I have a pair of related questions about Invisibility Purge that somehow has never come up before in anything I've run, and I can't find it on the forums. It is described as having a target/range of 'Personal/You', but that the caster is "surrounded by a sphere of power".
1. Does anything block the "sphere of power"? Can a cleric on one side of a brick wall cast the spell and render visible any invisible creature on the other side of the wall? It's not an emanation or spread, so nothing indicates that it can be blocked by anything - and indeed there is no spell effect to block, since the spell effect is only on the caster.
2. If within the sphere of the purge but unable to see the caster, can the spell be dispelled? A spell with a range of "Personal/You" normally can only be dispelled if the dispeller has line of effect to the caster.
The range of the spell is listed as personal because it radiates from the caster and moves with it. But its effect is still a sphere so are still subject to the line of effect rule. So, a solid barrier would block it unless the barrier has a hole of at least 1 square foot through it. This also means that you have to be able to have a line of effect to the caster in order to dispel it.
I hate to do this, but I disagree with Mysterious Stranger on this one (sorry boss). The spell effects only the caster and has no "area" effect. (The area is the caster).
Line of Effect applies only to the casting of the spell, not what it does afterwards. Same with other 'communal' spells, Resist Energy, Communal doesn't stop working when you lose line of effect.
The "Sphere of Power" has an area, not the spell itself, which is self-only.
BTW: The Dispel Magic IS under the Line of Effect rule, so no, it can't be dispelled. My comment above is only in regards to the Invisibility Purge effect.
A sphere has an area, and creates an effect in that area. By definition that is an area of effect. If it does not have an area of effect the spell does not work.
There is also this line A sphere-shaped spell expands from its point of origin to fill a spherical area. Spheres may be bursts, emanations, or spreads. The line clearly states that spheres are bursts, emanations or spreads. Therefore, RAW Invisibility Purge is one of those even if it does not list it as such. Since all of them are subject to the line of effect rule, which one it actually is does not matter. If the spell could penetrate a solid barrier the description of the spell would have included that information.
Just to address the claim of RAW
RAW the spell has 3 properties:
Invisibility Purge wrote: Range: personal
Target: you
Duration: 1 min./level (D)
Range (personal) and Target (you) are obviously not affected by Line of Effect.
There is no "Effect" listed, so none of the rules under Effect apply.
There is no "Area" listed, so none of the rules under Area apply.
The only RAW that could possibly support a claim of Line of Effect needed for the 'effect' is:
Line of Effect wrote: You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect. You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.
The problem with suggesting that is the applicable rule, is that "Line of Effect" is a rule for Spread, and Cone, Cylinder, Line or Sphere specifically, not for spells in general.
Truth is, Line of Effect isn't even a rule for targeting the casting. The rules for targeting are just you have to see or touch your target, and specifically choose that target. Line of Effect is first mentioned in Spread, but since Spread isn't an effect of the spell, that doesn't apply.
Thus, the only RAW rules we can use are the ones in the spell itself, which has the simple rule of: Anything invisible becomes visible while in the area. No direct mention of Line of Effect, as there are in other spells, such as Project Image.
You forgot to include the description of the spell. Just because the details are in the description of the spell does not mean they are not part of the spell
You surround yourself with a sphere of power with a radius of 5 feet per caster level that negates all forms of invisibility.
Anything invisible becomes visible while in the area.
The first bolded portion of the spell defines the area, which is a radius of 5 feet per caster level. If that is not an area, I don’t know what is. The second bolded portion defines the effect and directly states it is an area.
You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect. You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.
The section on line of effect is specifically mentions targeting spells. It also specifically states you need to have line of effect in any space you wish to create an effect.
If there is no area, how do you determine if an invisible character near you is affected by the spell? If there is no effect what does the spell do? The area of the spell is a radius of 5 feet per caster level, the effect of the spell is that anything that is invisible becomes visible.
Heh, no worries boss. Quite obvious you're not going to adjust your opinion on the matter. And I'm not about to go back to the age of trolling with large bold caps. :P
The OP has what he needs to either, as GM, decide... or as player, to argue the viewpoint he wants. :)
To the OP. Description is only used to introduce new rules, or counter existing rules. Nothing in this description counters any existing rule, nor does it give the spell an 'area', despite having used the word in the description. Similar to spells like Antipathy, which despite doing things to an area, don't require Line of Effect.
