Detect Magic CANNOT Detect Invisibility!!!!!!!

[BlueWizard]

Edit: DO not complain if you haven't read the whole thread, I already said you guys can have your 3.5 version. I have my interpretation.





Gaaaah!!!! I see this all over and people seem to think that a cantrip can do what the second level spell: detect invisibility does! Why would they make that spell?
Obviously invisibility is a little more powerful than something a mere cantrip can detect. Invisibility is a mask!!!!

So DMs and other people out there stop letting this simple spell get abused like this.

Who's with me? Please!

Edit:
Invisibility is a mask. An illusion, that should fool you just like mirror image... or do you believe detect magic should find the mirror image of the real wizard holding his real magical staff! Mirror Image is also a mask!

Edit 2: My final argument from page 2:

Illusion

Spells that alter perception or create false images.

[Tempest Fennac]

I agree with you as far as balance goes. I guess it should technically pick up a faint Invisibility aura around the invisible person, but I'd be inclined to say it wouldn't.

[Heliomance]

After three rounds of concentration (highly impractical in combat), yes, it will pinpoint an invisible person's location with an aura of illusion magic. They will still have full concealment, and the balancing factor is that you need to concentrate for three rounds before getting that benefit.

[kamikasei]

Gaaaah!!!! I see this all over and people seem to think that a cantrip can do what the second level spell: detect invisibility does! Why would they make that spell?
Obviously invisibility is a little more powerful than something a mere cantrip can detect. Invisibility is a mask!!!!

That's not much of an argument.

Invisibility is an ongoing spell effect which produces a magical aura which can be detected by detect magic. Detecting this aura a) takes time to do properly and b) isn't very precise anyway. This is far inferior to the second-level spell see invisibility (which I assume you mean when you say "detect invisibility").

If you have seen someone actually claim that detect magic is as good as and obsoletes see invisibility, you can tell them from me that they're wrong and being silly. If on the other hand you just disagree with the reasoning above (or in Heliomance's post), please explain why. Just saying "it doesn't!" or "it shouldn't!" doesn't count; explain why an invisible object has no magical aura.

[BlueWizard]

After three rounds of concentration (highly impractical in combat), yes, it will pinpoint an invisible person's location with an aura of illusion magic. They will still have full concealment, and the balancing factor is that you need to concentrate for three rounds before getting that benefit.

No, it wouldn't because Invisibility would mask ANY attempt to detect the person!

[BlueWizard]

That's not much of an argument.

Invisibility is an ongoing spell effect which produces a magical aura which can be detected by detect magic. Detecting this aura a) takes time to do properly and b) isn't very precise anyway. This is far inferior to the second-level spell see invisibility (which I assume you mean when you say "detect invisibility").

If you have seen someone actually claim that detect magic is as good as and obsoletes see invisibility, you can tell them from me that they're wrong and being silly. If on the other hand you just disagree with the reasoning above (or in Heliomance's post), please explain why. Just saying "it doesn't!" or "it shouldn't!" doesn't count; explain why an invisible object has no magical aura.

Old school version of the spell was detect invisibility.
Same thing different name.

[Frog Dragon]

Any attempt to detect? Scrying too?
As said Detect magic is near impossible to use in combat and the invisible guy can very easily get out of the cone in 3 rounds.

[kamikasei]

No, it wouldn't because Invisibility would mask ANY attempt to detect the person!

Not at all. The spell is quite clear that it vanishes from sight, including enhanced sight such as from darkvision, but does not become undetectable. It explicitly states that a light source will still emit light, although the source remains invisible. This would seem to me to naturally extend to magical auras.

Old school version of the spell was detect invisibility.
Same thing different name.

I assume we're talking about 3.5 here? Bringing in other editions is just going to confuse the issue, because they are not the same thing, they're different spells with different rules in different rule sets.

Unbelievable.

Gygax is rolling in his grave.

If the spells worked differently in an old edition and you prefer that way, by all means houserule it. Decry Wizards for an error in how they wrote them in 3.X.

Don't try to tell the rest of us that we're badwrong for noting the interaction of the rules as they're written - for what isn't even an exploit or cheat, just a consequence that you find undesireable.

[Douglas]

Obviously invisibility is a little more powerful than something a mere cantrip can detect. Invisibility is a mask!!!!

No, it wouldn't because Invisibility would mask ANY attempt to detect the person!

Where, exactly, in the Invisibility spell description does it say any such thing?

Also how, exactly, is spending 3 standard actions and getting a lucky guess and having the enemy stay in a small area for three straight rounds just to get a 5' square that still has total concealment enough to make instantly locating the enemy with no guessing and no action obsolete?

See Invisibility: "I see him, he's over there!" *Casts Glitterdust*
Detect Magic: "Yep, magic. Concentrating... Several auras, concentrating... Aha, faint illusion aura right there! Whoops, no, he moved. Crap, let me start concentrating again..."

