Scion said:
If you will notice I quoted from a perfectly relevant part of the ruleset. It is just that it also happens to be at least one other place with additional text.
I know, sorry for the tone. Like you said, it's late. I just found the core dump of irrelevant text to be a smidge annoying. Next time just say what part you're reading instead of dumping it and let the other guy post the quote.
Scion said:
Pretty explicit that if you cut off line of effect that the gaze no longer works. (ie from the creature to your eyes). But it is definately clear that it does not mention that the gazer has to be visible, just that you have to 'look at their eyes'. You can still look at invisible creatures, you just wont see them. Just like i can look at the window, it is just that I happen to see through it, but I am still looking at it.
Line of effect is not affected by sight, but I know what you're saying here. However, gaze attacks are most certainly affected by simply the visibility of the creature's eyes. Even if you only look at that section from the MM, you have several pretty clear indications of that (blindfolding, veiling, etc.). When you fold in the fuller description from Special Abilities & Conditions, the evidence is pretty overwhelming.
Scion said:
Edit: still though, for the topic at hand more or less, that is a special property of the gaze attack that is modified (probably for balance reasons more than anything else) not a special property of invisibility the spell. The glamer is still not doing it, the gaze attack is merely turning itself off for whatever reason. The invisible state can come from anything and it will still 'turn off'.
I wouldn't say it's for balance really, but is much more just a part of the flavor of a gaze attack folded into the rules. I don't think 'turn off' is a good way to look at it since the condition could in fact be on the target (i.e. blindfolded or blinded) not the gazing creature.
Ultimately, my point still stands that for gaze attacks, the blocking of the perception (visibility in this case) of the creature's eyes foils the attack.
Similarly, since we aren't even given any special rules about sonic attacks--damaging or non-damaging--we can only infer something from how effects impact the attack. With the precedent of
invisibility and gaze attacks, there's nothing preventing
silence from still being a 'true' glamer and preventing a sonic attack from affecting anyone in its area. In this case, the inability to perceive sound shields those in the area from such effects.
In theory, there could be a non-magical condition that mimics the effect of
silence for a individual creature. In reality (and even in the game) that's a pretty hard thing to achieve (which is why it's not something defined, for sure). Deafness or plugging one's ears is not enough to duplicate the full protection from sound that blindness or shutting eye's does for vision.
However, being encased in some high-tech, vibration-absorbing spray foam might do the trick
A vacuum environment would also be useful, but could have other rather negative results for most creatures... But see, now I'm using my own interpretation of sonic attacks to create protection from them. Not usually a good idea. So I'll wander back to the: "gosh darn it--it's magic!" line of reasoning
and sometimes it is down.
