Dealing with Greater Invisibility

[Greenfield]

I had a player who we occasionally called Jeckyl, since every action his character declared was followed with "and hide". He had a very questionable Hide check in the +35 range at level 11. Don't ask me how.

Stealth like that is in many ways worse than Invisibility, since Invisibility can be detected by a number of magical means.

Many of the suggestions made in this discussion presume that the opponents know of the player character's style in advance. That is, the monsters enjoy some form of the mystical and legendary "Telepathy With DM". A truly fearsome power, to be sure.

To help manage things, use a handful of coins. Each one represents a place where the character might be. Only you and the player know whether he/she is the penny, the nickel, the dime, the quarter etc. Rather than the player moving his/her mini, they tell you via a note where they're moving. You move the coins. All of them. That way the others don't know which one is their ally.

If the player points to where the character is going so others can see, the Invisibility fails immediately. They blew their cover.

Now consider the bad-guy tactics. Many a group I know of has a simple policy: Start a battle with an area Dispel or Greater Dispel. It's not targeting the specific PC, it's a general shot at de-buffing the party. and Invisibility is definitely a buff.

Targeting the PC, or having the entire world specially prepped for that tactic is kind of cheap and cheesy. It's you saying that the character isn't allowed to use a class ability that they worked for and earned.

On the other hand, running a world where people know that Invisibility can happen? That's being a good DM. So the invisible Rogue might be able to pilfer from local stores, but when facing an enemy in the field they should be prepared for people who can See Invisible and/or throw Glitterdust.

Related issues: It was pointed out that Greater Creation can turn a single gold piece into several cubic feet of gold coins. Gold, by the way, weighs a shade over a half ton per cubic foot, or in game terms about 60,000 gp per caster level. (50 per pound times 1206 pounds per cubic foot).

To prevent people from taking advantage of this major abuse, we made a house rule: Faerie Gold (as we came to call it) wasn't unheard of. That is, the PCs aren't the first people in the world to think of it. The house rule was that it was effectively dispelled by contact with cold iron. So many shop keepers, and anyone who dealt with high end items, had a small plate of cold iron bolted or embedded in their counter. All coins were drawn across it as they were counted, so Faerie Gold would be revealed and the counterfeiters caught.

This wasn't the DM picking on a particular character, it was just the NPCs of the world adjusting to the fact that they live in a world where there's magic, and this kind of thing is possible.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Does anyone have any special tricks for dealing with characters that cast Greater Invisibility at every opportunity? It does get tiresome...

It's really not a big deal. They're spending a high-level spell slot, and an entire standard action, to... not actually accomplish very much.

Invisibility is great for solo monsters, because of the 50% miss chance. It's situationally useful if you put it on the rogue, since they get to sneak attack without worrying about a flanking buddy. Aside from that, it just means the enemy will choose a different target, which it will then proceed to attack without any penalty whatsoever. One character being invisible does not significantly reduce the damage that the party takes every round.

 

[Greenfield]

It's really not a big deal. They're spending a high-level spell slot, and an entire standard action, to... not actually accomplish very much.

Invisibility is great for solo monsters, because of the 50% miss chance. It's situationally useful if you put it on the rogue, since they get to sneak attack without worrying about a flanking buddy. Aside from that, it just means the enemy will choose a different target, which it will then proceed to attack without any penalty whatsoever. One character being invisible does not significantly reduce the damage that the party takes every round.

Tempted to quote Luke Skywalker about "Everything you just said...".

Invisibility gives a lot more than a 50% miss chance. Unless the monster have "Telepathy with DM", they actually have no chance of hitting an invisible opponent at all, unless said opponent is immobile or an idiot.

To have any chance of hitting the opponent has to know where to aim, as in, which square is the foe in. Even in close melee a Greater Invisible opponent can take a full round attack, then step five feet, and his foe has to guess at which square to target. If the target is a Medium creature the Invisible person has eight squares they could be in (counting the options of staying in the same place or stepping back one way or the other).

If the Improved Invisible attacker is an archer they get nine squares they can land in.
If it's a caster who's flying, they can be in any of 27 squares.

Casters in general can be anywhere within movement rate, since they can take a full move after casting. They're all but invulnerable.

And if the monster is able to guess which square they're in? Now they get a 50% miss chance.

Meanwhile the opponent is denied Dex to AC and is pretty much a sitting duck.

If the opponent can make the right Listen/Perception roll (and beat the attacker's Move Silent/Stealth check), they may be able to identify their square. May.

If there's a general melee going on, the sound of that battle and the distractions of trying to keep track of everyone make that Listen/Perception all but impossible. Remember that those rolls are made at a -5 penalty if the listener is distracted.

Now if the monster can see the marker you place on the battlemat for the invisible character, that's a whole new ball game. That's "Telepathy with DM", and it's unstoppable.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Invisibility gives a lot more than a 50% miss chance.

All of the stuff I didn't bother to quote is redundant, because your first sentence essentially boils down to "not worth the effort of attacking".

