I have read some of the past threads about Disappearance as a spell, and I agree that it did, and still does, have some outstanding questions about it. I have also been running a Fist of the Ruby Phoenix campaign and the spell has caused a number of problems, especially in the tournament-style encounters where lots of onlookers are present.
Any way, here are some of my questions about the spell and how it has been used in my campaigns. I am looking both for what people think is RAW/RAI, but also am happy to hear, "this is how we have handled it..." regardless of whether it is RAW or not.
1. Does a caster who cast disappearance become immune to having spells identified/countered? The character cannot be detected by any sense, right? So when they speak loudly to cast spells, can others hear them? Does the spell seem to be coming from everywhere/nowhere?
2. Can a PC under the effect of disappearance do anything to make themselves easier for their allies to find? Does it have to involve interacting with physical material? Can they even really communicate with their allies at all anymore?
3. I think I still have all the same old questions about how it interacts with spells that counter invisibility as a condition, but I don't think anything with the remaster has changed or clarified any of that. However, it would seem that, related to question 1, there is no "true hearing" type of spell, so even if a Truesight spell worked at counteracting a Rank+2 spell, it seems like there should at least be some kind of penalty for trying to ID a spell being cast by visual movements alone right?
This is hands down the meanest and most annoying spell to give any NPC. Not only to the PCs, but also for yourself as GM. It lasts long enough to be a real pain, and the amount of times you have to make arbitrary calls about whether there are even enough environmental factors present to allow for seek checks to work gets very old, very fast. I would not recommend doing it more than once a campaign.
Strongly recommend just houseruling all these questions immediately to your taste. If there is an official answer, I never found it.
My FotRP DM has a ruling that, in practice, sort of boils down to letting you turn the effect on and off as needed. If you want to speak and be heard, you can, but it will temporarily reveal your location; if you want to use a bard song, you can, but you can be heard for the duration; and so on. You can silently cast spells, and it's fine for them; don't think the DM has mentioned whether manifestations are visible, but he's chosen to keep them hidden based on how it's run in play. It feels very "keep the benefits, smooth the unclear things in favor of the players."
My current houserules are different, and rewrite the spell as follows:
You shroud a creature from others' senses. The target becomes Imperceptible.
You can't be perceived. You're undetected to everyone, regardless of what precise, imprecise, or vague senses they have. As other creatures cannot see or hear you, you cannot use actions with the auditory or visual traits, cannot use sonic attacks, and cannot cast spells unless they have the subtle trait.
It's still possible for a creature to find you by Seeking: they might look for disturbed dust, shout in a direction and see if the noise is absorbed, or figure out some other way to discover the presence of an otherwise-undetectable creature. If a creature succeeds at its Perception check against your Stealth DC, you become hidden to that creature; however, you can become undetected again simply by moving to a different square.
As with being invisible, some effects can partially foil being imperceptible. if you were in the snow, your footprints would make you hidden instead of undetected. In a similar vein, if someone threw a net on you, you would be concealed (though not observed) as long as you remained under the net.
Being imperceptible counts as being invisible for the purposes of effects that refer to the invisible status, such as See the Unseen, Revealing Mist, Revealing Light, and so on.
The Imperceptible status collates how I chose to answer these questions, and some other rules that were previously scattered in a few different places. You can't cast without subtle spell, so no manifestations or utterances; you also can't be countered for that reason. You cannot reveal yourself to your allies through typical means, though you could interact with your environment in some way to communicate (like marking a floor, or dropping items off your person) at the risk of making your position more obvious. I let truesight, See the Unseen, and so on work against it, mostly because the spell is nightmarishly uncounterable otherwise.
Mine is much more restrictive, arguably past RAI. But it at least functions in a consistent way and answers all the major questions the spell tends to cause. I also think the restrictions are fine, if only because the ceiling of the spell's performance is far beyond most other things in the game. As we discussed in other threads, it's a spell that can allow ranged martials to solo encounters by just attacking every so often from as long a range as is reasonable and moving a lot, regardless of what it does or doesn't allow casters to do. A more lenient interpretation puts the spell pretty far ahead of other options, so I'm happy to houserule it into something weaker-but-still-pretty-broken.
1. Does a caster who cast disappearance become immune to having spells identified/countered? The character cannot be detected by any sense, right? So when they speak loudly to cast spells, can others hear them? Does the spell seem to be coming from everywhere/nowhere?
Disappearance makes you undetected to every senses, which is a bit crazy when you think about it: Someone under Disappearance can Shove you and you don't even "detect" them. Also, they are not technically invisible so they block light and cast a shadow.
To play Disappearance, I take my inspiration from stories about entities who create some kind of mental black spot to stay undetected. There are a few X-Files episodes like that. There's one with a giant insect that walks among us, but people can't accept this fact and to solve the cognitive dissonance they picture it as human. In another one, an invisible soldier is all but invisible (and shows on cameras) but he can create visual black spots on people's retina, effectively removing himself from their vision.
So everything that is directly linked to the creature (clothes, shadow, spell components, pushing you) is undetectable. But you can determine their location indirectly: You don't know where they are if they Shove you and are not allowed to infer their position from your movement but someone who see you being shoved can. Similarly, you can't detect the spell being cast but if it's a Cone of Cold you can infer their position from the spell area.
This is hands down the meanest and most annoying spell to give any NPC. Not only to the PCs, but also for yourself as GM. It lasts long enough to be a real pain, and the amount of times you have to make arbitrary calls about whether there are even enough environmental factors present to allow for seek checks to work gets very old, very fast. I would not recommend doing it more than once a campaign.
I would apply the rules the most literally possible. I'd not prevent a Seek check, even if the creature is floating in space. And I'd not allow to infer its position unless it creates a very detectable effect that is affecting the environment (and not just you, because your senses are fooled).
But I agree with Witch of Miracles: Trying to find a precise delineation between what gives their position and what doesn't is impossible. Everyone will have a different point of view on the question.
