As a caster, you can't stay hidden, but you can hide your casting.
Melodious spell should cover up what you are doing,so all that's left is to make you appear harmless on a battlefield.
I think a Leshy can appear as plant, but can they act without breaking the illusion?
There could be a mundane ways of doing this, like a small PC dressing as a child, I'm open to suggestions.
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If you don't cast spells, you'll look harmless. And be harmless...
Melodious Spell is unreliable vs. significant threats, plus it's costing you an action you could better position yourself or toss up a Shield or use a better Metamagic. That's a bit costly IMO, and likely increases your danger rather than diminishes it.
If a plant is performing, you've already broken the illusion. Heck, simply performing while a battle's occurring right next you is going to draw suspicion and the assumption you're part of the party. And you'd be limiting your spell selection perhaps too much if only casting spells with effects that can't be traced to their source.
Best bet might be to disguise oneself as a passerby or serf who got caught up with these crazy adventurers who maybe rescued you. Dress as lowly as possible (perhaps w/ illusion magic). Even then some enemies will eat you anyway, maybe hold you "the innocent bystander" as hostage. At higher levels your presence will become unbelievable, if enemy senses don't see through disguises automatically anyway.
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Melodious Spell is for social situations. A bard sacrificing their third action to hide themselves instead of use a composition is just too big a sacrifice. A wizard's 3rd action is less important, so you can justify Conceal Spell more. Illusions are probably the way to go if you're into misdirection.
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Ultimately, this just isn't going to work.
Even if you're standing there "doing nothing", there are enemies on the battlefield. They're going to come after you even if you appear to do nothing. Maybe they don't prioritize you over the rest of your party, but if there are more enemies than PCs some of them are probably going after you.
Demons for instance love to go after "the innocents who are incapable of defending themselves". Usually that means they're running away and not simply standing still, but ultimately you look like a snack.
Ultimately I think this is simply a bad idea, and requires a GM to play extra dumb, even if your character can make convincing checks to disguise themselves as "not-an-adventurer" and "non-threatening".
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Have yourself tied up (with knots you can actually easily break out of) and pretend to be a prisoner.
Disguise yourself as a dead body, have another PC pull you around on a little cart.
Disguise yourself as another PC's pet dog.
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I think wizard handles it better.
Kobold wizard?
I know I'm making a stealth/deception illusionist with conceal, silent and convincing illusion. It seems good in paper but I don't think I'll be able to always stay out if harms way so I have mage armor, shield Cantrip, an actual shield for when the Cantrip is down, mirrors reflection heritage feat, ghost sound, illusory object, and animate dead
All can in various ways take focus off me while some also help the fight along
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PF2 generally does not do well with deceiving the other side while you are actively causing harm. The whole reason “roll for initiative” carries so much weight is because players want to know when their characters have entered particularly dangerous situations. So it is not just casters. Once hostilities begin, you have moved into a combat encounter and your ability to hurt enemies without them knowing it is very limited for everyone. Think about how annoying it would be if the GM had you having to spend tons of actions every encounter figuring out which creatures in an encounter space were acting hostilely to you and which might be innocent bystanders? A rare encounter, sure it can be fun, but all the time? With failure resulting in attacking the wrong people? This is the kind of realism that people really don’t want to encounter often in their fantasy role playing, not on a very large scale.
Small scale deceptions and momentary distractions work really well. Ventriloquism can be a long duration way to make it difficult to tell where spells are coming from and a great way to create distractions and get enemies to chase sounds around a battlefield trying to pin down an invisible caster. But sustaining the illusion of “there is no threat here” while harm is being caused is bad for both sides of the play table.
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Even if you do succeed, now the enemy is focusing on the remaining characters, which is going to make their life more difficult.
In PF2, casters are not squishy punching bags like they were before. With a little work you can have respectable AC, being maybe 2 points or so behind heavy plate wearing characters and maybe 4 points or so behind monks/champions who have the best ACs in the game.* My point being is, you don't need to hide and be scared, at least not significantly more so than any other character.
*Although you still have a lower HP
Thanks for all the responses, both the ones that give suggestions and the ones that warn me off from trying such a strategy.
The idea that casters are not squishy is belied by lower hit points and AC.
Psychic in particular, seems to suffer from this, and that is the class that should have surreptitious casting, of any of them.
It also has a nova feature that leaves them severely disabled, all the more reason to be unseen and/or durable.
