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.
I've heard that since it says the target "counts as invisible," see the unseen can't reveal the target because the target only counts as invisible rather than actually being invisible. Why does that matter? There's no restriction on for what purpose the target counts as invisible. How is that not functionally equivalent to being invisible?
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No, that sounds like players trying to game the system by nit-picking the wording.
Disappearance would cause the target to become Undetected to all senses. Sight, scent, even tremorsense.
But See the Unseen would mean that while the Goloma happens to be adjacent to that target, it is still only Hidden instead of Undetected, and only needs a DC 5 flat check to target them successfully.
Never heard of a Goloma. I see you are talking about that ancestry's see the unseen feat. But I'm not sure what issue you're taking with this. The feat doesn't seem to rely on senses in the first place, so it should work.
I was talking about the spell see the unseen, formerly see invisibility. If you become undetected in a way that thwarts all senses, and if you explicitly count as invisible, and if see the unseen is still giving you the ability to see invisible creatures, then what is different from the perspective of see the unseen compared to using see the unseen to detect ordinary invisible creatures?
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OK. Two things with the same name. Cool.
I still wouldn't let Disappearance completely negate the See the Unseen spell.
If See the Unseen only lets you negate the invisibility, then that is still sufficient to let you see the target of Disappearance by sight as described in the See the Unseen spell.
You still wouldn't be able to detect the target of Disappearance by scent, or tremorsense (so hiding from you would still be easier). But you could find them by sight using See the Unseen.
"Count as invisible" is not the same as being invisible. You do not have the invisible condition while the spell is active. You have the undetected condition. See the Unseen does nothing against undetected foes, only invisible foes. Therefore, there is zero interaction with these effects.
And that is what sounds like trying to game the system by nit-picking the wording.
What does Invisible do?
Oh, right. It causes the creature to be Undetected to everyone using vision as their only precise sense.
So 'being invisible' and 'counting as invisible' both mean that you are Undetected to people looking for you and See the Unseen does interact.
What does Invisible do?
Oh, right. It causes the creature to be Undetected to everyone using vision as their only precise sense.
So 'being invisible' and 'counting as invisible' both mean that you are Undetected to people looking for you and See the Unseen does interact.
Invisible as a condition does nothing because the spell doesn't convey that condition. Here's what it 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.
So, the spell makes the target undetected. Not invisible, undetected. What does undetected do? It doesn't make you invisible, that's for sure. Even if you wanted to argue it does, it applies to all senses. That includes the ability to see invisible creatures, and if you want to disagree with that, then petition Paizo to remove that entry from the relevant Beastiaries/Monster Core books.
And that is what sounds like trying to game the system by nit-picking the wording.
No, gaming the system is saying a 2nd level spell trumps an 8th level spell by ignoring the intent behind the spell effect. The Disappearance spell is literally four times the spell level of the effect, and even counteracting-based effects of significantly higher level are nowhere near as effective.
If you don't like the way it is written because of the level disparity, houserule in a counteract check to it then. At that point the level disparity doesn't cause problems.
Don't try to tell me that it isn't written the way that it is written.
Invisibility makes you Undetected to vision. Disappearance makes you undetected to vision and all other senses.
See the Unseen works on Invisibility. So See the Unseen works on the visual sense of Disappearance. Same as it works on Invisibility. It won't overcome the other sensory Undetected conditions.
If you don't like the way it is written because of the level disparity, houserule in a counteract check to it then. At that point the level disparity doesn't cause problems.
Don't try to tell me that it isn't written the way that it is written.
Invisibility makes you Undetected to vision. Disappearance makes you undetected to vision and all other senses.
See the Unseen works on Invisibility. So See the Unseen works on the visual sense of Disappearance. Same as it works on Invisibility. It won't overcome the other sensory Undetected conditions.