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The "count as" wording means it CAN be countered and detected by effects that counter or detect invisibility. It's that simple. Anyone arguing otherwise has to torture the language to justify that "count as invisibility" doesn't count as invisibility this time because of reasons.
Not at all. The creature under Disappearance is not technically invisible, it blocks light, casts a shadow and such because it only fools senses. So what does See the Unseen do when someone is not invisible? My answer is nothing. I base myself on this sentence: "You can see invisible creatures as though they weren't invisible". Great, as it's not invisible you still can't perceive it.
It's a bit like casting See the Unseen to see a creature in a dark room: It doesn't work. Because the reason you don't see it is not the fact that it's Invisible.
I have read some of the past threads about Disappearance as a spell, and I agree that it did, and still does, have some outstanding questions about it. I have also been running a Fist of the Ruby Phoenix campaign and the spell has caused a number of problems, especially in the tournament-style encounters where lots of onlookers are present.
Any way, here are some of my questions about the spell and how it has been used in my campaigns. I am looking both for what people think is RAW/RAI, but also am happy to hear, "this is how we have handled it..." regardless of whether it is RAW or not.
1. Does a caster who cast disappearance become immune to having spells identified/countered? The character cannot be detected by any sense, right? So when they speak loudly to cast spells, can others hear them? Does the spell seem to be coming from everywhere/nowhere?
2. Can a PC under the effect of disappearance do anything to make themselves easier for their allies to find? Does it have to involve interacting with physical material? Can they even really communicate with their allies at all anymore?
3. I think I still have all the same old questions about how it interacts with spells that counter invisibility as a condition, but I don't think anything with the remaster has changed or clarified any of that. However, it would seem that, related to question 1, there is no "true hearing" type of spell, so even if a Truesight spell worked at counteracting a Rank+2 spell, it seems like there should at least be some kind of penalty for trying to ID a spell being cast by visual movements alone right?
This is hands down the meanest and most annoying spell to give any NPC. Not only to the PCs, but also for yourself as GM. It lasts long enough to be a real pain, and the amount of times you have to make arbitrary calls about whether there are even enough environmental factors present to allow for seek checks to work gets very old, very fast. I would not recommend doing it more than once a campaign.
My 2-cents:
1. I agree with everyone here. As long the manifestations are visible (the spell doesn't have subtle trait) you can try to identify/counter. Yet as GM I probably would impose a circumstance penalty due it's more harder to identify without see and listen the caster.
2. As everyone said you still can act with the environment writing messages or just use a Message spell to speak with them.
3. The rules allows the GM to adjust the senses if he thinks that should make sense for the situation. Probably you will find some GMs forbidding Truesight to allow to hear while other allowing.
About See the Unseen it works as normal. The Disappearance still count as invisible and See the Unseen should be able to see it yet you will still considered like you are deafened to it and all any other senses doesn't work vs it.
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I think the big issue to me is whether or not Disappearance counts as Invisible for the ways in which Invisibility might countered, or if the language that says "counts as Invisible" is really just a shortcut to say "hey, all these effects you would normally have from the Invisibility trait are happening here, and we don't want to write a new trait".
I personally think it's that second one, and that normal counters specific to Invisibility don't apply (but things like Truesight would).
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of whether you cast a shadow...like when I imagine this in my mind you don't, but I think logical SuperBidi is right. But i think that substantially weakens the spell by basically telling you exactly what square the person is in, with sufficient light and lack of other obscuring shadows.
I do think that no one will be able to hear you while under the effect of disappearance, meaning generally spells with the auditory trait wont work for someone under the effect of disappearance. And if you want your team mates to "hear" you, some sort of telepathy spell is going to be the best method. But anything that relies on you interacting with your surroundings could work too, writing in the dirt for example.
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The problem of this point of view is if "all these effects you would normally have from the Invisibility trait are happening here" this also includes See the Unseen.
The point is that Invisible is a condition. The sentence "allowing the target to count as invisible no matter what precise and imprecise senses an observer might have" is just to expand this condition to affect all senses not just vision. But the condition still is applied (the target is counted as invisible) and everything that interacts with Invisible condition like See the Unseen keeps interacting normally unless something explicitly says the opposite.
While we don't have an explicit rule saying 'Disappearance's invisibility is not an invisibility and cannot be countered/canceled/viewed by things that is able to see the invisibility' all the invisibility rules applies except those who are creating a clear exception like the part about that it also applies to other senses.
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I can't tell you that your view is a incorrect or invalid interpretation, but I personally think it is.
Disappearance isn't invisibility, only references it to explain how it works is my stance. And it's messy and not good, but my view is that anything that's specific to invisibility (like See the Unseen) doesn't work.
And among problems that the Disappearance spell has, I personally think this issue of "counts as invisibility" and what that means is the biggest one.
The primary reason I think it can't shouldn't be countered by things that are specific to invisibility, is that if See the Unseen can counter it, there's not a lot of point in going from a 4th level Invisibility spell to a 8th level Disappearance spell. For creatures that only have sight as a Precise sense, Disappearance isn't any better than 4th level Invisibility.
Do we really need 4 more spell levels to include scent/tremorsense/etc, or is it doing something more? Like not being countered by a 2nd level spell.
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2. Can a PC under the effect of disappearance do anything to make themselves easier for their allies to find? Does it have to involve interacting with physical material? Can they even really communicate with their allies at all anymore?
When our table had someone using Disappearance, we got creative and made sure to cast Telepathic Bond and heightened Status. So, communication (telepathy) and location (known direction and distance to) were covered as neither of these rely on senses.
Disappearance is a tricky one.
Even if you still cast shadows, you are still undetected unless the person is actively looking for you. All the “looking for disturbed dust” type of clauses in the spell description are telling you that you can use those to seek, not that you know where the character from then on. In fact the “counts as invisible” hardly matters, because it is a sub clause of “you are undetected by all senses.” Being undetected isn’t dependent on being invisible. Normally, being visible means that someone can pinpoint your location with the sense of sight, but the spell first makes you undetectable by all senses. There is a strong argument that even things like glitter dust would, at best, just make seeking the target easier with a circumstance bonus.