Edit:
Invisibility is a mask. An illusion, that should fool you just like mirror image... or do you believe detect magic should find the mirror image of the real wizard holding his real magical staff! Mirror Image is also a mask!

After three rounds of concentration, Detect Magic would tell you that the real wizard and all the images had faint illusion auras. In the absence of anything else, that is useless. If the wizard had any magic items or other buffs, however, it would detect those on the real wizard only. And again, you just spent three whole rounds of combat to do this and the wizard could have easily negated it just by moving a short distance - get out of the 60' cone you picked and you have to start over at round 1.

[BlueWizard]

I edited this in my 1st post to make a point:



Invisibility is a mask. An illusion, that should fool you just like mirror image... or do you believe detect magic should find the mirror image of the real wizard holding his real magical staff!


Mirror Image is also a mask!

[Fan]

Also invisiblity does NOT hide you from any means of detection.
You can still be heard, scried, glitterdusted, detect magicked, see invisibility'd, and lastly followed by scent.
Theres also, Mind sight, Life sight, Blind sense, Blind sight, and Tremor Sense all of which function as see invisibilite's albiet with either lesser or greater accuracy then the see invisibility.

[Kaiyanwang]

After three rounds of concentration (highly impractical in combat), yes, it will pinpoint an invisible person's location with an aura of illusion magic. They will still have full concealment, and the balancing factor is that you need to concentrate for three rounds before getting that benefit.

What he said. Three rounds could be an eviscerated mage.

[Heliomance]

No, it wouldn't because Invisibility would mask ANY attempt to detect the person!

What Kamikasei said. It really doesn't. You can still hear an invisible person. If you have scent, you can still smell them. Tremorsense and blindsight pick them up, as does blindsense. Undead with lifesense can see you just fine, and there's no way you're stopping someone with mindsight knowing where you are.

If you want a spell that really does make you undetectable to everything short of true seeing (though I suspect that detect magic still detects the aura), you want Superior Invisibility from the Spell Compendium, which is a 7th level spell.

And, you know, the easy way to defeat detection by Detect magic, other than simply moving? Nystul's Magic Aura.

[kamikasei]

Invisibility is a mask. An illusion, that should fool you just like mirror image... or do you believe detect magic should find the mirror image of the real wizard holding his real magical staff!

So it sounds like you just don't like the way the invisibility spell is written, then.

And that's a good question, actually. Could you use detect magic to distinguish the real image from the illusions, because he is the one with the magic items with their own auras? Or does the illusion duplicate the auras on the images, as well as their mundane appearances?

[Douglas]

I edited this in my 1st post to make a point:



Invisibility is a mask. An illusion, that should fool you just like mirror image... or do you believe detect magic should find the mirror image of the real wizard holding his real magical staff!


Mirror Image is also a mask!

And I edited in my response to that.

Yes, Detect Magic does find such things... after three rounds of concentration during which the target makes no attempt to move out of a particular small area. This is not at all broken.

[BlueWizard]

Gygax is still rolling in his grave!

[Heliomance]

Yes, indeed he is, at the cncept that anyone would believe that finding a five foot square after three rounds of concentration which is utterly foiled if the subject moves broken.

[Douglas]

I'd agree with almost all above...

One common thread I see with the gamers now, is how they can get away with abusing rule systems.

Power-gaming is for the uncreative.

Where's a laughing smiley when you need one...

You call that powergaming? Detect Magic as a means of detecting invisibility is the last refuge of a desperate and incompetent or out of resources mage, and will almost certainly still fail to do anything useful.

Why have you not commented on any of the numerous mentions of the amount of time, effort, luck, and stupidity on the enemy's part required to get it to work at all?

[BlueWizard]

Yes, indeed he is, at the cncept that anyone would believe that finding a five foot square after three rounds of concentration which is utterly foiled if the subject moves broken.

No according to what you are saying above in the 1st round, you can tell SOME magical aura is there.

[kamikasei]

I'd agree with almost all above...

One common thread I see with the gamers now, is how they can get away with abusing rule systems.

Power-gaming is for the uncreative.

I take that as an insult, and would ask you to retract it. It is not "powergaming" or "abuse" to note that a creative use of a low-level spell can have a marginal use in partially overcoming a higher-level one. Terms more appropriate would be "reading" and "reasoning".

Are you open to the possibility that you are, in fact, incorrect? That while you may think the rules should work a particular way, the rules as they're written do not work like that? That while you may consider this an error in how they were written (not a typo or editing error, but a "the designers disagreed with me or didn't think this through, and I disagree with their choice"), it is not an error or an "abuse" in our reading?

If not, then what's the point of this thread? "I'm right, and I won't hear a word said against me"?

[Khanderas]

I'm with you Bluewizard, for whatever good it does you.

[Douglas]

No according to what you are saying above in the 1st round, you can tell SOME magical aura is there.

