What counts as an attack for the purposes of the invisibility spell?
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Only if the roll made is an attack roll. As OP says, pouring out a flask doesn't require an attack, nor does lighting something with a tinderbox. In fact neither of these should require any roll at all.
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I don't wanna rain on my players parade for having a clever idea, but this to me seems like getting away on a technicality - like that scene in the Simpsons when Bart and Lisa are kicking and punching the air with their eyes closed and if the other just happens to get in their way then it's the other's fault lol.
Through some clever rules lawyering, this little flying familiar is becoming dangerously OP lol. In another encounter it basically two-shotted a fire giant.
I might consider lighting the oil with tinder as an attack against an object (oil) for the purposes of this spell.
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Interesting!
Outside of combat, when a character is diligently working towards a thing that they're able to do, I wouldn't typically expect them to roll for it beyond adding flavor of how long it takes them.
In that light I could see using the tinderbox as an attack but the player doesn't usually need to roll it. But that's a stretch, I admit.I'm gonna have to think on this a bit more. I'm shocked that burning hands or acid splash isn't considered an attack.
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It wasn't actually attacking an enemy, it was setting their weapon rack on fire so that they couldn't get to their ranged weapons.
Very clever, I like it!
But this familiar is becoming OP through rules lawyering. I don't wanna rain on my player's parade, but I'm not an experienced DM and it's becoming difficult to make encounters that can't just be circumvented by this damn familiar lol.
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Similarly inexperienced opinion here, but I'd also allow it. Agree with the others that pouring the oil would be potentially visible, but definitely after the fire is lit the smoke would make the players visible when they move. Kind of like how the smoke allows you to see the tripwire lasers.
Rule of cool first and creative thinking is what makes ttrpgs great. However, you're the DM and the tone of the game is ultimately up to you.
Sounds like your players are thinking outside the box, which in my experience is nothing but a recipe for fun (and likely headaches for your carefully laid plans). Good luck.
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Unfortunately they're thinking so far outside the box that I'm having difficulty balancing encounters
One player can two shot a fire giant from a safe distance, yet a decent sized pack of giant rats would probably fuck up the whole party.
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Add some environmental hazards and AoE attacks. Make the fires spread out of control and become a threat of their own. Tempt them with explosive barrels in dangerous places. Familiars die easily, but are cheap to resummon.
Keep attacking them frequently between rests. Make them reconsider that 1 hour familiar ritual and invisibility spell slot.
If even a single witness escapes, he's telling everyone what happened. Most spell casters can immediately put out the fire with Prestidigitation, Control Flames, or Druidcraft.
When they destroy items with fire, describe expensive things melting into worthless things.
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The invisible user poured the oil and lit the fire that caused damage to the enemy. So if the invisible user setup a crossbow with a string on the trigger is it an attack? The action was to pull a string. If you attach a lever to a sword and pull the lever can you run around hitting people with a sword and stay invisible?
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Difficulty balancing encounters
They're being creative because they want to be powerful. They want that "wow that's clever and highly effective, you're so smart here's a one-shot" moment. So, let them. Balance be damned. Let them wipe out entire encounters if they're clever enough. Or, throw in a fluffer enemy or two that can either get "one-shot" at any moment or be a nuisance for the entire encounter
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The difference between those scenarios you've invented and the scenario in the post is that pouring out oil and lighting a fire with a tinderbox already have existing rules, there's no need to try to interpret the mechanics of the situation.
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An attack makes an attack roll.
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Anytime my player use their actions and resources to interact with the world as of it's real I like to support it. I in turn treat the world real back which is what the player wants to do. We like to talk it through to make sure it feels fair to both of us.
For this example where your player is pouring oil and lighting a weapon rack on fire. So I would tell them that the oil will become visible once poured. So I would do a stealth check to get it lite. And either 1d4 rounds until the notice or give the enemy a check each round. Its fun to have these back and forth
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So magic missiles wouldn't break invisibility? Fireball or any other spell that has a save roll and not an attack role?
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But throwing flaming oil is an attack? This is throwing flaming oil but broken down into separate actions.
It seems like separating actions from attack is still a judgement call.
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Yeah one of the most memorable story moments in the campaign I'm in right now came from our party hitting some incredibly lucky rolls and basically one shotting a sentinel enemy that was supposed to make us turn back from the dungeon we were in and gone back later when we were stronger. We then found the boss encounter of that dungeon way underleveled, and had to do some serious strategizing and outside the box thinking to come out on top. It was super fun for us as players, and we felt super proud of ourselves when the DM told us what we had done after the session. It was also super fun for the DM since he had to kind of throw together the rest of the encounter on the fly.
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You are correct that the actions you listed are not attacks, but the Invisibility spell says ...
The spell ends early immediately after the target makes an attack roll, deals damage, or casts a spell.
This whole sentence is a way to ckeck your ability to avoid interactions with the world by being invisible while still interacting with it.
Some interactions bend this rule. Not many break it with a fair DM. The closest I have come was an Arcane Trickster character who can cast Mage Hand (which had Invisibility due to a class ability) then Invisibility on targeting self. I could use the Mage Hand for the duration of the spell ... but then I couldn't recast it without dropping Invisibility.
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They're not throwing flaming oil though. They didn't even pour oil onto an enemy and light them on fire. They poured oil onto a weapon rack then lit that on fire. The enemies can simply not interact with the fire if they don't want to. A DM can rule that a series of events together might constitute an attack because it resulted in something similar to an attack (because a DM can rule anything they want), but compounding actions and classifying them based on their result is not covered within RAW.
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Their familiar is an imp, so it gets invisibility as an action, so it doesn't cost them a spell slot or any spell uses. The familiar is basically always invisible and flying. I do need to pay more attention to how it's flying, though - it needs to be shape shifted into a raven, so polymorphing would break concentration, and raven flight isn't silent and cannot hover. Thanks for making me take a deeper look here
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I don't want my encounters to be lethal, I don't like killing off PCs... But I do want the encounters to be a challenge.
I like your idea, but idk if I'm experienced enough to pull it off. Also I'm running a premade campaign right now so a lot of the encounters are pre-defined, at least in nature; I can tip the scales but I don't think I'm comfortable yet with changing how the encounters work.
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Does that mean they took Pact of the Chain? If so, then it's a class feature that's supposed to be powerful. Maybe this signature trick makes their patron impressed, jealous, or bored...
They passed up on Pact of the Blade, so when they do get attacked, they're more vulnerable.