The spell doesn’t say anything about making you unnoticed though, so it is possible that all sounds you make, how you smell, that life sense/earthsense is activated even what you look like (to anyone that can see the invisible) is something that observers are aware of, they just cannot use any of that information to identify where you are.
So I do think you can talk and be heard, but you can’t say “I’m over here” and have anyone knows what that means because the origination of the sound is still undetectable. This also deals best with how stealth and perception work in exploration mode. A disappeared character still needs to avoid notice to sneak past NPCs if the purpose is to not let them know you were ever there.
A common point of contention is whether or not to parse the spell as granting you one status that makes you impossible to detect to all senses; or if it effectively grants you many statuses, effectively giving you a different variant of the "invisible" status for each possible sense (so you have invisible, invisible-but-to-hearing, invisible-but-to tremorsense, etc.). That's a judgment call that ultimately determines how you think it interacts with a lot of other mechanics.
As other creatures cannot see or hear you, you ... cannot cast spells unless they have the subtle trait.I will say one thing: this is very unreasonable. You don't need to be heard (and by creatures!) to cast spells. You must be able to speak. Disappearance does not prevent you from speaking, it's not Silence. It's not that lore and game system.
It's a houserule, and I stated as much. I don't care if it's "reasonable" or goes past RAI. What I care about is that it makes the spell function in a consistent manner that I can explain to players—something extremely important for adjudicating it. The spell is still blatantly overpowered anyways.
I personally believe this is the kind of thing where Finoan would say the rules are unclear and the GM is just required to fill in the gap. No amount of exegesis can give you a clear, correct answer on how to run the spell. You just need to make a judgment call and your players need to accept that you're doing it.
My rules are a judgment call that's appropriate for the people I usually would run for. I don't believe it's appropriate for all tables, not by a longshot. I just usually end up with players with simulationist tendencies, especially if they're caster players. This is an interpretation of the spell that works better for them and minimizes the inevitable "but how does that work?" questions.
(I'd also say that if someone were especially hung up on the "requiring subtle spell" thing, then they could just have the spell grant you the ability to use the subtle spell metamagic as a free action for the duration. But personally, I prefer that it forces invis casters to take 3A. It's also much kinder to players facing enemies that use disappearance.)
(Relatedly, I've also flirted with houseruling most of the less useful metamagic feats—like subtle spell—into skill feats.)
Do we really need 4 more spell levels to include scent/tremorsense/etc, or is it doing something more? Like not being countered by a 2nd level spell.
To me, the "something more" is the whole "your location is reobscured just by moving" thing. That alone is enough to make it obnoxious.
Frankly, its abuse cases already make it stronger than most 9th and 10th rank spells. The way a lot of people run it (can't be countered by true seeing, see the unseen; can cast spells; has almost no downsides at all) is probably worth being a 10th rank spell with the amount of power it gives.
I usually combine this spell with Hidden Mind. It is a brutal spell.
1. Counterspell should work fine as that relies on the spell being cast having manifestations.
2. The double-edged sword of the spell is allies have trouble finding you as well as enemies. I consider this a balancing effect of the spell.
3. I think counter-invisibility works as the spell implies it like invisibility, which is why I combine it with hidden mind.
The way I run it is you still know what square attacks are coming from if they don't move after attacking or launching a spell. Usually warriors with Blindfight at that level don't have much trouble hitting invisible targets.
Revealing Light can work to get them outlined so even if you can't detect the target, you can see the light from revealing light. It bypasses Hidden Mind because it isn't a detection spell.
Unrelenting Observation is something you could use on your party as well to find the target. I think it is the counter to disappearance the way it is written.
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Frankly, its abuse cases already make it stronger than most 9th and 10th rank spells. The way a lot of people run it (can't be countered by true seeing, see the unseen; can cast spells; has almost no downsides at all) is probably worth being a 10th rank spell with the amount of power it gives.
I think anyone who says it's not countered by Truesight is in the too good to be true territory.
I don't think it's affected by See the Unseen because Disappearance isn't Invisibility. It has a poorly written statement relating it to invisibility, but to someone's earlier point if it was meant to be Invisibility but for all senses it would probably say that more directly.
But other things, specifically like Truesight should work against it (although it does need to make a counteract check to succeed).
My final thought is that making the spell like an Invisibility but for all senses, makes it really weak because by the time someone can cast it there are several counters to Invisibility, like See the Unseen and Revealing Light. I simply think the spell is too weak if it's susceptible to all the same things Invisibility is.
Giving this a little more thought, they should clear up the language around the Invisibility reference, I think the spell needs to not function "as invisibility" because Invisibility is trivial to counter by the time you have access to 8th level spells and so if Disappearance were countered by the same things Invisibility can be countered by it would be too weak. But I am willing to say, the spell is very powerful and maybe we need to evaluate the spell level.
I think if you were to bump the duration to 1hr, with the ability to suppress the effect as a 3 action activity during the duration, you could argue for a 9th or 10th level spell slot and have it still be worth it.
If the language makes it clear that the effects of disappearance have to actually be countered (as in making a counteract check), I think it is fine. This is how I read it already as you never have the invisible condition, the only condition you gain is undetected to all senses.
Just to complicate the matter further, there is a staple alchemical item, the revealing mist, which seems to bypass Disappearance's effect altogether.
[...]revealing mist is an alchemical concoction that creates a sticky and clinging mist of chemicals in a 15-foot cone when sprayed. It doesn't affect visibility but causes invisible creatures in the area to be concealed rather than undetected.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1943
Basically, it reveals creatures by "their negative," because they leave creature-shaped voids in the mist.
While the mist is a static cloud that can simply be walked away from, under *most* readings of Disappearance, this defeats the spell in a rather "silver bullet" manner, so long as you put the cone in the right place.
