Invisibility should make you invisible for real...

[Enderoc]

So reading the description on invisible it states its equal to having a 20 hide skill...
20 hide makes one invisible? lol
To perceive someone invisible should only be achieved by true seeing or a listen check with penalty if standing still and only given full check if one is moving and possible bonus to the check if the stealthy character is in metal armor.
A check against the move silently skill not hide.

[C-Dog]

You never been a GM? (Never had a good one?)

You overlook...
o shadow of the "invisible" person
o footprints from puddles/dust/grass/moss/etc. they step in
o any schmutz you get on yourself after you turn invisible
o smells (when was your character's last bath and laundry day?)
o other stuff, situational

[jskinner937]

You never been a GM? (Never had a good one?)

You overlook...
o shadow of the "invisible" person
o footprints from puddles/dust/grass/moss/etc. they step in
o any schmutz you get on yourself after you turn invisible
o smells (when was your character's last bath and laundry day?)
o other stuff, situational

So Half-Orc invisible is worthless. :P

[C-Dog]

So Half-Orc invisible is worthless. :P

I don't follow your logic/humour/whatever at all.

Invis has a LOT of uses, even into late heroics* and epics - not universally, but if you know, you know.

(* Just one example, in Coalescence Chamber, there's a part where the entire party featherfalls down a looong shaft - and archers and casters line the walls. If you don't kill them, it's a quick Dungeon Alert. However, if you fall invis - no combat, no DA, no problem.)

[jskinner937]

I don't follow your logic/humour/whatever at all.

Invis has a LOT of uses, even into late heroics* and epics - not universally, but if you know, you know.

(* Just one example, in Coalescence Chamber, there's a part where the entire party featherfalls down a looong shaft - and archers and casters line the walls. If you don't kill them, it's a quick Dungeon Alert. However, if you fall invis - no combat, no DA, no problem.)

o smells (when was your character's last bath and laundry day?)

[OfElectricMen]

You never been a GM? (Never had a good one?)

You overlook...
o shadow of the "invisible" person
o footprints from puddles/dust/grass/moss/etc. they step in
o any schmutz you get on yourself after you turn invisible
o smells (when was your character's last bath and laundry day?)
o other stuff, situational

For the record, you leave footprints when invisible. You also still have detectable odors when invisible. It doesn't obscure scent, touch, or hearing. Nor does it mask your impact on the world around you.

[Enderoc]

Okay granted but there should be a greater invisibility spell...
And does this 20 hide from invisible stack with your hide skill?

[NemesisAlien]

So Half-Orc invisible is worthless. :P

Orcs dont bath.

Barbarians dont bath.

Dwarves dont bath unless its alcohol.

Choose your poison.

[Saekee]

Orcs dont bath.

Barbarians dont bath.

Dwarves dont bath unless its alcohol.

Choose your poison.

I think the only bath any of my characters take is when forces to swim in some dungeon. Goodness knows how the water is in terms of quality and cleanliness.

BTW I think pale masters should really reek

[TheAlicornSage]

So reading the description on invisible it states its equal to having a 20 hide skill...
20 hide makes one invisible? lol
To perceive someone invisible should only be achieved by true seeing or a listen check with penalty if standing still and only given full check if one is moving and possible bonus to the check if the stealthy character is in metal armor.
A check against the move silently skill not hide.

Aside from all the other mentions here, if you've ever played Halo, the elites have invisibility sometimes. You can still see them if you look really really closely, it's like a slight shimmer in the air, similar to when you can see a large heat difference in the air. It is very difficult to see and seems like just air, but a sharp eyed person can still see it. That is what the invisibility spell is like.

And it should be +20 not set to 20. 20 is far too low to a DC for anything, but a +20 is difficult.

The spell comes from the dnd 3e rules, in which a real world human getting a 40 on a check is like Einstein creating his general theory of relativity, a legendary, nearly mythical result. Higher results in dnd 3e is for supernatural and demigod beings. DDO doesn't stick to that very well, but it still has a bunch of stuff from 3e, so it is kinda a mish-mash of numerical expectations.

[DYWYPI]

Invisibility doesn't add any bonus value to the Hide skill whatsoever; it's treated as a Condition not a bonus.

[Somebody87]

I thought invisibility DID make you completely invisible. I escape Doom aggro on r10 all the time by hitting invis and just running. They start slapping at air and can't hit me unless they guess right. No, Dooms do not have see invisibility for some reason, not that they should.

