Invisibility (or Sanctuary) with a Summoner and an Eidolon

[Squiggit]

Would the party fighter swinging their sword break the spellcaster's invisibility too, then?

What if the spellcaster had Inspire Courage activated before they went invisible?

[Aswaarg]

So, first coclusion is expect table variation.

After reading all the arguments, I will rule in my table that if the summoner is under invisibility/sanctuary and the eidolon atacks, the summoner will remain under the spell. If it feels to good I will revise it.

My argument is, hostile action definition implies to take an action, wich are defined in the rules. Leting the summon act us not an action, is a choice the player does.

The other point is that both are linked characters, but are not the same one, and is the player (not the summoner) who choses how the actions are resolved, there is no need for the player to justify what the eidolon do, just as is not needed to justify why the summoner would do some actions.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the comments. I hope Paizo can chime in the hostile actions someday to clarify the situation.

[breithauptclan]

Squiggit wrote:

Would the party fighter swinging their sword break the spellcaster's invisibility too, then?

RAW: no

RAI: no
Intent of the spellcaster's action (??): no

So no.

Squiggit wrote:

What if the spellcaster had Inspire Courage activated before they went invisible?

So Inspire Courage, then Invisibility, then Fighter's turn they attack.

RAW: no
RAI: no
Intent of spellcaster's action: yes

So no.

When the Bard re-casts Inspire Courage on the next turn after the Fighter attacks:

RAW: no
RAI: yes
Intent of spellcaster's action: yes

So yes. Casting Inspire Courage after your allies are already attacking would be hostile.

[Squiggit]

So what's the difference in your mind between the party fighter taking a hostile action on their own and the independent companion taking a hostile action on their own that makes one violate invisibility but the other not?

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Squiggit wrote:

So what's the difference in your mind between the party fighter taking a hostile action on their own and the independent companion taking a hostile action on their own that makes one violate invisibility but the other not?

Because even if the companion is Independent, it has the Minion trait given to it from its master. Plus, the master can still command the Minion, which overrides its own independence (at least, by RAW it does, a GM who controls the companion can have it act differently instead).

[Deriven Firelion]

Well, I'm now seeing the "upside" of a shared hit point pool.

An invisible summoner healing himself with potions, spells, and other items from a good distance while invisible for 10 minutes with 2nd level invisibility is going to be one cheesy exploit.

Then again the shared hit point pool is going to allow a lot of cheese given how it works if some on here are correct. And it isn't clarified, so it can play that way.

If the eidolon and summoner are considered independent and each has its own actions and senses, but the summoner player can send it in and operate tactically without controlling the eidolon's actions then you can set up in another room, send the eidolon to attack controlling all its actions while not being able to see the battlefield, then have a healer or heal yourself with potions or what not while the eidolon engages in battle.

The summoner becomes a life battery for the eidolon while boosting its damage attacking without concern for retaliation against him. He is able to essentially heal and boost it from up to 100 feet away.

I guess the shared life pool is more of a boon if you use it tactically.

[Deriven Firelion]

Aswaarg wrote:

So, first coclusion is expect table variation.

After reading all the arguments, I will rule in my table that if the summoner is under invisibility/sanctuary and the eidolon atacks, the summoner will remain under the spell. If it feels to good I will revise it.

My argument is, hostile action definition implies to take an action, wich are defined in the rules. Leting the summon act us not an action, is a choice the player does.

The other point is that both are linked characters, but are not the same one, and is the player (not the summoner) who choses how the actions are resolved, there is no need for the player to justify what the eidolon do, just as is not needed to justify why the summoner would do some actions.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the comments. I hope Paizo can chime in the hostile actions someday to clarify the situation.

Now you get the fun of determining if invisibility even works while the eidolon is active with the glowing sigil clearly visible and not able to be concealed by obfuscating magic.

Seems to me Paizo should have made things like this more clear, but I guess you can't think of everything when you're making weird rules to make the summoner playable.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

breithauptclan wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Would the party fighter swinging their sword break the spellcaster's invisibility too, then?

RAW: no

RAI: no
Intent of the spellcaster's action (??): no

So no.

Squiggit wrote:

What if the spellcaster had Inspire Courage activated before they went invisible?

So Inspire Courage, then Invisibility, then Fighter's turn they attack.

RAW: no
RAI: no
Intent of spellcaster's action: yes

So no.

When the Bard re-casts Inspire Courage on the next turn after the Fighter attacks:

RAW: no
RAI: yes
Intent of spellcaster's action: yes

So yes. Casting Inspire Courage after your allies are already attacking would be hostile.