I'm bringing it up mostly to see/verify that those of the "mind-blank" reading would agree this works, or if they would claim that even this "spot by negative" tool still somehow triggers and is affected by the spell's magics.
If you're saying you would allow See the Unseen to work, but it would require a counteract check...that would be an acceptable compromise to me, because unless you cast it at a high spell level it's never going to work.
Just to complicate the matter further, there is a staple alchemical item, the revealing mist, which seems to bypass Disappearance's effect altogether.
[...]revealing mist is an alchemical concoction that creates a sticky and clinging mist of chemicals in a 15-foot cone when sprayed. It doesn't affect visibility but causes invisible creatures in the area to be concealed rather than undetected.https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1943
Basically, it reveals creatures by "their negative," because they leave creature-shaped voids in the mist.
While the mist is a static cloud that can simply be walked away from, under *most* readings of Disappearance, this defeats the spell in a rather "silver bullet" manner, so long as you put the cone in the right place.
I'm bringing it up mostly to see/verify that those of the "mind-blank" reading would agree this works, or if they would claim that even this "spot by negative" tool still somehow triggers and is affected by the spell's magics.
I think this would just downgrade undetected to concealed. However that would be a big win for the person using it, as something that lets you spot the general position of the enemy is already huge.
It's also kind of the same effect as just being able to create bunch of powder/flour in the air. You can't see the creature, but you can see the outline of where flour isn't. It's just that the item last longer and clings to the creature.
As for the idea that the spell somehow makes you unnoticeable at all...that's too far too good of interpretation. The idea that someone under Disappearance could be or stand in water or be in a dust storm and be completely unnoticeable doesn't work for me. It's going to require a check to see where they're at, but at a vastly reduced DC compared to what it would have otherwise been.
The Disappearance spell itself even mentions "It's still possible for a creature to find the target by Seeking, looking for disturbed dust, hearing gaps in the sound spectrum, or finding some other way to discover the presence of an otherwise-undetectable creature" so concluding that the creature is undetectable is just BS.
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The first two sentences of disappearance:
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.
If we stop thinking about vision for a second and focus on other senses, then the spell clearly works on the creatures trying to observe the target. We don’t have “hear the unheard” or “smell the unscented” spells. No matter what, anyone trying to find the character has to make a seek check to reduce the condition from undetected to hidden.
In fact, if you read the invisible condition, the spell’s inclusion of “the target becomes undetected” would be redundant to just saying the target becomes invisible to all senses, because the invisible condition grants undetected. Instead, this spell grants undetected against all senses as the primary ability of the spell. The “count as invisible no matter what precise and imprecise senses an observer may have,” is just a clause to help clarify what it means to basically be unobservable under the duration of the spell.
Reading the see the unseen spell, it feels like giving someone a +2 bonus to seek a disappeared opponent would make the most sense, since Disappearance in an illusion.
I do think folks need to be careful to not conflate undetected and unnoticed. Nothing in Disappearance applies unnoticed, which is why I think the disappeared creature can talk and be understood. The are not silenced. There is just no way to pin point their location from hearing them or smelling them.
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I think the big issue to me is whether or not Disappearance counts as Invisible for the ways in which Invisibility might countered, or if the language that says "counts as Invisible" is really just a shortcut to say "hey, all these effects you would normally have from the Invisibility trait are happening here, and we don't want to write a new trait".
I personally think it's that second one, and that normal counters specific to Invisibility don't apply (but things like Truesight would).
IDK I find it kind of hard to really conceputalize that Paizo wrote "counts as invisible" with the intent of it being read in the exact opposite way when it comes to specific interactions that aren't actually spelled out anywhere.
There's no value in including that verbiage unless it's meant to mean something.
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It sounds like the two readings of this spell are:
1. It is invisibility, but against all senses, for longer, and you get to start off undetected, even if you were observed while casting.
2. You gain the undetected condition against all targets, by all senses, for the full duration. You count as invisible for the purposes of understanding how this works.
1. Feels pretty weak to me for a rank 8 spell. Starting off unnoticed instead of hidden isn’t that a big a deal, since everyone knows where you started and you would become hidden instead of undetected as soon as you took any action except sneak.
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I tend to agree with Baarogue. Disappearance is a way to write invisibility that works against all senses and increases it to undetected so that opponents have to actually use Seek to find you.
I think they make it clear you count as invisible because they want spells that work against invisibility to work against it.
I don't see why they would use the language indicating it is like invisibility if they didn't intend it to be counteracted by invisibility detection.
It's already super powerful making you undetected so that anyone trying to find you must continually use seek actions to find you or trust you stayed in the same square.
The spell makes it so the opponent can't see you, hear you, smell you, sense you moving on the ground with tremorsense, or even an ooze's motion sense. It's very powerful.
No use making it more powerful if the opponent does manage to detect you and erect counter invis measures.
All it takes is hidden mind to make even harder to counter it.
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It sounds like the two readings of this spell are:
1. It is invisibility, but against all senses, for longer, and you get to start off undetected, even if you were observed while casting.
2. You gain the undetected condition against all targets, by all senses, for the full duration. You count as invisible for the purposes of understanding how this works.
1. Feels pretty weak to me for a rank 8 spell. Starting off unnoticed instead of hidden isn’t that a big a deal, since everyone knows where you started and you would become hidden instead of undetected as soon as you took any action except sneak.
Bingo. Option one is simply too weak for an 8th level spell.
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Bingo. Option one is simply too weak for an 8th level spell.It sounds like the two readings of this spell are:
1. It is invisibility, but against all senses, for longer, and you get to start off undetected, even if you were observed while casting.
2. You gain the undetected condition against all targets, by all senses, for the full duration. You count as invisible for the purposes of understanding how this works.
1. Feels pretty weak to me for a rank 8 spell. Starting off unnoticed instead of hidden isn’t that a big a deal, since everyone knows where you started and you would become hidden instead of undetected as soon as you took any action except sneak.