Your interpretation makes a 2nd rank spell trounce an 8th rank spell that was literally written to avoid all forms of automatic detection. There's a reason they implemented the TGTBT clause in the rules. This is one of those reasons. **EDIT** And really, it does cause problems, because now you're having a high level spell become completely useless because the ability to see invisible creatures is commonplace, like, 2 spell ranks ago.
If I was trying to tell you that, then I would have changed the wording and tell you that's how it works. But I didn't. All I'm saying is that you're fixated on something that's barely (and probably incorrectly) referenced in the spell. And really, if they meant to say "invisible," they'd just say it. Saying it "counts as invisibility" is a pointless distinction if you're just going to make it function identically to simply having the Invisible condition, and nothing else.
So then why does a rank 2 spell work, but an effect which gives Echolocation, Lifesense, Tremorsense, etc. doesn't? You're literally trying to make an exception for something that is no different than these effects here. If you have these effects, you precisely see entities with those senses. Except, you would absolutely go and defend it. But this one rank 2 spell is somehow exempt? What makes it exempt?
If disappearance wasn't supposed to interact with or be vulnerable to effects that affect invisible, they wouldn't have mentioned invisible. "Count as invisible" means it's susceptible to effects that detect or affect invisible. It's as simple as that
This is oversimplifying it, because if that's the case, then the clause referencing that it affects all senses means nothing, since the invisible condition states all non-sight based senses ignore the condition, meaning any references to the spell making the target "undetected...to all senses" is pointless, since the other senses ignore it anyway.
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The light cantrip autoheightens, and overrides unheightened darkness spells. See invisibility foiling invisibility would be peanuts in comparison.
Does see invisibility not work on greater invisibility? 4th level invis is foiled by the second level spell all the same. I see no reason that see the unseen wouldn't work on Disappearance, by RAW; you're still concealed to the person that uses it. I likewise see no reason by RAW that Revealing Mist (the item) or Revealing Light wouldn't work. Disappearance is just... not a particularly well-thought out or well-written spell.
The too good to be true clause is only relevant when the rules are vague. This aspect of disappearance, at least, isn't particularly vague.
The vast majority of Reddit comments on this over the year agree with me that Sense the Unseen/See Invisibility doesn't help against Disappearance. Certainly that was the old PF1 interaction - True Seeing was the counter, and then you used Mind Blank to shut that down.
It is my understanding that the ONLY thing that helps against disappearance is a successful Seek action.
I'm fairly certain the intent is just that you get invisible benefit, but applied to any senses a creature might have, not just sight. I.E., you start undetected (if cast outside of sensory range) and can never become observed via seek checks. You can still become hidden or observed-but-concealed in the usual "cute" ways, as player core states: net, bag of flour, tracks in the snow, and so on. (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2420)
I'd rule that disappearance also prevents you from making yourself hidden instead of undetected in situations like "I use intimidate and yell really loudly while I have heightened invis up," which—in my opinion—would make you hidden until you stealthed, because of how imprecise senses work.
Of course, whether or not you can even intimidate someone while disappearance is running is basically GM fiat—the spell is silent on this and anything anywhere close to it. It doesn't say it acts as though you're under the effects of Silence; it just says you have the invisible status, but for hearing. Have fun with that rules discussion! The "detecting with other senses" sidebar (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2405) implies that Silence could work like Invisibility for creatures whose only precise sense is hearing, so the RAI could be that you should be under the effects of Silence. But how are you supposed to guess that? Infer it from the short description where it says it makes you silent? That's certainly not what I expect from a game as rigorous as PF2E. And if that's true, I sure hope you have conceal spell if you're casting Disappearance on yourself, since you can't cast anything that doesn't have the subtle trait under the effects of Silence. This spell is such a mess.
If disappearance wasn't supposed to interact with or be vulnerable to effects that affect invisible, they wouldn't have mentioned invisible. "Count as invisible" means it's susceptible to effects that detect or affect invisible. It's as simple as thatThis is oversimplifying it, because if that's the case, then the clause referencing that it affects all senses means nothing, since the invisible condition states all non-sight based senses ignore the condition, meaning any references to the spell making the target "undetected...to all senses" is pointless, since the other senses ignore it anyway.
