Dancing Chains with Invisible Spell feat? (3.5)

[Skullruss]

Title says it all, does the creation of the spiked chains from chains create invisible spiked chains?

[Zombulian]

I don’t know what else it would do. That metamagic is quite broken.

[Drackstin]

Well since the spell itself is not the chain, but allowing you to control the chain, i don't think so, but hell, cast wall of limbs and watch everyone in the area get beat to death by nothing.

[Telonius]

I think the answer this will also say where you come down on the question of whether using Invisible Spell on Alter Self or Fly makes you invisible. (For that matter, if an Invisible Baleful Polymorph turns the target into a permanently-invisible newt).

Personally I'd say that the feat is badly worded. It should have included "the target" along with "components" that aren't affected. Should have, but didn't. RAW, it would probably work, but RAW is completely silly in this instance.

[Luckmann]

I want to love Invisible Spell, but the fact of the matter is that due to poor wording and a lack of examples given, it is the epitome of "Ask your DM".

[rediridesence]

its actually quite clear with what it does..

"You can modify any spell you cast so that it carries no visual manifestation. All other aspects of the spell, including range, area, targets, and damage remain the same."

"Those with detect magic, see invisibility, or true seeing spells or effects active at the time of the casting will see whatever visual manifestations typically accompany the spell"


dancing chains has no visual effect other then the ability to transmute spikes onto a chain, or increase its length via transmutation, so if the spell was used with the metamagic, the chain would appear no different if you decided to use that function of the spell, nor would the length appear to change. If people had true seeing/etc then they would see the spell operating normally(spikes and increased length).

[Anachronity]

its actually quite clear with what it does..Oh, sure, completely. There definitely haven't been a million arguments before about the vagueness of this feat. :smalltongue:

But actually, you're pretty much gonna need to ask your GM every time with this spell when it comes to transmutation effects. D&D never specifically defines what exactly a spell's "visual manifestation" is, as distinct from its effect.

The closest the feat's description comes to this is by the example: "fireball cast by someone with this feat could be made invisible in the moment of its detonation, but everyone in the area would still feel the full effect (including the heat), and any flammable materials ignited by the explosion would still burn visibly with nonmagical fire."

So at least it's clear how this works with an instantaneous spell, and presumably also any spell with a duration that creates a separate and wholly magical result that isn't part of any creature, like Flaming Sphere. But for any spell altering an existing creature/object it could easily be argued either that the change is the visual manifestation, or that the change is the effect and that there isn't any visual manifestation.

Consider an alternate question: How would Invisible Spell affect the Heat Metal spell, cast on those same chains?

[Drackstin]

Consider an alternate question: How would Invisible Spell affect the Heat Metal spell, cast on those same chains?

I would say your hands wont glow, the sparkles in the air that move to the chain won't glow, all the reasons a caster can make a spellcraft check to know if they know the spell you just cast that you can see other then seeing the targeted chains turning orange.

i would also say, the druid spell fire seed, it would look so awesome as you just threw some nuts at someone and they exploded because they didn't see the fire on them.