Phantasmal Web is a 5th-level illusion spell that creates an illusory web full of spiders that torment those who believe they're held within it, rendering them extra helpless, and has to be one of the meanest crowd-control spells, at mid-level at least.

Some choice phrases from the description:

Those who fail to disbelieve the phantasmal web are treated as if in a web spell, but must also make a Fortitude save at the beginning of each turn or become nauseated for that round by the phantasmal spiders.

Targets cannot escape the phantasmal web by moving, even by teleportation. Freedom of movement allows unobstructed movement but does not negate the concealment or nausea effects.

Targets of the spell perceive everyone else around them to be engulfed in webs and swarming spiders ...

I can seriously see someone fireballing their own position to try to kill the spiders.

A while back, when buying equipment for a new character, I figured out that I was trying to solve the same problems over and over again. I decided to put together basic sets of equipment that should allow almost any character to be well-equipped with the basics at first or second level, with a minimum of effort.

Today, I present these kits to you. Each kit gives both a gold and a weight total (for both Medium and Small creatures), and suggestions for how to use or modify the kit to suit your character. They include both a basic for-everyone kit as well as an extremely stripped-down version of the same, advice for distributing heavy gear, and suggestions for additional equipment to purchase as more money comes in.

I hope they're useful to you.

This is a guide to achieving durable total concealment in combat. Durable in this case means that the concealment does not end or degrade the moment you attack your opponent.

It was written years ago to answer a question about sneak attacking at range, and so it is mostly written from that perspective, but I have made some slight alterations since then and it could also be useful for other purposes.

Categories

There are four practical ways to become concealed from an opponent in combat in such a way as it will not wear off the moment you make an attack. They are as follows: Blind your target, utilise darkness, utilise obscuring conditions such as fog or smoke, or finally becoming invisible.

Blindness

Several spells can blind your opponents, including the 1st-level spell touch of blindess and the classic glitterdust. As a bonus, convincing a friendly mage to go this route should be pretty easy, since blinding your opponents is a great debuff anyway.

The dirty trick combat manoeuvre can apply blindness for a round. A familiar with the prankster archetype should be able to pull this off, though a friendly melee fighter can also build for it. Greater Dirty Trick is important here to make the blind last more than one round, and Quick Dirty Trick lets them do it in place of one of their normal melee attacks. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to reliably perform dirty tricks at range, so if you prefer to attack at range you will be relying on the melee combatants to do this for you.

Darkness

If your opponent doesn't have darkvision, but you do, a simple darkness spell (or other way to turn out the lights) will grant you total concealment. This is unreliable since so many of your opponents will likely have darkvision, but the night blindness spell can turn this off.

If you can get the "See in Darkness" ability, you can use deeper darkness to disable regular darkvision, which will work for almost all opponents apart from devils. Ways to get See in Darkness include the advanced rogue talent by the same name, getting a Rod of Shadows, or playing a tiefling and taking Fiend Sight twice.

Wielding a rod of shadows could be tricky. You could use a one-handed weapon or get an extra arm to hold it in. If you fight in melee, you could also use the spellsword spell, which has a good duration.

Obscuring Conditions

Very few creatures can see through effects like obscuring mist, so if you can get some way to see through such effects yourself, you can gain very effective concealment.

If you're playing an Ifrit, you can take the Firesight racial feat to be able to see through smoke, then find some way to fill the fight with smoke, such as using a smokestick, either on its own or as an alchemical power component for an obscuring mist spell.

Ashen path cast on you will allow you to see through not only magical smoke but also magical fog and mist and similar obscuring effects, while a Goz Mask will work for even nonmagical obscuring conditions. Other ways to see through obscurement include the Murksight witch hex and the Water Sight revelation of the Waves mystery.

Obscuring mist is the obvious way to create obscuring conditions here, but you could also get a Saltspray Ring (GM permitting, it is from an Adventure Path) and have as much mist as you want, and it follows you.

Invisibility

A very obvious option is to use greater invisibility, although that only lasts a very short duration.

If you play a ninja, the vanishing trick ninja trick will let you get one sneak attack as a swift action, and later invisible blade will extend it to the whole fight, letting you get full attacks with sneak attack on every hit.

An Amulet of the Blooded can get you Fey bloodline powers as a 9th level sorcerer, including the ability to use greater invisibility for 9 rounds per day. The action to do this is unclear; since it isn't stated, RAW it's a standard action, but based on the comparable Illusion Wizard school power, I believe it should be a swift action.

If your character's starting off at level one, they're really only getting started with adventuring. You can let that be reflected in their backstory.

If you want to play a badass, starting above level 1 is allowed, though probably not recommended for new players still learning the rules of whatever system you're playing.

As a 1e GM, I'd probably allow this, but I'd require you to take the Half-Dragon and Two-Headed templates and put you a few levels behind for it.