Not sure if I agree with that ruling on Inspire Courage, since this would also mean that casting, say, Heal, or Soothe, would likewise break Invisibility, even though they are healing/buffing allies, the same as Inspire Courage.

[Squiggit]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

So what's the difference in your mind between the party fighter taking a hostile action on their own and the independent companion taking a hostile action on their own that makes one violate invisibility but the other not?

Because even if the companion is Independent, it has the Minion trait given to it from its master. Plus, the master can still command the Minion, which overrides its own independence (at least, by RAW it does, a GM who controls the companion can have it act differently instead).

Right, but in this instance the master is not commanding their companion. The companion is acting on their own to perform the hostile action.

[Deriven Firelion]

Squiggit wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

So what's the difference in your mind between the party fighter taking a hostile action on their own and the independent companion taking a hostile action on their own that makes one violate invisibility but the other not?

Because even if the companion is Independent, it has the Minion trait given to it from its master. Plus, the master can still command the Minion, which overrides its own independence (at least, by RAW it does, a GM who controls the companion can have it act differently instead).

Right, but in this instance the master is not commanding their companion. The companion is acting on their own to perform the hostile action.

This is the downside of shared actions. The minion rules make it clear when the user is using a hostile action to command the animal to attack. But now we're getting this dancing around as to whether the summoner controls the eidolon. Now the eidolon is doing whatever it feels like when it feels like it while the summoner is just using Act Together and boosting it to increase damage while invisible for 10 minutes because of course the eidolon is completely independent and doesn't require the summoner to take any actions.

I don't care how you run it your table. The eidolon and summoner share actions. If the eidolon attacks, then the summoner attacks. The eidolon is the summoner's weapon just like if a fighter swung their sword. If the summoner holds back his eidolon from attacking, then he's holding back his sword. A fighter can't swing his sword with a 2nd level invisibility and stay invisible.

The eidolon as a highly advanced weapon under the control of the summoner. If it attacks, then the summoner is using a hostile action. They share actions, share MAP, share hit points, but for some reason some on on here want to argue that sharing all that doesn't indicate the summoner is taking hostile actions.

But like usual until Paizo makes it clear, then I guess we can have a nice debate like this about it.

[Squiggit]

I'm not talking about the Summoner, I'm talking about a companion operating independently under the player or GM's control with one of the features that enables that.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Squiggit wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

So what's the difference in your mind between the party fighter taking a hostile action on their own and the independent companion taking a hostile action on their own that makes one violate invisibility but the other not?

Because even if the companion is Independent, it has the Minion trait given to it from its master. Plus, the master can still command the Minion, which overrides its own independence (at least, by RAW it does, a GM who controls the companion can have it act differently instead).

Right, but in this instance the master is not commanding their companion. The companion is acting on their own to perform the hostile action.

Minion trait overrides the companion's independence from the master. If the master can control the companion, and chooses not to do it, that counts as indirect hostility, especially if they are aware that not commanding it will result in combat or hostile activity.

[YuriP]

This thread becomes too confused so let's go back and ask you to concept of hostile action since from beginning?.

If a caster becomes invisible (spell lvl 2) and starts to heal his allies is hostile or not?

How could you differ that healing his allies as hostile intentions (allowing your party to keep fighting) from just keeping them alive? Remembering that other players action is out of your control

[Deriven Firelion]

Squiggit wrote:

I'm not talking about the Summoner, I'm talking about a companion operating independently under the player or GM's control with one of the features that enables that.

So now we're debating the ACs independent action and 2nd level invisibility.

I wish Paizo had just kept the old text for invisibility. It was much clearer and better written. This hostile action wording is just creating headaches.

I guess default like usual to DM fiat. I know how I plan to run it. That's good enough for the moment.

[HeshKadesh]

YuriP wrote:

This thread becomes too confused so let's go back and ask you to concept of hostile action since from beginning?.

If a caster becomes invisible (spell lvl 2) and starts to heal his allies is hostile or not?

How could you differ that healing his allies as hostile intentions (allowing your party to keep fighting) from just keeping them alive? Remembering that other players action is out of your control

There are some who believe that experiencing sensory feedback (seeing things while Invisible) is considered a hostile action so I dont think you're going to get much of a conclusive response here.

As for those worrying about being invisible with an immortal companion being too broken, you dont need to be invisible, just be distant, take appropriate feat and have party members slam healing potions/spells/medicine into you whole you solo your Eidolon through dungeons.