Let's say the wizard casts Greater Invisibility on the archer, so the archer is now flying and invisible up in one corner of the room. Great. As a monster, I will now ignore that archer, and thrown all of my attacks against... the cleric, or the wizard, or anyone other than the archer.

Honestly, I probably wasn't going to attack the archer anyway. It was like a 25% chance. As long as there are visible targets which are still up, the fact that I now have three target options instead of four is not that big of a deal. If I kill all of the other PCs, or if the only visible target is the tank, then that starts to matter... but it's highly unlikely that it will ever get to that point.

The only really relevant bit is that I lose my Dex bonus to AC against that one target, which can be a big deal if they're a rogue. If not, then +2 to the attack roll is comparable to Cat's Grace, which is hardly worth a level 4 spell slot and the wizard's standard action.

 

[Greenfield]

Okay, I can see your point.

Suppose my Wiz casts the GI on the big great-weapon fighter?

If the monster's AC drops without their DEX then that's an invitation for the fighter to Power attack.

The normal weakness of the two-handed weapon is that it denies the fighter a shield. They dish out a lot of damage but they take a lot of damage. It's a trade off.

If he isn't taking damage though then you can expect him to deal 50+ points of damage a round by 11th level, and saty in there doing exactly that until the target is a lump of bloody hamburger.

Or maybe the caster throws it on himself and then peppers with Scorching Ray. At level 11 that's 12 dice, no Save, or 42 points per round. A couple rounds of that can ruin your whole day.

The Rogue would get two attacks dealing a D6 + Str + magic for a short sword, plus six D6 sneak (21 points on average) for a total of 26 or so per hit. Figure 1.5 hits that's 39 points per round.

The archer? Presume Point Blank Shot and a magic bow? Maybe a Mighty for a few points more? He's doing a D8 +5 or so per hit. Lowest DPS in the party, when you come right down to it.

Since the Wiz (in theory) has an Intelligence score, and shouldn't be afraid to use it, why would he/she give this buff sell to the Archer? Archer is already safest, in that he/she can stay outside of melee range, and any charge or ranged attack the foe tries will draw AoO rom all the close in damage machines.

Sorry, that's sort of nit-picking. The point is that if the monster is going to actually win/survive this fight it can't afford to just write off any attacker. It needs to beat them all, or drive them off.

 

[smetzger]

Invisibility gives a lot more than a 50% miss chance. Unless the monster have "Telepathy with DM", they actually have no chance of hitting an invisible opponent at all, unless said opponent is immobile or an idiot.

That's just plain not true.

It is only a DC 20 Spot check to pinpoint them

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If the monster's AC drops without their DEX then that's an invitation for the fighter to Power attack.

In my experience, I've never seen a monster worth fearing that actually got more than +4 from its Dex. Most big scary monsters just have +30 natural armor, or whatever. Creatures with high Dex tend to be small and annoying, although exceptions may certainly exist. YMMV on that.

The normal weakness of the two-handed weapon is that it denies the fighter a shield. They dish out a lot of damage but they take a lot of damage. It's a trade off.

It really depends on what level you're playing at. When you get above level 10 or so, an optimized shield-using fighter is a non-entity on the battlefield; they simply aren't going to be dealing any meaningful damage, so there's no real point in attacking them. An optimized power attacker is a glass cannon, sure, but not significantly more-so than a sorcerer or rogue.

As a monster, you're taking massive damage from everyone except the tank and (possibly) the healer. Choosing to attack the sorcerer instead of the barbarian is not going to change your fate significantly.

Or maybe the caster throws it on himself and then peppers with Scorching Ray. At level 11 that's 12 dice, no Save, or 42 points per round. A couple rounds of that can ruin your whole day.

Again, that's great if you're a lone spellcaster and you need to hold off an entire enemy party by yourself. Unless you would otherwise be the target, though, you've sacrificed between 25% and 50% of the standard actions you will have in this entire combat in order to increase the accuracy of your touch attacks. Generally speaking, you'll be more effective if you spend that first round casting fireball instead of greater invisibility.

Sorry, that's sort of nit-picking. The point is that if the monster is going to actually win/survive this fight it can't afford to just write off any attacker. It needs to beat them all, or drive them off.

If a monster is actually going to win against a high-level party, then that monster probably has some way of defeating invisibility already. Big scary monsters and campaign-ending Big Bads tend to have true seeing. Mid-level boss monsters have tremorsense.

In all my years of playing high-level Pathfinder games, I have never seen a difficult encounter become trivialized due to invisibility. What I have seen is always-invisible characters getting squashed because they're used to going unnoticed, and then a powerful enemy sees them and immediately murders them because they were relying on invisibility for their defense.

 

[Greenfield]

That's just plain not true.

It is only a DC 20 Spot check to pinpoint them

That's just plain not true (to quote somebody or other).

The DC 20 check is to notice that there's an Invisible being somewhere in the area. It doesn't pinpoint anything.

A Spot check result higher than 20 generally lets you become
aware of an invisible creature near you, though you can’t actually see it.

You want to "Pinpoint" them? You need a roll of 40+ if they're stationary.