Two rejoinders to "this seems weak:"
1) Most enemies without innate true seeing will still have no counter to the spell. In APs (the vast majority of play), only
a) enemies with constant truesight, or
b) chapter and campaign bosses that are casters, and further have instructions to adapt their tactics to the party
will counter it.
2) You don't automatically become hidden again when you perform actions. You remain undetected. The reason you become hidden when you act under rank 4 invisibility is because you did something an imprecise sense (i.e., hearing) could detect. That's no longer the case for most actions. You don't even need to sneak instead of stride, because of that.
Some actions could make you hidden, at GM discretion (perhaps you can see the origin of a fireball being cast, or if you're some kind of prodigy of visual acuity you might be able to see where an arrow in flight originates), but a lot of actions won't have perceptible effects of any kind.
The "you become hidden when you act" thing is a derived consequence of the rules about imprecise senses. Disappearance, in making you undetected to all senses, overrides those consequences.
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I tend to agree with Baarogue. Disappearance is a way to write invisibility that works against all senses and increases it to undetected so that opponents have to actually use Seek to find you.
I think they make it clear you count as invisible because they want spells that work against invisibility to work against it.
I don't see why they would use the language indicating it is like invisibility if they didn't intend it to be counteracted by invisibility detection.
It's already super powerful making you undetected so that anyone trying to find you must continually use seek actions to find you or trust you stayed in the same square.
The spell makes it so the opponent can't see you, hear you, smell you, sense you moving on the ground with tremorsense, or even an ooze's motion sense. It's very powerful.
No use making it more powerful if the opponent does manage to detect you and erect counter invis measures.
All it takes is hidden mind to make even harder to counter it.
Exactly. In my view we have basically 3 degrees of magical invisibility.
Rank 2 Invisibility that makes you undetected vs vision precise sense but not to other senses and if the target use any direct or indirect hostile action it looses the invisibility.
Rank 4 Invisibility that makes you undetected vs vision precise sense but not to other senses and you don´t become visible if you make hostile actions
Rank 8 Invisibility Disapearence that makes you undetected vs all senses and you don´t become visible if you make hostile actions.
So the big difference is the lowest invisibility only grants you a undetected if you don't move except when you Step or Sneak and if the target doesn't have other precise and unprecise senses (you Sneak usually doesn't prevents other senses without the help of other habilities that allows this) and don't make hostile actions. The mid invisibility allows hostile actions but makes you hidden while you not try to sneak again and the highest invisibility (disapearence) allows you to do any actions without leave the undetected condition but you still can be found throught Seek or spells that breaks you invibility (like See the Unseen, Truesight or Dispell (but this requires a line of sight so you need to be become detected first)).
I had the same problems when I read the spell, too confusing for my taste and a pain in the back to run at the table. In my game I homebrewed a version of the spell that our group found easier to use, based on the earlier text in the playtest:
Disappearance [two actions] Spell 8
Illusion, Manipulate, Subtle
Traditions arcane, occult
Range touch; Targets 1 target
Duration 10 minutes
You shroud a creature from others' senses. The target receives the benefits of a 2nd-Rank invisibility spell, with the following exceptions:
- The target is masked by the spell but not really invisible, so spells that reference the invisible condition, like see the unseen, don't work against disappearance.
- If the target uses a hostile action, the spell doesn't end.
- If a creature has a special sense that would change the state of detection of the target from Undetected or Hidden to Observed, that special sense doesn't work. The target of the spell can still reveal its position depending on the actions it takes, making it Hidden. A creature can also use the Seek action to change the state of detection to Hidden.
Bingo. Option one is simply too weak for an 8th level spell.It sounds like the two readings of this spell are:
1. It is invisibility, but against all senses, for longer, and you get to start off undetected, even if you were observed while casting.
2. You gain the undetected condition against all targets, by all senses, for the full duration. You count as invisible for the purposes of understanding how this works.
1. Feels pretty weak to me for a rank 8 spell. Starting off unnoticed instead of hidden isn’t that a big a deal, since everyone knows where you started and you would become hidden instead of undetected as soon as you took any action except sneak.
There is a 3rd benefit thought to be invisible to "all senses" compared to only sight:
if someone has let's say 4th rank invisibility, he still has to Sneak around to remain undetected, since simply Striding would instantly allow others to pinpoint his location via hearing.
similarily, with Disappeareance, even Striking an enemy wouldn't give out your position, even your Tactile sense is invisisble.
For all intents and purposes, the enemy wouldn't even know that it's a sword hitting him, he would just be seeing random slashes appear on his body, and not even feeling the blade that cuts him, let alone the direction the Strike came from.
There is a host of things that we take for granted relying on senses like the Tactile and Hearing sense, that invsibility does nothing to but disappearence makes them a real hell.
again: a person attacked by a Disappeared enemy wouldn't even know there's an attacker instantly and not simply a "curse that makes bruises/cuts on my skin" or a "spell that deals direct damage to my body" or a million other things rather than an oppoennt that you can't even feel his blade.
p.s.
as a gm, that's also how I would describe the effects on the player "take X damage as suddenly you are bleeding from your hand" and etc.
This is an extreme interpretation and not at all in line with how this runs as someone who has run this spell quite often.
1. Even if the person attacked can't tell it's a blade, they still know the direction it is coming from the direction of the pain. Can still see where the fireball came from even if they can't see the caster or hear the incantations. There is no, "I think I'm curse" idea going on. They as an experienced fighter know they are getting hit by something they can't see or sense.
In no way does disappearance make the tactile sense of damage of the target undetected. The target knows they got. Their pain is real and immediately detectable. They can react to it as Disappearance doesn't prevent them from AOOing the target if using a manipulate trait close to them.
2. Blindfight works against disappearance meaning you're not offguard if adjacent to the target and only need a 5 or better to hit a hidden target.
Deny Advantage works as well.
