Invisibility is not fun in combat - am I doing something wrong?

[Warder1]

As the GM, I am not enjoying running combats with invisible creatures. My players are also not enjoying it. Am I doing something wrong? Or is there other advice to make the combats more enjoyable to both run and/or experience as a player?

Note: Seeing invisibility might be ok, but more on that later, as my party doesn't have anything to do that.

Sample combat:

The group of players is a fighter, a monk, a cleric, and an investigator.

They are up against a will-o'-wisp, who starts invisible.

Round 1
Will-o'-wisp start by making a melee attack to shock (Action 1). Then uses the "Go Dark" ability to become invisible (Action 2). Then moves to a different location (next to player 4). (Action 3)

So enemy became visible -> hidden -> invisible.

Player 1 uses seek with action 1. They do not beat the required DC with the perception roll.
Player 1 uses seek again with the second action. They do not beat the required DC with the perception roll.
Player 1 picks a random square to swing at, and misses.
(Why seek a third time if you can't point out and it will become invisible again?)

Player 2 uses seek with action 1. They do beat the required DC with the perception roll.
*Note: The enemy is now hidden to you, rather than undetected.
Player 2 "points out" the location to everyone else.
Player 2 moves over to the enemy, ends turn.

Player 3 moves over to the enemy.
Player 3 attacks. Fails the DC 11 flat check.
Player 3 attacks. Succeeds the flat check. Fails to hit AC.

Player 4 casts a spell. Oops, they are immune to magic.
Player 4 moves.

Round 2
Enemy does the exact same thing: shock -> Go dark -> moves next to player 1.
*Everyone in combat gets a chance to hit the hidden creature as it is trying to move. 2 people roll flat checks. 1 misses. One succeeds, but misses AC.

Player 1 uses seek with action 1. They do not beat the required DC with the perception roll.
Player 1 uses seek again with the second action. They do not beat the required DC with the perception roll.
Player 1 picks a random square to swing at, and misses.

Player 2 uses seek with action 1. They do not beat the required DC with the perception roll.
Player 2 uses seek again with the second action. They do not beat the required DC with the perception roll.
Player 2 picks a random square to swing at, and misses.

Player 3 uses seek with action 1. They do not beat the required DC with the perception roll.
Player 3 uses seek again with the second action. They beat the DC.
Player 3 "points out" to the other people in the group.

Player 4 moves (Action 1)
Player 4 melee swings, misses on flat DC check
Player 4 swings, misses on AC check.

Round 3
Enemy does the exact same thing: shock -> Go dark -> moves next to player 4 again.
*Only player 1 and 4 can react. Player 4 doesn't have one, player 1 does, swings, and misses on flat check*

Player 1 and sees it.
Player 1 "points out" to the other people in the group.
Player 1 moves next to it

...
*more things happen - the enemy is eventually defeated*
...

Analysis
The first player AFTER the wisp always must seek. Because they are invisible, their stealth is naturally high. So often the first player after will spend their entire round either seeking or swinging wildly because seeks failed.

The second player after the enemy: 50% of the time will seek, the other 50% of the time knows where it is from player 1. Even if they "know where it is" they must move to be near it (1 action), and take 2 swings. Half the time it will fail.

Third player will often know where it is. If they do not, they must seek. If they do, they face the same DC 11 flat check to miss with attacks. So often will miss on one due to flat check, and the other is 50% chance of hitting (roughly)

Fourth player will almost always know where it is, but must move -> attack -> attack

Note: Will o' wisp is especially annoying due to magic immunity.

So what does that tell us?
1. First player will often not get the chance to do anything in combat besides "look for stuff" (fairly boring)
2. Second player, half the time will look for stuff (fairly boring), and the other half will get to do two attacks, one which will miss because the creature is hidden (failing a DC 11 flat check? Annoying), and the other will miss 50% of the time just due to AC mechanics.
3. Third player will often get to hit, but will likely get only one hit (move, attack, attack, with one missing to flat check and one 50% chance to miss due to AC)
4. Fourth player (cleric) gets to do nothing against will-o'-wisp (or against other creatures, 50% chance to blow a spell slot on DC11 flat check miss).

Which means on average there is one hit per round. So this will last 5-6 rounds.

Note:
Yes, meta-gaming it is smart to have the caster(s) do the seeking (since their melee is bad at best), or have the best perception go first. Better odds of people with the ability to do something meaningful have more opportunities, but that seems awfully mechanically exploitative at best.

The other possibility is somehow having the group get the ability to see invisible things. Does that make the combat too easy? I assume the invisibility adds to the challenge rating (would will-o'-wisp still be 6 if it couldn't be invisible? Highly unlikely). So if everyone can see it now, the group makes one or two round(s) of attacks and combat is over.