The only thing this proves is that the spell is written poorly (which we all knew). It doesn't show that you're not treated as invisible; in fact, about the only reasonable interpretation of it would make you invisible (since sight is a sense, and being counted as invisible with respect to sight is just... being invisible). Even the spell's short description says it makes you invisible: "Make a creature invisible, silent, and undetectable by any and all senses."
If the intent were for see the unseen to not work, the spell likely would've included a clause about it. The invisible status itself even includes a clause that magic works against it.
Yep, nothing can help against Disappearance outside Dispel Magic (if you manage to target it, very GM dependent) and other magic suppressing effect. The creature is undetectable to all senses, it's not invisible.
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Disappearance wouldn't be useless if See the Unseen worked against it. How many monsters have See the Unseen at those levels? 10% maybe? And even if they do, they still can't hear you Stride. If you walk behind a wall, you're gone. Other monsters will typically rely on special senses, which Disappearance thwarts. See the Unseen is not a sense. It's a revelation effect.
And counting as invisible is just like being invisible, just like counting as undead qualifies effects that target undead.
Disappearance wouldn't be useless if See the Unseen worked against it. How many monsters have See the Unseen at those levels?
Monsters use Disappearance, too. And See the Unseen, at the level you cast Disappearance, is cast by most casters for an 8 hour duration. So it'd make a level 8 spell mostly useless.
And counting as invisible is just like being invisible, just like counting as undead qualifies effects that target undead.
No. Disappearance has 2 effects: Counting as Invisible is just one of them, the other one is being Undetected. So there's definitely a weird interaction that can lead to 2 interpretations. One being too bad to be true and the other being much more balanced, hence why the general consensus is on See the Unseen and other spells beating Invisibility not working on Disappearance.
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Disappearance wouldn't be useless if See the Unseen worked against it. How many monsters have See the Unseen at those levels?Monsters use Disappearance, too. And See the Unseen, at the level you cast Disappearance, is cast by most casters for an 8 hour duration. So it'd make a level 8 spell mostly useless.
Breaking line of sight is all it takes to become undetected again since the PCs can't hear the monster move. And monsters get pretty high Speeds at those levels, too, so players might not even know where to Seek.
And counting as invisible is just like being invisible, just like counting as undead qualifies effects that target undead.No. Disappearance has 2 effects: Counting as Invisible is just one of them, the other one is being Undetected. So there's definitely a weird interaction that can lead to 2 interpretations. One being too bad to be true and the other being much more balanced, hence why the general consensus is on See the Unseen and other spells beating Invisibility not working on Disappearance.
Disappearance forces the enemy to waste actions Seeking you just to gain a 50% chance to be able to target you, and it only lasts until your turn, at which point you can do literally anything you want and no one will know what happened because they can't perceive it. See the Unseen working against it isn't too bad to be true. It's throwing the dog a bone.
The undetected condition being separate from the counting as invisible is an interesting argument, though. But what would be the point of writing a spell that lets you count as invisible only to give you an undetected condition that renders counting as invisible moot?
Disappearance wouldn't be useless if See the Unseen worked against it. How many monsters have See the Unseen at those levels? 10% maybe? And even if they do, they still can't hear you Stride. If you walk behind a wall, you're gone. Other monsters will typically rely on special senses, which Disappearance thwarts. See the Unseen is not a sense. It's a revelation effect.
And counting as invisible is just like being invisible, just like counting as undead qualifies effects that target undead.
Yes, it would, because then it is literally no different than 4th rank invisibility besides instead lasting 10 minutes; at that point, Disappearance shouldn't exist as a spell, and it should just be a heightened entry in the original spell.