I'll have to double check, but I didn't think Melodious spell required a performance that included noise or movement.
One might intuit that it must,but we are not going by intuition, or Psychics would be able to use Daze without giving themselves away, no feats needed.
A feat is needed, and evidently the Performance bonus will not reliably beat the Perception of level appropriate foes, so I'm not sure if it's useful at all, including in social situations.
Kind of discouraged about that.
I've read that you should expect to be hit and use up a considerable amount of hit points each combat.
I've also read that casters should be using range ,cover ,movement, concealment and front liners or they should expect to be hit very often.
A third opinion says the frontliners and and a reasonable GM will keep you plenty safe.
No real consensus on this.
It sounds like I might want to add pieces to the board,if anything.
Mirror implement, reflection ancestry,mirror image, Familiar, Companions and Edilons, could each draw and dilute aggro.
I'm not sure which, if any are worth the opportunity costs.
A Psychic with a Construct companion to hide behind/act through while they are Stupefied might be nice.
Thanks for all the responses, both the ones that give suggestions and the ones that warn me off from trying such a strategy.
The idea that casters are not squishy is belied by lower hit points and AC.
It's really not that bad.
Most martials, only get master in the armor proficiency.
Most casters get expert in unarmored proficiency.
Caster can wear explorer's clothing, which has a dex cap of 5 and allows for runes to be used. +5 bonus to AC from armor + dex is literally the best you can do with light and medium armor. Full plate get's you a +6.
You can even wear full plate as a caster, it doesn't interfere with your casting (though you will want to pickup Sentinel dedication).
So a caster with explorer's clothes and a +5 dex bonus is only behind the difference in proficiency vs a potential AC capped martial that isn't a monk or champion, which is going to be +2. Yes you're AC is lower, but it's not "oh my god I'm going to die!" lower.
Now your hp is probably 6 per level vs 10 per level of like a fighter or ranger. (The rogue only gets 8). This becomes significant as you level, but also the chances of you getting one shot go because enemies simply don't deal that kind of damage.
So again, yes you are less defended but this compulsion to be hidden in the face of danger isn't necessary.
Psychic in particular, seems to suffer from this, and that is the class that should have surreptitious casting, of any of them.
It also has a nova feature that leaves them severely disabled, all the more reason to be unseen and/or durable.
It is only your expectations that say Psychics should get surreptitious spell casting. All casting is noticeable by default in PF2, that's simply the game. And while the psychic's class feature of unleashing their psyche does severely hamper their damage output, it in no way affects their AC and only affects theirs will saves. So defensively they're still in relative good shape. Playing a psychic it just means you need to find activities to do on those turns that don't involve your hampered actions. Or to accept that your actions are hampered, and might not be effective.
I'll have to double check, but I didn't think Melodious spell required a performance that included noise or movement.
Performance Traits
Performance-Additional Traits [Core Rulebook pg. 250]: Act or perform comedy [Auditory, linguistic, and visual], Dance [Move and visual], Play an instrument [Auditory and manipulate], Orate or sing [Auditory and linguistic]. As you can see every one requires Auditory with linguistic [they have to hear and understand you], Auditory with movement [manipulate an instrument] and/or visual+move. So you're 100% out of luck here.A feat is needed, and evidently the Performance bonus will not reliably beat the Perception of level appropriate foes, so I'm not sure if it's useful at all, including in social situations.
Kind of discouraged about that.
This is mainly useful in social situations where you might be already dancing or playing an instrument and you want to Charm someone.
I've read that you should expect to be hit and use up a considerable amount of hit points each combat.
I've also read that casters should be using range ,cover ,movement, concealment and front liners or they should expect to be hit very often.
A third opinion says the frontliners and and a reasonable GM will keep you plenty safe.
No real consensus on this.
The second one mainly if you're playing the d6hp casters. If you're playing one that's a bit beefier with heavy armor and a shield you can be a bit less defensive. You should NEVER assume the third as you can't expect to never get hit.
It sounds like I might want to add pieces to the board,if anything.
Mirror implement, reflection ancestry,mirror image, Familiar, Companions and Edilons, could each draw and dilute aggro.
I'm not sure which, if any are worth the opportunity costs.
