Undetectable: This grants its bonded user the ability to become utterly undetectable while invisible. While invisible and in physical contact with this item, the bonded creature can't be detected or scryed by any method.
This is obnoxiously vague. As a DM I strive to play as RAW as possible to both avoid conflict and to give players a chance to make informed decisions. I hate using rule 0. I will, but not before I exhaust all other options.
So I come to the PF community to ask if anyone has any experience or precedence in this situation. The only thing I can find is a brief post by James Jacobs.
I think it is fair to say this stops spells like True Seeing, See Invis, etc. What about extraordinary abilities, like Scent, Blindsense, Blindsight, etc? How about a plain old fashion perception check? And if this does mean "utterly undetectable" does that mean that my PC Gunslinger can FRA the BBEG still wouldn't know where he is despite the noise and without "sniping"?
It doesn't get a lot more official than THIS.
In short, yes, undetectable is awesomely (one might say "mythically") powerful.
If that's legitimately how it is suppose to play out then:
1) I'm disappointed in whoever designed it. Mythic abilities are strong, obviously stronger than normal abilities. But this comes close to giving a character invulnerability. If it required 3 ranks in Legendary Weapon and making it a greater artifact it would still be one of the most powerful mythic abilities. But a Tier 1 could snag this. At tier 3 take Vanishing move and your killing demon lords at level 5.
2) I'll have to just flat ban it from my games. This makes me unhappy and the players unhappy. Boo.
I have a player that uses that combo... Vanishing move is very potent and with undetectable...multiple times a round he can become greater invisible for 6 rounds.
He also has evasion, so area effect spells do little to nothing. I hate twisting the game , but it's overpowered.
How to deal with it?
Mythic dispel magic or mythic antimagic zone?
Well... To keep the mythic feel up , you're not supposed to always use mythic against the players.
We ruled the mundane effects could be seen... Which helps.
I see this as You cannot detect them when they are invisible. If they are not invisible then this ability does not work. So if you can see them it doesn't work meaning see invisibility and true seeing would work so would glitterdust and farie fire sense these spells are not detecting the creature specifically but allowing them to see things as they should be and thus are visible and negating the ability. Now in a roleplaying sense they would have to have some reason to be looking for invisible creatures but if you are attacking the invisiblity in an area then the spell or method would negate the invisibility which in turn would negate the ability. greater invisibility would negate some of the spells that would be allowed to use but It being a 1st tier ability I think this puts it more in line with other abilities at that level. If I am wrong about this then I believe it would just have to be banned doesn't make sense to do mythic if you are going to be unfindable. Just doesn't make sense Any thoughts?
How do you rule blindsight, blindsense, tremorsense, lifesight, and abilities of the same ilk?
We house-ruled this ability as follows;
When you go invisible with an item with undetectable, you cannot be seen by any means unless the creature/NPC perceiving you is of the same mythic tier as yourself or higher. Mundane things have no chance of seeing you.
As a GM, this means for me that yes, mooks and lesser mythic creatures will get pummeled by the rogue/ninja. Frankly, rogues and ninja's overall damage is bad anyway so this helps them a lot. However, boss guys and such are not going to get screwed over.
No mister mythic rogue, you're not going to sneak into mythic dragon lair and coup-de-grace him.
We house-ruled this ability as follows;
When you go invisible with an item with undetectable, you cannot be seen by any means unless the creature/NPC perceiving you is of the same mythic tier as yourself or higher. Mundane things have no chance of seeing you.
As a GM, this means for me that yes, mooks and lesser mythic creatures will get pummeled by the rogue/ninja. Frankly, rogues and ninja's overall damage is bad anyway so this helps them a lot. However, boss guys and such are not going to get screwed over.
No mister mythic rogue, you're not going to sneak into mythic dragon lair and coup-de-grace him.
That's how I'd rule it as well, it is also in line with other mythic rules. Though it is powerful I feel mythic cloudkill is the most broken in all of the mythic rules. We play undetectable as written but have only banned the spell. I in fact requested it to be banned in the wrath game I'm in. So far the only thing it has done is make our rogue a disable device super star, and protect him while scouting.