How do you do combat with invisible and hidden creatures?

[Buddy Dakota]

I'm just wondering what you do when a creature turns invisible or hides during combat on a grid map. And do you do it differently for the GM controlled creatures and the PCs? I guess one side has to know where everyone is, and if so, how do you play when you know things you shouldn't know?

[Shadowlord]

The only way I can remember doing it (in both games run by me and games I played in) was that the GM would pull pieces off the board when they became invisible or hidden (if one person made the Perception roll that person would get to see where the invisible piece went and everyone else would have to pretend they don't know). Players would just state they are hidden or invisible and leave their pieces on the board. That way, really the GM is the only one having to pretend he doesn't know where the players are.

[Kayerloth]

I usually had, as the GM, a smaller map (from the 'module' or my original notes, etc.) where I'd mark the location(s) of the invisible foes and track their movements. Any markers/figures would not be in place or would be taken off the groups battlemap.

As a player it depended, usually the GM would handle it depending on how important they viewed the rest of the players not knowing (to minimize or discourage metagaming, for example). Most often like I did above, they would remove or not indicate where they were on our battlemap. As my most recent long term characters (3.5) it often fell to me to make them visible asap (see invisibility/true seeing plus Glitterdust) or help ensure, as party 'scout', that we were the ones giving our foes the issue of dealing with stealthed foes. In any case trying NOT to use knowledge I didn't have as either a character or GM controlled npc regardless if, for instance, the GM left the stealthed foes in place on the map or not.

As a character that was sometimes as simple as trying to react the same way each time ... always enter and search the room the same way for instance. Or having and using spells or other mechanic that allowed my high perception (or spell using) character to quietly and quickly relay the information to the group such as prearranged hand signals or the like making their stealth moot asap. Standard operating procedures basically. Some of which very definitely comes down to the make up and levels of the group I was in and which character I was playing.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Well, the first thing to do is make them visible again.

Barring that, using two battlemaps has been what has worked best for me personally.

[Shadowlord]

Shadowlord wrote:

Players would just state they are hidden or invisible and leave their pieces on the board.

Unless they were hiding from other players, or generally didn't want other players to know where they were, then they would pull pieces off the board too.

I like the two battle maps idea.

[Shadowlord]

Buddy Dakota wrote:

how do you play when you know things you shouldn't know?

As the GM you have to separate GM knowledge and NPC knowledge. As a player you have to separate Player knowledge and PC knowledge. It can take some practice. It's not always easy and people tend to slip. If you don't even try and constantly act in-game according to knowledge your character shouldn't have or understand it's called meta-gaming and is generally frowned on.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

I found the difficultly was what happens when one player has a see invisibility up, but the others don't. Figure on the map, or not?

My solution was to tell the relevant player "You can see the creature", which was normally enough.

[Kayerloth]

rkraus2 wrote:

I found the difficultly was what happens when one player has a see invisibility up, but the others don't. Figure on the map, or not?

My solution was to tell the relevant player "You can see the creature", which was normally enough.

With my long term groups where you can trust the amount of metagaming to be minimal, if any (and self regulated if someone did slip up) we'd just use a marker or other indication on the battlemap if a creature was invisible or stealthed.

On your battlemap, particularly if you have less space in general available, table space at a convention, for example, you could also either permanently or temporarily write out x-y coordinates along the battlemap and record the movement shorthand on paper (or the creatures index card) even including 'z' for altitude. "Ogre #1 goes from a7 to f2"

[Ascalaphus]

So a second battle map behind the GM screen? It's an interesting idea.

How do you handle people trying to move into a square occupied by an invisible creature?

[Malastra]

Outside of using glitterdust spells, if you suspect an invisible assailant(s) attacking you in melee.
Economically, chalkdust or flour works well in terms of locating where they are.
You still have the auto-miss chance but a bit easier than guessing the square/hex using visual senses alone.

This of course does not work if they are of flying sorts.

[cattu]

Ascalaphus wrote:

So a second battle map behind the GM screen? It's an interesting idea.

How do you handle people trying to move into a square occupied by an invisible creature?

We always gave an auto perception check for the PC/NPC that entered the square with a +5 circumstantial if same size, +2 per size category difference if invisible PC/NPC was larger (max 10), -2 per size category difference if invisible PC/NPC was smaller (min 0). Almost never came up for creatures, rarely for stationary objects. Hence, this was just a quick and dirty homebrew solution.

Second battlemap or sketches on a scratchpad behind the screen always worked great for us in regard to the aforementioned issue.

[Ascalaphus]

It's been my understanding that a medium creature can't just enter another medium creature's square, unless they're cooperating allies.

So can't you locate invisible creatures by trying to enter every suspicious square? (You'll expose yourself to some AoOs of course, but that's the price you pay.)

[ShoulderPatch]

Malastra wrote:

...

Economically, chalkdust or flour works...

I don't believe that works by RAW without a house rule, not for more than at most until the invisible individual (invisie?) moves once. (note: I'm not saying some GM's might not let it slide, but it would be outside the regular rules so not every player can depend on it.)

Those substances don't work the same physically as mud/snow/puddles do.

Chalk and Flour that hit the character disappear instantly, so for only a brief second would the character be outlined at all, and not within the confines of the abstracted combat system PF uses (unless the GM house rules it, but even the effectiveness of that would vary game to game).

The chalk/flour on the floor would not always give them away either... mud, snow, and to a lesser extent puddles (or A LOT of dust accumulated over long periods of time or sand with a bit of depth) work because the feet actually indent into the depth of the surface.
Chalk dust and flour thrown randomly don't offer enough depth when they settle to show the persons position. Go outside and throw a bag in the air and see what I mean. The layer that hits the ground won't even be a a grain or two thick, not enough to show meaningful indents.

In the very first instant there would be a momentary outline of their feet as their feet would block the dust from hitting that spot on the floor beneath them, but just the briefest movement of their feet later and that wouldn't work (note: movement of their feet, not 5+ foot movement of the character), offering at most, again at the GMs call , perhaps some brief bonus to perception.
You'd see through the invisibility to the chalk beneath their feet the moment they took even one step (and not a movement step... just a brief shuffling in the abstract combat that the OGL/PF/3.X system uses) and you'd at best know only until they move again what square they were in.
(Though yes, if your GM allows that, that may be all you need if you just wanted to zero in for the rest of that same round... say you had an ally with an area of effect attack ready to fire)

So while some GMs might let you attempt it, and most would probably allow some minor bonus to perceiving the invisible character for a round, it is just not the detection method glitter dust or see invisibility is for sure, or really even what the use of certain other spells (enough create water applied in a large enough amount to a small enough room to create minor flooding/puddles, for example) or techniques (pick the fight on a sandy or muddy surface) offer, as it may not work in the abstracted system, and even if it does it's at best for 1 round or less.