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Pclark if 3rd level characters are blowing the type of money on potions what type of permanent gear did they have at 3rd level. By that level I expect one magic weapon, but not if you are blowing 750 on potions, and that is about the time shadows come into play.
They are also my main reason for getting a magic weapon as quickly as possible.

They didn't. They came across a few masterworks, but not much that was magical. I think they had a wand of burning hands, maybe a ring of protection. They were fighting mostly terrestrials (humanoids, animals, magical beasts) and still mopping the floor with them anyway.

I've seen plenty of neighborhoods in Los Angeles with bars on every door and window.

I'm talking about city walls, perimeter defenses. The buildings themselves, yeah I've got you, iron bars. But the transit from the outer wall to the Widget Storeroom, just nullified.

Imagine you're a player character in your world. How would you build your stronghold? What methods would you use to protect yourself and your plans from the spell combinations you're seeing? Most of the time, very simple countermeasures suggest themselves. If you really can't think of anything, then ask why the bad guys aren't using these same combinations against the PCs. If your players are anything like the groups I've gamed with, all you have to do is hit them with an invisible flying wizard while they're camped and they'll show you exactly how to deal with that threat. Then have their enemies start to do the same thing. If it's something obvious, employ it right away. If they came up with something really clever, let them have an advantage for a little while before their enemies realize what's going on and start copying them.

Take for example a bandit camp, something that is inevitably out in the open terrain. Its typical defenses would be setup to deter a retaliatory martial force and so it would most likely have wooden barricades, a gate, and a couple watch standers patrolling the perimeter. Since its a bandit camp, implying multiple bandits, such a quest would be solidly in the 3-5 range even just using the 1/2 CR Warrior NPCs.

As has been noted level 4-5 PCs are bordering on the superhuman and any such magic they would have would be more the stuff of legend. So even if they believed such an assault could take place its doubtful they would have the resources to stop it.

They would, at best, have an Alarm spell on the storeroom door. But thats not the part I'm worried about. Once they get indoors, I've got it covered. But now instead of having to fight, sneak, or guile their way into the camp and past the guards, they've skipped right to the finish line.

We can replace this scenario with any kind of outdoor terrain. A city wall. A nymphs glade. A hag's marsh. A ship. A mountain top. Things that would all have trials and tribulations associated with them, but not with the invisi/fly combo.

If you can think of any such scenes where it wouldn't work without resorting to "there's a magic there just because". Then I'm willing to listen. That's actually what I'm here for.

They haven't invented the iron bar in your world? A couple of those across the windows should keep invisible flying wizards out quite nicely. Or just make the windows smaller. If you know that it's possible for people to become invisible and fly, why would you put big open windows in your tower?

Some quests and adventures take place in cityscapes, wilderness, or other wide open areas. I have yet to see an entire city or encampment that is completely enclosed in iron bars nor can I justify making one.

If you're suggesting that quest lines involving these kinds of terrain should cease to exist past level 3, well then I see a severely limiting flaw in the game's design.

Interesting article Foot. I do have the expectation of a smoother progression than what occurs. What I gather from the article is you can't have a campaign where the players progress from 1-20. Each phase has to have its own specific mindset. So 1 whole campaign would be between level 1-5 and it would have the more human challenges. 5-10 you design a campaign for super heroes fighting super villains and all of the human challenges are removed. 10-15 is what? Extraplanar where they aren't even dealing with the problems of the material world anymore, and 15+ they're practically fighting gods and cosmic beings? Its hard for me to wrap my head around because every frame of reference I have seems to be between 1-10.

Interesting coincidence that that article made the same comparison of the Olympic long jump that I did.

I have had the same problems in the past. Nowadays, most gamers like the power and care little for the mystery. It is typically easy to fix these issues for those of us that care about story over building a character. Here is what I did.

Situation 1 = change ingredients for creating any magic item. I have done this with one simple item. The PCs need to find a magical ether to create an item. A certain number of applications are required to create such items and are used up in the creation process. I have not named it yet, but I will eventually find something fitting. Also, this ether is naturally occurring and is unpredictable. A rare and expensive unguent.

Situation 2 = Another rather simple change. I moved Detect Magic back to a first level spell. I absolutely agree with you that it is too powerful. And with the lack of ether, PCs cannot make 30 wands of this item nor do they ever find full wands of the spell itself in the treasures they discover.