Or maybe only one person can see the invisible creature. Cool, now they don't spam the seek action but still have to spend an action to make it hidden to everyone, and then you still have the same annoyance of having half of your player's attacks / spell slots just miss to the flat check since they are still hidden (except to the one player who can see it).

Am I missing something obvious? Do some GMs handle invisibility differently? Is there anything that can be done to make combats with invisible creatures more fun but also not too easy?

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

[Squiggit]

Quote:

Am I missing something obvious?

Two things jump out:

Quote:

Will-o'-wisp start by making a melee attack to shock (Action 1). Then uses the "Go Dark" ability to become invisible (Action 2). Then moves to a different location (next to player 4). (Action 3)

So enemy became visible -> hidden -> invisible.

Per the Invisible effect rules, a creature that becomes invisible while being observed is only Hidden unless they Sneak. You don't mention rolling sneak checks in your writeup, so I'm not sure if you were accounting for that.

Second:

Quote:

Round 2

Enemy does the exact same thing: shock -> Go dark -> moves next to player 1.

The Wisp can't continuously Go Dark, because the effect of Go Dark lasts until they spend an action to re-illuminate themselves. They can regain their undetected status by Sneaking, (per invisibility rules) but that does at least require a check.

Were you making sneak checks every round or just allowing the Wisp to become undetected automatically?

That said, wisps are just really badly designed enemies in general.

[Ascalaphus]

I don't know if they improved in the remaster, but they were unusually awful monsters before that at least.

Have been for years actually. I remember in D&D 2e realizing that I'd put the level 4 party against a monster they couldn't see or in any way hurt. And that was flying faster than they could run. And that was by nature not going to let them get away. When D&D 3e hit that was when I realized how useful it was that monsters had a challenge rating telling you how powerful they were.

But still, WoW and a couple of other monsters (poltergeist) are way off the normal curve for how nasty they are.

[Perpdepog]

Ascalaphus wrote:

I don't know if they improved in the remaster, but they were unusually awful monsters before that at least.

Have been for years actually. I remember in D&D 2e realizing that I'd put the level 4 party against a monster they couldn't see or in any way hurt. And that was flying faster than they could run. And that was by nature not going to let them get away. When D&D 3e hit that was when I realized how useful it was that monsters had a challenge rating telling you how powerful they were.

But still, WoW and a couple of other monsters (poltergeist) are way off the normal curve for how nasty they are.

They are unchanged, I believe. They're now the only creature in Monster Core to retain an immunity to magic.

[Castilliano]

In short, it's likely not the Invisibility per se which as noted relies on Sneak (meaning they might fly out of reach instead). These monsters are built to annoy.

The original Will-O'-Wisp had one of the best ACs in the game, as in beyond most every campaign boss out there. And being immune to AoE spells, they could remain effective into the highest levels.

Obviously that wouldn't fly in later editions that cared about balance, especially PF2, but in essence it remains the same: a genuine nuisance that's difficult to hurt, albeit w/ miss chances instead of high AC. In turn, their hit points are perhaps the lowest for their CR at 50, same as a CR 3 Ogre (and some level 3 PCs). So a combat could swing really fast too, though it might take Ready actions to set up Strikes. They're a good reason to make certain you have Magic Missile/Force Barrage handy (as if incorporeal creatures weren't enough).

[Errenor]

Squiggit wrote:

Per the Invisible effect rules, a creature that becomes invisible while being observed is only Hidden unless they Sneak.

True. But it seems designers either forgot that or made rather clumsy wording of Go Dark:" The will-o’-wisp extinguishes its glow, becoming invisible. It can end this effect with another use of this action. If it uses its shock attack while invisible, the arc of electricity lets any observer determine its location, making the will-o’-wisp only hidden to all observers until it moves."

So yes, the last sentence could be an additional thing to the whole process: Go dark (invis, hidden)->Sneak (undetected)-> Shock (hidden). But wait! You don't need the last sentence at all, as when you even Strike anyone being undetected, you become at least hidden (if invisible) or even observed (if not).
It's really kind of broken.

Warder1 wrote:

Yes, meta-gaming it is smart to have the caster(s) do the seeking (since their melee is bad at best), or have the best perception go first. Better odds of people with the ability to do something meaningful have more opportunities, but that seems awfully mechanically exploitative at best.

It's not at all. Delay is made to do exactly this. You are allowed to play it smart.

But yes, the creature is not great. If it weren't immune to magic, area effects and spells could help. Alchemic bombs are also targeted attacks... But it you have any other area effects, they aren't affected by flat checks.
And then we have that fun thing when Force Barrage is also targeted effect and I'm still inclined to believe it's affected by flat checks for hidden.

