I'm thinking about playing a ninja. The flashiest ability they seem to have is the way they can be invisible from level 2 onwards (and then greater invis, and then some).
If I understand correctly, against an opponent with no special ability, invisibility would grant me +2 to hit and deny him his dex (thus allowing SA), while giving him a 50% miss chance when he tries to retaliate (and that's if I don't take a 5ft step). This would make the fight quite one-sided.
I guess this ability shines at low level. But the higher you get, the more monsters will have abilities to ruin your fun (spells, blindsense, blindsight...). Does invisibility start to lose some steam and if so, around what level ? This would help me build a back-up plan if, say, every monster of level 10+ has some kind of blindsight.
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Note that invisibility ends if you make an attack. So that one-sided fight at 2nd level just became a lot more two-sided. Greater invisibility is not cancelled by attacking, but you can't get that until 10th level.
That said, invisibility remains useful at all levels. Barring GM fiat, there is no point at which all creatures are able to ignore invisibility. It becomes more common, but there are many high level monsters and classes that have no way to bypass invisibility.
Thanks for these inputs.
CBDunkerson, I agree that invisibility ends if you make an attack. However, I thought about the following routine at level 2:
Round 1
- Charge the opponent, hit him (with the +2 bonus from charge)
- Use Vanishing trick as a swift, I'm now invisible.
Round 2
- Attack the opponent while invisible
- Get visible
- Use vanishing trick as a swift, I'm now invisible.
The first use per day is free, the other ones cost a ki point. Obviously, I won't be able to do this every round, but it still sounds pretty solid, both defensively and offensively.
Invisibility does lose luster as you level. The economy of action to re-invis everytime you attack just doesnt make a lot of sense when simply flanking is often better if your goal is to S/A.
That being said as Gren pointed out if you can do it as a swift, its still pretty great for when you cant get a flank and if you can get improved its back to being a really fantastic option. Sure some things will be able to see you anyway but there is a counter for everything.
One thing a caution against is the ring of invisibility, by the time you can afford its simply not worth it. I tried it and wasted actions and enemies who could still see me made me regret it...traded the damn thing in on a flying carpet and never looked back.
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Thanks for these inputs.
CBDunkerson, I agree that invisibility ends if you make an attack. However, I thought about the following routine at level 2:
Round 1
- Charge the opponent, hit him (with the +2 bonus from charge)
- Use Vanishing trick as a swift, I'm now invisible.Round 2
- Attack the opponent while invisible
- Get visible
- Use vanishing trick as a swift, I'm now invisible.The first use per day is free, the other ones cost a ki point. Obviously, I won't be able to do this every round, but it still sounds pretty solid, both defensively and offensively.
That's a lot of ki for a single fight, however. I would charge, invisibility, get into flank and attack while invisible, and then just save ki for later. It's likely you can take a hit, but what you probably can't do is blow all your best moves on a single fight.
vanishing trick uses a ki point every time. they dropped the "one free use per day" from the play test.
vanishing trick uses a ki point every time. they dropped the "one free use per day" from the play test.
Which I think was a minor nerf of fun and balance. It was much more fun to have the free use.
It's not as useful but it's still useful.
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Depends on your GM. In my experience invisibility is extremely powerful when it first appears until level 12-13. By then most creatures will have ways to combat it and most NPC will too. It's not GM metagame, just if an NPC reaches that level they will have encountered invisibility before and realize how much of a threat it is
However, around the time invisibility loses its effectiveness, you should have a fantastic stealth skill and won't need to rely on invisibility.
Just finished the first part of Carrion Crown as a gestalt Ninja/Cleric (Undead Lord Archetype). I took the vanishing trick at 2nd too, but I made sure I stayed invisible by sending in my minions to fight, while healing them with negative energy, and buffing. Worked well untill the party gunslinger started shooting through my space!
one of the best low level spells in the game. and once you hit 20 you're not really invisible anymore since you can't be seen by any means.
confusion???
For a ninja its beyond awesome. Even if Scent, Blindsense, and tremmor sense will let them know you're there you still deny them their dex bonus and you still get to sneak attack them./
@fictionfan, they are talking about vanishing trick from ninja, which improves as part of his capstone ability.
So are we talking about ninja tricks, the spell or the condition?
Anyhow, I think the spell is always worth having memorized once per day, more so for builds that use summons and other passive means, but even the blaster can get a use of it if he has to flee or reposition himself.
For the ninja, it's one of the best tricks around of course.
High perception checks, Tremorsense, and Blindsense will pin you down to a single square but not negate the invisibility. Blindsense negates it.
Invisibility has one drawback...your allies cannot see you either. Make sure that by the time you have gr. invisibility going you have someone in your party that can see invisibility when they need to. Otherwise finding your corpse could be difficult. (joke)
- Gauss