Irrie.

That is about where I am with some things. Making pretty extensive overhauls.

Make Save or Die spells/abilites only have full effect on creatures of <= HD than you giving boss monsters a sort of plot armor.

Move a number of spells around, ie fly and invisibility to 6th level, to match their power. Make other require elaborate setups, rituals, or expensive components. For example teleport would require the construction of runed gates or circles at both the starting and destination points. Some may not even be available to the players at all and simply be plot magic.

I've got a couple interesting skill modifications in mind as well.

Basically I'm just going to make my own game system, with blackjack, and hookers. In fact for forget the game system. And the blackjack. Bah, forget the whole thing.

Yes, but if there was a 5% chance every six seconds of falling, he'd be dead the first time he ever tried to walk the tightrope. A good acrobat is fine up right until there's a distraction, at which point there is a chance of failure.

Distractions aren't always external forces. Many distractions are internal. Your mind just not being on the task at hand. Fear and anxiety are the most common internal distractions, but as you mention a good acrobat or performer keeps these under control. This is represented by his skill ranks.

Boredom is another common distraction. You've done something so much that it becomes routine and your mind begins to wander. It may not apply to the acrobat or performer, so much, but as someone who has had to stand military watches, it sure as heck applies to perception. It also applies pretty well to craft or profession checks. How many job related accidents are caused simply because someone wasn't paying attention?

From the player viewpoint, saying "I take 10" doesn't take away all tension unless the player knows the DC.

They dont really have to know, they can just reasonably assume.

At what level can you reliably convince a target without sense motive of a reasonable lie without having to worry about it? Or the reverse sense the motive of someone without a bluff skill?

Most appropriate CR level creatures can be Intimidated into spilling their guts on a Take 10. Not even factoring in a Take 20

Same goes for traps, stealth, and perception checks.

Some skills like, swim, ride, climb, and acrobatics have static DCs. I have X ranks in acrobatics so I know I'll make this jump between these buildings.

A level 1 player with acrobatics class skill and +1 Dex can Take 10 to balance on anything wider than a tight rope or long jump 15 feet. For scale the 12th place performance in 2012 Olympics was 25 feet. First place was 27 feet. The lowest ranked performance was 21 feet. And these are the best people in the world. This means that a level 1 character with just 1 rank and +1 dex can match the performance of an Olympian. If they have a 4 or 5 Dex, then they can feasibly come in first place. At level 1.

Honestly I dont care if they skip things/eccounters. The only thing I care about are things vital to the campaign, and it is almost impossible to skip those. If they bypass some monsters I give them XP for finding a work around. Most of the other encounters are just me taking monster X from a book. I only put real work into the important NPC's. That keeps me from getting annoyed about wasting time if random monster X was killed easily or bypassed. At the same time it avoids "punishing" them for being smart.

This is somewhat true. That is why I said before that at higher levels it is much harder to stop them.

As an example you can have a murder mystery at low levels. At level 10 they have access to divination spells, and they are more likley to be able to outstrip NPC's in opposed skill checks. They might solve the crime without talking to anyone depending on the situation.
And the action hero likely does not go past level 7. At level 7 they are breaking world records. 8th level they are transitioning into something not really human, and by 11 they are legendary. I think the legend lore spell says someone has to be level 11 before the spell works on them.

Most of the work I've put in goes into the situation, drawing the castle map, thinking of the little clues to point them in the right direction, placement of challenges and rewards, things like that. Which is why bypassing them is so frustrating for me. But it seems I will have to adjust.

The second part of your quote is particularly disturbing in that it basically says that situation becomes irrelevant by level 7 and it mostly just boils down to what kind of powerful creature the party is fighting in the end. No more mysteries, no more sneaking into the thieves guild, no more minotaurs labyrinth. Just go here, kill X where X is a progressively harder and harder monster.

No. That chart is there for the pinpoint DC, not the "notice DC".

The DC is a flat 20 to notice it within 30 feet. To pinpoint(find the square) is a 20 +/- modifiers. The +40 is when they do nothing but hide.
Example I am moving withing 30 feet, and I am exactly 20 feet away. Let's say I roll a 20 before the invis modifier. The DC to notice me is a 20.
The DC to find out where I am is a 42--> 20 from invis, 20 total stealth mod before invis, +2 for being 20 feet away.