[YuriP]

In fact this thread is no more only about Eidolon anymore but about what's the limits of hostile actions interpretation. We are trying to find where the hostile action concepts end because this could easily unlimited expanded to any situation.

It's like a invisible char healing an ally during a battle in order to keep fighting and win can be considered an hostile action or not? Because if this is true no matter if is an animal companion or an eidolon you could never attack with them because order them to attack or even share your action with them will be considered a hostile action when they attack.
But for other side if support an ally cannot considered an hostile action so use an animal companion or an eidolon to attack because the intention are the same. You are ordering them to attack but the final decision about obey and attack are from them not yours.

[Ravingdork]

YuriP wrote:

In fact this thread is...about what's the limits of hostile actions interpretation. We are trying to find where the hostile action concepts end because this could easily unlimited expanded to any situation.

Good luck!

Violence is violence, and yet there are people in the real world who honestly believe that words are violence too. You're never going to get anything resembling a concensus.

[SuperBidi]

In my opinion, you shouldn't be able to fight while invisible. Any combat action should be forbidden besides things like running away or cowering in a corner. So no healing, no buffing, no commanding minions unless it is done to help people run away or for an action that is not directly linked to combat.

There's a case about Independent minions, and I would not make them break Invisibility. But as you can't fight this wouldn't be any kind of optimization.

On the other hand, I would allow scouting or even laying traps and the like, as long as there's a significant delay between the moment you lay the traps and the moment they are activated. Mostly because I think it's a funny use of Invisibility and because it's definitely something I want to see around my table.

[The Raven Black]

In my game, healing others while invisible is okay, having your companion / minion attack while invisible is not okay, buffing others while invisible is okay but on probation. If it seems too good, then it will become not okay.

Obviously YMMV and huge table variance to be expected here.

And setting traps while invisible is not okay in my game but also on probation. If it makes the game more fun for players and not unfun for me (ie, they do not abuse it) then it will become okay.

[The Raven Black]

Welcome to the universe of greater GM power and responsibility, aka PF2.

[Deriven Firelion]

HeshKadesh wrote:

YuriP wrote:

This thread becomes too confused so let's go back and ask you to concept of hostile action since from beginning?.

If a caster becomes invisible (spell lvl 2) and starts to heal his allies is hostile or not?

How could you differ that healing his allies as hostile intentions (allowing your party to keep fighting) from just keeping them alive? Remembering that other players action is out of your control

There are some who believe that experiencing sensory feedback (seeing things while Invisible) is considered a hostile action so I dont think you're going to get much of a conclusive response here.

As for those worrying about being invisible with an immortal companion being too broken, you dont need to be invisible, just be distant, take appropriate feat and have party members slam healing potions/spells/medicine into you whole you solo your Eidolon through dungeons.

This may work. This may even be a DM headache with the shared hit point pool. At the very lest you can send the eidolon in to deal with hazards, have everyone stand outside, and heal the summoner.

It is a pretty huge advantage to be able to heal from a 100 feet away. That is the positive side of a shared hit point pool. You can really do some interesting stuff with a 100 foot healing.

[LordCyler]

The Raven Black wrote:

It was done on purpose to prevent the Invisible summoning character shenanigans, among others, that the PF1 RAW allowed.

I understand I'm necroing this thread, but I have to ask - what then do you make of the Hidden Watcher feat? This feat specifically calls out that:

"If the spell (Invisibility) targeted both of you (Summoner and Eidolon), the spell ends for both of you if either of you uses a hostile action."

This sure seems to indicate that the Summoner and their Eidolon are completely seperate - and that if only one is targeted (Summoner) and the other uses a hostile action (Eidolon) the spell will not end.

[Cordell Kintner]

That's not a feat, rather the 7th level ability of the Psychopomp Eidolon. But it does prove that the intent is what I was saying the whole time, the Summoner and Eidolon are seperate and normally a hostile action taken by one does not necessarily affect the other.

[breithauptclan]

You don't see that as a specific explicit override of a general rule?

Or reminder text of the general rule?

Depending on what you think the general rule is.

[Gortle]

The Raven Black wrote:

In my game, healing others while invisible is okay, having your companion / minion attack while invisible is not okay, buffing others while invisible is okay but on probation. If it seems too good, then it will become not okay.

Obviously YMMV and huge table variance to be expected here.

And setting traps while invisible is not okay in my game but also on probation. If it makes the game more fun for players and not unfun for me (ie, they do not abuse it) then it will become okay.

