Divination counters + invisibility = undetectable?

[danielxcutter]

Essentially: do effects that foil divination spells - such as Mind Blank, the Slayer's Cerebral Blind, or some other effect - protect against the usual means of detecting invisible creatures such as True Seeing or See Invisibility? If so, could this be exploited?

[Necroticplague]

Essentially: do effects that foil divination spells - such as Mind Blank, the Slayer's Cerebral Blind, or some other effect - protect against the usual means of detecting invisible creatures such as True Seeing or See Invisibility? If so, could this be exploited?

No; and Divinations aren't Invisibility's normal counter in the first place, even if that did work.

[Epic Legand]

Nondetection....The warded creature or object becomes difficult to detect by divination spells

See Invisibility...School divination

Level 3 spell defeats Level 2 spell unless they beat a caster level ck ( base 15), not guaranteed, but pretty good odds.

[RoboEmperor]

Invisibility is defeated by mundane means like spot and especially listen. Listen makes invisibility useless for spellcasters who don't heavily invest in move silently.

[Khedrac]

The logic usually goes somethng like this:

Mind Blank, Non-Detection etc. block divinations used on the subject of the spell.

See Invisibility targets the caster not the invisible person and therefoe is not blocked.

As to whether that logic works for you - well that's a different question... (and an endless debate).

[Necroticplague]

Nondetection....The warded creature or object becomes difficult to detect by divination spells.

See Invisibility...School divination

Level 3 spell defeats Level 2 spell unless they beat a caster level ck ( base 15), not guaranteed, but pretty good odds.

Not quiet. The specific wording makes this not work for True Seeing and Invisibility.


If a divination is attempted against the warded creature or item, the caster of the divination must succeed on a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against a DC of 11 + the caster level of the spellcaster who cast nondetection. However, you don't use SI/TS on the warded creature, you use it on yourself.

[ayvango]

The logic usually goes somethng like this:

Mind Blank, Non-Detection etc. block divinations used on the subject of the spell.

See Invisibility targets the caster not the invisible person and therefoe is not blocked.

Circle dance is too targeted at the caster. Should it penetrate all blocks?

[ayvango]

Not quiet. The specific wording makes this not work for True Seeing and Invisibility.

However, you don't use SI/TS on the warded creature, you use it on yourself.
"against" does not imply that warded creature should be chosen as target. It works against AoE divination too. The mind blank spell specifically tells, that protected creature would not be visible on "mass photo" from divination, like it does not exist in the world

[danielxcutter]

Oh, so this combination won't work against See Invisibility or True Seeing then. Damn.

I wasn't worried about the mundane ways of defeating invisibility, by the way. This was mostly a thought exercise - and the combo would have been cast on the party sneak, not the caster themselves. Also, I think Superior Invisibility masks sound and ignores mundane methods like faerie fire, so that could work... it's a moot point still, I guess.

Hmm... so is this combo completely redundant then? Even with Superior Invisibility or a good enough Move Silently modifier?

[Crake]

"against" does not imply that warded creature should be chosen as target. It works against AoE divination too. The mind blank spell specifically tells, that protected creature would not be visible on "mass photo" from divination, like it does not exist in the world

See invis and true seeing aren't aoe though. It would work against detect magic, which is a cone, but see invis and true seeing target the caster and grant them extra senses. It would be like if a divination spell gave you blindsight, you would still be able to sense invisible creatures even with mind blank.

[Necroticplague]

"against" does not imply that warded creature should be chosen as target. It works against AoE divination too. The mind blank spell specifically tells, that protected creature would not be visible on "mass photo" from divination, like it does not exist in the world
1.See invisible and true seeing aren’t AoE divination either, so that’s irrelevant. They’re targeted divinations. They just aren’t targeting you.

2. I was talking about Nondetection, so how Mind Blank functions is irrelevant.

3. Even assuming we change the subject to Mind Blank vs. true seeing, the relevant clause is only for ‘scrying that scans an area’. True Seeing is neither a scrying spell, nor does it scan an area.

[ViperMagnum357]

The only decent way I know of to beat True Seeing is Wizard of High Sorcery, Red Robe (Neutral) from the Dragonlance campaign setting. You can take 'Order Secrets' starting at 3rd level in the PRC, and one of them for neutral wizards is 'Magic of Mystery'. One of the bonuses is forcing any divination spell or effect to succeed at a caster check to penetrate any illusion spell you cast-each caster only gets one check for each spell they use, and if failed cannot penetrate any of your currently running spells.

I am pretty sure this is the only 1st party foil for True Seeing that does not involve lead, Divine abilities or or really weird planar shenanigans.

And on one of the earliest Dragon issues concerning gnomes, there is a high level invisibility spell that blocks scent, See Invisibility, and a few other senses while otherwise acting as improved invisibility(but not True Seeing).

[Doctor Despair]

God Blooded of Vecna could arguably foil true sight. Ghostform can foil listen checks. However, the really hard effects to get around are Sense Magic and Dweomersight, grabbed off their respective creatures with Ability Rip or Astral Seed or some psionic shenanigans. To overcome many modes of detection, you need magic; the more magic you use, the easier you are to detect from these abilities.

[ViperMagnum357]

God Blooded of Vecna could arguably foil true sight. Ghostform can foil listen checks. However, the really hard effects to get around are Sense Magic and Dweomersight, grabbed off their respective creatures with Ability Rip or Astral Seed or some psionic shenanigans. To overcome many modes of detection, you need magic; the more magic you use, the easier you are to detect from these abilities.

Magic of Mystery also adds a caster level check to any divination effect for detection of your spells as well-Detect Magic, Arcane Sight, whatever. Now, you still need to mask your magic items, but if you can do that you could use the Darkstalker feat plus something like Stalking Spell (Savage Species) and pass within 10 feet of someone with Scent, Blindsight, True Seeing and Greater Arcane Sight with them none the wiser.

[ayvango]

It would be like if a divination spell gave you blindsight, you would still be able to sense invisible creatures even with mind blank.
Why you should see invisible creatures with divination if mind blank defeats all divination? If you would like to get blindsight that works against mind blank then use transmutation. Embrace the Wild (porpoise) for example.

[ayvango]

1.See invisible and true seeing aren’t AoE divination either, so that’s irrelevant. They’re targeted divinations. They just aren’t targeting you.
Mind blank blocks not only divination spells, but also spell effects.

Do you consider circle dance divination undefeatable? So BBG could always know you location? What about divination spells that creates sensors. They are not targeted at you, but in sensors. Should that divinations too be undefeatable?

[BWR]

I'd argue that it is definitely the intent that Mind Blank should defeat things like See Invisibility. That's how it works in Pathfinder (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/mindBlank.html#mind-blank) and the 3e (and 2e) text says "this spell protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects", and See Invisibility is very much 'information gathering by divination".

[Psyren]

I disagree with Necrotic's reading, I think "attempted against" is broader than simply directly targeting that creature with a divination. I read it as meaning any use of a divination to try and learn something about the target, such as its location. Thus Nondetection can potentially foil See Invisibility. The fact that Nondetection specifically references Clairvoyance, which is also a spell that does not target the subject directly, in my opinion supports this reading. I further think the CL check and costly component go far enough to prevent Nondetection from being a silver bullet answer to being found.