So the notice DC is flat 20 no matter what? He could be hiding behind a crate, standing in the middle of the room, or running around screaming bloody murder, its still 20? Sounds odd but ok.

I am no acrobat, and I don't like heights so I am not doing any of this, but I have heard of people do these types of stunts. Evil Kanevial used to do similar things routinely so if I was that skill I doubt I would be nervous. Falling off of te Empire State building, and doing a no net wire walk can both kill you. After you get over 20 feet high the chance of death is about the same. You just need the nerves to do it or you should not be doing the act.

See this guy
Now he eventually died from a fall, but he did it on a routine basis.
Here is a list of others. One guy tight rope walked between two hot air balloons while they were in flight.

The guy that fell I think is the perfect illustration that no matter how good you are, how confident you are, failure is always possible. Eval Kenevial failed a lot, even on things he'd done before, and is noted as having broken every single bone in his body. And thats what makes daredevils interesting. We watch them because some part of us expects them to fail. If we KNOW that they're going to make the jump, how interesting is it really?

Thank you Wraith, you've given me a lot of ideas and things to think about.

One of the primary takeaways I got from your design of the quest is not to invest too much time into the ruins themselves. Using primarily random encounters instead of planned events reduces the workload on me as a GM and then if they skip it by flying over it, then there isn't really much love lost on my end.

The second takeaway I came up with was to make it so that they don't want to skip straight to the end. In the ruins I should possibly put clues or some other helpful, but not necessary, little tidbits. Maybe a map of the castle or a royal sigil that allows them to bypass, or even command some of the undead spirits. Similarly if the Key is in a spire and they just fly up and take it they've missed out on all of the loot and XP from climbing the tower. Sort of way of "punishing" them for taking the easy way without resorting to "rocks fall take damage"

Lulling them into a false sense of security, increasing the Creature Levels, or combining traps and monsters for some reason never really occurred to me. I mean I'd used the Advanced Template, but I've never Given anything 2-3 levels higher, I've always just used different creatures. Not quite sure how they'll take it when a creature they were killing with ease is now suddenly beating the crap out of them, but the rules are perfectly legit. With monsters in the room I certainly wouldn't let them Take 10 to notice a trap let alone disarm it.

One point I do disagree is the importance of traps. To me they justify the rogue class so they do need to be around. They don't need to be all over the place but the do need to have enough impact to where if you don't have a rogue you'd wish you did, and if you do you're very thankful for it. Trap DCs and Skills are still a little tricky, but I suppose those can be adjusted on the fly. It might be a little cheap to adjust the DC to be just past Take 10 no matter what it is, but I don't see any other alternatives. He'll just have to invest in some masterwork lockpicks, or use the Bard's Inspire Competence, or some other buff to bring it into auto-pass range.

I think ultimately my problem with creating quests has been that I've been trying to make each and every one of them into their own little mini-plot. And being plot focused it becomes important that on the players' journey from point A-Z they hit every other plot point in between so the story can unfold. Instead I may have to adjust to view quests as more hack and slash kinds of events that drive the story forward but are not in and of themselves a story.

Another question on the topic of Take 10. As a community how would you generally perceive a house rule that you can not be always Taking 10 for perception instead opting for the GM taking secret rolls for your perception whenever it becomes relevant. You can still Take 10 if you choose, but on things that would be more akin to a Search roll than say a Spot/Listen. In short, you can't Take 10 walking down a corridor, but you can to search a door for traps or a pile of crates for loot.

But to be honest, after level 6, Pathfinder becomes a superhero game. The characters are X-men. Make the challenges in such a way that you can't think of how they could be beaten, then watch them do it anyway.

This may be the crux of the problem with my entire viewpoint. I tend to see the progression as follows.

Because of this I think I have different expectations of what players should be able to do at given levels.

The same argument could be made for a swim check, acrobatics, and using stealth but they use taking 10. That is why I don't see the trap as immediate danger. It is a possible danger. It is not imminent until you KNOW you know the danger is coming.

Basically potential danger is not danger, and that is what failing a to disarm a trap or failing a stealth check are. Now, taking 20 which means failure leads to bad results could not be used.

