Cast See Invisibility on others or not?

[Christian]

Dang! I missed one!

Does anyone have an issue with the general principle? Viz. Divination spells affect only the caster unless otherwise specified in the spell description? And can anyone find any statement to that effect in the rules, 'cause I sure can't?

 

[reiella]

Hmm, wouldn't Detect Magic work almost as effectively then? Assuming that See Invis isn't targetable...

You cast and then have one round to study a quarter circle and lookie, magical aura there with no one visible near it.

Of course, that hoenstly is really more useful in the dungeon environment and less so the flying invisible mage (and doesn't last nearly as long, but is useful enough for finding out 'general' idea of where).

Course the more I think of it, the less effective Detect Magic is as a makeshift See Invis is.

 

[Gromm]

Hmm, wouldn't Detect Magic work almost as effectively then? Assuming that See Invis isn't targetable...

No assumptions on the See Invisible- see my earlier post.
As far as using detect magic to find invisble things, its not too effective, unless your foe can't move, in which case its not too hard to pin them down anyway.
It takes 3 rounds of concentration assuming your foe doesn't move out of the area. Might be good in a dungeon, but thats about it. Not to mention after you pin point him, all he has to do is take a move action and you've lost him again- unless you keep concentrating in which case you're still not doing much.

I had a PC try using detect evil in the same way to find an invisble mage. Suffice to say it didn't work, the mage kept taking moves and casting spells till the player finally missed his save.

 

[hong]

Hmm, wouldn't Detect Magic work almost as effectively then? Assuming that See Invis isn't targetable...

You cast and then have one round to study a quarter circle and lookie, magical aura there with no one visible near it.

This was, in fact, addressed by the Sage in the very first 3E issue of Dragon (#274). It's also in the D&D FAQ, which is basically all the Sage Advice columns since 3E came out.