Cloak of Invisibility: Best item in the game?

[TK Lafours]

It is a sweet item, but that's why it's epic.

It's hard to imagine a DM going "gosh, you're killing Orcus, he continues to flail around blindly".

If, as a high-level PC you were faced with an enemy with this item, you would likely either come up with a creative way to locate or trap him or you would flee, thus ending the encounter and ending the invisibility for the day. Then, before the day is up, you would try to reengage and kill the guy and take his cloak. This is exactly what I would expect Orcus to do, flee, and then track you down and kill you for your awesome cloak.

 

[Zurai]

Assuming you are playing with a group (which is the default) being invisible often doesn't benefit the party, as the enemy will simply attack another party member instead.

You and I have a very different definition of "doesn't benefit the party". I would say that being able to pick and choose which members of the party are not attacked by instant-kill attacks (or, really, any high-level monster's uber-attack) is a serious and tangible benefit. Again, it's trivially easy to equal Orcus's Perception (and he has about the highest in the game at the moment) with your Stealth without even having a positive Dex modifier (and it's impossible to have a negative Dex mod by level 21). At that point, you basically become immune to all of his attacks except his aura and his burst, and neither of those really has a chance of killing a character by itself.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

A few points - Orcus will know which direction the attack came from, at the very least. I'd say he has a good chance to know which square specifically, especially if it was a melee attack. Personally, I'd rule that as a +5 or even +10 bonus to a Perception roll to pinpoint the ranger's square.

Then, if Orcus has a readied action for when he gets hit to attack the square that he was attacked from, there's a good chance he targets the right square, and sometime in those 25 rounds he is going to hit. Just sayin'. The stealth really only helps you avoid his targeted attacks as long as you can not be where he thinks you are by the time he attacks.

Then, assuming that you are still beating him, what exactly is keeping him there? You don't become Demon Prince of the Undead by letting anyone with one cool trick to play it out to the end - you retreat, figure out a counter, and then nail the slippery thing.

Edit: I forgot to add that some people have speculated that Divine Regeneration has a mistake in it, that it is supposed to give you Regen equal to your modifier, not your score itself. Regen = score pretty much makes you invulnerable for that encounter, so I can't see that being the intent. Really really tough, yes; invincible, no.

 

[occam]

Presumably Orcus' epic level intelligence means that he wouldn't just stand there being dumbly hit by something he can't detect, and more than he'd repeatedly walk into a door. I can't realistically see a solo-kill coming out of this unless Orcus wanted to die!

Yeah, as with other uber-powerful combos, I don't see this being an inevitable auto-kill against a powerful and intelligent opponent. First, Orcus won't be alone, and that doesn't just mean the encounter will take longer. Between his aura and blast powers, and those of the atropals and lich vestiges, Invisi-Ranger is going to take necrotic damage out the yin-yang, enough to overpower his divine regeneration.

But more significantly, all Orcus needs to totally defeat this tactic is to call in a bunch of abyssal ghoul myrmidons, have them target every square not already occupied, and wait for one of them to roll a 20 on the attack. (The lich vestiges need only a 17 to hit with a shadow ray, including the total concealment penalty, and Orcus only needs a 15.) Call in a balor or two, who only need a 17 to hit with a flame whip, then a 12 with demonic accuracy after missing, and Invisi-Ranger is in real trouble. The PC is briefly renamed Visi-Ranger before becoming a splattering on the floor, or being touched with death and at the demon lord's mercy.

In fact... forget the abyssal ghouls and the balors. Call in enough kobold minions and they'll get the job done.

 

[Zurai]

A few points - Orcus will know which direction the attack came from, at the very least. I'd say he has a good chance to know which square specifically, especially if it was a melee attack. Personally, I'd rule that as a +5 or even +10 bonus to a Perception roll to pinpoint the ranger's square.

Again, that's fine for house rules, but it's not how invisibility works in 4E. You only know direction to an invisible creature/character if you beat their Stealth check - though, as I mentioned, the creature would know which square Invisi-Ranger started the fight in.

Then, if Orcus has a readied action for when he gets hit to attack the square that he was attacked from, there's a good chance he targets the right square, and sometime in those 25 rounds he is going to hit.

Invisi-Ranger can attack from as far away as 45 squares. Orcus's attacks that can break invisibility can only hit from 4 squares away.

Then, assuming that you are still beating him, what exactly is keeping him there?

Invisi-Ranger moves as fast as Orcus does, and Orcus mostly doesn't know where Invisi-Ranger is. Not knowing where whatever you're running from is located makes it hard to run away from it.

First, Orcus won't be alone, and that doesn't just mean the encounter will take longer. Between his aura and blast powers, and those of the atropals and lich vestiges, Invisi-Ranger is going to take necrotic damage out the yin-yang, enough to overpower his divine regeneration.

The lich vestiges have no chance at all to hit Invisi-Ranger. I-R can take a few turns to pretty much auto-kill all 8 vestiges (Designate each as a Quarry thanks to Battlefield Archer, then use the BA daily attack power to attack every quarry). The Atropals can never even detect I-R, so they have to randomly come within 5 squares of him to damage him, and even if both of them AND Orcus were all within Aura range of I-R, similar auras do not stack. Check the rules. 3 auras all doing 10 necrotic damage deal a grand total of 10 necrotic damage per round, not 30. The atropals are a complete nonfactor.