I wouldn't be so fast to say that. Take a plank of wood, set it on the floor, and stand on it. Piece of cake right? You could do it all day. Take that same plank and place it between two 8 story buildings and see how quickly your knees start to shake and how much concentration you have to use to keep your balance.

The mere potential of danger, it doesn't even have to be lethal you could put it between two step ladders, adds pressure and changes your reaction.

Its an interesting experiment to try if you haven't (I have done similar) and I think justifies a lack of a Take 10.

Again, great information I'm getting here guys. I will be putting it to the best use I can once I get my next turn as GM.

Back on the topic of invisibility I looked at the glossary (thanks again Wraith) but I'm having a little trouble discerning it.

The base DC to notice an invisible creature is 20 when its not moving. The various modifiers apply to this base 20 so an invisible moving at full speed would have a DC 10 to notice. The +40 stealth bonus only comes into play if the creature is actively hiding, not just standing in the open.

Now would a character moving at half speed during stealth have the -5 penalty (leading ultimately to only a +15)? And would one with fast stealth take the -10?

Pinpointing a stationary invisible has a base DC 40 (20 to notice plus the other 20 mentioned to pinpoint). While pinpointing an invisible moving full speed would have a DC 30. If it is in combat it has a DC of only 20 to pinpoint.

Regardless if its pinpointed it has still has a 50% miss chance.

Do I have this correct?

Wraith, thanks for being patient your responses are helpful and insightful. I hope I'm not coming across as too whiny here, I'm just trying to figure out how the system balances itself when we keep running into these seemingly game breaking problems. I'm asking for myself and the other GMs as we rotate through.

I know I may not sound it, but I am an experienced player having cut my teeth on 2nd Ed and playing 3rd and 3.5. Admittedly I was a lot younger then and didn't really grasp the concepts of min/max. But PC gaming introduced me to the mentality and I can't help but see it anymore. This most recent foray is my first time back after about 7-8 years.

You do know the see invis, glitterdust, and faerie fire also availible at this level.

Yes I do. But I don't typically see these as something a typical giant warband, undead horde, or monster clutch is going to have access to. Even a spell caster isn't necessarily going to have these prepared and ready unless they are expecting an attack from another magical force that happens to use invisibility.

From the point of the characters any unneeded risk might kill them. As an example, if I am an real life assassin it is safer for me sneak up to the enemy leader and slit his throat than fight might way through all of his minions, even if the fight scene would be cinematic.

I understand this and I don't get mad at the players for doing it. I do the same thing. Players are always going to take the easiest and least risky approach. The tricky part is finding the balance between the pragmatic and the cinematic.

Following the Average Player Wealth guide lines the potions aren't a bad investment. At level 3 they're expensive, but 1500 GP to skip the entire dungeon isn't a bad deal. At 4th level crafting its 750 for the pair at lowest level which is a steal. After that its trivial. I tried short changing my players a bit when I was GMing, but once they noticed their wealth per level discrepancy they started getting upset.

What section did you get the flat 20 DC to notice an invisible creature from? It's not in the spell description itself which is probably why I never noticed it before. That being said its not really very hard for the players to fly more than 20 ft above or around the guards in an outdoor setting.

Maybe it would help if I gave a setting and you could help me figure out how to deal with it.

Quest level 4-6
Time Limit: None
Players have to retrieve the magical Widget from the castle in the ruined city of Blah. The widget is rumored to be located in a secret chamber beneath throne room. The ruins are inhabited primarily by magical beasts with the occasional outsider. The castle itself is guarded by undead, those who swore their body and soul to defend it.

As a GM I would be expecting a significant portion of the quest to occur as the transit through the ruins themselves. Once inside the castle they would have to fight through the undead and a few traps (both magical and mundane), to locate the throne room. Once there the entrance is magically hidden and sealed requiring thorough searches and/or some puzzle solving to to discover. The entrance requires a special Key that is in some other part of the castle. The key can be found through various clues pointing the way to either a dungeon or a tower depending on my mood.

Its a pretty standard scenario, but cliche as it might be could provide for some good times

What would you do as a player to have maximum effectiveness and least risk?

What would you do as a GM to prevent bypassing the challenges presented without stifling the character's abilities?

