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An unusual situation came up today in a game. I thought my gm handled it fairly and nicely, but I wonder, how would you rule?
I greased an enemy's rapier, and he dropped it. Later, he drank an invisibility potion. A couple of turns later, he went back and picked up the rapier. Our rogue was standing over it.
1) does the rogue get an AoO? If yes, does he take a 50% miss chance?
2) the invisible enemy moved on to attack me. Am I flat footed if i can clearly see the floating rapier? (He hit me in spades, but he could have gotten sneak attack.)
If I recall, the GM did not take sneak attack damage on me in this case. But I'm just curious how you all would rule.
I was happy with the fairness of the gm tonight. I'm not here to complain. But it was an interesting unique situation that I might face in my own games, and I'm wondering what the great minds of the paizo forums have to say.
Thanks!
^
{. . .}
If an invisible character picks up a visible object, the object remains visible. {. . .}
So overall the GM got it right.
1. If the Rogue was standing over the rapier and on guard against it being picked up, the Rogue should be able to get off a readied attack, at least. Depending upon how the enemy tried to pick it up, this might not also include an Attack of Opportunity, and could include a 50% miss chance, for instance, if the enemy was very careful and tried to kick it away first before picking it up, and thus has a chance to dodge out of the way unseen.
2. If you are not flat-footed against an actually floating weapon (dancing weapon or Spiritual Weapon), you should not be flat-footed against the visible weapon held by the invisible enemy.
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He just picked it up outright, and he had to pass another reflex save to do so (I love grease) but yeah that's what I thought. And I'd be fine with a 50% miss as the rogue still didn't know where exactly the guy was (except that his hand was somewhere in the rogue's square and the rapier was moving out toward the adjacent square).
I guess I was worried that I railroaded the GM, since I kept asking about that stuff. "He'd still provoke, right? I mean, he's picking up a visible weapon." And, "well, since I see the weapon, I'm not flat-footed, right?"
I like to be fair, but I hoped I hadn't over done it!
Readied attack, yes (but how would the rogue expect that to happen - brilliant guess if he expected it and readied an action, and excellent GM to know it and not metagame it). Of course the standard 50% miss chance applies - knowing he's there is not the same thing as seeing him clearly. He cannot Sneak Attack because of the Total Concealment, but at least he could attack normally, with the miss chance.
AoO, no:
You can't execute an attack of opportunity against an opponent with total concealment, even if you know what square or squares the opponent occupies.
The invisible guy had total Concealment. The rogue knew where he was, but that didn't change the Total Concealment, so no AoO.
As for the invisible guy attacking you, you could NOT be flat-footed because this was not the start of the combat (Flat-footed is a special term that only applies at the start of combat, before you take your first turn). Since this was not the start of combat, you are only denied your DEX modifier to your AC (due to the invisibility).
The RAW doesn't speak on this situation so ultimately it was the GM's call to decide if seeing the weapon meant no sneak attack.
Me, I would have said no, seeing the weapon is not enough. If a visible rogue flanks you, you can see his weapon perfectly, and even see the entire rogue perfectly, but the distraction of being flanked still lets him use Sneak Attack.
This is not really different. Invisibility says he can do it, there are no specific rules about the visible weapon, and I would say that not seeing the opponent makes defending yourself hard enough to let the rogue Sneak Attack. Likewise, creatures with Lifesense, BlindSense, etc., can tell with 100% accuracy where an invisible rogue is but the rogue can still Sneak Attack them - this is definitely no different.
(and yes, if a PC rogue were invisible with a visible weapon, I would let him sneak attack the monsters).
Really all this does is allow you to pinpoint the square he is in. I don't think any other penalties would be mitigated.
In order to pick up the item, he has to be in the square the item is in, no?
If so, he cannot pick up the weapon since the rogue is standing in that square. The bad guy would have to make the rogue move out of the square first.
As to AoO, if you allow the bad guy in the same square, the rogue is likely aware of what is happening due to proximity (same square) as well as seeing the action. I would allow it, but it would not be RAW. Miss chance would apply.
