Dungeonscape - Flour Pouch

[Irreverent Fool]

Invisibility

Now, I suppose the definition of the spell only refers to things you pick up, are carrying or put down, but I really don't feel that lobbing a sack of flour ought to remove most of the benefits of being invisible. Prior to reading the entry on the 'flour pouch' in Dungeonscape, I'd have ruled that filling the air with dust may allow you to pinpoint an invisible creature (since there wouldn't be dust in that vaguely monster/humanoid/etc-shaped space within the cloud), but after it settled you'd only have footprints to guide you as they'd essentially be 'carrying' any of the flour that landed on them, rendering it invisible.

Or is this just a unique feature of paying an entire 1sp for a sack of flour?

Is it too much to ask for some bloody consistency or even... (gasp) verisimilitude?

[AslanCross]

You're supposed to hit the guy with the pouch as a ranged touch attack. You still need to pinpoint his location or choose a square in which he might be standing.

...good luck hitting an invisible guy with a sack of flour. If you can see him enough to attack him, might as well hit him with your weapon.

EDIT: Touch, not ranged touch. So yeah, it's not really a case of "mundane 1 SP item beats Lv 2 spell!"

EDIT AGAIN: Oh, didn't see the splash weapon effect until now. It automatically covers them with flour, which is quite a lot stronger. Still, they're invisible to begin with, so it's not really all that easy.

[triforcel]

I think the point is that while you may be able to see them. It doesn't mean your party can. So whether you have See Invisibility or a really high Spot check, chances are the entire party doesn't share the same abilities.

[Zeal]

It's...alchemical flour?

[AslanCross]

It's...alchemical flour?

I'd like to bake a mean loaf of alchemical bread with it!

[Irreverent Fool]

So I found this in the SRD:

If an invisible character picks up a visible object, the object remains visible. One could coat an invisible object with flour to at least keep track of its position (until the flour fell off or blew away). An invisible creature can pick up a small visible item and hide it on his person (tucked in a pocket or behind a cloak) and render it effectively invisible.

Compared to this in regards to the spell:

Items dropped or put down by an invisible creature become visible; items picked up disappear if tucked into the clothing or pouches worn by the creature. Light, however, never becomes invisible, although a source of light can become so (thus, the effect is that of a light with no visible source). Any part of an item that the subject carries but that extends more than 10 feet from it becomes visible.

So apparently my initial reading of invisibility making things you pick up invisible was entirely wrong.

I suppose I should be glad that this kind of cleverness is codified into the rules, but I can't imagine that my players will feel quite as clever for using it if they happen to pick it up out of the book.

I think a more effective (albeit more expensive method) would be to lob a bottle of alchemist's fire into the area.

Edit: I can't believe I caught my error before anyone else! A first for the Fool!

[Collin152]

I'd like to bake a mean loaf of alchemical bread with it!

Eating it may cause loss of stomach.