I think the disconnect here is that you want everything you put up to challenge(be somewhat difficult to) the players, but not the game is not designed like that.

Thats probably it. I do expect a certain degree of difficulty for things I draw up and put thought into. Random encounters I don't care so much, but overall I don't think the world should be the PCs playground. At the end of a good quest I think the players should be out of resources and almost dead.

Pathfinder got rid of the balance skill from 3.5, utterly destroying balance in the game!

I laughed

I'm not complaining so much about the fact that it makes them invisible, I understand its purpose. But more about the fact that the combo is incredibly easy, very low level, and pigeonholes the GM. That's actually kind of the point of all of the things that I'm bringing up. Balancing.

I get that a character is an ace, but if something is trivial, why include it in the first place. Why put in a trap if there is 0% chance that it will actually hit the party? Why have a creature stalk the party if there is 0% chance that it will be undetected. Reverse that and say why would you include a scenario where the party can/should/have to sneak through an area when there is 0% chance that everyone in the party could actually succeed (but this is where Invisibility is SUPPOSED to come into play)

Alarm is not an adequate defense as it only protects a 20ft radius. Sure you could protect the one point where the target is located, but they can still fly over the city walls, past all the guards, up to the top of the castle negating everything between the edge of the city and the target.

Perhaps you're right and maybe I've outgrown the D20 system and desire something a bit more nuanced. I came to the forums to see if maybe there were ways beyond GM hand waving that I just wasn't seeing before coming to that conclusion. I am certainly open to suggestions if you have any particular systems in mind.

Thanks for the responses. These have been ongoing issues for our group and we've been rotating GMs (myself included) so its not just one of us. Different situations are popping up in every situation, and without an encyclopedic knowledge of the game its impossible to plan for these contingencies.

The answer unfortunately I think I'm getting from you guys seems to mostly be "Say no" and think of a reason later or punish them for using their abilities.

As far as our attitude goes, group doesn't really play as if its Vs game. The GM typically wants the players to succeed just as much if not more than the players themselves. The players just tend to do things that, given their knowledge and abilities, they would logically do. No one is specifically trying to break a quest, it just seems really easy to do. With dramatic effect as a goal, if I've put in a good deal of thought and work trying to make an interesting experience it takes the wind out of my sails when its circumvented with such ease. The game seems to lend itself, at least by raw, to eliminating dramatic effect.

To answer questions

The invisibility/fly combo was happening as low as level 3 since the potions only cost 750 a pop its very doable. By level 4 the sorcerer was able to make his own. That means that from now on all quests have to be underground to prevent the fly in fly out tactic. Or they have to have some sort of magic field that negates either effect.

As far as the invisibility bonus itself, its not just 20 its +20. Meaning that a character with 0 Stealth taking 10 (I wouldn't let him, but thats the halfway point) gets a roll of 30. In order for a wall guard to to have a 50% chance of spotting them they have to have a perception score of 20. The pre-generated NPCs at level 6 and 7 have Perceptions of +10 meaning only a 5% chance to spot, and thats assuming the player flies close by and its broad daylight.

Detect Magic and Taking 10 do take "extra time", but not from the players perspective. Thats what makes them damaging in my opinion at least having to declare or roll a die gets annoying and they stop doing it leaving them vulnerable. Sure you can have time sensitivity in game but how meticulous and draining would that be. I like and use the idea of you have X number of days to complete the quest or the princess dies or if you sleep in the dungeon the bad stuff happens. But for these abilities you would literally have to keep track of the seconds of the day. Or arbitrarily declare that too much time is being taken.

Detect magic can be circumvented By X thickness of Y but that's not always a viable option. Most chests or doors with magic traps aren't 3 feet thick. Magic items aren't often going to be in a lead box. Many dungeons aren't constructed by epic level wizards such as a dragon's lair, a giant's castle, or a city sewer. And many permanent effects such as The Endless Corridor (which has a soft spot in my heart) are just completely out in the open and I haven't been able to find anything that masks the presence of a magic aura. While a GM could say that detect magic doesn't work for one reason or another, that's little more than just saying "no".