No need to make something more powerful than it is. In my experience, a good rogue or fighter can deal fairly well with the Disappearance spell, especially if supported by a caster. Casters are often worse off against disappearance than martials due to the lower perception.
A rogue or ranger using seek on a disappearance caster with blindsight can be dealt with fairly well.
...Bingo. Option one is simply too weak for an 8th level spell.It sounds like the two readings of this spell are:
1. It is invisibility, but against all senses, for longer, and you get to start off undetected, even if you were observed while casting.
2. You gain the undetected condition against all targets, by all senses, for the full duration. You count as invisible for the purposes of understanding how this works.
1. Feels pretty weak to me for a rank 8 spell. Starting off unnoticed instead of hidden isn’t that a big a deal, since everyone knows where you started and you would become hidden instead of undetected as soon as you took any action except sneak.
There is a 3rd benefit thought to be invisible to "all senses" compared to only sight:
if someone has let's say 4th rank invisibility, he still has to Sneak around to remain undetected, since simply Striding would instantly allow others to pinpoint his location via hearing.
similarily, with Disappeareance, even Striking an enemy wouldn't give out your position, even your Tactile sense is invisisble.
For all intents and purposes, the enemy wouldn't even know that it's a sword hitting him, he would just be seeing random slashes appear on his body, and not even feeling the blade that cuts him, let alone the direction the Strike came from.
There is a host of things that we take for granted relying on senses like the Tactile and Hearing sense, that invsibility does nothing to but disappearence makes them a real hell.
again: a person attacked by a Disappeared enemy wouldn't even know there's an attacker instantly and not simply a "curse that makes bruises/cuts on my skin" or a "spell that deals direct damage to my body" or a million other things rather than an oppoennt that you can't even feel his blade.
p.s.
as a gm, that's also how I would describe the effects on the player "take X damage as suddenly you are
Why would you be moving around if you didn't know you were fighting anything?
Trained fighters do know where blows come from. It's why fighters square on up each other and watch where the blows are coming from. Fighting is not a highly mobile activity. I'm not sure why you think it is.
It's a very square up, keep the enemy in front of you, keep your guard up always, be prepared to strike immediately when seeing an opening.
So if a cut suddenly shows up on your right arm, while you're squared up on an enemy, then you know it came from your right side unless an unusual weapon is used or distance is used like whip. A claw strike would be easy to discern and immediately move to counter for a trained fighter.
If you're talking movie fights, then fighters in movies have an almost preternatural awareness of where the blow is coming from and often dodge or block it.
The reality is within the PF2 game world, disappearance is still only offguard meaning -2 to AC and also to my knowledge doesn't prevent reactive strikes.
Now of course, I could be wrong if you have a rule that says Reactive Strikes only occur if the creature knows the enemy is there. But the way I currently run it absent this rule is even a character under disappearanc provokes Reactive Strikes and a fighter, rogue, or ranger with Blindfight only needs a 5 or better on the secret check to hit them if they target the right square. That would be the tricky part.
I do believe that a fighter would know the relative position of the disappeared enemy if that enemy hit them and didn't move.
Given how often I've seen disappearance in action, I'm weakening nothing. This spell is brutal enough without trying to add stuff in based on your thematic view of it.
A disappearance combined with a hidden mind or on a rogue with Blank Slate is even worse.
Unicore seems focused on NPCs using this, but PCs using this is even more terrible. We put this on a rogue archer with Master Strike one time, these supposedly tough encounters were trivial. Rogue nuked with their bow before they could do anything. Couldn't even find the rogue.
Don't add things into disappearance you don't need to add. Hope your martials took feats to deal with invisibility. Your casters too. If you didn't, you're probably going to die.
As a DM, enjoy dealing with this spell as it's worse in the hands of PCs than NPCs most encounters.
...Bingo. Option one is simply too weak for an 8th level spell.It sounds like the two readings of this spell are:
1. It is invisibility, but against all senses, for longer, and you get to start off undetected, even if you were observed while casting.
2. You gain the undetected condition against all targets, by all senses, for the full duration. You count as invisible for the purposes of understanding how this works.
1. Feels pretty weak to me for a rank 8 spell. Starting off unnoticed instead of hidden isn’t that a big a deal, since everyone knows where you started and you would become hidden instead of undetected as soon as you took any action except sneak.
There is a 3rd benefit thought to be invisible to "all senses" compared to only sight:
if someone has let's say 4th rank invisibility, he still has to Sneak around to remain undetected, since simply Striding would instantly allow others to pinpoint his location via hearing.
similarily, with Disappeareance, even Striking an enemy wouldn't give out your position, even your Tactile sense is invisisble.
For all intents and purposes, the enemy wouldn't even know that it's a sword hitting him, he would just be seeing random slashes appear on his body, and not even feeling the blade that cuts him, let alone the direction the Strike came from.
There is a host of things that we take for granted relying on senses like the Tactile and Hearing sense, that invsibility does nothing to but disappearence makes them a real hell.
again: a person attacked by a Disappeared enemy wouldn't even know there's an attacker instantly and not simply a "curse that makes bruises/cuts on my skin" or a "spell that deals direct damage to my body" or a million other things rather than an oppoennt that you can't even feel his blade.
p.s.
as a gm, that's also how I would describe the
I don't claim it. I know it with 100 percent certainty. If you are trained in fighting you are taught to face them, keep the body sideways slightly turned so as to create a small profile, keep your feet stable, and keep the fight in front of you. There are slight alterations to this depending on if you're using a weapon or hand to hand or style, but the general idea of keeping the fight in front of is standard training. Fights are wars in a phone booth. Once you both engage, you're striking at key points, not randomly hitting the chest or what not. You're trying to land lethal blows against a strong defensive stance and position. I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that there is a lot of movement or just being able to hit someone anywhere at any time.
Yes. I'm telling you that you can tell which direction a blow came from if you have sufficient experience. Go close your eyes, have a friend land some blows on you, take time feeling it, and you'll find out that you can sense where it is coming from and often react immediately off the barest amount of pain or contact even if you can't sense where it is coming from or what it is.
