Questions about the 8th level Disappearance spell and how it interacts with divination spells

[The Rot Grub]

I GM a campaign, and I have a marilith demon that has disappearance cast on it, and it is slicing and dicing the party. The session ended in the middle of the battle.

Some questions that have come up so far in play. I believe these questions also apply to high-level invisibility spells heightened to 4th level and above):

1. When the marilith hits someone, does the target become aware of what square it attacked from in PF2?

2. One of the PCs had the worn magic item Third Eye, so he used its ability to cast true seeing as an 8th-level spell.

3. What would the counteract bonus of a magic item be?Since the Third Eye was a 19th-level item, I gave it a counteract bonus based on the 19th-level Standard DC. The Standard 17th-level DC is 39, so I gave it a counteract bonus of +29.

4. One of the PCs realized at the end that he has a robe of eyes, which has a constant 2nd-level see invisibility spell in effect. It says "you can see invisible creatures and objects," and they are concealed to you. No Counteract check required. So is this 2nd-level spell more effective than the 6th-level true seeing at detecting invisible creatures?

And how do these other spells interact with Disappearance?

1. Detect magic - When heightened to 4th level, you can pinpoint the source of the highest-level magic. A 20th level character that constantly has detect magic active will always pinpoint the highest-level magic near it. If disappearance qualified, then this spell says you can narrow the aura down to a 5-foot cube. I would treat the marilith as hidden to this PC.

2. The uncommon 8th-level spell Mind Blank makes a creature hard to detect via divination magic.
If the invisible marilith also had Mind Blank cast on it:

... when the PC cast true seeing, would the Mind Blank's counteract check (at 1 level higher) vs. true seeing, supplant the true seeing's counteract check vs. Mind Blank?

... with regard to the Robe of Eyes, Mind Blank would have a secret (and guaranteed successful) counteract check against its 2nd-level see invisibility, yes?

... Detect Magic WOULD see the aura of the Mind Blank, because the Mind Blank only counteracts "detection, revelation and scrying" effects, and Detect Magic is foiled only by "illusion" magic? (Mind Blank is an abjuration ) spell.

I know, lots of questions! But I want to make sure I fully understand the system here!

[Cordell Kintner]

Answers in no particular order.

The Rot Grub wrote:

1. When the marilith hits someone, does the target become aware of what square it attacked from in PF2?

Yes but if they moved after the strike the victim would have no idea that they moved.

The Rot Grub wrote:

4.One of the PCs realized at the end that he has a robe of eyes, which has a constant 2nd-level see invisibility spell in effect. It says "you can see invisible creatures and objects," and they are concealed to you. No Counteract check required. So is this 2nd-level spell more effective than the 6th-level true seeing at detecting invisible creatures?

No, disappearance doesn't make a creature invisible, it makes them undetectable to all senses.

The Rot Grub wrote:

3. What would the counteract bonus of a magic item be?Since the Third Eye was a 19th-level item, I gave it a counteract bonus based on the 19th-level Standard DC. The Standard 17th-level DC is 39, so I gave it a counteract bonus of +29.

This is a hard one. I looked through the rules and couldn't find anything concrete. I think what you did was fine, but since the item is level 19 I would have gone with the standard level 19 DC. You can always cast spells in lower spell slots after all.

The Rot Grub wrote:

1. Detect magic - When heightened to 4th level, you can pinpoint the source of the highest-level magic. A 20th level character that constantly has detect magic active will always pinpoint the highest-level magic near it. If disappearance qualified, then this spell says you can narrow the aura down to a 5-foot cube. I would treat the marilith as hidden to this PC.

Yes that's correct.

The Rot Grub wrote:

when the PC cast true seeing, would the Mind Blank's counteract check (at 1 level higher) vs. true seeing, supplant the true seeing's counteract check vs. Mind Blank?

True Seeing doesn't attempt to counteract Mind Blank at all, but I'm assuming you meant Disappearance. Yes, Mind Blank would go first, then if it fails to counteract True Seeing, that spell would then get a chance to counteract Disappearance.

The Rot Grub wrote:

with regard to the Robe of Eyes, Mind Blank would have a secret (and guaranteed successful) counteract check against its 2nd-level see invisibility, yes?

Only as long as the counteract check doesn't critically fail, but at that level discrepancy yes, it would never critically fail.

The Rot Grub wrote:

Detect Magic WOULD see the aura of the Mind Blank, because the Mind Blank only counteracts "detection, revelation and scrying" effects, and Detect Magic is foiled only by "illusion" magic? (Mind Blank is an abjuration ) spell.

Mind Blank would counteract Detect Magic because it's a "detection" spell, and Mind Blank protects the target and all spells and possessions on the target, including itself.

[Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind]

Disappearance just came up in one of the campaigns I'm GMing and it resulted in a few difficult rulings at the table, some one which I'm still second guessing but it looks like I'm in agreement with almost all of Cordell Kintner's answers here, except maybe #4 in response to true seeing vs disappearance:

Cordell Kintner wrote:

No, disappearance doesn't make a creature invisible, it makes them undetectable to all senses.

