Topic: INVISIBILITY?

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

An item is all of one thing.

That "one" thing being the elementary particle. Having an Invisibility spell making but one particle turning invisible would be pretty useless, though. So, yeah, if from the opinion that a chest is made from several planks (and nails, so an Invisibility could just as well turn invisible but a nail of the chest...), so that an Invisibility would only turn ONE plank invisible, one could just equally argue that a plank is made from several molecules, themselves made from several atoms, themselves made from several composite particles, themselves made from several elementary particles so that an Invisibility would only turn ONE elementary particle invisible. That would be complete "consistency in application".
Pretty useless, though, so, yeah.

[shorn]

The Rules:

pg 115 spell law

Unseen I:A single object is made invisible
Invisibility I: As Unseen I, except everything within 1’ of the target

So Unseen I is the same as invisibility except its radius is does not extend past the surface of the object.

Spell law pg 245 10.8: Invisibility
Only objects/beings totally contained in an invisibility radius at the time of casting become invisible;

My take:

First: An item is the sum of its parts. If someone said 'hand me that chest' i doubt anyone would remove a plank and say 'Here is it is.' That's why the unseen spell can turn a whole body, garment, weapon..etc invisible. If we just have it turn the outer most layer invisible then you get stuff like this 'Well the knife had a patina on it..which is now invisible..You will need several more castings to change the rust on the blade, the blade itself, the hilt, the..etc..etc.)

Second: From 10.8 it seems clear that if items are contained within the radius of the spell at the time of casting they become invisible. So casting Unseen, with a surface radius, on a closed bag of marbles would turn all the marbles invisible. If however the bag was open it would just turn the bag invisible and you would have floating marbles.

So..A ship: Yes a ship is an item. Is it completely closed? No. Then all the stuff inside the ship would not turn invis but the rest of the ship would which would leave several items floating on the deck and inside it. An adventure with gear would be the same as the ship. If you cast it on the guy then he will turn invis but all his cloths and such will not..although you could cast it many many times for each item your wearing. A building? Again if its not completely enclosing the stuff inside then they would not turn. However if it was, more likely with a building, then yes..poof..gone (anything that was not part of the building but on top of it would not though). Same with the car and in theory the wall of china, a glacier, the moon, the planet..etc..etc.

As the spell has no scope I rule that the spell can only effect something up to your own size category. If you want to effect something larger then you have to look at rituals.

[yammahoper]

I'm done playing devils advocate.  Yes, the entire chest becomes invisible and you cannot see the contents unless you open the chest.

A very low level mage can do amazing things, including making an entire building, statue of liberty or jet plane appear to disappear.  An unseen will make a person disappear, however if he picks up anything, it becomes floats and remains visible.  Only invisibility spells allow items to be added to the invisible affect after the spell is cast.  And of course, any violent action, attack or strike cancels the spell.  This includes a bird flying into the now invisible house right in the middle of the mage attempting to wow, scare and swindle a village out of protection money...long story.

[Cory Magel]

So...is a ship an item?

Yep, you'd have a bunch of people, furniture, etc floating around in the air where said ship/wall/building should be (a rather good give away that something is amiss).  I think jdales comment is a good base-line... if taking it apart would damage it then it's 'an item'.  Basically, the way I look at it, the real difference is that Invisibility has a radius and Unseen does not.

So why not a person and their clothes and gear?

Mostly, because of this...

Closed Essence: Invisible ways.
  2. Unseen I — A single object is made invisible (1 garment, 1
naked body, etc.); until 24 hrs pass or the object is struck by a
violent blow (being hit by a weapon, falling, etc.) or the object
makes a violent move (i.e., an attack).
      4. Invisibility I — As Unseen I, except everything within 1' of the
target is invisible as long as it is within 1' and none of the Unseen
I termination conditions occur. See Section 7.1.10.

If 'unseen' makes everything on an entire person invisible using a lower level and more available spell (Closed spell list at 2nd level) than invisibility (same closed spell list at 4th level) then why is there an 'invisibility' spell?

Your outlook on it goes in the other direction however.  Would you let someone make their weapon invisible with unseen? Because technically the blade, hilt/pommel, and whatever is wrapping the grip are separate.  Would let them make a simple single arrow invisible with unseen? Because technically the tip, shaft, and fletching are all separate.

Now, the information given on how Invisibility and Unseen (7.1.10) are a bit unclear when it comes to Unseen.
    "Only objects/beings totally contained in an invisibility radius at the time of casting become invisible; such an object/being would become visible
  upon totally leaving the radius; such an  object/being would become visible upon violating the normal Unseen/Invisibility restrictions (e.g., attacking, receiving
  a violent blow, etc.), but the other objects/beings associated with the radius would remain invisible."

It really only talks about Invisibility.  It seems to only mention Unseen because of the rules that apply to breaking it.

So, if you turned a ship "Invisible" I'd say it's all invisible (either anything contained within the ship or, at worst, anything touching any part of the ship/or within 1" of it).  If you cast 'Unseen' on a ship, I say only the ship itself would be, leaving everything not considered a 'part of the ship' visible.  You'll have people argue over if the sails and ropes should be visible... but we go back to jdales comment imo... without sails and rope the ship (the item) would not function as intended.

Edit: Shorn's outlook shows how we interpret the rules.  I believe that Unseen was not completely considered when writing the rules he (and I) are quoting.  So the rules saying unseen is the same as invisibility in one place, then in another place we find rules that potentially only apply to invisibility, we inadvertently given unseen more power than it should have.

[jdale]

To me, the fact that 7.1.10 names invisibility in the sentence about containment, but names both unseen and invisibility with regard to other restrictions, makes clear that containment only applies to invisibility.

Given the chest, as a GM I would make the chest invisible and the contents visible. Someone familiar with magic who wants to not merely protect the contents from theft but also keep them secret will either put the contents in a bag and the bag in the chest, or will themselves cast Unseen on the items to be stored.

The one place this is really advantageous, I think, with regard to the chest, is that it is difficult to have hidden compartments. The players gain an advantage in searching, if they are willing to blow the power points. Not necessarily a problem, but something for a GM to be aware of.

A poison needle trap built into the chest, personally I would consider to be part of the chest "object".

No matter what, you will have borderline cases and have to make a judgment call at some point. For example, if a weapon is poisoned, is the item poison + a weapon, or is the coating now part of the weapon? Given my guideline before, you can remove the coating without damaging the weapon, but perhaps you would have to damage the coating. I would probably treat it as one item.

[markc]

jdale,
 The reason you mention above is why I would rule that if the chest is one piece then everything inside is invisible, if it is made of multiple pieces then only that piece is invisible. I might also rule that you cannot use the invisibility type spells to search or see how an item is crafted. IMHO using the spell that way is going against the spirit of the spell but not the letter of the spell.
MDC


Sorry I am in a rush and have to get to a game if that does not make sense let me know and I will try and be clearer.