If invisibility was going to be made to scale with level somehow, make it an illusion DC check. Mobs that fail the save don't see you and slap at air. Illusion probably doesn't need a buff but this won't suddenly make them OP.

Again, I've had almost no problems using invisibility in r10 as a defensive mechanism that makes it less likely for mobs to aggro on me and harder for them to hit me. If it really was a hide DC of 20, I'm sure all r10 sharn mobs would see right through it easily rather than just a handful of reapers.

[Annex]

If an invisible person's retinas are also invisible, such that light passes through them, how can he or she see?

How come Insmellability is not a spell?

How come half-orcs smell? Is it a function of their sweat glands? Do half-orcs find other half-orcs smelly?

If humans can breed with orcs, and humans can breed with elves, then what is the offspring of an orc and an elf called?

How can a person load and aim a bow or crossbow while invisible? Would not such a skill require extensive practice?

[Enderoc]

I
If humans can breed with orcs, and humans can breed with elves, then what is the offspring of an orc and an elf called?

Fun fact. 1st Edition AD&D orcs could breed with anything so there was no pure blood orc ever...
And such orcs would take characteristics of things they were bred from.

They were the kind of things you would think lived in the imaginations of real people in medieval and ancient times.

Orc was a dark seed of a chaotically evil force...from the abyss, formless as the Void unguided evolution of nature.

They were renowned for rape and violence.

[TheAlicornSage]

Invisibility doesn't add any bonus value to the Hide skill whatsoever; it's treated as a Condition not a bonus.

Oh interesting. You're right. But I can't find anything describing the actual effect. I know it isn't perfect, because invisibility never works for me anymore, and was always questionable even at lower levels. Even when stationary or floating through air, enemies always know my exact location these days, and that's with me pumping move silently but not hide.

[TheAlicornSage]

If an invisible person's retinas are also invisible, such that light passes through them, how can he or she see?

Because light can't leave you, but it can reach you, like being behind a half-silvered mirror.

How come Insmellability is not a spell?

Light is basically mana waves on the ether, smell is actual physical particles.

Yes, that does in fact mean that when you smell a fart, it is indeed actual physical material from someone's insides reaching your nose.

If humans can breed with orcs, and humans can breed with elves, then what is the offspring of an orc and an elf called?

A half-orc/half-elf is called a human. Where did you think they came from? And why do you think they can cross-breed so easily?*

How can a person load and aim a bow or crossbow while invisible? Would not such a skill require extensive practice?

It wouldn't require anymore practice than musketmen. Despite the ineptitude of modern hobbyists, britith soldiers had to shoot 4 balls a minute and the experts could shoot up to 6. Modern hobbyists find it extremely difficult to get even to 4 shots a minute, so they often think it is ridiculously challenging, but back in the day, that was the norm. Likewise with crossbows, it seems crazy hard to us, but to people who live that way, it woukd be standard practice, not excessively difficult.



*Note: My head canon, no idea about official.

[Tsutti]

shadow of the "invisible" person

depends on how the invisibility spell functions, if it acts like some sort of camo armor that makes you emit light that copies what's on the other side of you or it makes light bend around you, there would be some sort of shimmer or shadow or something but if the spell makes your body not interact with light (i.e. it passes through you) there would be no shadow cast nor any shimmer in the air

If an invisible person's retinas are also invisible, such that light passes through them, how can he or she see?

either magic or something like Alicorn said, though if the spell basically turns you into a black body for the duration (absorb all light) then I imagine you'd get hot pretty fast so then you'd still need a mechanism for cooling built into the spell

How can a person load and aim a bow or crossbow while invisible? Would not such a skill require extensive practice?

loading should be very easy if you're practiced with them because you can do it by feel, aiming at much distance at all would probably be impossible using your vision sense but if you've got incredible hearing and can hear something making noise you could probably aim with your ears, or if you have tremor sense you might be able to detect where something is and where it's going like with your eyes (I guess that's technically a form of hearing but it works better on vibrations in the ground than your ears do so I'm going to count it as NOT THE SAME!)

also I guess to the second part of the question, "Would not such a skill require extensive practice," the answer is yeah it probably would BUT you could at least load and you could aim at short range by feel since we're assuming you can see the target, and you can feel where the weapon is generally pointed so at sufficiently close range aiming a few degrees off the point you want to hit won't make you miss the target altogether

[kenawyn]

You never been a GM? (Never had a good one?)

