Ok you enter a room where there is a cleric of Weejas surrounded by several Large Zombies. The cleric is invisible and you are unaware. (not greater invisibility) After a few rounds of Battle the cleric uses a wand of MASS INFLICT WOUNDS directed and intended to heal his zombie body gaurds- it so happens to catch a PC or two in its effect, Does the cleric become visible. Or was is it considered indirect damage and the cleric keep his invisibility? I need to know by this tuesday around noon. This is what my PC's will be walking into and I want to snuff any arguements from our resident rule lawyer before they happen. Thanks
Fellow DM
Well, the question is kind of moot unless the cleric intends to hurt the party. Mass Inflict spells aren't area effects. They target a number of individual creatures within a certain range relative to the caster and each other. Those targets are up to the cleric's will. So, if the cleric doesn't want to hurt the party and give up invisibility, the cleric doesn't have to. He or she can just sit back and keep healing the zombies.
After a few rounds of Battle the cleric uses a wand of MASS INFLICT WOUNDS directed and intended to heal his zombie body gaurds- it so happens to catch a PC or two in its effect, Does the cleric become visible. Or was is it considered indirect damage and the cleric keep his invisibility?
Saern is right that mass inflict wounds spells are targeted spells, so the cleric CAN'T "accidentally" target his enemies. But even if he COULD, it wouldn't matter:
For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe.
It doesn't matter whether you INTEND to catch a foe in your fireball or not. If there's one in there, you lose your invisibility.
After a few rounds of Battle the cleric uses a wand of MASS INFLICT WOUNDS directed and intended to heal his zombie body gaurds- it so happens to catch a PC or two in its effect, Does the cleric become visible. Or was is it considered indirect damage and the cleric keep his invisibility?Saern is right that mass inflict wounds spells are targeted spells, so the cleric CAN'T "accidentally" target his enemies. But even if he COULD, it wouldn't matter:
For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe.It doesn't matter whether you INTEND to catch a foe in your fireball or not. If there's one in there, you lose your invisibility.
How about if the cleric has the metamagic feat Area Control (found in Ultimate feats)?
Area Control lets you select certain spaces under the area and declare that they are not to be affected.With this feat a wizard can slam a fireball dead center to a melee and declare all his/hers allies not to be affected.
After a few rounds of Battle the cleric uses a wand of MASS INFLICT WOUNDS directed and intended to heal his zombie body gaurds- it so happens to catch a PC or two in its effect, Does the cleric become visible. Or was is it considered indirect damage and the cleric keep his invisibility?Saern is right that mass inflict wounds spells are targeted spells, so the cleric CAN'T "accidentally" target his enemies. But even if he COULD, it wouldn't matter:
For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe.It doesn't matter whether you INTEND to catch a foe in your fireball or not. If there's one in there, you lose your invisibility.How about if the cleric has the metamagic feat Area Control (found in Ultimate feats)?
Area Control lets you select certain spaces under the area and declare that they are not to be affected.With this feat a wizard can slam a fireball dead center to a melee and declare all his/hers allies not to be affected.
Well... assuming you use the feat to declare enemy targets unaffected then you would stay invisible. But that seems to negate the usefulness of casting a spell.
Well... assuming you use the feat to declare enemy targets unaffected then you would stay invisible. But that seems to negate the usefulness of casting a spell.
Negate the usefulness of casting a spell?
... After a few rounds of Battle the cleric uses a wand of MASS INFLICT WOUNDS ...
Uups, just realized my given mis-information. My bad. Sorry.
The metamagic feats can´t be used to alter a spell being cast from a scroll, wand or other device.If your cleric casts mass inflict wounds as a spell and had this feat, then he would be able to target just his zombies and stay invisible.
Apologia.
Well... assuming you use the feat to declare enemy targets unaffected then you would stay invisible. But that seems to negate the usefulness of casting a spell.Negate the usefulness of casting a spell?
Well, yes... if you cast fireball, but shaped it so that you didn't burn anyone so that you could stay invisible... why cast the spell?
EDIT- Now it's my turn for apologies. When you talked about using the fireball, you were talking about not hitting allies, which is indeed a valid comment. However, since you posted earlier about using the feat to maintain invisibility, and that's what the thread was about, it looks like we became confused and were talking about using fireball on foes and trying not to break invisibility.
I think this is a matter of letter of the law versus the intent of the law.
The intent of Invisibility's clause which makes attacks drop the spell is to prevent the spell from being overly powerful, and to give you an advantage without letting it get out of hand. It prevents trouble from attacking form invisibility with this low level spell.
Thus, if the spell is used in a way to attack/hinder foes, I would rule they drop their invisibility. However, if the person is using it to help their minions, I don't think it would drop; and area effect encompassing foes, though, would drop it.
Guess I'll just have to use greater invisibility.
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Guess I'll just have to use greater invisibility.
No you wouldn't. Mass Inflict spells are TARGETTED. They can simply affect multiple targets. This is different than an area effect spell. Fireball hits EVERYTHING in a 20-foot radius, friend or foe. Mass Inflict lets you CHOOSE the targets within a given radius, so if your cleric only wanted to heal the zombies, that's all he does. No damage to the PCs in the area and no breaking invisibility. Now, if he WANTS to target some of the PCs to harm them, then yes, his invisibility is broken, but he doesn't HAVE to include all the creatures in the spell's radius if he doesn't want to.
Also, generally speaking, it seems somewhat unecessary, and perhaps even malicious, to me to use greater invisibility just as a means pre-empt the party possibly overcoming the DMs plot. If it makes sense for a villain to have greater invisibility, go for it. However, the fact that you were first thinking of invisibility makes me think that the party is a little lower than the point where spellcasters all start using the greater version of the spell.
Go with the lower version. Your tactic doesn't compromise its nature, and even if it does, tough. The NPCs should have to deal with limitations just like the party does. Sometimes it's okay to have a BBEG who is near impervious to everything, but these should be exceedingly rare. Otherwise it just feels like the DM is powergaming to overcome the party, which generally leads to a bad game, even if that wasn't the DMs (conscious) intent.