In no way is the pain or the effect of the blow undetectable. Once you have taken the damage, you sense all the effect of that damage like being cut or punched. This idea you have in your head that a fist or blade isn't sensed by the target is not what the spell says at all. Disappearance has zero effect on your ability to sense damage done to you. You will still know if you've been cut or punched and where it hit.
You could argue for the split second you don't feel the sensation of the targets fist, but even the spell itself says you note movement in mist or something of the kind so you can sense the movement of air displaced by the fist or blade moving towards you.
The air is not undetected. Your skin being cut is not undetected. Your blood flowing isn't undetected. The feeling of your face being bruised is not undetected. You are adding that element yourself outside even the spell descriptor.
You ignored the rest of the post. So answer the following:
1. Why is disappearance only off-guard if it is some super invisibility where they can't tell the direction of the blow? Somehow they are fast enough that they suffer the same circumstance penalty as flanking or being prone, but can't even detect where the blow came from or the general direction?
2. Did you find the rule where they are immune to Reactive Strikes? I would like to see that rule because the way you describe it the Giant Barbarian with 15 foot reach couldn't take the Reactive Strike on them as they moved in, but I'm not sure the rules agree with that.
I run this spell often. Your description is not at all in line with how this spell runs. It's not in line with the undetected description or feats like Blindfight or conditions like Off-guard or the rules for Reactive Strikes.
You are taking the concept of the spell and vastly over-reaching.
I can back Deriven up on the question of RL perception in a fight. It's really not that hard to notice directionality when you get hit. And when you're only decently practiced in a sport like wresting, you learn to know where their feet are when you're face is obstructed, etc. It is a very intuitive / automatic skill to gain "mat sense" and be able to reliably grab for / know your opponent's full body position from only small bits of contact.
I've never been stabbed, but considering that someone I've spoken to has said something to the effect of "I thought he punched me," I really, really doubt the possibility of a RL "too sharp to notice" issue with real blades.
If you've never gotten physical in a combat sport or adjacent activity, I do recommend some amount of experimentation before you take too firm a stance on this.
IMO, arrows/bullets would be the "most difficult" to locate the source of, because they lack the direct connection and have ambiguous range. Yet, in terms of the spell's mechanics, those arrows should be visible as soon as they leave the bow.
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And furthermore, the spell really does have no indication that there is some sort of advanced presence deletion going on. As far as I can tell from reading it, it really is just a spell that erases direct sensory output as per an "Invisibility+" mechanic. Considering the "hearing gaps in the sound spectrum" line (like how you can tell when someone walks in front a big speaker), imo it's clear that the spell is not at all intended to hide resultant actions/emissions of the subject.
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If I were a GM, I'd rule that something like a non-concealed spell cast by a disappeared subject would reveal it's square to all observers, dropping from undetected to hidden until the caster moves squares and regains an ambiguous location.
I do personally think that the "hidden until regains ambiguity" ruling be the RaI / RaW.
At minimum, the GM should at least grant all observers a perception check upon the disappeared "flashing their location," to go from undetected to hidden, similar to how illusions as written are supposed to grant disbelief checks when reality is fudged.
I do *strongly* think the way the spell is commonly run, where the disappeared caster gets to remain undetected after a flashy cast a spell, is actually just outright not RaW nor RaI, and that erroneous ruling is why the spell is so crazy OP in most contexts.
Because Disappearance thwarts all senses, it is presumably unnecessary for the target to Sneak, as the purpose of that action is to avoid being seen or heard, which is impossible anyway.
The Stealth skill is designed to use Hide for avoiding visual detection and Avoid Notice and Sneak to avoid being both seen and heard.
A bolt appearing out of nowhere or the manifestations of a spell might give away the target's location briefly, but a simple Stride will likely undo that. And the only reason Seek works against the target at all is because the spell says so.
But I have heard the argument that if someone successfully Seeks the target, the target actually has to Sneak to become undetected again. The Seeker found a way around having to actually sense the target, and now the target has to make up for it.
The spell is very powerful, but since the target counts as invisible, anything that works against an invisible target should work against Disappearance. That's what counting as invisible means.
As for Reactive Strike working against undetected creatures, on the one hand, it seems like metagaming. On the other, there are already reactions that can only be triggered by events you don't know about (i.e. Hidden Paragon or Sense the Unseen or perhaps Clever Counterspell). It's possible that just having a reaction empowers you to know when the trigger is met, but it's unclear.
I don't claim it. I know it with 100 percent certainty. If you are trained in fighting you are taught to face them, keep the body sideways slightly turned so as to create a small profile, keep your feet stable, and keep the fight in front of you.which makes your entire point moot since you CANNOT "face them" nor "keep the fight in front of you".
You have absolutely no clue where they are.
If you are standing still, they can hit EVERY POINT of your body making it impossible to know their location.
The air is not undetected. Your skin being cut is not undetected. Your blood flowing isn't undetected. The feeling of your face being bruised is not undetected. You are adding that element yourself outside even the spell descriptor.I never added any of those, don't try to put words into my mouth to make a false point.
I clearly said that you will get bruised, bleed, and etc.
But you won't feel WHAT cut you. That is explicitly stated when they removed the tactile sense.
Your skin literally will split open without any feeling of "touch".
ANY tactile sense whatsoever is by RAW made invisible when it comes from something on the Dissapeared person.
You are literraly cutting off a huge chunk of the spell, not unlike saying "well, he's invsible but i'm trained enough to know exactly where he is just because of my level" if you include your tactile sense in any capacity.
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Again: I gave a very straight fowrard example you have yet to answer:
"A slashing wound appears on your left hand dealing you 20 points of damage"What does you "trained fighter" that certainly wasn't facing anything before do?
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I can back Deriven up on the question of RL perception in a fight. It's really not that hard to notice directionality when you get hit. And when you're only decently practiced in a sport like wresting, you learn to know where their feet are when you're face is...