The range of interpretations here is too great. Paizo should actually provide some guidance.

For myself, I keep the hostility status of creatures separate. Minion or not. I also only consider directly hostile for Invisibility.

For mental effects like Charm though intentions matter more and I don't allow even indirect hostility, or actions which intentionally lead to hostility (like unlocking the gate for the guard dogs).

[Themetricsystem]

Something something, lack of clearly stated and codified mechanical meaning and impact of terms/phrases used to describe other mechanical things, something something, natural language, and table variation.

Blech. It always cycles back to this: They added a mixed bag of well-created mechanical terms, meanings, and traits as well as a number of extremely vague undefined terms that are load-bearing despite those terms/words being used to guide how something is supposed to work. I still maintain that this is THE primary flaw in the system, the half-measures taken to ensure that SOME things are understood while copping out and leaving other crucially important things vague.

[Gortle]

Themetricsystem wrote:

Something something, lack of clearly stated and codified mechanical meaning and impact of terms/phrases used to describe other mechanical things, something something, natural language, and table variation.

Blech. It always cycles back to this: They added a mixed bag of well-created mechanical terms, meanings, and traits as well as a number of extremely vague undefined terms that are load-bearing despite those terms/words being used to guide how something is supposed to work. I still maintain that this is THE primary flaw in the system, the half-measures taken to ensure that SOME things are understood while copping out and leaving other crucially important things vague.

For once I am in full agreement with you. The language is only ever 90% tight. The definitions are not always complete. Which means the GM has to interpret even some basic things. Which means no two tables ever really play the same. It is quite unpredictable which way any ruling will go, as similar powers are often worded slightly differently.

There are a couple of things that are just not clear about Damage. There are several very basic things that which are just not clear about Summoners. Likewise Battle Forms, Glyph of Warding, Wall of Stone, 10th level Spell Slots. The list goes on and on, depending on what we have encountered in play. Now we make a ruling and more on. But it is just frustrating that it is not clear and never has been.

[breithauptclan]

My thought on that is that it is not possible to hit 100% consistently defined rules and not practical to go much more than the 90% that we currently get.

The rule set is too large to be created by a single person. And having multiple people working on it means that there are multiple people's conflicting ideas being written down.

I see the same thing in software development. Exactly the same thing - one person can't do the whole job, and multiple people have slightly different understandings of what we are building.

And even for formal languages like programming languages there are no tools that will reliably find and flag logic errors (Syntax errors, yes. Logic errors, no). We certainly don't have one for English.

So while it may be frustrating, it is better to have imperfect rules than not have any at all.

[Gortle]

I see this as making excuses after the fact. They could have gotten the next 90% easily.

There are software systems that must be reliable. They use formal logic, or more normally just test and iterate a few times.

The actual complexity of the rules is not high. It is wide not deep. The problem is they never attempted to provide proper definitions of things. Read the rules on attacks, and the rules on damage. They just describe things losely and never attempt to lay it out properley. For attacks they mostly got enough to get there - it is clear now after some errata. For damage there are still things undefined that we don't really know how they should work.

[breithauptclan]

Gortle wrote:

I see this as making excuses after the fact. They could have gotten the next 90% easily.

There are software systems that must be reliable. They use formal logic, or more normally just test and iterate a few times.

"Must be reliable", huh... Formal logic and testing...

Like the Arianne 5 space rocket software.
Therac 25
The 1991 Patriot defense missile system.
Citibank's loan repayment software.

You will have to pardon me for trusting my college classes and industry experience over your confident assurances.

But hey, if you manage to prove me wrong and build a system that can validate formal languages for logical consistency, go ahead and sell your software system to Microsoft. I am dead certain that they would pay more for that than they did for Minecraft.

[Gortle]

breithauptclan wrote:

You will have to pardon me for trusting my college classes and industry experience over your confident assurances.

Those are not your experiences. At least not more than one of them anyway. They are a collection of disaster stories. I'm sure we could add another 100 to that list easily. It is still a tiny fraction of the software that is out there. Much of that software works flawlessly every day.

You are arguing a straw man anyway. I merely said the reliable software systems exist. More formal logic and testing are how you get there.
What Paizo have done with PF2 is to give lip service to structure. They are are missing good definitions of the basics. Then they have added to it with free form language.

[breithauptclan]

Gortle wrote:

Much of that software works flawlessly every day.

Your definition of flawlessly and mine differ greatly.

I am constantly in a war with hackers trying to break into my cloud servers using flaws in some various piece of software that I have to use in order to get the job done.