Disappearance says: "You shroud a creature from others' senses. The target becomes undetected, not just to sight but to all senses, allowing the target to count as invisible no matter what precise and imprecise senses an observer might have. It's still possible for a creature to find the target by Seeking, looking for disturbed dust, hearing gaps in the sound spectrum, or finding some other way to discover the presence of an otherwise-undetectable creature."

See invisibility says: "You can see invisible creatures and objects. They appear to you as translucent shapes, and they are concealed to you.

If the antagonist counts as invisible to all senses but the protagonist's visual sense can specifically see invisible creatures as translucent shapes, then I think the protagonist would indeed see the antagonist, albeit as a translucent shape. Is this problematic for a 2nd level spell vs an 8th level spell? Yeah, maybe...

- Also, a note on detect magic: it will only detect illusion magic like disappearance if detect magic is cast at a higher level. It sounds like this was the case for The Rot Grub; however, in my campaign, disappearance was cast at a higher level than detect magic so the players would not have picked up on disappearance's aura. This makes me wonder though, would they have picked up on the magic items that the disappeared antagonist was wearing? I think so, because disappearance does not actively counter detection magic the way mind blank does (and my antagonist wasn't under the effects of mind blank).

[Cordell Kintner]

Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind wrote:

Disappearance just came up in one of the campaigns I'm GMing and it resulted in a few difficult rulings at the table, some one which I'm still second guessing but it looks like I'm in agreement with almost all of Cordell Kintner's answers here, except maybe #4 in response to true seeing vs disappearance:

Cordell Kintner wrote:

No, disappearance doesn't make a creature invisible, it makes them undetectable to all senses.

Disappearance says: "You shroud a creature from others' senses. The target becomes undetected, not just to sight but to all senses, allowing the target to count as invisible no matter what precise and imprecise senses an observer might have. It's still possible for a creature to find the target by Seeking, looking for disturbed dust, hearing gaps in the sound spectrum, or finding some other way to discover the presence of an otherwise-undetectable creature."

See invisibility says: "You can see invisible creatures and objects. They appear to you as translucent shapes, and they are concealed to you.

If the antagonist counts as invisible to all senses but the protagonist's visual sense can specifically see invisible creatures as translucent shapes, then I think the protagonist would indeed see the antagonist, albeit as a translucent shape. Is this problematic for a 2nd level spell vs an 8th level spell? Yeah, maybe...

- Also, a note on detect magic: it will only detect illusion magic like disappearance if detect magic is cast at a higher level. It sounds like this was the case for The Rot Grub; however, in my campaign, disappearance was cast at a higher level than detect magic so the players would not have picked up on disappearance's aura. This makes me wonder though, would they have picked up on the magic items that the disappeared antagonist was wearing? I think so, because disappearance does not actively counter detection magic the way mind blank does (and my...

You aren't invisible, you are "Undetectable" to all senses. This means you can't use anything to detect them, not even motion sense. This uses the Invisible condition rules, but you aren't actually invisible.

Like you said at the end, it's problematic for an 8th level spell to be beat out by a 2nd level spell. The only way to bypass it would be to use True Seeing to counteract the spell, or a higher level Detect Magic to sense which square the aura is in.

[Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind]

Cordell Kintner wrote:

You aren't invisible, you are "Undetectable" to all senses. This means you can't use anything to detect them, not even motion sense.

It says you become "undetected" (a condition that's not indefinite) and count as "invisible" (also a condition) against any sense. Both of these conditions and the wording of disappearance itself allow room to locate the target by Seeking (effectively reducing the "undetected" condition to "hidden" on a success) and do not specifically rule out using any magical means of locating creatures that transcend natural senses, like divination/revelation magic (such as true seeing).

Quote:

This uses the Invisible condition rules, but you aren't actually invisible.

I hear you but, unless I'm missing something, the rulebook doesn't make a distinction between invisible as a state and invisible as a condition. This makes it difficult to rule out see invisibility as reacting to the condition of invisible: "You can see invisible creatures and objects."

Quote:

Like you said at the end, it's problematic for an 8th level spell to be beat out by a 2nd level spell. The only way to bypass it would be to use True Seeing to counteract the spell, or a higher level Detect Magic to sense which square the aura is in.

I'm just trying to interpret the mechanics as they are written and go from there. It might be the case that errata are needed to clarify if disappearance is indeed intended to overcome see invisibility, I'm curious what others think. But even if see invisibility does overcome disappearance, the target would still be considered concealed and easily able to Hide and Sneak, so there's still utility there to be had.

- Side note, this isn't definitive but might add further context: the wording in the Playtest for see invisibility was the same but disappearance was different, it said "The target becomes invisible and is completely silent. This defeats all forms of blindsense and blindsight." Blindsense and blindsight don't seem to have made it into 2e, so the developers made the spell broader to capture all senses in the final version.