First, this game doesn't allow that level of precise targeting. So cutting someone's hand isn't how this works. In real fighting, it's extremely hard to target specific body parts as well. The moment someone felt pain in their hand, that hand would be moving away to protect. Which in generic game terms why the target is only offguard rather than reacting in a completely unprotected manner. In your game, the target must be the equivalent of unconscious since they can't feel anything until well after the fact and think some curse happened to them.
Your tactile sense is not turned off. I don't know why you are reaching there. You may not feel the blade's a blade if you want to pursue that argument, but you feel the pain and the cut because disappearance doesn't turn off your tactile sense once you are hit or even as I stated when the air is displaced when the blade is heading towards you. This is something you are projecting on to the spell it doesn't do.
You are also implying that a tactile sense and rules for it even exist other than you are fabricating them. We don't even have many rules if any for tactile sense.
The two listed senses for a standard humanoid are vision as a precise sense and hearing as an imprecise sense. These are the two senses the rules use for most humanoids unless you obtain some additional sense from a special ability.
You are adding in tactile sense and imposing your own rules on that when the game doesn't do so. You have clear rules for disappearance runs. It's invisibility and undetected to all senses, only a handful do we have rules for, tactile isn't really one of them. Smell would be affected for a creature that has smell as a usable precise and imprecise sense, but PF2 doesn't get that detailed about tactile or taste.
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I don't claim it. I know it with 100 percent certainty. If you are trained in fighting you are taught to face them, keep the body sideways slightly turned so as to create a small profile, keep your feet stable, and keep the fight in front of you.which makes your entire point moot since you CANNOT "face them" nor "keep the fight in front of you".
You have absolutely no clue where they are.
If you are standing still, they can hit EVERY POINT of your body making it impossible to know their location.
The air is not undetected. Your skin being cut is not undetected. Your blood flowing isn't undetected. The feeling of your face being bruised is not undetected. You are adding that element yourself outside even the spell descriptor.I never added any of those, don't try to put words into my mouth to make a false point.
I clearly said that you will get bruised, bleed, and etc.
But you won't feel WHAT cut you. That is explicitly stated when they removed the tactile sense.
Your skin literally will split open without any feeling of "touch".
ANY tactile sense whatsoever is by RAW made invisible when it comes from something on the Dissapeared person.
You are literraly cutting off a huge chunk of the spell, not unlike saying "well, he's invsible but i'm trained enough to know exactly where he is just because of my level" if you include your tactile sense in any capacity.
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Again: I gave a very straight fowrard example you have yet to answer:
"A slashing wound appears on your left hand dealing you 20 points of damage"What does you "trained fighter" that certainly wasn't facing anything before do?
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I can back Deriven up on the question of RL perception in a fight. It's really not that hard to notice directionality when you get hit. And when you're only decently practiced in a sport like wresting, you learn to know where their feet are when you're face is...
Once again, read the spell and read the rules. They would feel the movement of the air. They would use Seek actions to detect the undetectable target? How about you explain to me how in the rules this supposedly undetectable super invisible target can be detected....the opponent's senses? It says that in the spell description.
It's still possible for a creature to find the target by Seeking, looking for disturbed dust, hearing gaps in the sound spectrum, or finding some other way to discover the presence of an otherwise-undetectable creature.
So this target you believe is undetectable to all senses can somehow be detected by a Seek action using the PCs or NPCs senses? How does that work in your world?
Did you seriously ignore the rules posts again to post more thematic material that doesn't have any rules support?
Get to the rules information for how to handle the two senses humanoids without special senses use: precise sense vision and imprecise sense hearing.
The rest of your post is you making up rules in an abstract game that I don't even know how you plan to apply.
Because Disappearance thwarts all senses, it is presumably unnecessary for the target to Sneak, as the purpose of that action is to avoid being seen or heard, which is impossible anyway.
The Stealth skill is designed to use Hide for avoiding visual detection and Avoid Notice and Sneak to avoid being both seen and heard.A bolt appearing out of nowhere or the manifestations of a spell might give away the target's location briefly, but a simple Stride will likely undo that. And the only reason Seek works against the target at all is because the spell says so.
But I have heard the argument that if someone successfully Seeks the target, the target actually has to Sneak to become undetected again. The Seeker found a way around having to actually sense the target, and now the target has to make up for it.
The spell is very powerful, but since the target counts as invisible, anything that works against an invisible target should work against Disappearance. That's what counting as invisible means.
As for Reactive Strike working against undetected creatures, on the one hand, it seems like metagaming. On the other, there are already reactions that can only be triggered by events you don't know about (i.e. Hidden Paragon or Sense the Unseen or perhaps Clever Counterspell). It's possible that just having a reaction empowers you to know when the trigger is met, but it's unclear.
Already covered that if you move, that can reset the pick a square option. Disappearance is worse with ranged weapons as that makes it far worse. Like I said, we put this on an archer rogue with blank slate, maxed out stealth, and the encounter was a massacre of the NPCs that rogue pretty much achieved alone.
As a DM you can set up brutal NPC encounters with disappearance if you feel like massacring your PCs. But the worse use of this spell is by the PCs against NPCs. It's a mook destroyer spell put on certain characters. Even bosses can barely deal with this spell when used by a group.
It's a brutal, brutal spell that doesn't need any additional arbitrary rules to make it stronger.
Another thing that came up before when discussing disappearance is that the game doesn't mechanically codify touch at all. Everything involving the sense of touch is "here be dragons" and houserule territory.
I don't recommend ignoring touch, obviously. But it's something you can't expect any consistency on.
Though rarely described, touch is in fact a sense. A creature with explicitly vague touch senses is described here.
Fortunately, Disappearance allows us to sidestep the "is touch precise" debate because the spell thwarts ALL senses. Even if it's normally precise, it's not going to help you locate someone who is Bear Hugging you if that person is affected by Disappearance.