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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.
No, I do not think this is correct, and seems to be a cause of disagreement on the spell's implications.
While the buffed creature will not emit any sound, light, or smell, the spell explicitly mentions that secondary disruptions can be used to locate the creature, such as blocking sound or disturbing dust.
IMO there is no way that the spell "numbs another creature" if they are touching the buffed target of the spell. That makes zero sense. The spell is a buff for one creature, it does not psychically brainwash every witness into misinterpreting their own senses.
Again, the spell explicitly says "You shroud a creature from others' senses." The magics are altering and affecting one creature, the buff target.
It would certainly feel strange to get grabbed by a Disappearance buffed creature, but you would absolutely be able to "feel" it in every way that mattered, you'd be able to tell each of the divots in your arm is a finger, which way they are pulling, etc.
Again, if you can locate a buffed creature by the boot depressions in the dirt, then you 100% would know when they are physically grabbing or hitting you, cmon yall.
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.
That's interesting, but it's a one-off in an extremely odd place, and nowhere near the core rules. A quick search of the bestiary on nethys with "sense:touch" gives no results, as well. Do you have more substantive examples?
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As far as I can tell, this is the only evidence in-game that touch is a sense, but it's not contradicting anything either.
Also, come on. Of course touch is a sense. It's giving you sensory information. And if it somehow can't, perhaps because the creature is shrouded from ALL senses, then your sense of touch can't reveal it just like your sense of vision can't reveal it.
If you were Bear Hugged by a Disappeared creature, you would likely feel your own muscles being pressed against each other, and this may form the basis of a Seek check. But until you do that, the target is still undetected. That doesn't stop you from attacking a target you believe to be there (a very reasonable guess) with a secret flat check and secret attack roll, and selecting your own square would likely let you target the grabbing appendage.
Likewise, if you try to Grapple against a seemingly unoccupied space, making a secret flat check and a secret Athletics check, you might guess from your inability to close your hand that you succeeded, but you can't feel the creature even then.
It's very hard to contradict the literally no other mentions of touch as a sense, yes. What would there be to contradict? This is basically arguing that no evidence is evidence in your favor, instead of the default—undefined rules just don't exist.
"Of course touch is a sense" is something I'm sympathetic to as a GM trying to run a game with a good narrative and a bit of common sense, yeah. But we're talking about gameplay mechanics in a game, not reality. I can't see 360 degrees around myself in real life, but that doesn't matter in PF2E. And if PF2E doesn't care about taste or proprioception or nociception and doesn't care about the fact a guy in a helmet can't see behind him, I'm not sure I should expect it to care about whether or not I can feel someone who's magically invisible. I can expect my GM to care as part of making a game satisfying, yeah. But I'm not sure I would expect a system with this many abstractions to bother handling it when it's rarely relevant anyways.
It's not no evidence. It's just poorly placed evidence, similar to the rule that incorporeal creatures can't phase through barriers made of force. If there was a contradicting general rule about sense of touch, this one thing in Guns & Gears would be more dubious, but there isn't.
Furthermore, touch not being a sense at all is simply too dumb to be true. Even a vague sense lets you thwart the unnoticed condition. If touch isn't at least a vague sense, a blind and deaf person wouldn't notice your existence even if you shook their hand.
Not to imply that I think touch is meant to be only vague, which is unfortunately RAW since, by default, vision is your only precise sense and hearing is your only imprecise sense.
The idea that a heretofore unseen rule about in-game senses useful for resolving a question about invisibility would appear in a single sentence about construct companions is, simply put, preposterous. The far simpler explanation is just the writer of the construct companion section just felt they should talk about all five of the common senses, against all convention elsewhere—maybe because it's a construct and they thought it might not be obvious it can't smell or taste anything.
It's a throwaway comment with scarce mechanical relevance from rarely used content in a splatbook. This is not the word of god, here.
Suit yourself. But since there is no RAW definition for sense, we have to refer to the plain English meaning of the word.
a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.
