real simple if you make Attack Roll or cause some one else to make a save, or taget some one with a effect that dose abilty or hit point damage or cause them to get a condition modifer then the invisibility is over.
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real simple if you make Attack Roll or cause some one else to make a save, or taget some one with a effect that dose abilty or hit point damage or cause them to get a condition modifer then the invisibility is over.
but once again, cutting a rope holding a bridge up (forcing a reflex save) is listed in the spell as something that does NOT end invisibility
I can't speak for Foghammer, but I've certainly put a lot of thought into it. Just because your interpretation might be different doesn't necessarily mean we have somehow put less thought to it than you and others have.This is really not such a difficult thing to understand. I think some people disagree just to play the Devil's Advocate. Adversity is nice, but in this instance, it's silly. The rules are clear enough IMO.And my response would be that it's clear to you only because you haven't truly thought it through. YMMV.I was responding to accusations of playing devil's advocate -- which I am not -- especially because it carries the implication that the only reason to disagree is to be deliberately contrary!
As for thinking things through, foghammer gives this example: "He is not casting offensive spells, swinging a melee weapon, firing a ranged weapon, or any other such action. He's just pushing a big, carved rock." So "pushing a big, carved rock" isn't an attack. What, then, does a trebuchet do? Is it the use of a tool that makes the difference? If so, would using a stick as a lever to send the rock over the side change things? If not, why not?
No offense, but its difficult to reconcile asserting that these distinctions are easy to draw with even a rudimentary understanding of classic mechanics (which, as a business major, is all I possess).
*bump*
I'm sorry, but since this is "not such a difficult thing to understand," I'd really like an answer.
real simple if you make Attack Roll or cause some one else to make a save, or taget some one with a effect that dose abilty or hit point damage or cause them to get a condition modifer then the invisibility is over.
For the fourth time this thread:
This is false; the spell explicitly allows all of those things in specific circumstances.
real simple if you make Attack Roll or cause some one else to make a save, or taget some one with a effect that dose abilty or hit point damage or cause them to get a condition modifer then the invisibility is over.For the fourth time this thread:
This is false; the spell explicitly allows all of those things in specific circumstances.
But the spell reads like you need some kind of a third party to remain invisible. In this case, the definition of "third party" is a bit blurry.
Otherwise Zurai's right, the invisibility spell does allow opponent to be damaged or the target of a condition "indirectly" by RAW.
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Okay all the rules details aside...this really bugs me. The imp basically does it and RD is fine with his ruling enough to not come and ask for clarification, despite player protest. Then a player pulls the same trick using his ruling and he comes to clarify now? Am I the only one who thinks that RD made a rules call that he kept despite player protest and so the player should be able to use that rules to their advantage?
There is zero mechanical difference between pressing a button to fire a trebuchet at someone, and say, pressing a button that triggers a deadfall. Both involve projectives propelled by kinetic energy; in both cases, this energy was converted from potential energy* (the trebuchet, though a lever, fires in a parabolic arc -- at the end of which, the projectile is falling). Yet it is apparently "obvious" why the former breaks invisibility, but the latter does not. Can anyone provide an objective, physics-based explanation why? If not, I'll stick with the simpliest explanation -- that those who claim the difference is obvious don't know high-school level physics, or simply haven't thought it through.
As for the spell description: I understand what the spell explicitly states, and I repeat: The description is not well thought out. In fact, it's downright self-contradictory.
* Any physics majors on here please feel free to set me straight.
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There is zero mechanical difference between pressing a button to fire a trebuchet at someone, and say, pressing a button that triggers a deadfall. Both involve projectives propelled by kinetic energy; in both cases, this energy was converted from potential energy* (the trebuchet, though a lever, fires in a parabolic arc -- at the end of which, the projectile is falling). Yet it is apparently "obvious" why the former breaks invisibility, but the latter does not. Can anyone provide an objective, physics-based explanation why? If not, I'll stick with the simpliest explanation -- that those who claim the difference is obvious don't know high-school level physics, or simply haven't thought it through.
