Sorry Singing* continuously only so my allies know where I am.
When using Heightened Invisibility if I cast a level 2 Ventriloquism spell would that help throw off my enemy from any sounds my compositions would be making? Just trying to figure out the best way to protect myself as I'm pretty squishee.
anyone? I'm contributing on the front lines and casting offensive spells, minimal buffing of allies besides inspire courage mostly debuffing of enemies, so I'm almost wondering if Mirror Image would be a better substitute?
I think Ventriloquism would help, yes..
Unfortunately, Ventriloquism would not help conceal your compositions even if you were Invisible. This is because they are still treated as spells, and according to page 302 “When you Cast a Spell, your spellcasting creates obvious visual manifestations of the gathering magic, although feats such as the Conceal Spell or Melodious Spell can help hide such manifestations, or otherwise prevent observes from noticing you are casting.”
As far as Mirror Image VS LV4 Invisibility, it really depends how often you find yourself being targeted. Mirror Image is the ‘cheaper’ spell, and will actually provide better protection when you have all 3 images up. However they can disappear fairly quickly, as even on a miss (but not a crit miss) an image disappears, and so you may have to cast it multiple times in a battle, and you may find yourself getting attacked before you had a chance to recast it. But, if you find the enemies tend to focus on other party members, you may be able to get away with it, and use your higher spell slots on other spells.
LV4 Invisibility is a decently high spell slot to cast, which is also something to consider, in terms of how much spell resources you are devoting to it. But it should provide protection for the whole battle (even if they know your ‘square’ anything targeted against you as a 50% chance to miss, along with ‘generally’ having to meet you AC.). Plus, there is also the advantage of being able to apply it to you buddies, which you do not have with ‘Mirror Image’.
Awesome very insightful thanks a lot Siro!
I just realized I wouldn't be able to Demoralize if I was invisible hmm.
Awesome! That certainly could work, I guess the only thing that wouldn't work would be Intimidating Glare. I would still suffer the penalty for not sharing a language though right?
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...
Or perhaps Tongues.
Very helpful advice thank you! Any idea what percentage of monsters roughly understand Common?
indeed, I am very curious because of things like Demoralize without Intimidating Glare and Command.
So with Nondetection it's only useful vs magic (detection, scrying, revelation), what's the best way to be undetectable or atleast very difficult to detect via just the Seek action which I imagine most of my enemies will use. How do I beat there Seek?
Well, I tested it out today finally got heightened invisibility and realized something I should have much much earlier (although I can always retrain, currently Expert Stealth), I simply don't have enough actions to 'Sneak' every round to try to remain undetected it severely hampers me. I need to be able to cast, occasionally play a composition, and Trip my enemies in melee range all in one round, and Haste cannot help me for any one of those actions. So I guess the best thing to do is keep Stealth at Trained, don't bother increasing Stealth via armor runes like Shadow (unless I want it to help my initiative because I often am in Avoid Notice in exploration mode). It appears me its still excellent to grab Heightened Invisibility simply for the 50% miss chance if nothing else, as a front line Bard needs all the protection he can afford.
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Just something to think about. If your tank(s) are doing their job and you aren't getting attacked 6 times a round or something, Mirror Image will provide a better miss chance for you with less investment, as you stated that is the part you are getting the most benefit out of.
Just something to think about. If your tank(s) are doing their job and you aren't getting attacked 6 times a round or something, Mirror Image will provide a better miss chance for you with less investment, as you stated that is the part you are getting the most benefit out of.
Hmm, very interesting. I always use to think Mirror Image (pf2 version only) sucked, but for my situation I think you may be onto something here. The thing is one round of an enemy's attacks would basically do away with all my images. Heightened Invisibility covers me for the entire fight. It's actually a tough call.
The issue it seems with Heightened Invisibility you also need to keep Heightening Nondetection. Is there sort of a sweet spot for Nondetection where it can deal with Trueseeing? That seems to be my biggest issue.
The issue it seems with Heightened Invisibility you also need to keep Heightening Nondetection. Is there sort of a sweet spot for Nondetection where it can deal with Trueseeing? That seems to be my biggest issue.
I don't think that is really true. Taking Seek actions and casting Trueseeing costs and enemy valuable actions in combat and they are a lot less likely to do that if they are also being attacked by threats they can see and immediately respond to, and that are probably dealing more direct damage to boot. If they do try to find you, you've effectively stunned them for however many actions they spend doing so.
Nondetection is a lot more relevant when it comes to Avoiding Notice outside of combat. As a combat buff, unless you are fighting a whole legion of enemies (or they have See Invisibility as a constant innate spell or something) it is going to be pretty effective at preventing you from being targeted.
Sorry Captain I meant enemies that have True Seeing as a constant ability.