That's all I'll say on the matter, you decide how it goes in your game (or how you want to argue it for your character). :)
Invisibility Purge:K3 a rather short and sweet description. Same as DnD3.5 since it is an OGL spell.
If you get too literal the common english descriptions break down (after all a sphere is technically just the perimiter/surface). Generally every invisible creature within the Area of Effect(AoE) or radius (same thing with Line of Effect) becomes visible. When they leave the AoE they go invisible again. Clearly it is just supressing the invisibility effect within the radius. So just do what the spell and magic basics - spell descriptions says.
There are a lot of rules, personally I'd treat it as a spread (of burst, emanation, spread) as it is a radius and constant for the duration and should go around corners. Consider too the (emanation) update for larger creatures. I say that as if you cast it and entered water it should still work and that can be a limiter with RAW as is.
Line of Effect is a 'thing' for spells.
the other half is Dispel Magic:A3 where the Target or Area one spellcaster, creature, or object. If you read the description, the spell has to be effecting an area (they mean spells like Wall of Fire, or spells with a defined area of effect).
Invisibility purge is coming from the caster and moves with him, so yes, you'd have to see the caster to dispel it.
From a practical standpoint, why bother. Just wait it out and cast Invisibility (2nd) again forcing the foes to cast Invisibility Purge (3rd) again. You can use the Dispel Magic for something important like removing an ongiong spell that inflicts a condition.
Thanks to everyone for the responses!
"Area", the last word of the spell description, interpreted as a term-of-art limiting the shape of what is affected by magic through the standard effect rules, does make some sense.
But this is pretty clearly one of those cut-and-paste shortcuts from 3E. (The wording in 3.5e is identical to the Pathfinder spell description, even though "sphere of power" is not a term-of-art in PF, appearing nowhere else in the core rules.) There can't be a "right" answer in terms of designer intent, because the designers didn't review the 3.5 rule in this case to determine how to make it specific and correct for PF.
The absence of the standard paragraph limiting the power, though, makes it defensible to claim it should not be so limited. ("The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it." It's in the rules over and over, but not here.)
All other evocations that have a Personal range specify an Area if the effect extends beyond the caster's abilities, or else use terms of art like spread, burst, and emanation, which this does not - again, because Paizo didn't edit the 3.5e text at all to reflect the game terms.
I ruled on the fly, and will keep my ruling. The spellcaster was standing outside the structure the PCs were inside, and used the spell to make the PCs visible so that his goons could target them. I think - given that I was also allowing detect thoughts to operate through the spell area - that I shall clarify for the players that obviously all the stone walls involved were less than a foot thick since detection spells could penetrate them, so this spell could too. :)
(In the absence of three rounds being spent on detect magic to fix the spellcaster's presence and being able to target them with a dispel, it was correct to say they had no line-of-effect to the caster anyway and could not dispel the effect, even though the dispel could have penetrated the stone.)
I note, for the record, that Invisibility Purge is a duration spell, and its effects continue after casting, so re-casting Invisibility would have no effect, since all forms of invisibility are suppressed, not dispelled, while in the area.
the exceptions you note in P4, "The absence of the standard...", are for Divinations (information gathering spells), not Evocations. Those are legacy details repeated in PF1.
As it is a clerical spell they could use a little power buffing so your Home Game ruling is fine AFAIK as it is not going to break anything and it is just supressing a common easily broken illusion. Letting it permeate through(not just around) normal LoE boundaries/demarcations is contrary to RAW (as this is the Rules Forum).
Much of the OGL material just got a tense change.
Designers and many players had 3.5 experience so that was an assumption that players knew how things worked. The two drivers were DnD4.0 and the collapse of RPGA Living City(s).
The Monsters/CR got adjusted post CRB so most were given an edit. Someone didn't bother to watch the old cartoon or read the Shade entry to remember that Shadows can speak.
Polymorphs got a rework which killed the effectiveness of that line of spells (people still try and PCs die).
