Really need someone to rule on this. (Invisibility Question)

[Chaoskii]

So in a session I ran two nights ago I had a player as a Ninja, who went invisible and entered a room where a Sorcerer had set up an illusion of a guard. He attacked the illusion. I said that he was now visible (how I assume it would work, he made an attack role at it, correct?) All of my players backfired at me saying it didn't work like that and that he remained invisible because he didn't strike anything. To my knowledge he would be visible after falling for the trap, wouldn't he? Thank you!

[seebs]

I would certainly rule that you become visible when you think you are attacking. You wouldn't stay invisible if you attacked something and missed, you shouldn't stay invisible if you attack a figment either.

From the spell description:

"The spell ends if the subject attacks any creature. For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe. Exactly who is a foe depends on the invisible character's perceptions."

Did the character think it was a foe? If so, then he attaacked.

[Bruunwald]

seebs wrote:

I would certainly rule that you become visible when you think you are attacking. You wouldn't stay invisible if you attacked something and missed, you shouldn't stay invisible if you attack a figment either.

From the spell description:

"The spell ends if the subject attacks any creature. For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe. Exactly who is a foe depends on the invisible character's perceptions."

Did the character think it was a foe? If so, then he attaacked.

+1

[Sammy T]

Agreed with seebs.

1) For all intents and purposes, the PC believed he was attacking a foe.

2) The act of attacking itself removes invisibility--success or failure is immaterial.

[seebs]

BTW, there's a second layer of analysis: In general, I'm gonna accept a GM's ruling at the table, and limit significant disputes to "I'd like to revisit that later". It's much harder to have a constructive discussion about how a rule works when it is right there affecting the outcome of today's game.

Just a thought experiment, though. Imagine, if you will, that the PCs have some illusions, and the enemies know this. So! Send invisible things in to start randomly swinging at things with no chance to hit them. If you become visible, that one was not an illusion, otherwise you know it's an illusion.

So basically, this subjects the game to "rabid hamsters instantly defeat illusionists" and that's obviously stupid. So I think the alternative interpretation reaches a serious problem: It allows invisibility (or the first-level "vanish" short-term invisibility), or any other power that works along similar lines, to automatically defeat arbitrarily high-level illusion magic.

[Chaoskii]

seebs wrote:

BTW, there's a second layer of analysis: In general, I'm gonna accept a GM's ruling at the table, and limit significant disputes to "I'd like to revisit that later". It's much harder to have a constructive discussion about how a rule works when it is right there affecting the outcome of today's game.

Just a thought experiment, though. Imagine, if you will, that the PCs have some illusions, and the enemies know this. So! Send invisible things in to start randomly swinging at things with no chance to hit them. If you become visible, that one was not an illusion, otherwise you know it's an illusion.

So basically, this subjects the game to "rabid hamsters instantly defeat illusionists" and that's obviously stupid. So I think the alternative interpretation reaches a serious problem: It allows invisibility (or the first-level "vanish" short-term invisibility), or any other power that works along similar lines, to automatically defeat arbitrarily high-level illusion magic.

Thank you! This was my viewing of this. I just never know when I may be wrong. if I'm wrong, I'll admit it, but I like to make sure in case of scenarios like this.