As for the spell description: I understand what the spell explicitly states, and I repeat: The description is not well thought out. In fact, it's downright self-contradictory.
* Any physics majors on here please feel free to set me straight.
But it's not PHYSICS...it's MAGIC.
But it's not PHYSICS...it's MAGIC.
Please tell me that was tongue-in-cheek. ;)
There is zero mechanical difference between pressing a button to fire a trebuchet at someone, and say, pressing a button that triggers a deadfall. Both involve projectives propelled by kinetic energy; in both cases, this energy was converted from potential energy* (the trebuchet, though a lever, fires in a parabolic arc -- at the end of which, the projectile is falling). Yet it is apparently "obvious" why the former breaks invisibility, but the latter does not. Can anyone provide an objective, physics-based explanation why? If not, I'll stick with the simpliest explanation -- that those who claim the difference is obvious don't know high-school level physics, or simply haven't thought it through.
As for the spell description: I understand what the spell explicitly states, and I repeat: The description is not well thought out. In fact, it's downright self-contradictory.
* Any physics majors on here please feel free to set me straight.
Physics is a house rule. It does not apply in any shape, manner, or form to Pathfinder.
Physics is a house rule. It does not apply in any shape, manner, or form to Pathfinder.
Answers like this (if serious) scare me. "Physics is a house rule?" Really? If we can't assume physics generally work normally, then how do people walk? Eat? Breathe? Or do you have house rules for those things? :P
You're either kidding (in which case, I apologize for being oblivious), or a complete scientific illterate.
OK, if physics works in Pathfinder exactly as it does in the real world, please explain to me how giant vermin exist. Or how fire can be conjured in a vacuum. Or how lightning bolts can be created underwater. Or how dragons can fly. Or how portals to other planes work. Or how falling damage is linear with distance and has no relationship to mass or shape.
I won't hold my breath.
EDIT: Actually, it's funny. If we use physics as they function in the real world, then giant vermin cannot breathe. Literally can't.
OK, if physics works in Pathfinder exactly as it does in the real world, please explain to me how giant vermin exist. Or how fire can be conjured in a vacuum. Or how lightning bolts can be created underwater. Or how dragons can fly. Or how portals to other planes work. Or how falling damage is linear with distance and has no relationship to mass or shape.
I won't hold my breath.
EDIT: Actually, it's funny. If we use physics as they function in the real world, then giant vermin cannot breathe. Literally can't.
Why would I want to do that? I never claimed physics work "exactly is it[sic] does in the real world." Only that they mostly do. If you think through the position "the physics are just different," you'll reach the conclusion that 99.99% of the time, you unconciously assume they aren't. You have to. And so the game explicitly handwaves some things away. But I'm not seeing anything about them altering how a trebuchet works! In any event, it certainly isn't "obvious" why such a handwave applies in this case, and not the 10 million others you and I will never think of.
Nice try, but "it's magic" only works with things that are explicitly magic. I'm not seeing the part about basic mechanics being drastically altered on a global scale. In fact, about a billion other things in the rules demonstrates that they haven't been...
Once again, I think it is a matter of chain of effect from invisible creature to damaged creature.
Invisible Imp can cut the rope on the bridge and kill the PCs. He remains invisible because he interacts with [rope], which does not in any way damage the PCs.
So if he used a [knife] to cut the rope?
Sorry, not seeing it.
If physics do not function in Pathfinder the same way they do in real life, then we cannot use real life physics to explain things in Pathfinder. In fact, there is no consistent system of physics in Pathfinder. None of the guys who wrote Pathfinder or any version of D&D it draws on are doctors of physics, and they certainly did not take physics into effect when writing the rules (see falling damage as an example).
Physics simply do not apply. They don't. There's no way you can use physics to say "this rule shouldn't work this way" in Pathfinder, because physics as we know it does not exist in Pathfinder.