Touch is a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus. It's a sense.
You wouldn't say an eye slash tattoo can't reveal blood in color just because there's no rule describing how colors are perceived.
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.
It doesn't much matter in regards to Disappearance. You can use precision vision seek actions to locate the disappeared person per the spell description itself, meaning whether or not you can see the disappeared person you can sense enough of their presence to seek them and attack the square they're in.
As far as I can tell, this is the only evidence in-game that touch is a sense, but it's not contradicting anything either.
Also, come on. Of course touch is a sense. It's giving you sensory information. And if it somehow can't, perhaps because the creature is shrouded from ALL senses, then your sense of touch can't reveal it just like your sense of vision can't reveal it.
If you were Bear Hugged by a Disappeared creature, you would likely feel your own muscles being pressed against each other, and this may form the basis of a Seek check. But until you do that, the target is still undetected. That doesn't stop you from attacking a target you believe to be there (a very reasonable guess) with a secret flat check and secret attack roll, and selecting your own square would likely let you target the grabbing appendage.
Likewise, if you try to Grapple against a seemingly unoccupied space, making a secret flat check and a secret Athletics check, you might guess from your inability to close your hand that you succeeded, but you can't feel the creature even then.
I knew about catch all vague senses. And as Super says, it's mostly irrelevant. They're for odd situations that might come up or you create to have some basic idea of how to use them, which is exactly like you would use all the other senses precise and imprecise as this game is abstract.
Disappearance is invisibility to all senses. Run it as invisibility to all senses. You can still seek the targets. It's a debate as to whether see invis works. I allow it to work, others may not.
The Seek action for disappearance is no different than a seek for a 2nd level invis. If you make the seek, you know the square they are in. Then Blindfight and other such feats work.
That's the way the rules work. That's the way I run it. If I'm running it wrong, someone can explain why those feats don't the way they are listed to work.
The main "house rule" or what I consider judgment, is if a person is struck by an adjacent melee person, I don't make them pick 20 different squares or even the eight normally within reach for a medium creature.
I usually allow them to narrow it down to 3 or so squares on a given side. Then they can either seek in that area to pinpoint the square or take a shot at the square they think they're in with the normal invis miss chance.
If the target has the actions to move in, strike, then move out then that makes it much tougher to pick a right square.
Disappearance is one of those powerful effects that requires a little DM creative play to fully make the spell still seem powerful while not making ridiculously hard to work against. At that level you can assume both sides are extremely powerful and not treat them like some inexperienced adventurer thinking they're cursed when they're getting hit by some disappeared enemy.
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Being imperceivable to any senses is not something people can rationally understand. It is pure make believe magic and different people are going to imagine it different ways.
Not being able to feel pressure or temperature or texture is weird and requires a lot imagining, but also might not really be necessary for achieving for consensus around for using this spell. The important thing to remember is that no sensory details automatically give away a characters position. Anyone can actively seek for the character, and it is essentially "the GM makes up on the spot what detail enables the character to be detected, but hidden."
I still don't see where in the rules it says that an invisible creature automatically becomes undetected again if it was already hidden from you. The rules I have read says that the creature must successfully sneak to become undetected again.
I think part of this boils down to how people read the spell. I see two different readings of it myself. The one that seems to be more popular seems to be that the Undetected condition as only being applied at the beginning of the spell. After that you apply the general rules of invisibility. The thing is, invisibility doesn't make you undetected again without sneaking, regardless of what senses you have access to, so once you lose the undetected condition you have to get it back with sneaking, as that is the only way to go from hidden to undetected.
Being imperceivable to any senses is not something people can rationally understand. It is pure make believe magic and different people are going to imagine it different ways.
Not being able to feel pressure or temperature or texture is weird and requires a lot imagining, but also might not really be necessary for achieving for consensus around for using this spell. The important thing to remember is that no sensory details automatically give away a characters position. Anyone can actively seek for the character, and it is essentially "the GM makes up on the spot what detail enables the character to be detected, but hidden."