Special: If you are invisible, you gain a +40 bonus on Hide checks. if you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Hide checks if you’re moving.

 

[Greenfield]

In my experience, I've never seen a monster worth fearing that actually got more than +4 from its Dex. Most big scary monsters just have +30 natural armor, or whatever. Creatures with high Dex tend to be small and annoying, although exceptions may certainly exist. YMMV on that.

My example premised a monster with a +2 Dex to AC.

As a monster, you're taking massive damage from everyone except the tank and (possibly) the healer. Choosing to attack the sorcerer instead of the barbarian is not going to change your fate significantly.

In my "Let's run the number" section it became pretty clear that the fighter will do the most damage, with the rogue doing the least. A Cleric can become as good a fighter as the Fighter, with the right spells.

Again, that's great if you're a lone spellcaster and you need to hold off an entire enemy party by yourself. Unless you would otherwise be the target, though, you've sacrificed between 25% and 50% of the standard actions you will have in this entire combat in order to increase the accuracy of your touch attacks. Generally speaking, you'll be more effective if you spend that first round casting fireball instead of greater invisibility.

It isn't about increasing the accuracy of the touch attacks. It's about a very squishy caster finishing the battle without being squished.

Think about it: Big monster is being hit from all sides, and all of it hurts. Beating on the fighter just makes him mad. Beating on the Wiz/Sorc makes him run and hide, or fall down and die. Fastest way to cut the DPS you're taking is to drop the spell caster.

And Fireball is a great spell, if you're facing a lot of opponents. At 10th level and up it does 10D6, which averages to 35 points of damage, with a reflex Save for half. Against a single big-bad, Scorching Ray is more effective. 8 dice, no save at 10th level and 12 dice no save at 11th. Plus it's a lower level spell, one you're more likely to be able to prepare a bunch of.

If you're worried about Fire Resistance, switch to one of the Orb spells. Same level, different elements, same bang for the buck.

If a monster is actually going to win against a high-level party, then that monster probably has some way of defeating invisibility already. Big scary monsters and campaign-ending Big Bads tend to have true seeing. Mid-level boss monsters have tremorsense.

The number of monsters with True Seeing is very very small, unless you're looking in a different set of MM books than I am. And Tremorsense isn't all that common either. Blindfighting, on the other hand, gives the monster two tries at that 50/50 hit thing. Again, better bang for the buck.

In all my years of playing high-level Pathfinder games, I have never seen a difficult encounter become trivialized due to invisibility. What I have seen is always-invisible characters getting squashed because they're used to going unnoticed, and then a powerful enemy sees them and immediately murders them because they were relying on invisibility for their defense.

It doesn't trivialize the encounter, it just tips things substantially in the favor of the party in general, and the GI character in specific.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

My example premised a monster with a +2 Dex to AC.

In which case the wizard is spending an entire standard action and a level 4 spell slot to grant +2 to hit; i.e. it's not overpowered at all, and it's not even a particularly notable factor when evaluating the effect of the spell.

Think about it: Big monster is being hit from all sides, and all of it hurts. Beating on the fighter just makes him mad. Beating on the Wiz/Sorc makes him run and hide, or fall down and die. Fastest way to cut the DPS you're taking is to drop the spell caster.

There might be situations where killing the wizard first would absolutely be the highest priority, and where invisibility is the only thing stopping you. Maybe. But like you said, the fighter is the one doing the most damage, and investing slightly more time to kill the more effective combatant is not an obviously bad decision.

The only thing that greater invisibility does, in most cases, is sacrifice the wizard's first turn of combat in order to make the monster switch from attacking its highest-priority target to attacking its second-highest-priority target. It only matters in the rare situation where the disparity in efficacy between two PCs is greater than the efficacy of the wizard's entire action. Whenever that's not the case, the wizard could be more effective by doing something else.

The number of monsters with True Seeing is very very small, unless you're looking in a different set of MM books than I am. And Tremorsense isn't all that common either. Blindfighting, on the other hand, gives the monster two tries at that 50/50 hit thing. Again, better bang for the buck.

Blindfighting only works after you've pinpointed them, and pinpointing them is usually the hard part, unless you're a dragon or otherwise have blindsense. Dragons would do well to invest in the blindfighting feat.

I can only speak from experience, since I've played more high-level Pathfinder than I've run, but every single boss of every single (high-level) adventure module I've ever played in has had some way to negate invisibility outright. Demons and spellcasters have true seeing. Giant worms and scorpions have tremorsense. Weird one-off monsters have some obscure template tacked on that gives them blindsight or whatever. Just in general, invisibility tends to be super unreliable whenever you need it.

Most monsters can't deal with invisibility, sure, but most monsters are chumps and you don't actually need invisibility to beat them. In case where it would be incredibly helpful - against boss monsters - it's unreliable. That's why it doesn't usually matter if someone opens every fight with greater invisibility: They either didn't need it, because the outcome of the fight was a foregone conclusion; or it would be super useful, and therefore doesn't work. YMMV.