Giant vermin breathe because the rules say they do. You can cast fireball in a vacuum because the rules say you can. You can cast lightning bolt underwater because the rules say you can. Dragons can fly because the rules say they can. Falling damage is linear and ignores aerodynamic factors because the rules say so.
Invisibility works the way it does because the rules say so.
See the pattern? Hint: it's not physics.
Okay all the rules details aside...this really bugs me. The imp basically does it and RD is fine with his ruling enough to not come and ask for clarification, despite player protest. Then a player pulls the same trick using his ruling and he comes to clarify now? Am I the only one who thinks that RD made a rules call that he kept despite player protest and so the player should be able to use that rules to their advantage?
Where is this coming from? From the beginning I told my players that I was going to get online opinions on the matter.
I didn't "wait until they used it against me" or anything like that.
The situations aren't even similar. An imp pushed a statue off of a building. That to me means it should have been a reflex save (which I admit I did not do at the time). The player was holding a boat and dropped it on somebody below. That is completely different in that it should require an attack roll.
The former would NOT end invisibility whereas the latter would (and I ruled it as such even though I got the checks mixed up in the beginning).
Why is it that you've continually seen a need to paint me in a negative light lately? Did I do or say something to you to provoke this kind of targeting?
Well, it is...but there is some truth to it as well. It's a game, not real life. You can wave you hand and go it's magic if you really wanna ;) .But it's not PHYSICS...it's MAGIC.Please tell me that was tongue-in-cheek. ;)
Yes, but the whole problem with that is that not everyone has a good grasp of the implications of what they're handwaving -- and to those of us that do, it's a game-breaker.
All I'm saying is: to the people who have implied this is simple, and that those who disagree are being obtuse: You're too big for your britches. That is all.
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Okay all the rules details aside...this really bugs me. The imp basically does it and RD is fine with his ruling enough to not come and ask for clarification, despite player protest. Then a player pulls the same trick using his ruling and he comes to clarify now? Am I the only one who thinks that RD made a rules call that he kept despite player protest and so the player should be able to use that rules to their advantage?Where is this coming from? From the beginning I told my players that I was going to get online opinions on the matter.
I didn't "wait until they used it against me" or anything like that.
The situations aren't even similar. An imp pushed a statue off of a building. That to me means it should have been a reflex save (which I admit I did not do at the time). The player was holding a boat and dropped it on somebody below. That is completely different in that it should require an attack roll.
The former would NOT end invisibility whereas the latter would (and I ruled it as such even though I got the checks mixed up in the beginning).
Why is it that you've continually seen a need to paint me in a negative light lately? Did I do or say something to you to provoke this kind of targeting?
And did you come and ask for the rules clarification right after the imp incident or after the PC used your ruling against you? There in lies the rub. If you did it right after the imp, you can go back to the players and go, opps, it was my bad, I made a bad ruling. I check and so and so pointed these things out. Now that you did after the players pulled it on you, no matter what you say (unless you just keep your orginal ruling), it looks like and it is as if the monsters get to play by one ruleset and the players another and quite frankly as a player, that would piss me off.
That being said, I too cry the absence of rational sense behind the invisibility spell. I'm not a big fan of "astral invisibility police" that seems to rule according to the consequence of an action rather than the action itself!
Neither am I, for the record. Invisibility (as with most illusions) has always been extremely vague in the rules. I would complain about it more, but honestly I cannot think of a better way to word it to keep the obvious intent intact but make that intent clearer.
New topic: Would directly attacking someone on a messageboard end invisibility? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Much safer to simply say that if there is an attack role, a saving throw, or any sort of damage involved, it is an "attack."
I don't think those are good qualifiers. After all, activating a trap can involve attack rolls, damage rolls, and/or saving throws whereas cutting a rope bridge would clearly need an attack roll and a a damage roll to work.
...but you are not the one attacking. I think he means you making an attack roll at the intended victim.