You have to make sure it's dangerous enough to be a credible threat if you want to modify it's actions: as such, things like a familiar isn't a threat at all, at most making it spend an axion to eat it. Anything summoned that's not from your top slots will be mostly fodder [can be used for flanking though] until you get high enough to summon things that have special abilities/spells/ect that might make it worthwhile to summon max level. An Edilon shares your hp, so if it gets aggro, you get hurt [you do get higher hp though]. Mirror image and such can be useful but you'll be using one every battle so be prepared for that.
A Psychic with a Construct companion to hide behind/act through while they are Stupefied might be nice.
Construct companion? Are you multiclassing into inventor?
The idea that casters are not squishy is belied by lower hit points and AC.
As was mentioned previously, your spellcaster's AC can be as high as most other characters. Your HP is a bit lower, but not by a terribly large amount. Most classes are skirmishers - very few can hold a frontline position for very long.
It sounds like I might want to add pieces to the board,if anything.
Mirror implement, reflection ancestry,mirror image, Familiar, Companions and Edilons,
Mirror Implement: Not really, it gives you two positions that you can be attacked at, but doesn't provide any defensive abilities. Try Amulet Implement instead.
Reflection Ancestry Heritage: Mirror's Trickery is not bad, but it is only once per day. There is also Gnome's Unexpected Shift that is usable repeatedly but gives the dazzled condition in payment. Can also get Empathetic Plea that can be used once per fight at least.
Mirror Image: Very nice spell. Classic defensive option.
Familar: No. They don't have the HP for it, and they can't attack.
Companions: Animal Companion and similar work quite reasonably as battle companions - at least for a bit. They have kinda low HP also, but it works.
Eidolon: Not from the Summoner Archetype. As graystone mentioned, they share your HP - and you don't get extra from the archetype. Or any additional action economy. Using Summoner as a base class is one of the two dual martial/magic classes (the other being Magus), so a full class Summoner's Eidolon is absolutely capable of drawing and handling enemy attacks.
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My character, Hama, has had great success doing exactly this sort of thing.
Don't listen to those who are telling you it is a lost cause. Do talk to your GM and make sure you both have a shared understanding regarding each other's expectations with such a character.
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1- Cast Invisibility.
2- Stride.
You might want to make that
2- Sneak
to try and become Undetected.
Melodious spell should cover up what you are doing,so all that's left is to make you appear harmless on a battlefield.I think a Leshy can appear as plant, but can they act without breaking the illusion?
You could do both.
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My character, Hama, has had great success doing exactly this sort of thing.
Don't listen to those who are telling you it is a lost cause. Do talk to your GM and make sure you both have a shared understanding regarding each other's expectations with such a character.
With GM help anthyding can hadplen. You could even play as a bunch of gnomes in a trench coat.
(I wonder if anyone will know the reference)
I don't recognize the reference.
But that was my thought too. Sure, the GM could houserule away the spellcasting manifestations and say that as long as you cast using Conceal Spell and make no other outwardly hostile actions that enemies will ignore you.
But you shouldn't demand that. Not explicitly by literally demanding it. And not implicitly by building the character with that in mind, then confidently using the tactic in combat and forcing the GM to be a bad guy and shut down the tactic and invalidate your character build. That is a lot of peer pressure to deal with.
There is a difference between a caster who is good at hiding their casting generally and disguising themselves, and a caster planing on casting aggressively in combat and remaining an unsuspecting enemy. Pf2 is really not the game for the later. There are a couple of higher level spell options for presenting a fake caster position, and there are plenty of ways to cast while invisible and hiding/moving your position, but every time you cast a spell aggressively, the other side is going to know where the spell is coming from in PF2, and it is going to be a long time in play before you get access to spells like project image, aura of the unremarkable, or even greater invisibility. It can be a fine goal for a character to want to be able to achieve, but it is not an all the time, easy to pull off magical trick for casters generally.
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So let's separate the notion that one must appear harmless.
What it sounds like is you want to be safe.
My illusionist wizard I've built I was worried as well. And in bad situations especially at level 1, he absolutely could drop like a rock
But so could the champion/barbarian.
So if you prioritize range, outside of fights that just start out in unexpected ways like you getting ambushed. You will start with some safety.
You can build onto this with spell choices as well. Most enemies, not all but most especially at lower levels. Tend to attack what's hurting them the most.
It takes a creature of higher intelligence to notice the spells like heal, mean they should target the caster.