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Yes, it would, because then it is literally no different than 4th rank invisibility besides instead lasting 10 minutes; at that point, Disappearance shouldn't exist as a spell, and it should just be a heightened entry in the original spell.Disappearance wouldn't be useless if See the Unseen worked against it. How many monsters have See the Unseen at those levels? 10% maybe? And even if they do, they still can't hear you Stride. If you walk behind a wall, you're gone. Other monsters will typically rely on special senses, which Disappearance thwarts. See the Unseen is not a sense. It's a revelation effect.
And counting as invisible is just like being invisible, just like counting as undead qualifies effects that target undead.
Again, Disappearance thwarts ALL senses. The target can't hear you, so audible things that would normally require a Stealth check or reveal you outright simply can't do that. 4th rank invisibility doesn't come close.
The undetected condition being separate from the counting as invisible is an interesting argument, though. But what would be the point of writing a spell that lets you count as invisible only to give you an undetected condition that renders counting as invisible moot?
Rules about Invisibility are unfortunately very badly written. The spell Invisibility is for example no exception.
There are very clear rules about senses and then Paizo rewrites them anywhere they are addressed, adding mistakes in the process.
So, I don't think there's a point, in my opinion it's a mistake.
Even the sentence: "The target becomes undetected, not just to sight but to all senses" doesn't make sense. Being undetected is a consequence of not being perceivable. It should say that you can't be perceived by any sense and that would imply that you are Undetected. But stating that you are Undetected can end up causing issues if one day an effect specifically says that you can detect creatures that are not perceivable...
The vast majority of Reddit comments on this over the year agree with me that Sense the Unseen/See Invisibility doesn't help against Disappearance.
So... Appeal to the Majority fallacy.
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This entire debate hinges on whether Invisibility means anything more than 'Undetected to the sense of vision'.
That and truncating the rule quote from Disppearance. The full quote is "count as invisible no matter what precise and imprecise senses an observer might have". The idea that 'count as invisible' means something other than being Invisible for the sense of vision doesn't really hold up when you look at the full quote.
The Invisibility condition only references vision as a sense. The full quote from Disappearance is making it clear that the same style of condition is applied to all senses, not just vision.
What 'count as invisible no matter what precise and imprecise senses an observer might have' means is that you do have the standard Invisible condition. And you have a variant, unnamed condition similar to Invisible that foils the sense of hearing. And you have a variant, unnamed condition similar to Invisible that foils tremorsense. And you have a variant, unnamed condition similar to Invisible that foils Scent. And you have a variant, unnamed condition similar to Invisible that foils echolocation. And you have a variant, unnamed condition similar to Invisibility that...
You get the idea.
So yes. See the Unseen would interact with the Invisibility to vision condition that is part of, but not the entirety of, the Disappearance spell.
You could even homebrew a Smell the Unseen variant spell that counters the Invisibility to Scent part of Disappearance.
Again, Disappearance thwarts ALL senses. The target can't hear you, so audible things that would normally require a Stealth check or reveal you outright simply can't do that. 4th rank invisibility doesn't come close.Yes, it would, because then it is literally no different than 4th rank invisibility besides instead lasting 10 minutes; at that point, Disappearance shouldn't exist as a spell, and it should just be a heightened entry in the original spell.Disappearance wouldn't be useless if See the Unseen worked against it. How many monsters have See the Unseen at those levels? 10% maybe? And even if they do, they still can't hear you Stride. If you walk behind a wall, you're gone. Other monsters will typically rely on special senses, which Disappearance thwarts. See the Unseen is not a sense. It's a revelation effect.
And counting as invisible is just like being invisible, just like counting as undead qualifies effects that target undead.
No, it doesn't, because if it truly thwarted all senses, that would include sight; you know, the most common precise sense in the game, and the one required for See the Unseen to apply. It doesn't thwart sight, because if it did, then See the Unseen wouldn't be applicable, because your sense you are using to apply See the Unseen is being thwarted.
And really, if you want to be semantic, 4th rank Invis + Foil Senses trumps it, so it's much closer than you think.
Legit, being in a bush or having a Blur spell is more efficient than Disappearance if you want to avoid detection or have an unconditional miss chance.