I'm playing a very stealth focused character (skill focus stealth, ring of invisibility, dampen presence, the whole shebang), but its recently come to my attention that a common cantrip (detect magic) can cut through my years of training and plainly reveal my location to anyone with access to 0 level spells.
Detect magic reads:
"Outsiders and elementals are not magical in themselves, but if they are summoned, the conjuration spell registers. Each round, you can turn to detect magic in a new area. The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it."
How do I coat myself in lead? Is there lead paint I can pour on everything? Is there a lead lined set of clothing I could put on?
My character limitations are:
I'm a pure monk (so no access to armor/shields). My belt, neck, and 1 ring slot are all being used. I'm playing pathfinder society, so no 3rd party materials.
I want to be invisible as the night, but I'm having difficulties. Please advise.
What you need is to fight fire with fire, or more precisely magic with magic.
The Misdirection spell says: "By means of this spell, you misdirect the information from divination spells that reveal auras (detect evil, detect magic, discern lies, and the like)".
There you have it, by the way it gives you a few useful effects.
Targutai Minyatur wrote:
What you need is to fight fire with fire, or more precisely magic with magic.
The Misdirection spell says: "By means of this spell, you misdirect the information from divination spells that reveal auras (detect evil, detect magic, discern lies, and the like)".
There you have it, by the way it gives you a few useful effects.
Are there magic items that grant this effect continuously? I don't have spellcasting levels (pure monk). And it looks like I'd need to cast this on every item that I wear. 5+ level 2 spells per day seems pretty expensive to thwart a cantrip.
No, there's no lead plating which is PFS-legal. There is a Lead Plating spell but Kobolds of Golarion isn't allowed in PFS.
If you want misdirection or nondetection as an item you'll need to pay through the nose. An Amulet of Proof against Detection and Location costs 35K and even a Launcher of Distraction (much more limited) costs over 10K. If you somehow have enough use magic device skill then scrolls or wands are an option of course.
Edit: misdirection or nondetection cast on yourself should affect your carried items too.
Nondetection has a long duration. If you want to hide your items separately, you can use the 1st level Magic Aura spell.
_Ozy_ wrote: Nondetection has a long duration. If you want to hide your items separately, you can use the 1st level Magic Aura spell. The big issue I'm running into is that I have ongoing magical effects on me (such as invisibility).
Even if I had Magic Aura cast on all my gear (which would use up a lot of friendly spellcasts just to keep me online), the invisibility effect from ring of invisibility, or friendly mage armor would give away my position.
Yup, you need nondetection for that, preferably cast by your character. Or get the amulet.
You can be a;
Master Spy. (Prestige Class with limited PFS usefulness)
Sverfneblin (No idea if PFS legal)
Wanderer Monk (Human Racial Archetype)
Or a Mythic Trickster (Yeah, no way)
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While Detect Magic would be a pain, insisting it be used appropriately should help mitigate the issue.
It's a standard action cast with verbal and somatic components, so unless they're using Silent Spell, you'll know they cast something. That first round reveals that there is or is not magical auras in the 60 foot, cone-shaped emanation they are looking in.
Then, they have to concentrate for another round to know how many auras there are, and how powerful the most powerful one is.
Then they have to concentrate again to get the strength and location of each aura.
So, yes, assuming you stay completely still in the open for 3 rounds, they will figure out exactly where you are. However, you can fight that by taking cover behind something that would block line of sight, or even just move out of the spell's area. That means they'll need to switch where they're studying to try to find you again, time in which you could sneak up behind them and prep for the non-lethal full attack.
And yes, they will know something magical is somewhere there on that first round. Which sucks for infiltration missions. Get in the habit of being hidden even when invisible, and only moving when you think no one is looking in your direction. Your invisibility will help a lot against being seen from a distance or moving through peripheral vision, but if someone is close by, it's better to get behind something.
Tiltedleft wrote: While Detect Magic would be a pain, insisting it be used appropriately should help mitigate the issue. Oh actually this helps a lot. There looks like there is a lot of counterplay just in the way I position! Thanks for these details.
Detect magic doesn't detect invisible creatures/objects.
You might find this an interesting historical note. Back in the Renaissance the white face cosmetic that upper class/noble women and men commonly used was lead based. It had a notable tendency to make its users insane over time.
That might be one way to plate yourself with lead. But is it worth it?
Ellias Aubec wrote: Detect magic doesn't detect invisible creatures/objects. Of course it does. Invisibility is a magical effect, and nothing in the spell says that it is hidden from detect magic.
It's just generally too difficult to use effectively in combat to pinpoint an invisible attacker.
