like the idea! I think it would work pretty well for PKilling, but not so well for combat - if you made 4 images, you'd have a random chance of missing 0-4 attacks before the monster starts hitting you.

Lets make it say each image has 15 HP depending on the level. Of course the number of images would go up depending on level if this is to be an ability. Well, a room damage spell would have the possiblity to clear out a room full of images depending on how much damage it does. I think to make things simple, we should make mirror image work for one room only.

The problem with the spam can be eliminated by doing nothing different than if it was just one person in the room since a mirror image all do the same thing. All user social commands would act as one. IE:

You see Lenovo, Lenovo, Lenovo, Mithas.

: Lenovo says 'hi'.

OR you can make it:

: The Lenovos say 'hi'.
: The Lenovos
: The Lenovos wakes up.
: The Lenovos drop $59.
etc.

In Combat Mode from another player point of view, the images would be do exactly what your character does such as:

(123HP 34MP): Lenovo attacks you!
The 1st Lenovo attacks you for 1 damage!
The 2nd Lenovo attacks you for 1 damage!
The 3rd Lenovo attacks you for 1 damage!

(122HP 34MP): k lenovo
You stab the 1st Lenovo for 15 damage.

The 1st Lenovo circles you!
The 2nd Lenovo circles you!
The 3rd Lenovo circles you!

: c burst lenovo 2
You cast a burstflame spell on the 2nd Lenovo for 34 damage.
Pooof! You killed an image.

(The real Lenovo would be random from 1 to 3 of course)

When fighting creatures:

The gutter rat attacks you!
The gutter rat hits the 1st Lenovo for 10 damage!
The 1st Lenovo is bleeding.

: k rat
You stab the gutter rat for 29 damage.

The gutter rat kills the 1st Lenovo.

: k rat
You stab the gutter rat for 23 damage.

The gutter rat hits you for 14 damage.



That's all I can think of for now.....let me know what else.

It makes more sense to code this spell as "status" within the char, along with HP counters for each image, and have the relevant commands modified to take it into account.

You see Foobar, four images of Foobaz, Zolt.

> k foobaz
Your attack did 10 damage.

> l foobaz
He's in perfect health. <-- the images are supposed to look the same as the player does, so now you know you didn't hit the right one

> c water foobaz
Your spell did 23 damage.
An image of Foobaz dissipates. <-- this is room-broadcasted

> c flood foobaz
Your spell did 16 damage.
2 images of Foobaz dissipate.

The player using the spell might get damage messages saying it hit one of the images. They will be impossible to target directly with healing spells or such (makes sense too) so no need to tell which one it was anyway. grouptalk will receive the usual messages, with no mention of the mirror image. otherwise there is only the "dissipates" notice (also given when the spell expires or dispelled).

There is no point in having the game spam you with messages from Foobaz 1-4, or tell you which one you're attacking (it's supposed to be random anyway - if there was a way to distinguish between them, you'd always target the correct one). This way, mirror image would have no problem moving in rooms, grouping/following/etc, or entering rooms with a limited number of players allowed.

In terms of balancing this spell would be less dependable than stoneskin (you're not guarrantied not to get hit) but more powerful since it could make any type of targetted attack miss (except non-physical attacks such as a mind-wipe or dispel-evil)

The easiest way to implement it would be to wrap the function that handles a player character taking damage.

Directed damage is applied by first making a check to see if it works - if the damage type doesn't automatically bypass mirror-image, and the status is set, compute x = floor(p * (n+1)) {for p ~ [0, 1) at random and n = number of images remaining}, now if x = n it hits the player normally, otherwise it hits the x'th mirror image in {0,...,n-1}. if the image's HP counter becomes <= 0 it is removed from the list.

Room damage should be handled by always applying damage to the player normally + subtracting the same damage from all mirrors and then removing all HP counters <= 0 from the list.

If no counters remain, the spell status is removed.

Room broadcast the amount of images that dissipated if > 0.

By the way, it could be a nice spell for use by high level wizard perms, since they have imbal MP anyway :P

I'm too busy these days to code it myself, but if you wanted to take a look at the source on the website, code it, and submit a patch, we'd happily review it and implement it.

-Bane

Lonestar wrote:

The player using the spell might get damage messages saying it hit one of the images. They will be impossible to target directly with healing spells or such

In Lenovo's example, you can specifically target an image (k lenovo 3). Thus, if you get lucky on the first shot, you can remember which one is the real Lenovo. Lenovo never moves from the 3rd spot (unless images before him are destroyed).

In your example, it seems like the player is effectively a random image. So typing "k lenovo" once might hit an image, but the second time "k lenovo" might hit the real player. Is this what you're trying to say? And as you mentioned, certain attacks would bypass mirror image.


From what I remember of D&D, mirror images were killed with the first hit. Thus, I think we should consider making "mirror image" create images with 1 hit point and "advanced mirror image" create images with >1 hit points. Or, rather than 2 spells, make mirror image from a lvl 10 or lower wizard give 1 hit point, but higher level wizards have stronger images.

There was also a D&D spell - simulacrum - which created a duplicate of yourself. Something to consider while we're on this topic.

I'd be more inclined to agree with Sauron's version of the idea where you a mob/player would randomly attack the caster of the mirror-image spell.

Let's say it's a 10th level spell and at that level you can create 2 images, (lvl/5) rounded down, each of which is killed in 1 hit by anything. This would allow the spell to be useful even at higher levels up to 8 images at lvl 40.

Alternatively, you could - as Dominus said, add an advanced version of the spell at higher levels that has fewer images, (lvl/8) rounded down, with HP proportionate to the caster.