I still don't see where in the rules it says that an invisible creature automatically becomes undetected again if it was already hidden from you. The rules I have read says that the creature must successfully sneak to become undetected again.
I think part of this boils down to how people read the spell. I see two different readings of it myself. The one that seems to be more popular seems to be that the Undetected condition as only being applied at the beginning of the spell. After that you apply the general rules of invisibility. The thing is, invisibility doesn't make you undetected again without sneaking, regardless of what senses you have access to, so once you lose the undetected condition you have to get it back with sneaking, as that is the only way to go from hidden to undetected.
For descriptive narration some thought can be put into this, but for rules play the sense used is mostly irrelevant. When I run this spell, I don't really worry too much about which sense is being used. You don't have any time to screw around with it anyway. I know you know this.
When the battle is going, you better know how to counter this and quick or you're going to die or have to retreat or heal a lot. It's pretty simple:
1. Seek action to get an approximate location.
2. Drop a Revealing light on that location before they move. Nothing about Disappearance makes a Revealing Light ineffective.
3. If you can't do the following as fast as possible, nuke the area or try to get a truesight or similar magic going and hope you can counter it. If your DM allows, then you can use a see invis and hope they don't have a Hidden Mind on to laugh at you.
We usually don't have to do much past this to get the target of the Disappearance. I'm sure there are other solutions for other classes.
It's hard to deal with a 4th level invis with a caster under Hidden Mind at high level. That's a much more common combination.
I still don't see where in the rules it says that an invisible creature automatically becomes undetected again if it was already hidden from you. The rules I have read says that the creature must successfully sneak to become undetected again.
It's a consequence of the senses rules. When invisible, you become hidden after performing actions because you're detected by an imprecise sense— typically hearing. Disappearance changes that; you can no longer be detected in that way. So you just become undetected when you move again. There is no need to sneak if they can't perceive any evidence of where you went or how you moved.
I still don't see where in the rules it says that an invisible creature automatically becomes undetected again if it was already hidden from you. The rules I have read says that the creature must successfully sneak to become undetected again.It's a consequence of the senses rules. When invisible, you become hidden after performing actions because you're detected by an imprecise sense— typically hearing. Disappearance changes that; you can no longer be detected in that way. So you just become undetected when you move again. There is no need to sneak if they can't perceive any evidence of where you went or how you moved.
The problem is this spell uses the same language as a regular invisibility save it affects all senses. You go from undetected to hidden if you are found using a Seek.
Do you automatically become undetected again without using stealth? The spell doesn't make that clear.
The implication from the spell text is it is like invisibility in every way except that it affects all senses when cast.
That's what I think the RAI was and the rules describe the spell the same way 2nd level invis is written save all senses making the spell also work RAW if you run it like invis but applying to all senses.
Once you mentally accept that, you can decide how that works within a given scenario.
When it comes to sneak, I run it as follows:
I don't require a sneak or such check if the creatures in an area don't have any sensory means to note the creature moving by. They have tot take active sneak checks, then they can follow the trail as they know what small movements to look for to note the location of the target.
Then the target must sneak again to regain undetected, though they still remain hidden.
Alright, I think wrt to the "is touch a sense" thing, we can just get away with this line from Vague Senses: "Pathfinder's rules assume that a given creature has vision as its only precise sense and hearing as its only imprecise sense."
So it's fair to call touch vague by RAW. That's exactly like the construct companion, I suppose—so I guess the companion is, in fact, a fair illustration of this rule-by-whitelisting. But vague senses only let you know something is there and don't let you know anything about its location. If you're in combat, you kind of already know something is there. So touch is basically useless against disappearance by RAW.
As a result, something like "precise sense with a 0ft range"—while fairly sensical and how a lot of people will adjudicate touch—is nowhere near RAW.
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It's not explicitly stated, but it's a clear inference from the senses rules. Invisible (as, in, used 2nd rank invisibility) creatures reveal themselves to imprecise senses like hearing when they do not use Sneak to move. This makes them hidden, as that's as revealed as you can get if perceived by an imprecise sense. This is automatic and does not require any perception checks, seek actions, or similar.