I recently came across a spell, Spell Immunity. Would I be able to cast Spell Immunity against True Seeing to help prevent it? Or because it's a 4th level spell it would be difficult to counteract a 6tb level True Seeing? So would the play then be to basically heighten Spell Immunity to 5th level or 6th? But then couldn't one just do the same thing with Nondetection? Please help my friends.
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You're way too hung up on this specific combo working, my firend. You shouldn't be fighting an uphill battle to make your one one strategy always work. You should be preparing other strategies that are more adaptable.
Using Heightened Invisibility plus True Seeing costs you two turns. Two turns you probably weren't going to be attacked anyway because you weren't doing anything to hurt the enemy. You could have instead gave the rogue a Heroism and a Dirge of Doom with their Dread Striker for an effective +3 to hit, +2 to saves, and +1 to AC. The turn you spent casting a heightened nondetection can instead be a Dominate or Phantasmal Calamity. Nondetection is an exploration tool for avoiding notice in the first place, not an efficient in combat buff.
Also, consider how much aggro you are drawing in the first place. Most brute enemies are going to lash out at whatever hurts them most, which is literally any character in your party but you. A smarter foe might decide you are a squshy target who is making your whole party tougher, but you can pull back from them for the same effect as a trip: costing the enemy an action and potentially making them provoke an AoO. If you're being attacked in melee, it is probably because your strikers have failed to engage the enemy yet, which is most often on the first round of combat when you are ambushed. You won't have these spells up and running at that point.
PF2 is a game that rewards teamwork and tactical flexibility, and no one does that better than the bard. Trying to focus all your resources into just tripping or just being sneaky is a huge waste of potential. Instead, diversify your options and be prepared to pull them out as needed. Keep Heightened Invisibility a spell you cast on the rogue when they can't get a flank or afford to be hit. Move in and out of combat as the situation dictates. Use Non-detection out of combat when you have reason to see it coming instead of wasting turns trying to play catch up.
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Sorry Captain I meant enemies that have True Seeing as a constant ability.
Just heighten Invisibility to level 6 or 8 and you should go through non heightened True Seeing.
Sorry Captain I meant enemies that have True Seeing as a constant ability.Just heighten Invisibility to level 6 or 8 and you should go through non heightened True Seeing.
Really? Then what is the point of Nondetection? I thought you needed to just heighten the Nondetection at the start of the day then pop the 4th level heightened Invisibility in combat?
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Nondetection applies to more than just True Seeing. Even if you're only talking about the case if invisibility, nite that See Invisibility is not based on counteract mechanics and does not care what level you heightened invisibility to.
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I have to agree with CM here.
You're looking at investing WAY too much of your character resources in order get some tiny edge over an even smaller sub-section of creatures you could encounter, most of which won't even come into play until level 12 or so and among them, they still have abilities, senses, and methods to detect you if they REALLY wanted to.
Even beyond the spell slots, the wealth you'd be spending, the room in your spell rep, and the 3-9 actions wasted in a given Combat you'd need to pull this off you'd be better off literally just running away from combat and passing out potions to your teammates while you let them mop up the encounter without your help.
Heightened Invis on its own is more than enough, all the rest is overkill that will not help you nearly as much as you actively participating in the combat.
Really, as an invisible bard you should probably be concerned about AoE stuff and that doesn't tend to care how hard you are to detect. Shadow Siphon would probably be a better use of your spell slots at that point and only uses a reaction.
Really? Then what is the point of Nondetection? I thought you needed to just heighten the Nondetection at the start of the day then pop the 4th level heightened Invisibility in combat?Sorry Captain I meant enemies that have True Seeing as a constant ability.Just heighten Invisibility to level 6 or 8 and you should go through non heightened True Seeing.
Different spells for different uses.
Another funny thing you can do is casting a 7th level Spell Immunity (True Seeing) on the enemy and then a Dispel Magic to remove his constant True Seeing.There are lots of nice combinations to remove annoying spells, they take a few casts, still (or Quickened Casting). But sometimes, this is what you really need to do.
if they know where you are, they still suffer a DC11 flat check to target you. That's a 55% chance of failure. on top flat footing them against you, it's significant.Lots of people have said, correctly, that it is a 50% chance not 55, but nobody has specifically addressed this. An 11+ flat check succeeds on 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 and fails on 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, and 10. As you will see, each of those lists has 10 out of the possible 20 results. Thus 50%.
DC10 would be 55%.
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glass.
It's really easy to make this mistake, even I do it sometimes when just quickly making statements.
If it's DC 12, you fail on a 11. So to get your chance of success you can do something like (20-12+1)/20. Which is generalized as (20-X+1)/20 where X is the number you succeed on. It's really easy to forget to adjust the number by 1, to account for the fact that you succeed on that number because meeting the DC is success.