But if you are throwing out electric arc at enemies who are not otherwise engaged already they are probably going to see you as a threat.
My wizard accomplishes this with his spell choices
Illusory object - lot of creatures who are engaged are not going to relate this spell to me, a wolf doesn't get it, a bandit might though, I can create objects that would take their attention or cut off line of sight.
Shattering gem - I can cast this on myself for added survival or on the fighter to help them.
Animate dead- something actively hitting them and getting in there way will take most things attention over the guy making funny noises.
In all these cases you can't help it if an enemy is truly intelligent. That's where teamwork comes in and why I love having someone good with athletics
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I don't recognize the reference.
The one that comes to mind is in Gravity Falls: Mabel has her first date with Norman, a guy who ended up being a bunch of gnomes in a trench coat.
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As an addendum to my earlier statement, you may want to talk with the other players and make sure they're on board with the idea as well.
After all, if you succeed and the enemy sees you as a non-threat, the other PCs are going to be the preferred targets.
Some might not appreciate that while others might appreciate not needing to bend over backwards to cover you.
I recommend using some of the feats, items, and spells mentioned below.
But you shouldn't demand that. Not explicitly by literally demanding it. And not implicitly by building the character with that in mind, then confidently using the tactic in combat and forcing the GM to be a bad guy and shut down the tactic and invalidate your character build. That is a lot of peer pressure to deal with.
Though I agree, I'm not sure what brought that on. I don't think it was even implied that anyone was planning on doing any such thing.
That being said, if you do all of the above (talking to everyone in advance and all are okay with it) and then use Conceal Spell, Silent Spell, clandestine cloak, hat of disguise, ring of lies, magic aura, misdirection, nondetection, and other such tools; and the GM still has everyone and everything target you first, then they're just being a jerk.
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I mean the obvious answer is to use Exchange Image
I mean some champions might choose to do this just to protect you. Maybe the barbarian wants to go incognito into a bar he has been banned from. Perhaps the bard would like to walk on the wild side. You may even be able to borrow an image off a 3rd party for a few coins for the day....
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Great discussion.
Pf2 presents some challenges to my usual tactics, which parallel the "integrated survivability onion "
-Don't be there
-Don't be seen
-Don't be targeted
-Don't be hit
-Don't be damaged
-Don't be impaired
-Don't die
Most parties hate the first bullet point, since ttrpgs are mostly a fighting game.
They don't mind the rest so much, so that what I go for.
In practice , it means I tend to play tanky support characters.
Casters are not very tanky in this game, as compared to 5e.
I've even toyed with building a Summoner that never Summons, or only rides their summons, since Summoners get extra HP, but I just don't see it working, too many resources are inextricably tied to the summons.
I would love a beefy,heavily armored humanoid undead with a tower shield and whip(ala 3.5) but no minion seems to be able wield a weapon, Lift a Shield or wear armor(aside from barding).
Having a minion that can use the same kind of items that a PC can was extremely useful, and that's probably why it's not in PF2e.
The best meatshields seem to come from Beatsmaster Dedication.
Since I can't get the swiss armyknife I want from any dedication, almost any scalable mount will do.
Druid has one from first level, and plenty of other cool stuff besides that.
Right now I'm very interested in playing a character that has a Legchair and the Psychics version of Shield.
Being able to add AC to allies is my cup of tea.
Extra movement (don't be there) and portable cover (don't be hit) is also grand.
Legchair is probably going to be allowed indoors, despite being Large, which would "allow" me to play a medium sized creature.
Truth be told though, halfling has the feats for hiding in plain sight, and would synergize quite well with a legchair.
I love the Plains Indian style of fighting on horseback.
I know Companions can't act except on your turn, so some kiting tactics wont work, but 40 feet of movement ain't bad.
So maybe a halfling, or maybe an ancient elf, Animal Druid, Legchair Companion, Psychic Dedication.
Ancient, withered and seemingly frail, with a bizarre creature as their companion...
I also like Beetle, as a Companion, especially for a Gnome, mostly with the idea that it could be a DUNG beetle.
keeping large carnivores fed would be logistical challenge, keeping a dung beetle fed, not so much.
Getting a replacement would mean some dirty work, but it could happen almost anywhere.
A grub familiar, for touch telepathy and kinspeech, and my weird little family would be just started...
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Great discussion.