Disappearance, there's no precise or imprecise sense that can track you when you move. So I don't really see why you would remain hidden once you moved.
Applying this logic to the case where, say, you cast disappearance in front of someone and then move... I have no idea how they would track you using a precise or imprecise sense. "Looking for disturbed dust" and such seems to require a seek action.
"Relying on sight as their only precise sense" is a load-bearing clause that doesn't apply to disappearance, unfortunately. I don't think you can just strike it through and expect everything else to apply.
I wouldn't be angry if someone ran it the way you're suggesting, though. I just don't really think it follows from how everything else pieces together.
Here's more information from a sidebar in PC chapter 8 about Sneak and its relation to senses.
The Stealth skill is designed to use Hide for avoiding visual detection and Avoid Notice and Sneak to avoid being both seen and heard. For many special senses, a player can describe how they're avoiding detection by that special sense and use the most applicable Stealth action. For instance, a creature stepping lightly to avoid being detected via tremorsense would be using Sneak.
In some cases, rolling a Dexterity-based Stealth skill check to Sneak doesn't make the most sense. For example, a PC trying to avoid being detected by a creature that senses heartbeats might meditate to slow their heart rate, using Wisdom instead of Dexterity for their Stealth check. When a creature could detect you using multiple different senses, use your lowest applicable attribute modifier.
So if a Disappeared target is successful Seeked (or... Sought... I guess), I wonder if ordinary Sneaking would be enough to become undetected again. After all, the creature that Sought the target relied on some means other than sensing the target directly, so perhaps the target would have to do an improvised Sneak against the specific way they were Sought.
Then again, that would be a ridiculous burden to meet, since the target has no consistent way of knowing what gave their position away.
I think some of my initial confusion with disappearance was with the first sentence. The becoming undetected to all senses is a one time effect when the spell is cast, that lets you become undetected when turning invisible, even if you started off observed. From undetected, you don’t have to really sneak with this spell, because you are invisible to all senses. But once you do something that would normally make you observed, you become hidden, and the only way to go from hidden back to undetected is to sneak.
I think some of my initial confusion with disappearance was with the first sentence. The becoming undetected to all senses is a one time effect when the spell is cast, that lets you become undetected when turning invisible, even if you started off observed. From undetected, you don’t have to really sneak with this spell, because you are invisible to all senses. But once you do something that would normally make you observed, you become hidden, and the only way to go from hidden back to undetected is to sneak.
Invisibility has a similar issue. Players that take the spell often think it makes them immediately undetected because it says you're undetected without saying why you would start off hidden. That is mentioned in the invisible rules in Chapter 8.
I think some of my initial confusion with disappearance was with the first sentence. The becoming undetected to all senses is a one time effect when the spell is cast, that lets you become undetected when turning invisible, even if you started off observed. From undetected, you don’t have to really sneak with this spell, because you are invisible to all senses. But once you do something that would normally make you observed, you become hidden, and the only way to go from hidden back to undetected is to sneak.
This is still pretty powerful because once you do become undetected again, you don't have to keep sneaking to stay that way, which is different from just invisibility to sight, as making noise would alert anyone who can observe it.
So, at least for me the take aways are:
Disappearance is great for getting out of dodge. You become instantly undetectable, enemies have to seek to make you hidden, and then you can spend one action to sneak and become undetected again. It also lasts 10 minutes. It doesn't allow you to cast spells and remain undetected unless you have conceal spell, but if you are disappeared, the GM really should generally not make you make a stealth check to do anything except sneak if someone has already found you and made you hidden, or you are interacting with the environment in such an obvious way that it would be very difficult for you not to be in a fairly obvious place.