You overlook...
o shadow of the "invisible" person
o footprints from puddles/dust/grass/moss/etc. they step in
o any schmutz you get on yourself after you turn invisible
o smells (when was your character's last bath and laundry day?)
o other stuff, situational

Please give me a source for invisible persons casting a shadow.
I did check in multiple books and never found any reference to that.

If you look at the description of the invisible effect:

Visually undetectable. An invisible creature gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against sighted opponents, and ignores its opponents’ Dexterity bonuses to AC (if any). (See Invisibility, under Special Abilities.)

Looking at the spell description:

The creature or object touched becomes invisible, vanishing from sight, even from darkvision. If the recipient is a creature carrying gear, that vanishes, too. If you cast the spell on someone else, neither you nor your allies can see the subject, unless you can normally see invisible things or you employ magic to do so.

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.

Of course, the subject is not magically silenced, and certain other conditions can render the recipient detectable (such as stepping in a puddle). The spell ends if the subject attacks any creature. For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe. (Exactly who is a foe depends on the invisible character’s perceptions.) Actions directed at unattended objects do not break the spell. Causing harm indirectly is not an attack. Thus, an invisible being can open doors, talk, eat, climb stairs, summon monsters and have them attack, cut the ropes holding a rope bridge while enemies are on the bridge, remotely trigger traps, open a portcullis to release attack dogs, and so forth. If the subject attacks directly, however, it immediately becomes visible along with all its gear. Spells such as bless that specifically affect allies but not foes are not attacks for this purpose, even when they include foes in their area.

Invisibility can be made permanent (on objects only) with a permanency spell.

Arcane Material Component
An eyelash encased in a bit of gum arabic.

Shadows
I think invisible persons do not cast a shadow, or it would have been mentioned in the text at the part where they are talking about invisible persons holding the light source, which would generate a clear shadow of the person, revealing its position, yet this is not mentioned anywhere.

Footprints/puddle/moving grass/displaced water/displaced fog... etc
You had a great point there. This is also mentioned in the the description of the spell.

If an invisible person goes into water, into a cloud, or into tall grass.. etc.
A spot check should be able to discover them. But if they leave the area the pursuers should loose them immediately, unless they have a way to detect them with other means - listen, or this is the part where the footprints become relevant.

We have a couple of ways to hover, and if someone that hovers casts the spell it will be impossible to detect them visually once they leave the problematic area (bushes, tall grass, cloud). A smart mob behavior in this case would be to start running away alerting the dungeon of invisible intruders. Maybe the shaman can cast see invisibility.

schmutz/paint
I think the spell description disagrees with you here, since anything that the invisible person touches or what sticks to them becomes invisible also, unless otherwise stated.
So, a good way to do it with this approach would be to cast the glitterdust spell or use its alchemical equivalent which has particles radiating light. It does not matter if our substance becomes invisible, since we can still detect the person by their illuminated contour.
Fairy fire is an other great way to do it.

smells
This is irrelevant, since you do not use the hide skill to mask smell, nor do enemies use the spot skill to detect smell.
Is there a smell property in the game? I don't think so.

By the way, if you read the description - there is a much bigger problem, since the Invisibility should allow you to interact with objects, doors and stuff without ending the effect. This game hates stealthy builds for some reason otherwise they would have implemented this - it should be enough to generate some sound when you open the door or activate a lever (similar to how noisemakers work), which could or should prompt mobs to investigate anyway.

[NemesisAlien]

it should be enough to generate some sound when you open the door or activate a lever (similar to how noisemakers work), which could or should prompt mobs to investigate anyway.

Bring some oil and oil the hinges before you open

[Xgya]

schmutz/paint
I think the spell description disagrees with you here, since anything that the invisible person touches or what sticks to them becomes invisible also, unless otherwise stated.
So, a good way to do it with this approach would be to cast the glitterdust spell or use its alchemical equivalent which has particles radiating light. It does not matter if our substance becomes invisible, since we can still detect the person by their illuminated contour.
Fairy fire is an other great way to do it.

The description says the items disappear only if tucked under clothing or hidden inside pouches.
Historically, the best nonmagical way to deal with an invisible assailant was throwing (perfectly non-magical, not glowing or light-emitting) flour at them.