How powerful do you feel Greater Invisibility is as a buff?

[Gevaudan]

I'm looking at level 7 on my Master Summoner and I see improved invisibility as a spell option. Most suggestion lists say not to take it, because the Summoner class doesn't need it.

I spend most of my time dealing out buffs to other PC's and I feel like it is a massive buff for melee characters.

As a buff for other PC's during the 6-11 level range, how do you folks feel it is powerwise?

[Rennaivx]

If you have a sneak attacker in the party, you'll be their best friend, as it nearly guarantees them an entire combat at full power, without having to worry about positioning. Other melees (light armor sorts) will also benefit, as it basically equates to a +2-+5 or more bonus to hit and a great defensive bonus. The summoner themselves may not have a ton of use for it, but arguably their eidolon would benefit just as much as any other melee. It can also be useful (although spell-slot expensive) if someone needs to sneak around somewhere.

All in all, probably worth getting.

[ryric]

The one concern you should have is how often enemies will ignore invisibility. As you get higher level, things with blindsight or true seeing just plain see invisibility come up more often.

It's still a very solid buff, I've just seen APs with a run of monsters that can safely ignore it.

[Java Man]

One of my party members is a ninja with the invisible blade talent, with her level and ki pool this equates to near constant greater invisibility. It is a binary thing, some encounters it is an overwhelming buff, some it is useless. Greatly depends on the enemies you face.

[Elder Basilisk]

Potentially very powerful.

It is great defensively: 50% miss chance and guess square, if they are targeted at all.
It is great offensively on a sneak attacker: Deny dex bonus and +2 to hit, activate sneak attack, etc.

But it has requirements and drawbacks.
-If you don't have a sneak attacker, it's only a mediocre offensive buff.
-Against some foes (blindfight, blindsight, true seeing, see invisibilyt, invisibility purge, glitterdust, etc), it is useless. In my 3.5 experience those foes started showing up in the later part of the 6-11 range but don't become common till after that.
-In some party compositions, it can be counterproductive. If you cast improved invisibility on someone you count on to hold the line, for example, the enemy may ignore them and then the other line holder or back rank folks may end up in a bad situation.

--The counterargument that smart enemies should be focusing their fire like that anyways does not always hold for a few reasons:
A. Well role-played enemies should not always follow the optimal strategy for team bad guy. If you're an evil fighter, taking one for the team should not be your highest priority so maximizing your odds of survival by avoiding risks that would enable better target prioritization is something you should do. Improved Invisibility can alter that calculus since evil fighter doesn't necessarily know that he is taking an opportunity attack and his suboptimal attack becomes more clearly suboptimal.
B. It ignores the defensive impact of Improved Invisibility in determining what is optimal or suboptimal and the opportunity cost of Improved Invisibility. For example Improved Invisibility might be better than casting nothing but casting displacement (with lower defensive and offensive boosts) might be a better choice since it won't have as significant an impact one enemy targeting decisions. Stoneskin provides another example of a competing buff that has fewer situational concerns.
C. It ignores the distinction between long-term and short term targeting optimization for PCs. For example, it might well be short-term optimal in terms of winning the current battle for PCs to cast improved invisibility on the rogue and just deal with three fighters in the wizard's face. However, if doing so increases the chance of a party member (the wizard) dying by a small amount--for example going from 5% to 15%, that is sub-optimal in the long-term. In A, I argue that the individual bad guy's optimal choices are not always the same as team bad guy's optimal choices. Here I point out that the optimal choice for the bad guys in Encounter 3 is not necessarily the same as the optimal choice for team bad guy in Adventure G1. If all the bad guys in every encounter recklessly ignored AoOs and went after the squishiest surviving PC to the exclusion of all other considerations, they would probably die more quickly with even less chance than usual of surviving the early encounters. However Team Bad Guy's chances of killing PCs would go up quite a lot.

In the wrong situation, Improved Invisibility can align the individual interests of Evil fighter 3 with that of Encounter 3 Team Bad Guy and can align the interests of of Encounter 3 Team Bad Guy with Adventure G1 Team Bad Guy. This can be a bad thing as the player of any wizard who moves up to cast Improved Invisibility on the Big Dumb Fighter and then finds himself the only visible target in full attack range of a stone giant can tell you without all the analysis.

[Fruian Thistlefoot]

Not so powerful multiple level 2 spells can counter it.

Not so powerful that Blind-fight can't help to counter it.

Its a good buff but not game shattering in any way.

[Darche Schneider]

I dont know. Seems pretty weak to me, i cant see anybody using it.

[Weirdo]

Very powerful if you have a sneak attacker.

Otherwise about on par with Displacement, with more variation in its usefulness according to circumstances. It can provide an offensive or tactical benefit aside from just the miss chance, but it can also be more easily negated.

[Matt2VK]

Think it mostly depends on what other choices you have to pick from.

- Getting it from a scroll or potion it's very powerful.

- Using a 4th level spell slot it's kind of 'Meh'. There's almost always better choices.

[Gevaudan]

Here are two spaces I like it in:

1.) Large room of enemies with few high priority targets. Buff barbarian and let them run free on high priority targets. Assumption is few enemies can intrinsically see invisible.

Pros:
A.) no save. This makes a deadly melee threat nearly unstoppable, unless several enemies are working together just to stop it.
B.) Let's the barbarian player be more effective when they would normally get stomped if they waded in.
C.) Squishy getting hit by barbarian damage from invisible is brutal.
D.) Invisible badly hurts targeted spell casting effectiveness.

Cons:
A.) Assasa-barian is not tanking.
B.) Someone else is taking all the visible attention and aggro.

2.)Get the drop on an above APL enemy.

Pros:
A.) Placing a critical threat on the opponent at the very start, before they know it.
B.) Invisible adds a lot of confusion if it doesn't drop with attacks.

Con's:
A.) Sort of requires other normal invisibility support characters.
B.) Can't see barbarian to help barbarian.

[KainPen]

For a Summoner, i don't think it is that good of a buff, for your party members yes, but for you no. normal invisibility will be the better buff. As summoning monsters spell do not remove normal invisibility. the duration is longer and the spell level is lower. but So you can use your 4th level slots on better things. the use of the spell really depends on party and AP. if you don't actual do a lot of summoning spells, It would be a good option to take.

[Charlie Bell]

The reason people say greater invis isn't good for summoners is because regular invis is better. Summoners generally do not do things that would break regular invis: they summon and buff. Since regular invis lasts longer, it's better as long as you're not breaking it.

Greater invis is a fantastic offensive buff to a sneak attacker, and it's a solid defensive buff to "glass cannon" PCs whose attacks would break regular invis, especially PCs who also fly and used ranged attacks or spells. Flight gets around tremorsense, and ranged attacks can put you outside the range of things like blindsense and blindsight. See invisibility, of course, has no range limit, but enemies that can use it are fairly rare.

[D20DM]

I have always thought of it as a pretty safe buff. If an opponent has to cast a spell to see you, that's one less spell cast to harm the party or buff the enemy. I agree that usefulness is situational - now is it worth the spell slot? YMMV.

[Weirdo]

The opponent doesn't always have to cast a spell - some higher level threats have constant see invisibility, blindsight, or a similar ability.