DM's: How do you deal with Improved Invisibility?
- Thread starter RJSmalls
- Start date
Kwalish Kid
Explorer
Summon Monster can be very effective against invisible opponents. Just summon some thoqqua.
RJSmalls said:
First, you are absolutely correct. Haste/Improved Invis/Fly is The Combo. Wait, let me correct myself -- Haste/Improved Invis/Fly/Polymorphed into a Troll or Stone Giant is The Combo.
It's been well established that in a World That Makes Sense, just about anyone who is friends with a 7th level spellcaster would walk around as a Troll or Stone Giant if they regularly adventure at all. The advantages are just too great. I have a difficult time imagining a world in which all adventurers walk around looking like giants or trolls (or night hags), but there you go.
You've got a similar problem with Improved Invis. The problem is twofold:
1) Lame-ass monsters with no magical abilities
2) NPCs
With lame-ass monsters . . . not much you can do. Give more creatures blindsight, perhaps. (Scent kind of sucks as an Invisibility Killer).
With NPCs . . . well, the main thing you have to do is get over this "fear of metagaming". In any world in which invisibility is so common, not only are all NPCs going to know it and expect it, but they'll have created well-known countermeasures. It's not metagaming for NPCs to have Wands of Glitterdust, for example, or other magic items that'll combat invisible creatures.
Hell . . . in my opinion, one of the biggest holes in the DMG list o' magic items is the absence of a Ring of See Invisibility. Not only should this magic item be existent, it should be COMMON among merchants, high-level guards, and anyone else who knows anything about how much damage that 2nd level spell can do.
Price it at maybe 10k . . . and make it relatively common among the elite. That's what I've done. (It'd be about as common as +2 weapons.)
That's not metagaming. That's common sense.
BiggusGeekus
That's Latin for "cool"
[devil's advocate]
hold on. The player has to cast the spell, right? That's resource use. The player is supposed to be casting spells that give a big advantage.
[/devil's advocate]
My advice?
Use multiple creature encoutners (someone else suggested this earlier in the thread)
Let the players rest infrequently OR give higher CR encounters. The exp charts were designed with the player resting once every five encoutners. Nudge it up a bit.
You can get away with a "see invisible" encounter every so often. But not all the time. The sorceror has that spell permenantly after all. He's going to want to use it.
hold on. The player has to cast the spell, right? That's resource use. The player is supposed to be casting spells that give a big advantage.
[/devil's advocate]
My advice?
Use multiple creature encoutners (someone else suggested this earlier in the thread)
Let the players rest infrequently OR give higher CR encounters. The exp charts were designed with the player resting once every five encoutners. Nudge it up a bit.
You can get away with a "see invisible" encounter every so often. But not all the time. The sorceror has that spell permenantly after all. He's going to want to use it.
Bagpuss
Legend
Forrester said:
Sure as a House Rule by rule zero. Its as legal as a Potion of Burning Hands.
Really? They aren't in the DMG and if you read Brew Potion...
See Invisibility doesn't target a creature or creatures, it has an "Area: Cone". If it had "Target: The character" in its description it would be fine. To be fair its probably because its a badly written spell description, and I'd probably Rule 0 it in myself, but it isn't "Core".
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
As others have said, it's not metagaming for NPCs to be prepared for invisibility. PCs have to be prepared to deal with it from level 4 onward.
WRT creatures that aren't able to prepare for invisibility, let the improved invisible character have his fun.
WRT everyone else, give the scrolls of deeper darkness (level the playing field), invisibility purge, faerie fire, see invisible and glitterdust.
Get them potions of See Invisible and Invisibility Purge.
If all else fails, an area dispel (or a readied targetted dispel) can work wonders.
So, in short, let the PCs have an easy time with a few dire bears or other villains that can't deal with improved invisibility then when they've come to rely on that tactic, sic a Druid villain with Natural Spell on them and have him wildshape into a dire bat or give him the Blindsight feat. (And then have him call his awakened dire bat monk animal companions to his aid).
WRT creatures that aren't able to prepare for invisibility, let the improved invisible character have his fun.
WRT everyone else, give the scrolls of deeper darkness (level the playing field), invisibility purge, faerie fire, see invisible and glitterdust.
Get them potions of See Invisible and Invisibility Purge.
If all else fails, an area dispel (or a readied targetted dispel) can work wonders.
So, in short, let the PCs have an easy time with a few dire bears or other villains that can't deal with improved invisibility then when they've come to rely on that tactic, sic a Druid villain with Natural Spell on them and have him wildshape into a dire bat or give him the Blindsight feat. (And then have him call his awakened dire bat monk animal companions to his aid).
kengar
First Post
Put 'em up against a BBEG with minions. Let them pound the minions for a while using their current tactics. Make sure 1-2 of the grunts get away at some point. When they meet the next level of baddies (or the BBEG himself), the Sorc disappears and the villian just laughs and says, "Ah yes, they told me you might do this." Then POW! Glitterdust, See Invis, Dispel Magic, whatever you like. It's not metagaming, the BBEG adapted his tactics to theirs based on his underlings' reports. 
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