Ranged Attacks and Invisibility

[TheBarbecueChip]

So the other day I was running an encounter between my party of 3 adventurers and an Efreet. The encounter was taking place in an ancient temple hall with a bunch of large statues. The Efreet was being a general prick by using his flight and invisibility powers to make the PC's lives miserable when the warlock, the only character with any ranged attack power to speak of, said "I use chained blast." I asked him what he was chaining between since there was only one creature and he told me that he wanted to chain his eldritch blast between the tips of the spears that the statues were holding in an attempt to cover a large area high up in the air and potentially hit the Efreet. I said okay and let him do it because at the time it didn't really matter since the statues were 50 ft. tall and their spears reached up to 55 ft. while the Efreet was hovering 25 ft. off the floor but it brought up an interesting question in my mind.

Ranged attacks against an invisible creature are, to my knowledge, targeted against a single square but logically they have to move through space to get to that location so should they become line effects that make the same attack roll against all squares between the attacker and the target square and beyond? And what about the tactic my player tried of basically creating a net with his eldritch blast, a ray effect that targets an individual, in order to make what amounts to multiple attacks against multiple squares at once.

[frogglesmash]

As far as I know RAW says no to everything you've suggested. There are iirc rules in the DMG for accidentally hitting cover which you may be able to use and/or modify to adjudicate this sort of situation.

[nerghull]

My answer would be : yes with the eldritch range, no with a bow.
The eldritch blast acts as a ray (as in effect : ray), and a bow is just an attack.
As for physics, a ray go straight in a line from A to B whereas an arrow is an arc and so has a chance to not touch the things in the line between A and B.

[Psyren]

Eldritch Chain requires you to select the secondary targets just as you would select the primary one. It does not "auto-target." Any enemy with total concealment - such as, say, an invisible creature - cannot be targeted with eldritch chain any more than they could be by a regular eldritch blast.

At best you could allow him to target the square (cube in this case) he thinks the Efreet is hovering in. But even if he lucks out and picks the right one, the efreet still has 50% miss chance.

[TheBarbecueChip]

Eldritch Chain requires you to select the secondary targets just as you would select the primary one. It does not "auto-target." Any enemy with total concealment - such as, say, an invisible creature - cannot be targeted with eldritch chain any more than they could be by a regular eldritch blast.

At best you could allow him to target the square (cube in this case) he thinks the Efreet is hovering in. But even if he lucks out and picks the right one, the efreet still has 50% miss chance.

I never said anything about auto-targeting. I was asking about potential solutions to whether or not eldritch chain could essentially target three lines in space and make attacks against all squares/cubes in those lines. I know what RAW says on the subject but in a lot of situations RAW utterly defies common sense.

[frogglesmash]

I never said anything about auto-targeting. I was asking about potential solutions to whether or not eldritch chain could essentially target three lines in space and make attacks against all squares/cubes in those lines. I know what RAW says on the subject but in a lot of situations RAW utterly defies common sense.

You could make an attack roll against anything that might happen to be in the intervening spaces (with all the penalties associated with attacking invisible foes of course) and have the ray stop in any square where it hits something.

[Psyren]

I never said anything about auto-targeting. I was asking about potential solutions to whether or not eldritch chain could essentially target three lines in space and make attacks against all squares/cubes in those lines. I know what RAW says on the subject but in a lot of situations RAW utterly defies common sense.

You're the DM, so it behaves however you want it to behave. I was just telling you how it works as written; your player must choose each discrete square he thinks contains a target for the chain to affect. Worse, if he misses even one - a very likely occurrence - the entire chain stops there (again, as written.)

[Telok]

your player must choose each discrete square he thinks contains a target

By RAW creatures don't block line of sight or effect in almost all circumstances. The only time you might RAW hit a creature by accident is the Fireball bead detonating when it hits something.

This leads to interesting things like being able to shoot spells, rays, arrows, and bolts past a frost giant squeezing through a 5' x 5' tunnel. Indeed by RAW if that frost giant is invisible and you don't choose his two squares to shoot at, then you will shoot past him. Unless you cast Fireball, because it has an exception for hitting invisible things on accident.

[Psyren]

By RAW creatures don't block line of sight or effect in almost all circumstances. The only time you might RAW hit a creature by accident is the Fireball bead detonating when it hits something.

This leads to interesting things like being able to shoot spells, rays, arrows, and bolts past a frost giant squeezing through a 5' x 5' tunnel. Indeed by RAW if that frost giant is invisible and you don't choose his two squares to shoot at, then you will shoot past him. Unless you cast Fireball, because it has an exception for hitting invisible things on accident.

Not true - you're forgetting the oft-overlooked rule that creatures provide each other cover. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Cover) If the creature providing cover is invisible, then your target still has partial cover (because more than half of it is visible, but it still benefits from cover if another creature is in the way.)

[HighWater]

Not true - you're forgetting the oft-overlooked rule that creatures provide each other cover. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Cover) If the creature providing cover is invisible, then your target still has partial cover (because more than half of it is visible, but it still benefits from cover if another creature is in the way.)

Still doesn't fix the dysfunction that you effectively have a low chance of hitting what is actually an invisible but "unmissable" target. This is where common sense rules. Any attack against a square that may accidentally hit a concealed creature or thing along the way is something for the DM to adjudicate. As for the "not for bows"-argument earlier: at the range of most dnd fights, the arrow following a curve rather than a line is a useless complication: if you aim at something 30 or 60ft away, the 'drop' you have to compensate for is very small and you effectively fire in a straight line.

@OP. I think you did fine, eventhough it wasn't RAW. Be sure to adjudicate likewise for mundanes that want to do cool things and you're good.