The problem with skill bloat is its polarizing nature. You end up with only two possibilities. Either a) The unmaxed characters will have chance at succeeding and the maxed character will succeed 100% of the time, or or b) the Maxed character has a chance of failure and the unmaxed characters have no chance of success. I find it hard to have a middle ground in there where the Maxed character will have say an 80% chance of success and the unmaxed may only have a 25-30%. That is to say theyre better, but not perfect. This isn't as terribly important in skills that are used individually, such as ride, swim, craft, but skills that are used as a party where only one has to succeed, perception, spellcraft, survival, sense motive, diplomacy, bluff etc, it creates problems. Stealth and perception, to me, tend to be the two biggest culprits of the all or nothing scenario.

I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one that sees these kinds of problems but so far the responses suggest otherwise.

I would really like to sit down at some of your tables to see how you deal with all of these things.

Maybe derailing slightly but still on the topic of mounted combat.

How do you make it practical and worthwhile for non-mount centered classes like the cavalier or paladin.

Unless your mount levels with you (which I've seen nothing stating that it does) it is going to be consistently destroyed by anything you fight past 3rd or 4th level.

There is of course the mounted combat feat, but that only does so much. Sure you can glance off blows, but one or two effective hits would probably kill it it.

Before I get stoned to death I want to be clear that my intent is not to discuss balancing between classes. Looking through the forums, that topic seems like its been beaten to death, resurrected, and beaten again until its Con stat is 0. Instead, I'm more concerned with balancing problems from the GM perspective and how to deal with them.

Instant Win - This is primarily a problem with magic and casting classes. While Save or Die spells are particularly problematic, I'm more concerned about the situations outside of combat.

Situation 1 - Party with a caster that has Invisibility, Fly and Brew Potion. These three, rather low level (below 10) abilities allow the party to completely negate the defense of any bandit camp, perimeter wall, or towering spire that isn't deliberately tailored to combat these abilities. Why fight your way through the castle when you can just fly up to the tower where the princess is imprisoned, grab her, and fly away?

Situation 2 - Detect Magic. As it says, detects magic. Consistently, quickly, for free and without fail. A player that says he's always detecting magic effectively neuters any magical traps, effects, and auras and finds any and all magic items. Making the player constantly say hes detecting magic quickly becomes cumbersome. When I GMed I ruled that the players still had to roll perception to find things, but this did not go well with the players.

Situation 3 (happened last session) - Introduced a 10th level druid to the party before entering a typical cavernous dungeon. Druid uses wild shape to turn into an earth elemental with Earth Glide for 10 hours. Theoretically we could have had him scout the entire dungeon and map the most direct path to the big bad with a hand wave. Realizing this was cheap we instead just decided to have him scout what was on the other side of a door before we bothered to disarm traps and go in (still cheap). This still resulted in great frustration for the GM and a cancellation of the session so the dungeon could be reworked.

Take 10 - This rule creates success rates of <=45% or 100%. Because of its stifling maximize or die nature I don't use it as a player and when I GMed I ruled they couldn't either. Another unpopular house rule on my part.

Skill Bloat - This is what I call the basic maximizing of a skill. Just by placing 1 point in a skill every level you inflate the DCs rapidly beyond practical levels. At level 1 with 1 rank and a +3 modifier the DC for detecting a trap has to be 18 to avoid the Take 10 and have any possible chance of failure. While this may not seem bad for the maximized character (note +3 mod isn't even maximized), A character with a 0 modifier has only a 30% chance of success. An untrained character has a 25% chance. As levels progress this quickly escalates (by level 4 or 5) to the point where one of 2 things happens. Either the maximized character has no chance of failure, or the untrained/unmaxed character has no chance of success This isn't even factoring in magic items or feats/traits and don't even get me started on opposed roles like bluff/sense motive or stealth(which you dont even need with invisibility)/perception.

Protecting the Big Bad - This problem has come up a couple times where the big bad, built as a PC class using the game rules, is incredibly vulnerable to Save or Die, or just damage in general.

Situation 1 - I was playing a a Sea Singer Bard/Duelist whose back story was based on the song The Mariner's Revenge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0CR1IJKMPo). It comes time for me to face my nemesis and my party members have inadvertently bypassed all of the mooks that were supposed to keep them busy while I had my duel. Right out of the gate the cleric casts Hold Person and succeeds reducing what was supposed to be the dramatic climax of my character's storyline to a one hit kill. Even if the GM had fudged the roll, the Barbarian would have hacked him to death in 2 rounds. The GM could have denied them access to the fight entirely, through one way or another but..

