Invisibility & Battlemats

[ericthecleric]

For those who use miniatures and battlemats, how do you handle invisible creatures, whether PCs or opponents? If a DM places a marker to indicate where an inivisible creature is, for example, how do the players not metagame and make a "lucky guess" about where the opponent is or where their ally is?

While I think of it, is it possible to sneak attack an invisible target?

[Craig Shackleton]

I just remember where the invisible creature is. I let the players put counters down on squares where they think or know a creature is, but I don't move them if the creature moves.

That said, I've never had to deal with more than 3 or 4 invisible attackers at a time.

If the PCs are invisible, I leave their miniature there, or put a special counter there. (That way I can metagame and have the monsters make lucky guesses as to where they are ;-))

If I had a big invisible fight, I would mark locations on a small map behind my screen.

[Fatespinner]

I do pretty much the same thing as the previous poster: Just try to remember where they are on the board.

ericthecleric wrote:

While I think of it, is it possible to sneak attack an invisible target?

No, you cannot sneak attack anything that has any degree of concealment (whether obscuring mist, poor lighting, or invisibility), nor can you sneak attack something that has cover.

[lynora]

Well, NPCs may or may not be up (one of the characters has see invisibility), but if my PC goes invisible (again) we just leave the figure on the board and remind the others frequently that they have no idea where she actually is. It takes some effort, but it's not really too much of a distraction.

[Draughtmoore the invoker]

We usualy do the same as the above,message the Dm and the invisible person can pass notes if they wish on what activities the Invisible person is doing, without the rest of the party, knowing its kind of erie that way exspecialy, if its a party of non good characters. Watch your back and sleep with protections on.

[Draughtmoore the invoker]

I use to be with newbie players would try to use invisibility to go ahead of the party, scout and of course they would be a thief or mage/thief and pocket items ahead of us with out telling the group, or they would try this tactic and get wacked, before we could assist them for being greedy.

[Sean Achterman]

This isn't exactly the same situation, but it's related, and I've had this happen. BBEG (well, minion) has a few flunkies he's turned invisible before the fight.

Well, the party fighter tries to charge the BBEG, and intersects one of the minions. How would you handle this mechanically? Presuming that the minion doesn't want to let the fighter through - is it an Overrun attempt? Do they just bounce off each other?

[shamgar]

They would have a few choices I think:
1. Attack of opportunity
2. Avoid
3. Accept the overrun

Unless it was improved invisibility, they would become visible in all but the 2nd choice.

Others probably have better feedback here, but this was my initial reaction.

[Vegepygmy]

ericthecleric wrote:

For those who use miniatures and battlemats, how do you handle invisible creatures, whether PCs or opponents?

I place a marker on the battlemat where the creature went invisible (or was last known to be), and secretly keep track of where the creature is now relative to that square. For example: "3 squares north and 2 squares west of X."

[Joshua Randall]

The transparent boxes that dice come in make great invisibility markers for PCs -- they will fit over a standard miniature (for Medium creatures). Then the other players just have to pretend they don't know where the invisible PC is.

You can also use those dice boxes to indicate flying creatures by putting the mini on top of the box... as long as they stay at about a 10-ft. elevation. :-)

[I’ve Got Reach]

This is an ability (and all of concealment falls into this umbrella) that even a major over-haul of the D&D system couldn't fix with current paper and pencil tools.

The mechanics of concealment would benefit the most from some form of networked D&D game. Each player would see exactly what they are meant to be able to see (i.e. someone with True Seeing could know where the opponent is) on their networked laptop. The same limitation could be applied to the DM if a PC goes invisible.

[ericthecleric]

Thanks, all.
We use wipable 10”-by10” boards in my group’s STAP game. When I DM my sections of STAP, I’ll handle it somewhat like the game “Battleships”. Ie. treat rows as A to J, and columns as 1-10. If a PC is invisible, he writes on pieces of paper where he is and where he moves to, eg. A3 to D4 (and passes them to me on his turn); I’ll do the same as DM. For a large creature, the notation would be slightly different, eg. A1:D2 to E3:F4.

And thanks for answering the other question, FS. That’s what I thought.

[Krome]

we just leave the invisible PCs out there like always and the NPCs are taken off the board. I seriously doubt any of us would metagame the issue much.

A recent example was a battle in which both sides went invisible. No one had any idea where anyone else was. So everyone just stood still and waited for spells to expire.

So the ranger is a bit on the act without thinking side (Player is not, but the character is, whish is great). So in battle he has to roll a Will save 20 to not do whatever first pops into his head. The room was small so he figured along a line there HAD to be someone there. So he shot. Knowing full well it could be a PC (and yes there were 2 PC minis there along that row-but the ranger did not know that). It just so happened that yep I had an NPC there too. He got lucky, sort of. He becomes visible, the NPCs attack him, becoming visible, the PCs attack them, becoming visible, and the waitng game was over.

The best thing was that if there had been no NPC he would have shot his wife! I bet he was already planning on getting pillows for the bed that night. He got lucky.

[KnightErrantJR]

Honestly, the older I get and the more I play D&D the more I think that some things just have to be played by people that want to play. There are tons of things you can metagame, and if you have fun by knowing all of the answers, and it ruins the rest of the party's fun, then its one of those "deal breaker" situations. The longer you play D&D with other D&D fans, the more some metagame knowledge will pop into their heads, but really good players will limit how much they let this affect the game.