RAI - Which, if any, advantages should invisible arrows gain?

[Jon_Dahl]

A proposition: By casting Invisibility and Permanency, you can turn "ammunition" (i.e. 50 bolts/arrows/bullets) permanently invisible. The idea behind my proposition is that ammunition is sometimes dealt in clusters, sometimes as single objects. My idea suggests the former.

In any case, if you fire invisible arrows, should the normal benefits apply to those attacks? If, however, you feel that a single casting of Invisibility and Permanency yield but one permanently invisible arrow, the question becomes very theoretical.

[Sto]

I think it would be extremely difficult to aim with something you can't see. I don't see there being any difference between an invisible arrow and a normal one. I can't see bullets, but I can tense for a gunshot. If I can't see the shooter, then whether or not I can see the projectile doesn't matter.

[Troacctid]

"Dammit! Where did I leave those arrows this time?"

Firing an invisible projectile doesn't offer any mechanical advantage. As they say, you don't dodge the bullet, you dodge the gun.

[Elricaltovilla]

Under RAI, I would say that shooting an invisible arrow at someone would not break stealth, allowing you to full attack at range and potentially score multiple sneak attacks. However, I think the RAW of invisibility overrides that. I would also say this wouldn't do anything to help guns or other "loud" ammunition.

[Resileaf]

I would say that with the arrow being invisible, you would gain a bonus to stealth from attacking from a hidden position. After all, if you can't see where the arrow came from, you can't tell where the shooter could be.
However, not being able to see the arrow should give the shooter a penalty to attack because he can't tell where the arrow is pointing at (unless he has see invisibility or something).

[Zaq]

Part of me says that this would interfere with Deflect Arrows (since DA, unlike regular dodging/AC, does imply that you’re watching the “bullet rather than the gun,” as Troacctid said), but DA isn’t overwhelmingly powerful (or exactly super realistic—you’re still a fantasy hero doing fantastic things, which is great) anyways, so nerfing it seems unnecessary.

But yeah. Overall I don’t see this being mechanically meaningful. Maybe it could make it harder for the target to tell the direction a hidden sniper shot from? Maybe?

[Nifft]

If you find a way to animate the invisible weapons, they'd get a flat-footed attack (at least once).

Otherwise, no particular advantage.

[Ashtagon]

Gritty realism: Because aiming an arrow relies on being able to draw a bead from your eye to the tip of the arrow to your target, this makes any kind of aiming more or less impossible.

If we ignore that bit, about the only real advantage should be making Deflect Arrows and the like difficult or impossible.

[PunBlake]

Maybe it could make it harder for the target to tell the direction a hidden sniper shot from? Maybe?
I agree with the "maybe" here; invisible arrows have mass, so a target pincushion may feel the impact and know the general direction (cone?) from which a volley of invisible arrows flew. Also, would invisible arrows striking a person stay invisible? I like Ballisteer's interpretation somewhat, but feel like it oversimplifies.


Gritty realism: Because aiming an arrow relies on being able to draw a bead from your eye to the tip of the arrow to your target, this makes any kind of aiming more or less impossible.
I'm not so sure about this. You usually rest the arrow on something (a finger or a projection from the bow's handle - Google "arrow rest") when aiming, and you can use that or a pre-sighted scope attached to the bow to aim normally.

[Nifft]

Gritty realism: Because aiming an arrow relies on being able to draw a bead from your eye to the tip of the arrow to your target, this makes any kind of aiming more or less impossible.

One could probably aim an invisible arrow using one's fingers, since one hand will be at each end of the arrow -- assuming the bow has no sights, which would be an odd assumption on a magical bow which improves accuracy. Hell, give the bow an AR interlink to your headband of battlevision.

But under gritty realism, you'd probably be firing too rapidly to draw a bead with every arrow anyway. You'd be shooting at speeds like the Saracen Speed Shooting guys on YouTube (ignoring whether their techniques are historically accurate, those videos look roughly the correct speed for D&D combat at least).

[Troacctid]

Deflect Arrows only requires that you be aware of the attack and not flat-footed. You don't need to see the projectile. Technically, you don't even need to see the attacker. You could be completely blind as long as you were aware of the attack some other way.

[ericgrau]

Firing an invisible projectile doesn't offer any mechanical advantage. As they say, you don't dodge the bullet, you dodge the gun.
This pretty much. Any benefit you give would have to be given to bullets too, because you can't see them moving. Usually you can't see arrows moving either, or at least can't react to them even if you do. At 225 feet per second, it's impossible to react to an arrow less than 55 feet away and improbable to react to an arrow less than 110 feet away. Even more than that is still difficult.
Rather you watch the archer like Troacctid said.

Now if you have an invisible bow, an invisible arrow and a nice bluff check "I'm just pretending" you could make the target flat-footed for 1 and only 1 arrow. Likewise you might pull other minor random tricks. But once the enemy gets wise it wouldn't really do anything mechanical.

[Telonius]

It might be a useful thing for an assassin trying to avoid detection. If the arrow is (permanently) invisible, the target would appear to fall over dead for no particular reason. If they're not looking for a shooter, it will be easier to get away without being noticed. Assuming the assassin could also somehow conceal the bow as well, they could just wander off in a crowd and avoid detection altogether.