Shadow Walk, Mirror Walk, etc

[Genuinely Spurious]

That's cool to role-play, but really you just get a message about the lore of the spell and end up staying in place most of the time.

I don't mind the lore of the spells, that's cool. Nothing comes of it, but it's cool. What I do mind is that the spell is an inferior Teleport that feels icky to use, yet offers no reward for using it. In fact, it punishes the user by being of higher spell slot, failing often, dealing damage and outing the caster as dodgy, in some cases.

This.

If it's more dangerous or a higher level spell, there should be some advantage to using it. These are both more dangerous and higher level with no advantage at all.

So fine. Keep the lore and keep the spell levels as they are if you want, but if they caster and everyone who ported with them had battles and adventures in the mirror or shadow realm, shouldn't they get xp and find some small amount of treasure?

"" Server Message: You were attacked in the [mirror/shadow] realm by a [shadow/mirror image]! You gain [amount of xp appropriate to the amount of damage taken] and find [amount of gold appropriate to the amount of damage taken] gold. ""

Could give it a chance to retain the spell as a reward for using it instead of a teleport spell. Or maybe have it cost nothing in material components (aka gold).

[DaloLorn]

The former is not an option. The latter is one of the two options I proposed to make the spell better.

[Flatted Fifth]

I like the idea of shadow/mirror costing little or nothing. Especially shadow walk. Then other people won't think you're shady, they'll think you're cheap.