I think some of my initial confusion with disappearance was with the first sentence. The becoming undetected to all senses is a one time effect when the spell is cast, that lets you become undetected when turning invisible, even if you started off observed. From undetected, you don’t have to really sneak with this spell, because you are invisible to all senses. But once you do something that would normally make you observed, you become hidden, and the only way to go from hidden back to undetected is to sneak.This is still pretty powerful because once you do become undetected again, you don't have to keep sneaking to stay that way, which is different from just invisibility to sight, as making noise would alert anyone who can observe it.
So, at least for me the take aways are:
Disappearance is great for getting out of dodge. You become instantly undetectable, enemies have to seek to make you hidden, and then you can spend one action to sneak and become undetected again. It also lasts 10 minutes. It doesn't allow you to cast spells and remain undetected unless you have conceal spell, but if you are disappeared, the GM really should generally not make you make a stealth check to do anything except sneak if someone has already found you and made you hidden, or you are interacting with the environment in such an obvious way that it would be very difficult for you not to be in a fairly obvious place.
Yep. And works against motion sense, spirit sense, smell, hearing, vision, any sense in the game, longer duration, and level 8 to counter for spells like truesight. Combine it with Blank Slate or Hidden Mind, it's real hard to counter.
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I personally read disappearance as still making the target start hidden if the target was in full visibility when the spell was cast. Other parties still know the location of the target until they move (or sneak, depending on your reading), after all.
There is a question of how you would know they moved or sneaked out of their square (which is knowledge you gain by knowing they changed from hidden to undetected), but this is already an issue with 2nd and 4th rank invis. It's not a problem unique to trying to understand the logic behind disappearance.
I personally read disappearance as still making the target start hidden if the target was in full visibility when the spell was cast. Other parties still know the location of the target until they move (or sneak, depending on your reading), after all.
There is a question of how you would know they moved or sneaked out of their square (which is knowledge you gain by knowing they changed from hidden to undetected), but this is already an issue with 2nd and 4th rank invis. It's not a problem unique to trying to understand the logic behind disappearance.
That's how I run it as that's how it reads. It's an invisibility upgrade against all senses.
I personally read disappearance as still making the target start hidden if the target was in full visibility when the spell was cast. Other parties still know the location of the target until they move (or sneak, depending on your reading), after all.
There is a question of how you would know they moved or sneaked out of their square (which is knowledge you gain by knowing they changed from hidden to undetected), but this is already an issue with 2nd and 4th rank invis. It's not a problem unique to trying to understand the logic behind disappearance.
I would kind of run it like this, as the PC PoV outcome is similar, but imo the spell jumping to full Undetected is an important enough detail to quibble over.
It's important to remember that we are not talking about the spell granting Unnoticed, and secret info is an important aspect of the game.When the spell is self-cast, and the foe poofs fully Undetected, the PCs can *presume* the foe has not left their square, and make a Strike there.
If the vanished foe is in that square, it's the exact same roll as if they were Hidden. The important part about Undetected is that the PC doesn't get to confirm which square they are in, nor if they missed because of a failed flat check or wrong square.
This means that my earlier comment about something noisy like casting a spell would change to Hidden until they move needs editing. It would not actually be giving the foe Hidden, but would instead trigger the GM to place a "last known location token" down every time a secondary effect would be detectable to an imprecise or better sense.
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The "noisy foe spell" would imo grant the PCs unambiguous certainty of the square without need for a perception check, but only in that exact moment.
For practical purposes, you don't actually ever break the foe's Undetected, as the PCs will not have their turn happen while that certainty is still there, they will only be presuming movement did not yet happen.
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IMO, this is also exactly why something like R2 Invisibility immediately grants Undetected. It's obvious to *presume* where the creature is much of the time, but that is not certainty.
The very point of Undetected as a condition is that you no longer have the square certainty that is a part of Hidden.
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From the PC PoV, there is no difference between a foe using [Subtle Spell] + Dimension Door and exiting the fight, or a foe using the default [subtle] Disappearance for 2A, then running for the exit.
If you edit Disappearance to instead only grant Hidden, that breaks this important nuance.