But more significantly, all Orcus needs to totally defeat this tactic is to call in a bunch of abyssal ghoul myrmidons, have them target every square not already occupied, and wait for one of them to roll a 20 on the attack. (The lich vestiges need only a 17 to hit with a shadow ray, including the total concealment penalty, and Orcus only needs a 15.) Call in a balor or two, who only need a 17 to hit with a flame whip, then a 12 with demonic accuracy after missing, and Invisi-Ranger is in real trouble. The PC is briefly renamed Visi-Ranger before becoming a splattering on the floor, or being touched with death and at the demon lord's mercy.

That's all Orcus needs to do to defeat any attack, though. It's not a counter to Invisi-Ranger, it's a house rule that prevents him from ever dieing to any attack at all. Orcus has no ability to summon any creatures. There are creatures that have the ability to summon allies (Pit Fiends, for example), and Orcus is not one of them.





Again, though... THIS IS NOT ABOUT ORCUS. It's about an item that makes characters essentially invulnerable to 90% of the monsters in the MM. Why would any character ever take any neck slot item OTHER than a Cloak of Invisibility? Hell, it's not even a level 30 item! Compare a Cloak of Invis to a Cloak of Invuln. The Invuln cloak is a million gold more and far, far, far less effective against the vast majority of enemies.

 

[FadedC]

Orcus's Perception is +28 vs Invisi-Ranger's +41 Stealth. Orcus has to roll at least a 15 to have even a chance to know which direction Invisi-Ranger is, and that's only if Invisi-Ranger rolls a 1. Even if he does get lucky and peg Invisi-Ranger with his AoE, Invisi-Ranger is still invisible and will be at or near full health on his next turn, thanks to Divine Regeneration. Note that Orcus and Invisi-Ranger move at the same speed unless Orcus flies, and Orcus incurs penalties for flying.Invisibility in 4E is guaranteed total concealment and a Stealth vs Perception check to determine location. Orcus will fail the check the vast majority of the time, so he won't even know what direction the invisible attacker is - though he would know what square Invisi-Ranger started in, since he doesn't start the encounter invisible..

I didn't realize about the burst thing, so that doesn't help. But still even if Orcus can't usually make his checks to find the ranger, he can still see where the arrows he shoots come from. That will give him a pretty good idea of where to start wandering around. On average I think he could find the ranger within 4 rounds, and then with his action point he's fairly likely to knock him out of invisibility given 2 tries.

Now if you can give the ranger access to an encounter length fly ability (and there's probably some way to do that), then it's much harder for him to guess what squares he might have moved into.

 

[Nine Hands]

I hope the OP is applying the normal Stealth modifiers for movement more than 2 squares (-5), speaking (-5) or running (-10). I think that if the ranger keeps to one spot, he will eventually get hit, its only a matter of time.

My only problem with these types of "exercises" is that they are so damn subjective. In a real game, this just wouldn't be a problem.

 

[Zurai]

I hope the OP is applying the normal Stealth modifiers for movement more than 2 squares (-5), speaking (-5) or running (-10). I think that if the ranger keeps to one spot, he will eventually get hit, its only a matter of time.

Invisi-Ranger has Secret Stride, so he does not incur the -5 penalty for moving more than 2 squares. He doesn't need to speak, and unless Orcus takes a run action, Invisi-Ranger doesn't need to do that either.

 

[mvincent]

You and I have a very different definition of "doesn't benefit the party".

Probably. In 3.5, we always had players that snuck around invisibly while the rest of the party sucked up the damage. They always thought they were being useful, but their tactic was almost always sub-optimal, mathematically. Yes, there can be exceptions... I just haven't encountered those players yet.

Spreading the damage across several PC's means everyone stays in the fight longer. Even as a wizard I would occasional jump in to take a hit (so that the fighter wouldn't have to waste a round drinking a potion, or so a mass cure spell is optimized).

In 4e (which seems to be all about the HP's rather than save-or-die effects), this seems even more true.

 

[drquestion]

Like Morrus, I don't really see the problem with this.

All the analysis really says is that a character who essentially has the highest possible stealth score, plus a cloak of invisibility, is likely to be completely undetected in the encounter that he uses the cloak. That's fine, he's a 30th level demigod who's maxed his stealth. He should be almost impossible to find.

Contrary to the analysis, Invisi-ranger won't actually be able to solo any of the high-level solo monsters in any realistic in-game situation.

Orcus, as long as he's in a room that's 200x200 or smaller, or can move into one quickly (and really, what's he gonna be doing wandering outside alone?), will kill the ranger, who only has 170 hp, well before the 25 rounds are up just with his aura, which has a range of 20 squares and does 10 damage per round, 20 if he's bloodied.

Looking at the two 30th-level solos, the red dragon, if he can't pin down the ranger, can just fly away, and the tarrasque, as the OP mentions, is pretty likely to eventually find the ranger with his blindsight, and then trample him, which ends the invisibility.

In sum, it's clearly a really good item, and probably a no-brainer for an epic level stealth character, but I don't see it being game-breaking in practice.