Working with Scent


Rules Questions


I'm trying to figure out how a particular interplay would work. I've recently become obsessed with summoning creatures on my sorcerer, and my elf is a crack shot with a bow, so when I'm toying with people, I enjoy tagging them with pheromone arrows to better send my beasties with scent into a frenzy. My party is coming up on an event wherein we are going to be seeing a lot of PvP (demon infestation, mind control, its a long story), and I'm planning out how to deal with each individual member of my party. The party magus is particularly fond of the mirror image spell. What I am wondering is if I am able to tag the magus with a pheromone arrow before he is able to use mirror image, would my summoned creatures with scent be able to identify the real target, through all the images? The rules on scent say that "When the creature is within 5 feet of the source, it pinpoints the source’s location."
Would this negate the miss chance and leave everything to the attack roll? Or would it still suffer a miss chance?


Afraid not. It would help against invisibility, but not mirror image.

Mirror image is all in the same square, so locating them does not help. The accepted gimmick to counter mirror image is to close your eyes and use blindfight, but that is a little too complex of a trip to use. Can you drop a darkness on them after tagging him?


Darkness is likely going to be a factor anyway. The spirit is an evil shadow thing, so she'd basically lead with a either deeper darkness or hungry darkness, buffed up with shadow grasp, before harvesting the party's shadows to make them fight clones of themselves. Though it'll likely be happening in an area of bright light (holy temple for an exorcism of said spirit), so I'll probably only be able to get light conditions to dim light before i have to start summoning.


Mirror & Scent


I appreciate you clarifying the matter for me, though!

Silver Crusade

As per RAW, it's fairly clear with some careful reading. If you look at the spell and Scent ability, it says this:

Mirror Image wrote:
These doubles make it difficult for enemies to precisely locate and attack you. When mirror image is cast, 1d4 images plus one image per three caster levels (maximum eight images total) are created. These images remain in your space and move with you, mimicking your movements, sounds, and actions exactly. Whenever you are attacked or are the target of a spell that requires an attack roll, there is a possibility that the attack targets one of your images instead. If the attack is a hit, roll randomly to see whether the selected target is real or a figment.
Scent wrote:
The creature detects another creature's presence but not its specific location. Noting the direction of the scent is a move action. If the creature moves within 5 feet (1 square) of the scent's source, [b]the creature can pinpoint the area that the source occupies[b], even if it cannot be seen.

RAW mindset: It says that whenever the caster is attacked, there is a chance that it hits one of the others. No matter how "distinguished" one of them may be, you're still attacking the caster and it is being diverted from there. As outlined in the Scent text, a creature can't pinpoint specific location from a distance. Even if right next to them, they can only pinpoint a scent is coming from "The area that the source occupies". As per the writing of Mirror Image, the images are in the "same space" as the Magus. Other than the +2 bonus to attack and damage, you don't get any other bonuses.

How I would look at it: However, it says the effect works by making enemies not sure which one is the real you. If you tagged him with the pheromones before he used the spell, that at least partially negates the "making it difficult to locate and attack you" clause detailing how the spell works in the first place. Keep in mind that it doesn't say that the images all smell like the original as well. It only mimics movement and sound.

I would send an email to the GM (so the magus doesn't catch on) asking him/her. If I were your GM, I would at least lower the chance for your summons to attack an image.

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