Situation 2 - Similar scenario where another player is about to face their nemesis. My character is Feared and therefore out of the fight, but the invisible Ninja/Assassin was outside of the cone. He takes his 3 turns to study the target and attempts his Death Attack. The attack would have succeeded but GM said "no". The GM says no to any of his other abilities that would have essentially just stopped the fight or made it less dramatic as well (though he can still attack and do backstab damage). The fight turns out epic with the two of them fighting in a ring of fire completely by accident, but the Assassin is so upset by the fact he couldn't use his abilities he ditches the character entirely to become the aforementioned druid.

There are more issues that I've come across in just my short time of playing (2 campaigns + 1 GM session), but I think I've gone on long enough.

So I guess the question is, how does a 'good' GM deal with these kinds of issues without resorting to a lot of house rules, arbitrarily saying "no", or deliberately tailoring every instance in the game to counter these kinds of abilities? While the third option is just cheap in my opinion the first two are particularly troublesome. Since the player aren't actually abusing the rules telling them they can't use one of their abilities seems to be upsetting to players, even when it is agreed upon that story trumps rules.

Thanks for the feedback

The distinction between a touch spell (friendly) and touch attack (hostile) are kind of where I'm having trouble.

From touch spells in combat
You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll

This wording makes it sound, much like the grapple, a touch spell against a friend is still a touch attack, but one that automatically succeeds with no roll.

Another question is if the target, my friend, were invisible or in an obscuring mist or in total darkness or I'm blind, would he get the concealment miss % if I tried to heal him?

These are the questions that led me to the conclusion that it is the contact rather the intent of the action that breaks the spell.

Could you please point me to the section the differentiates more clearly the difference between a touch spell (friendly) and a touch attack (hostile)?

I would appreciate it greatly. Thank you.

On a side note
As far as targeting is concerned, hitting a foe with an AoE also breaks it. So no targeting required. I suppose it could be interpreted that with a targeting spell (ie Magic Missile) that the original target was a foe causing the spell to break, but what about a fireball? If you flub the fireball to the point where it only hits allies and no enemies would it break invisibility? The intent was clearly hostile, but it did't hit any enemies. Tricky.

Hello all

New to the boards and a new Pathfinder GM. As such there are various GM rulings I have had to make that have been somewhat unpopular with my players.

Last session I had a situation involving the Invisibility spell (a major thorn in my side as it is). All the PCs were invisible, the Fighter wanted to grab the Rogue and throw him over a wall.

I ruled that this action would break invisibility due to
1) Grabbing/Grapple is an attack action
2) Invisibility states The spell ends if the subject attacks any creature and does not specify friend or foe.

I am interpreting that an attack action is an attack action, even if the character allows. It doesn't change the basic nature of the action it just makes the difficulty 0.

For "in game" purposes I explain that it isn't so much the intent of the action (because how can the spell really know) that causes the break but rather the fact that the spell energy comes into contact with another living creature. The spell energy clings to missiles and spells cast from the invisible character making those break the effect on contact as well.

This interpretation has some wide reaching implications as the spell would break under the following
1) Friendly touch spells, such as Cure
2) Hitting a Friend with a "hostile" spell through either a flubbed UMD, Spell failure, or a charmed/dominated enemy.
3) Physically helping any character, pulling up a ledge, pushing out of the way of a trap, or even just holding on to someone to keep from getting separated

Its hard to reconcile the "Spells such as bless that specifically affect allies but not foes are not attacks for this purpose, even when they include foes in their area" clause of the spell using this though.

So I guess the question is, am I terribly off base with this interpretation?

Further reading

This interpretation helps me, as a DM, cope with invisibility a lot easier. Invisibility is a powerful spell that circumvents pretty much any non-magical lookout and allows easy escape from combat. Its even more powerful when you have a Sorcerer with Brew Potion in the party.

An example that happened later in the same session. Instead of the party all being to go invisible and fly into the enemy compound, rescue the Damsel in Distress and fly out again without being seen, they flew her out of the compound and were spotted allowing for further story line and interaction.

I also think it increases the power and effectiveness of Greater Invisibility by reducing the effect of regular Invisibility.

Thoughts?