As an evocation that targets only the caster, yet is described as a "sphere of power", and yet it has no spherical Effect section listed in the spell parameters, and has no clarification of whether that sphere is an emanation or spread, it is unique. ("N ft emanation centered on the caster" is enormously common language throughout, but they don't use that language here, and obviously could have.)
It's also counterintutive for me that it is an evocation and not either a divination (perceiving things that are hidden, like true sight - which, if it were, would cause my ruling to make sense) or an abjuration (suppressing another effect, like a special-purpose antimagic field, to which it seems very similar - but again, not an abjuration). It does, I suppose, "create something from nothing" as an evocation does - a "sphere of power" - and sphere effects are described in the rules, so I am thinking Mysterious Stranger makes the most reasonable inference.
I do find a few evocations that are a little similar in description - light and darkness - but those spells create illumination (or "radiate darkness" which is described as negating illumination) - and illumination is described elsewhere in the rules in depth (and, of course, being a mundane effect, most real-world players have some experience with the phenomenon.) While the rules don't say explicitly (at least not where I can find) that light is an emanation, it clearly behaves like one, by following line of sight rules.
At least I think so. FAQ clarifications have made baffling rulings before.
I agree it would make much more sense if invisibility purge clarified that the sphere was an emanation or was a spread.
Yet it is interesting that it doesn't say which. Can the caster choose? The rules are sometimes quite counterintuitive in this way - RAW FAQ clarifications have been fairly consistent that if it says something in 98% of cases and doesn't say it in the other 2%, then the rule is different in those 2% of cases, it shouldn't be assumed to be the same. Half the things in the FAQ are rulings where my reaction was "Huh, that's not how I'd have called this, but technically speaking that is an interpretation consistent with the precise wording here..."
The editing to define spells that affect areas as one of those things was in general fairly careful, and the fact that this spell was not at any point edited to conform to other evocations is, to me at least, interesting.
I nevertheless think it's just a missed edit, and it was likely meant to specify it is an emanation. But it doesn't say so, and I think every other spherical effect specifies emanation or spread (or burst, if no duration).
Either way, though, it's not a divination and shouldn't follow that rule, and it's a sphere and there is a rule for spheres, even if they're supposed to clarify whether they're emanations or spreads and this one doesn't.
(all that was after digesting what everyone said, and having the time to go reread all the relevant rules pointed to)
I don't think anyone is really debating the 'right' way really, just that it's wrong to call their view on it RAW, when the closest thing to RAW is that Anything invisible becomes visible while in the area. The other rules being used do not exist when called from the "descriptive text", only when called from the appropriate "standard format". Each spell is broken down into sections, with rules specifically for that section. Using "area" in the descriptive text doesn't initiate the "area" aspect of the standard format.
yep, that's right. The RAW is ambiguous, because it's not edited to remove the ambiguity.
I'm now obsessively searching for "sphere" and "spherical" in spell descriptions. :) Nothing else is quite this ambiguous - almost everything else says "sphere" or "spherical" in the "Effect:" block of the standard format, and most say "emanation" - though resilient sphere and especially telekinetic sphere are also interestingly vague, and tiny hut explicitly states the sphere slices through the ground beneath you, which neither emanations nor spreads do (but also says the interior of the sphere is a "hemisphere", which has interesting ramifications if cast by, say, a flying person).
Even if you called 'sphere' in the description a term of art governed by the rules on sphere-shaped spells (which I agree RAW doesn't require, since the text regarding spheres is under the spell-description section under "Area", which this "sphere of power" descriptive text isn't), it can still be a burst, emanation, or spread, and -- what I said earlier.
(Also "wall" is a type of effect that isn't defined in the magic chapter. This is important because e.g. resilient sphere is a sphere-shaped wall, like a wall of force, and like invisibility purge it is left unspecified whether it is an emanation, a spread, or something else. And its size is one-foot-per-caster-level diameter. That's a ten foot radius if cast at 20th level. If a resilient sphere intersects walls or other obstructions, what happens? Is the sphere bent by walls? Does it spread around corners? How about the similar, but movable, telekinetic sphere? What happens to walls caught partly inside the "globe" of effect?
I am now fascinated by the spherical ambiguities.
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