Since I can see the weapon, I would not be denied Dex. However, the bad guy still gets the +2 for invisibility.
/cevah
In order to pick up the item, he has to be in the square the item is in, no?
If so, he cannot pick up the weapon since the rogue is standing in that square. The bad guy would have to make the rogue move out of the square first.
As to AoO, if you allow the bad guy in the same square, the rogue is likely aware of what is happening due to proximity (same square) as well as seeing the action. I would allow it, but it would not be RAW. Miss chance would apply.
Since I can see the weapon, I would not be denied Dex. However, the bad guy still gets the +2 for invisibility.
/cevah
Not true.
You can pick up items from any adjacent square.
Citation here.
Come to think of it, every part of that post is contradicted or at least unsupported by RAW.
You cannot allow the bad guy in the same square unless he is 3 sizes bigger or smaller than you, or he is tiny or smaller. If he's that small, the likelihood of knowing what he's doing because of proximity is surely mitigated by how small he really is, but of course, that's pure speculation with no RAW support either way.
Allowing an AoO against a foe with Total Concealment is the opposite of what RAW says (see my earlier post), proximity notwithstanding.
And Sneak Attack has no rules about seeing or not seeing the weapon - many Sneak Attacks are perfectly valid when the weapon AND the wielder are fully visible (e.g. Flanking) so evidently seeing the weapon is a non-factor regarding Sneak Attacks or denying DEX bonus to AC.
In order to pick up the item, he has to be in the square the item is in, no?
If so, he cannot pick up the weapon since the rogue is standing in that square. The bad guy would have to make the rogue move out of the square first.
As to AoO, if you allow the bad guy in the same square, the rogue is likely aware of what is happening due to proximity (same square) as well as seeing the action. I would allow it, but it would not be RAW. Miss chance would apply.
Since I can see the weapon, I would not be denied Dex. However, the bad guy still gets the +2 for invisibility.
/cevah
You aren't denied Dex because of what published rule?
I'm more worried when a visible opponent has an invisible weapon.
In order to pick up the item, he has to be in the square the item is in, no?
If so, he cannot pick up the weapon since the rogue is standing in that square. The bad guy would have to make the rogue move out of the square first.
As to AoO, if you allow the bad guy in the same square, the rogue is likely aware of what is happening due to proximity (same square) as well as seeing the action. I would allow it, but it would not be RAW. Miss chance would apply.
Since I can see the weapon, I would not be denied Dex. However, the bad guy still gets the +2 for invisibility.
/cevah
Not true.
You can pick up items from any adjacent square.
Citation here.
Come to think of it, every part of that post is contradicted or at least unsupported by RAW.
You cannot allow the bad guy in the same square unless he is 3 sizes bigger or smaller than you, or he is tiny or smaller. If he's that small, the likelihood of knowing what he's doing because of proximity is surely mitigated by how small he really is, but of course, that's pure speculation with no RAW support either way.
Allowing an AoO against a foe with Total Concealment is the opposite of what RAW says (see my earlier post), proximity notwithstanding.
And Sneak Attack has no rules about seeing or not seeing the weapon - many Sneak Attacks are perfectly valid when the weapon AND the wielder are fully visible (e.g. Flanking) so evidently seeing the weapon is a non-factor regarding Sneak Attacks or denying DEX bonus to AC.
Your cite indicated my premise was wrong.
Saying the rest was wrong, however, is flawed, since I prefaced it with "if so...", meaning it followed from the premise, and would not follow if the premise was incorrect.
I think if one creature is prone, another can occupy the square. That may be a leftover from 3.X.
As to the AoO, I already said it was not RAW, so saying I was wrong means that it is RAW. Don't think you meant that. :-)
I was not addressing Sneak Attack, but rather loosing Dex. Per the suggested seen weapons (Dancing weapon, Spiritual weapon) argument, I was agreeing with it, with a caveat of adding a +2 for the invisible attacker.
/cevah