Round 1 tells you that, somewhere within a 60' cone, there is at least one magic aura. Not exactly useful unless you're going to use something that hits a full 60' cone and you know there are no other sources of magic auras there. If, say, a fellow party member is in that cone, his magic items would give you a "yes" result in round 1 and the presence or absence of the invisible enemy would make no difference at all to that result. In round 2, you still haven't narrowed down the location any further at all, and you only gain confirmation that he's in the cone at all if the invisibility spell is the most powerful aura in the entire cone.

[Heliomance]

No according to what you are saying above in the 1st round, you can tell SOME magical aura is there.

You can tell that some magical aura is present somewhere in the 60 foot cone. You have no cue wherabouts in it, however, and is therefore utterly useless for targetting purposes.

[Douglas]

...And you still haven't explained why the three rounds of effort and astounding ease of negating the attempt have no bearing on this.

[kamikasei]

No according to what you are saying above in the 1st round, you can tell SOME magical aura is there.

Detect magic is a 60' cone. On the first round of concentrating on an area, all you know is that there is at least one magical aura somewhere within that cone.

On the second round, you know how many there are, and how strong the strongest one is.

Only on the third round do you get to a) locate the auras and b) make spellcraft checks to discern their schools. Before this, the aura could be of any school of magic and associated with anything in the area. It could be a pebble with Nystul's magic aura cast on it. It could be a minor magic item. It could be a lingering aura from something no longer in the area.

edit: This is a genuine question and not snark: did you read the descriptions of detect magic and invisibility before starting this thread, or did you just see someone mention this tactic (such as it is) elsewhere and become enraged?

[Fixer]

No, it wouldn't because Invisibility would mask ANY attempt to detect the person!

Do stop making things up. Invisibility does exactly what it does: prevent anyone from visually identifying the target of the Invisibility.

The person in question can still be found by water displacement, cloud displacement, covering with a sticky / powdery substance, scent, blindsense, blindsight, see invisibility, and (with a LOT of patience, provided the target doesn't move) detect magic.

Here is how detect magic CAN find an invisible object/person.

Round 1) Detect magic is activated. The caster is told there is a source of magic within a given area. Other than that, the detect magic does nothing.
Round 2) Caster of detect magic concentrates further. Is told the number and most powerful strength of the auras in the area. (For invisibility, it would be a single faint aura if by itself.)
Round 3) Caster concentrates further. Is told the location and strengths of ALL auras in its area. (This would give the caster of detect magic the correct 5' square but would not otherwise grant the ability to 'see' the invisible object or person.) If the target was within line-of-sight, they could make a Spellcraft check to know it's illusion magic, but the fact you cannot see a source of magic that is present means something is being invisible as a matter of common sense.

Now, all of this assumes that the invisible person isn't moving. I am thinking that, if I was invisible and trying to avoid being detected, I would move to a place far away from people, or at least move around to foil these sorts of attempts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's a good question, actually. Could you use detect magic to distinguish the real image from the illusions, because he is the one with the magic items with their own auras? Or does the illusion duplicate the auras on the images, as well as their mundane appearances?

You could, after spending several rounds of concentration. Mirror Image is a figment, and therefore creates a false sensation. It cannot hide something already there, or make something appear that isn't present (which would be the case for the magical auras).

That said, if the caster had no other magical auras on them, simply casting detect magic wouldn't help to identify which image was the real caster. The original caster, and all the images, would have an identical faint illusion magic aura. There would be no differentiation between the images and the real caster without some other magic going on.
--------------------------------------------------

Gygax is still rolling in his grave!

I am guessing you never spoke to the man at all. As someone who has, I would ask that you respect his peace and stop trying to invoke him in some sort of vain attempt to assume he would side with you on this decision. You are disrespecting the man and that needs to stop.

[Farlion]

I'd have to disagree with your topic statement. Detect magic allows you to detect magical auras coming from spells and/or magical items (which essentially are also spells, simply cast on an item).

Does this make Detect Magic useful against Invisble people? No. All the reasons have been mentioned before.

a) It takes too long
b) You can only detect the 5' square where the aura comes from (still giving the invisible creature/object full concealment)
c) It takes too long
d) Moving invisible creatures/objects can not be located because of fact a and c
e) Did I mention it takes too long?

Since you don't actually seem to consider any of our arguments, this is meant for all the people interested in a discussion.

Conclusion: Detect Magic allows you to locate immobile invisible creatures/objects (which will mostly only be objects due to the immobile part) but it takes 3 rounds and then you know the approximate location (5' square).

Cheers,
Farlion

[BlueWizard]

My final argument from SRD:



Illusion

Spells that alter perception or create false images.

[Farlion]

May I just pick out one word of your statement:

Spells

There you go, Detect magic allows the detection of spells.


On a totally unrelated topic. Just writing things bigger, doesn't make the argument stronger.

Cheers,
Farlion

[Heliomance]

My rebuttal:

Divination

Divination spells enable you to learn secrets long forgotten, to predict the future, to find hidden things, and to foil deceptive spells.