For what it's worth, I do generally subscribe to the notion that the creation of an effect that requires an attack roll or triggers a saving throw against the effect ends Invisibility. That said, I also think that the initial ruling with the imp was totally legit - Imp pushes stone off of building, gravity takes over and causes stone to fall on PC, Imp remains invisible, assuming that the gargoyle was heavy enough that the action of pushing it off of the building was only associated with the falling onto the PC by virtue of the fact that it was no longer supported.
In more general terms, as I see it, if the source of harm to another creature primarily relies on factors other than the Invisible creature, the spell continues to function. It's sort of like the "6 Degrees of Seperation" game that people play about Kevin Bacon - if there's nothing between the Invisible creature and the other creature(s) that's causing the damage or forcing the save(s), Invisibility ends. If there is something (usually gravity) that the Invisible creature made use of to produce a damaging or save-inducing result, the Invisible creature retains Invisibility. To me, this perspective allows the "attack roll" for *dropping* an object to not void Invisibility (going against the general maxim I subscribe to), as the object is dangerous because of its size and height. This is a controversial stance to take, but it seems to make the most sense to me.
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The situations aren't even similar. An imp pushed a statue off of a building. That to me means it should have been a reflex save (which I admit I did not do at the time). The player was holding a boat and dropped it on somebody below. That is completely different in that it should require an attack roll.
The former would NOT end invisibility whereas the latter would (and I ruled it as such even though I got the checks mixed up in the beginning).
I agree with this (more than I agree with your original post).
I think the whole gist of this argument is not intent. A spell like invisibility doesn't differentiate between intent any more than a sword does, IMHO. The major point of contention seems to be what actions break the invisibility effect, and I have to say that the intention behind that action is irrelevant.
For example, invisibility is a conjurer's and summoner's butter spell, because regardless of why he is summoning the monster (to attack someone or to help him swim across a raging river) he still stays invisible after he casts the spell.
Same with the example of cutting the rope on the bridge. Whether you're cutting it to cut off a route of pursuit (before those pursuing have started to cross) or you're cutting it to drop your pursuers to a crunchy death many feet below (when they've gone half-way across the bridge), you will still stay invisible.
In RD's examples, I would have had the players in question roll a Perception check with a pretty high DC to even notice that the gargoyle was not acting like a gargoyle, and pretty high meaning probably in the 30's or higher unless they had a reason to expect a threat from above. Anyone in the area of effect below the fall of the gargoyle who was able to notice something amiss would either have a bonus to their save or a miss chance, and then anyone that the gargoyle fell on would have to roll a Reflex save for 1/2 damage. Imp stays invisible, becauses no matter why he is pushing the gargoyle, that action is not a direct action against the characters. If the imp had levels in conjurer and summoned a fiendish wolf and had it jump off the building onto the PCs the imp would still be invisible, and it is essentially the same thing.
Now, the PC was in essentia dive-bombing an enemy (reminding me of some pretty neat war-gaming rules from 3.5's Heroes of Battle) which requires an attack roll and using the boat as a weapon against a specific target. This would end the invisibility effect. If the PC summoned a celestial badger in his arms and used it in the same manner as the boat, the badger becomes a missile weapon and the PC would thereafter still be visible after he loosed his badger-bomb on the target below. If the PC was flying, and summoned a fiendish dire bat which then dive-bombed the enemy at his command, the PC would remain invisible.
So I think the only mistake made was having the imp make an attack roll against the PC he was trying to drop the gargoyle onto. This implies the imp actually being able to use the gargoyle as a missile weapon, which besides being a major feat of strength for an imp would also break the invisibility effect. But for the actions involved (even though the mechanics didn't match) the imp pushing the gargoyle off of the building and staying invisible was the right call, and if I did the same thing and one of my PCs pulled the "dive-bomb with a folding boat" technique that PC would have been ruled visible as soon as he made the attack roll.