Pf2 presents some challenges to my usual tactics, which parallel the "integrated survivability onion "
-Don't be there
-Don't be seen
-Don't be targeted
-Don't be hit
-Don't be damaged
-Don't be impaired
-Don't die
Hmm... Taking this and adapting it to how I plan my spellcasters:
Be there
Be seen
Be annoyingly costly to target (usually in the form of additional actions needed to reach)
Be hit less often (you will get hit, but boost your AC and use spells like Mirror Image anyway)
Be damaged (if you aren't taking any damage, then someone else is taking more. Share the love)
Don't be impaired (dropping or otherwise taken out of the fight is bad)
Don't die
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Great discussion.
Pf2 presents some challenges to my usual tactics, which parallel the "integrated survivability onion "
-Don't be there
-Don't be seen
-Don't be targeted
-Don't be hit
-Don't be damaged
-Don't be impaired
-Don't dieHmm... Taking this and adapting it to how I plan my spellcasters:
Be there
Be seen
Be annoyingly costly to target (usually in the form of additional actions needed to reach)
Be hit less often (you will get hit, but boost your AC and use spells like Mirror Image anyway)
Be damaged (if you aren't taking any damage, then someone else is taking more. Share the love)
Don't be impaired (dropping or otherwise taken out of the fight is bad)
Don't die
Yeah, PF2 is very much a "share the love" system. If you have a 4 person party and one person is trying to avoid all of the above, it means the rest of the party is taking that instead. And will most likely be overwhelmed. PF2 is not a game where you have unhittable AC or saves so strong you only fail on a nat 1.
If I were a fellow player would find the above tactic on trying to completely avoid the enemy's attention as frustrating because the rest of the party has to deal with it, assuming you can be successful in the first place.
Maybe if everyone was intelligent enough to hide under rocks like me, then no one would die.
Perhaps your smurf needs a picture to get a smurf.
It sound like everyone is expected to take hits?
So 4th level Invisibility is not welcome?
That sound sus' to say the least.
A support caster that isn't targeted, doesn't need anyone to tank for them.
A minion, summoned or otherwise, splits up the pain.
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Invisibility is a very useful tool. One of many that can and should be used.
In one encounter we had a couple of potions of invisibility (the lower level ones that end if the character uses a hostile action). We gave them to the two Barbarian characters so that they could get into position while the more diplomatic characters distracted the enemy that we were setting up an ambush blitz attack on.
As a defensive ability it also works well, but it also isn't foolproof. It works nicely on a support/healing caster - especially one that doesn't have much AC to take hits with. Makes a decent 'get out of danger' trick to play at opportune times.
I would probably rank Invisibility along with things like Blur or Mirror Image for being a defensive resource that makes a character annoyingly costly to target. Invisibility means that the enemy would need to spend an action on Seek in order to find where you are, and would still have a miss chance even after that.
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I think what they meant has you will eventually take damage
Be it from intelligent enemies, bad luck, bad tactics, or attrition.
You will take damage.
Nothing wrong with taking steps to reduce how often or how much though
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It sound like everyone is expected to take hits?
So 4th level Invisibility is not welcome?
That sound sus' to say the least.A support caster that isn't targeted, doesn't need anyone to tank for them.
A minion, summoned or otherwise, splits up the pain.
It is Ok. It is just that you could spend your turn casting Improved Invisibility, or you could spend you turn casting Fireball. If the target of Improved Invisibility is likely to get a lot of attacks then it is a good idea. If not Fireball is better. Too many times casters who can't easily be targetted waste time being all defensive when there just isnt a need. The game has changed since casters started with d4 hitpoints.
Focus Fire is an important concept offensively, but defensively it means you need to spread the risk around in an appropriate way.
I honestly haven't considered the value of an AoE damage spell in years.
In my experience,they are hard to use in most parties, unless the gm is very lax about positioning.
Most martial players like to close with the enemy, making friendly fire a serious problem.
If your fireball slinging caster does get off a shot he might end some encounters, which isn't much fun for the rest of the players.
I've only just begun to digest spell choices, but ot does seem like ( is outstanding, with no other AoE spells of the same level that do what it does.
I wish there were more multi-target debuffing spells, but I've only found a few.
Friendly fire seems to be an issue with all of them.
Muti target buffs often target only allies, which works better for most groups I've played .
Are there good alternatives to fireball?
Are there better 3rd level mass debuffs than hypnotic pattern?