[Captain Morgan]

You generally should be using readied actions or packing Revealing Light/fairie fire/glitterdust scrolls or invisible enemies will be a pain, yeah. But those are really cheap scrolls.

[Warder1]

First, thank you all for the replies! I have taken time to read through all of these and will definitely incorporate some feedback provided into the next opportunity I get on this.

Squiggit wrote:

Per the Invisible effect rules, a creature that becomes invisible while being observed is only Hidden unless they Sneak. You don't mention rolling sneak checks in your writeup, so I'm not sure if you were accounting for that.

I did totally miss that. Thank you! I will have to implement that next time I get the chance to see how much of a difference that makes.

Just from the previous experience, it seems like it will end combat a round or two sooner (as I expect the sneak to pass more often than not) - but otherwise not change much.

Ascalaphus wrote:

But still, WoW and a couple of other monsters (poltergeist) are way off the normal curve for how nasty they are.

Yes, I am running a pre-written adventure path that features plenty of both of those. I understand why due to the deities involved, but because of the heavy play of invisibility with these two creatures I am looking at replacing some future encounters featuring these monsters with something else (or maybe making them elite but not using the invisibility at all...).

Castilliano wrote:

They're a good reason to make certain you have Magic Missile/Force Barrage handy (as if incorporeal creatures weren't enough).

Wouldn't magic missiles and Force Barrage just not work since they are immune to magic (at least the will-o'-wisps)? I'm torn, each one does damage based on something that could be physical (a dart of force / a projectile launched by force). But at the same time, isn't fireball just a ball of fire you are hurling - and they aren't immune to fire?

It seems like regardless of how the thing is done, it is still magical in origin so the WoW would at least be immune to them?

Errenor wrote:

But it you have any other area effects, they aren't affected by flat checks.

How many area effects are low level enough? Alchemists have them with flasks, but how many others are? If it takes a specific class/archetype to beat a mechanic - that seems wrong to me.

Captain Morgan wrote:

You generally should be using readied actions

This could be helpful. But only works for characters with ranged attacks (i.e. won't work for the monk / fighter in my group). Because melee actions, if they aren't in reach, just go to waste. And I would assume invisible creatures would pop up in different places as a habit in combat.

Captain Morgan wrote:

packing Revealing Light/fairie fire/glitterdust scrolls or invisible enemies will be a pain,

I think I will remind them the next time they visit town about these options. Although based on the previous comment about "immunity to magic" for WoWs specifically I am not sure how well they work there. Although poltergeists it would work. My only concern then is it makes the combat too easy. BUT if the players want to spend some gold to make a combat trivial, that seems fine. But forcing them to spend gold to avoid a mechanic they dislike seems a little worse...

----------------------------------------------------------

All in all, it seems I was playing it (mostly) correctly. The part I missed only makes the combat end a few rounds sooner (if the invisible ones fail the sneak then more likely to be hit).

But my whole problem of invisibility of "the monster does the exact same thing every round" still stands (that is how it should be played). The players do almost the exact same thing with the following changes:
-Did the monster successfully sneak?
-Are you ranged (or spell based with a 1 action spell if not a WoW) and can ready an action to hit it when it becomes visible?
-Do you want to spend a few gold to make this combat really easy?

So I think those modifications can make it tolerable in smaller doses, but since I feel there are an excessive number of these creatures in this adventure path, I may look at substituting in some different creatures where appropriate.

Again, thank you all for your insight, I really appreciate it!

[nicholas storm]

Magic Immunity A will-o’-wisp is immune to all spells except faerie
fire, glitterdust, magic missile, and maze.

[shroudb]

and given that revealing light is the remaster form of faerie fire/glitterdust, and force barrage is the renaming of magic missile for remaster, I'd extend the clause to those as well

[Captain Morgan]

The remastered WoW specifically uses the new remastered versions of the spell, but yes.

Worth noting every caster has access to at least one option between glitterdust/fairy fire/revealing light. My players still like using fairy fire because it has no save, even though revealing light only does nothing on a crit success. These are the perfect examples of scrolls you should pack a couple of.

This is also one of the reasons I love scent on a caster. it will tell you the location to target on most corporeal creatures without needing actions or checks.

[The Raven Black]

Way I see it, enemies using too much of the same trick in various encounters is a nice way to make players feel smart.

First encounter with an invisible enemy goes badly. The party flees back to town and devises ways to beat the invisibility. They come back and kill the enemy.

When they later meet another invisible enemy, they are prepared and squash it. And feel more powerful because they were smart.

It's the one-trick pony case but turned against enemies for once

[ottdmk]

Things like the Will-o'-Wisp make me love Revealing Mist all the more... especially when combined with Cat's Eye Elixir.