Firstly most things should not have detect magic up unless they thing something is up. Detect magic requires concentration. Concentration is difficult for people to maintain constantly. Hence passive detect magic should be pretty rare
A tower shield might be thick enough
Quote: A tower shield might be thick enough A mithral tower shield (non-magical) with lead in front of it / behind it? (Mithral so as to reduce the armor check penalty.) Or a lead tower shield?
IDK if a PFS GM would let either fly.
Well detect magic takes 3 rounds for them to pinpoint and know you are bad.
The first round they detect the presence of magic. Next round the number of auras and the power of the most pwoerful. Third round round they got you.
If you are sneaking up on someone and they are casting magic, do not stay in their field of vision for more than 1 round.
If you can stealth out of their cone before the second round and there are other magical auras there, they will never know you were there.
As a Player I use detect magic to shoot through any door I encounter before I enter as you can shoot through that as well. I have found bad guys hiding places because they carry magical gear.
Dastis wrote: Firstly most things should not have detect magic up unless they thing something is up. Detect magic requires concentration. Concentration is difficult for people to maintain constantly. Hence passive detect magic should be pretty rare
A tower shield might be thick enough
It happened 3 times in last night's game. I'm not sure if they had innate magic or if people were just unhappy with my constant stealth.
Tower shields are wood by default, Gold is (ironically) the cheapest of the metal materials I can use here. I still need to make sure the tower shield is an inch thick because gold (in spite of being denser than lead) isn't explicitly called out as blocking detect magic.
The other issue is that by carrying a shield in front of me I'll lose my fast movement, which makes stealthing a bit harder.
I think enforcing the "3 rounds of concentration" bit is probably a good (good enough?) solution to detect magic.
Even if you were playing a home game and a GM allowed lead plating to cover your whole body you would run into 1 of 2 problems.
1. You surround yourself in lead plating and cast invisibility, Now you and your lead plating are both invisible and someone casting detect magic still sees the magical aura of invisibility that is outside of the lead plating.
2. You cast invisibility and then surround yourself in lead plating. You and your magical auras are now invisible but a clearly visible person shaped blob of lead is walking around everywhere you go.
If there is no magic in the area already, 1 round of detect is enough for someone to notice that magic popped into their cone. If you stay there for round 2, then somebody observant would know that the number of magical auras got bumped up by at least one (invisibility) if not more (the rest of your magic). On the 3rd round, they would pinpoint where those extra magic auras were coming from if you're still in the cone.
Honestly, I'm surprised your fighter *CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK* or your Barbarian "I RAGE AND CHARGE ALWAYS POWER ATTACK" even let you get far enough into stealth to worry about detect magic.
That said, it wss addressed earlier. U less you happen to be dodging wizards who are continually detecting magic for HOURS on end you should be fine.
Now things like Scent, Tremmorsense, and invisible enemies hiding in a spot that does't grant you cover to hide behind? That's when stealth really breaks down.
Although it'd take you a while to gain the benefits, the Low Templar prestige class is both hilarious and useful for hiding your alignment. Plus, it has the added bonus that you never suffer penalties with cohorts no matter WHAT you do. Murdered your previous cohort for eating your last candy bar? Obviously he had it coming!
Rosc wrote: Honestly, I'm surprised your fighter *CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK* or your Barbarian "I RAGE AND CHARGE ALWAYS POWER ATTACK" even let you get far enough into stealth to worry about detect magic.
That said, it wss addressed earlier. U less you happen to be dodging wizards who are continually detecting magic for HOURS on end you should be fine.
Now things like Scent, Tremmorsense, and invisible enemies hiding in a spot that does't grant you cover to hide behind? That's when stealth really breaks down.
I'm immune to scent, tremorsense, blindsight, blindsense, and by next level I think I can fool truesight too.
It's insane that the one thing I can't beat is a cantrip.
DiscOH wrote: Rosc wrote: Honestly, I'm surprised your fighter *CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK* or your Barbarian "I RAGE AND CHARGE ALWAYS POWER ATTACK" even let you get far enough into stealth to worry about detect magic.
That said, it wss addressed earlier. U less you happen to be dodging wizards who are continually detecting magic for HOURS on end you should be fine.
Now things like Scent, Tremmorsense, and invisible enemies hiding in a spot that does't grant you cover to hide behind? That's when stealth really breaks down.
I'm immune to scent, tremorsense, blindsight, blindsense, and by next level I think I can fool truesight too.
It's insane that the one thing I can't beat is a cantrip. Technically you're vulnerable to things like a cloud of dust or flour. Or really soft footprint-enhancing ground. But as mentioned, there are ways around it. Just not brute force ones. (Besides, who has Detect Magic up and running all the time? Unless you've got really paranoid enemies, I'd almost start asking the GM some questions.)
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