It says in the description of the sleight of hand skill:
If you try to take something from a creature, you must make a DC 20 Sleight of Hand check. The opponent makes a Perception check to detect the attempt, opposed by the Sleight of Hand check result you achieved when you tried to grab the item. An opponent who succeeds on this check notices the attempt, regardless of whether you got the item. You cannot use this skill to take an object from another creature during combat if the creature is aware of your presence.
Now my question is does invisibility and successfully using stealth to be undetected count as an opponent not being aware of your presence? At that point, could you lift an opponents spell component pouch?
Now without invisibility, the answer is easy, use the steal combat maneuver, because the enemy is definitely aware of you. But what if you went invisible in the middle of a melee, and successfully used stealth to evade an enemy's perception?
How about if you were invisible before combat started, and lifted the item in secret while the enemy was concentrated on your allies?
Does it count as an attack if you do this? )(i.e. does it break invisibility?)
prototype00
I'm sure that would break Invisibility but not Greater Invisibility
I think that's a reasonable call but the rules aren't clear on that definitely being the case.
Your Stealth check and Sleight of hand check are separate things.
You walk up to Percival the Perceptive and roll well (with +20 for invis), and he rolls poorly and fails to notice you standing right next to him (now with a +40, since you're stationary).
You roll again for Sleight of hand. This time, your invis isn't helping or hurting you, since he doesn't know you're there, anyway, but it doesn't affect your Sleight of hand check. You roll Sleight of hand and Percival the Perceptive rolls perception against that roll to notice that someone is picking his pocket.
If you win the opposed roll, congrats! Roll another Stealth check to sneak away with your shiny new trinket. If he wins, Percival feels your hand (or whatever) groping around his person, and may react any number of ways. He still can't see you, since you only "caused him harm indirectly," but he knows someone is touching him or trying to take something off him.
If Percival is in combat, that situation qualifies as distraction in my opinion, but it also makes it harder for you to pick his pocket, since he's bouncing around trying to not get killed. I'd call it a wash, and allow the attempt.
IOW, invisibility can get you next to him, but he gets another perception check when you try to steal his item(s).
That's just how I called it last time a character tried that. He succeeded, too! YMMV.
I wouldn't argue with a GM who ruled otherwise, but regular invisibility wouldn't go away because of a pickpocket attempt, IMO.
So the answer seems to be, yes you can:
1.) Start combat with the enemy aware of where you are
2.) Go invisible
3.) Successfully sneak up to the enemy using the stealth skill vs his perception
4.) Take an unattended item of his (like a holy symbol or a spell component pouch by succeeding at a DC 20 sleight of hand check (and it's only DC 20, it doesn't scale or anything), and he rolls a perception check to see if he notices (but the item is still taken, he just notices it being taken).
5.) Not break invisibility since this isn't spelled out as being an attack action.
6.) Stealth away successfully (see point 3)
The thing that I was getting hung up on was the "aware of your presence" in the sleight of hand description. What did that mean? Does it mean, if he is aware of you at the start of combat, you can't do any of this at all, even if you go invisible? Or is it that the moment he loses track of you (via invisibility and stealth), you can pull these shenanigans?
If so, its a pretty good trick for say, ninja who can create their own invisibility. The DC 20 check is most reasonable, and RAW it seems that stealing isn't an attack action.
prototype00
The steal combat maneuver is an attack vs cmd. It would break invisibility.
But sleight of hand? Which isn't the same thing as the steal combat maneuver? I mean it's great if you can show me that it is, but skill use and a combat maneuver are about as different actions as you can get. Its more akin to picking locks in combat.
prototype00
with steal combat maneuver you would get around all this invisibility needed.
however as you are trying to do it with sleight of hand it is not an attack. Invisibility doesn't speak about attack action, so in some cases it's GM call what is considered an attack.
But an opposed skill check seems non-attacking to me, or else stealth itself would remove invisibility.
I think you don't need invisibility to pull this off, as long as you have a good stealth, and possibly hide in plain sight.