This question was brought to me by one of my players who is a wizard and usually has an Owl familiar. An owl has Keen Hearing and Sight, which gives it advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or sight. With that in mind, could the owl detect or find an invisible creature? His argument was that, even if you were invisible, you could still make sounds when walking, flying or even breathing and an owl’s keen hearing would pick that up. The way I normally play it is if it doesn’t have blind sight, you can’t detect it or else anyone could make perception checks to find someone invisible.
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‘A’OHE PU’U KI’EKI’E KE HO’A’O ‘IA E PI’I – (No cliff is so tall it cannot be climbed.)
invisible “the creature can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves”
Then you can use all that wonderful knowledge provided above to determine how to go about that. But yeah I’d most definitely say an owl would have the ability to potentially locate a creature by sound, given the numbers end up in it’s favor of course.
A Bat has echolocation based blindsight. The bat would both 1) Knows what space they are in and 2) does not have disadvantage when targeting them.
Keen hearing is not echolocation.
I would treat the owl exactly like a human being - they get a free action perception check to identify exactly which spot the invisible creature is in, with all keen hearing hearing advantage. But they can not see the invisible creature and still get disadvantage when targeting that creature.
Yeah, the free action is called passive perception. You do have to house rule how advantage works with passive perception, but that is up to you.
I prefer to just treat it as a normal 2d20, take the highest. But some people use a +5 to passive, others treat it as a set 10 or 1d20, whichever is better.
A Bat has echolocation based blindsight. The bat would both 1) Knows what space they are in and 2) does not have disadvantage when targeting them.
The blindsight completely negates invisibility, so in addition to the above, which is absolutely true, all the other benefits of invisibility also disappear
Where does it say that? Because the only things i could find on blindsight are the following:
"Blindsight
A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.
Creatures without eyes, such as grimlocks and gray oozes, typically have this special sense, as do creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons.
If a monster is naturally blind, it has a parenthetical note to this effect, indicating that the radius of its blindsight defines the maximum range of its perception."
And
"Blind Fighting
You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you."
The only mention of blindsight seeing past invisibility specifically states "unless the creature successfully hides from you." Now clearly that is because its a player ability, but until i see someplace else in 5e rules that blindsight sees through invisibility I am ruling it using the PC rules for it. Jeremy Crawford made a tweet about it, but it more so supports the Blind Fighting ruleing with Blindsight.
Of course you can make perception checks to find someone invisible. Invisible doesn't mean a ghost. And you don't have to be an owl to do it.
IIRC RAW is that the invisible creature has advantage on their stealth check, but the owl has advantage on their perception check. Do a contested check, and if they have the same bonus, it's even money.
Of course winning the contested check does not necessarily mean you can pinpoint the location of the creature. I'd probably allow that on a win by 5 or 10 more.
A similar question arises for keen smell, although I don't think I'd allow the target to make a stealth check (hygiene check, maybe?). I'd just set a pretty high DC for the perception check - 15 or maybe 20 - representing how the average person with perception +0 can't often detect the presence of a creature by smell.
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This question was brought to me by one of my players who is a wizard and usually has an Owl familiar. An owl has Keen Hearing and Sight, which gives it advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or sight. With that in mind, could the owl detect or find an invisible creature? His argument was that, even if you were invisible, you could still make sounds when walking, flying or even breathing and an owl’s keen hearing would pick that up.
The way I normally play it is if it doesn’t have blind sight, you can’t detect it or else anyone could make perception checks to find someone invisible.
‘A’OHE PU’U KI’EKI’E KE HO’A’O ‘IA E PI’I – (No cliff is so tall it cannot be climbed.)
invisible “the creature can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves”
Then you can use all that wonderful knowledge provided above to determine how to go about that. But yeah I’d most definitely say an owl would have the ability to potentially locate a creature by sound, given the numbers end up in it’s favor of course.
A Bat has echolocation based blindsight. The bat would both 1) Knows what space they are in and 2) does not have disadvantage when targeting them.
Keen hearing is not echolocation.
I would treat the owl exactly like a human being - they get a free action perception check to identify exactly which spot the invisible creature is in, with all keen hearing hearing advantage. But they can not see the invisible creature and still get disadvantage when targeting that creature.
Yeah, the free action is called passive perception. You do have to house rule how advantage works with passive perception, but that is up to you.
I prefer to just treat it as a normal 2d20, take the highest. But some people use a +5 to passive, others treat it as a set 10 or 1d20, whichever is better.
I can’t believe I missed that when I read the invisible condition 🤦🏻♂️ Lol. Thanks everyone.
‘A’OHE PU’U KI’EKI’E KE HO’A’O ‘IA E PI’I – (No cliff is so tall it cannot be climbed.)
Just remember:
Invisible = Unseen.
Hidden = Unnoticed and/or Unknown.
Where does it say that? Because the only things i could find on blindsight are the following:
"Blindsight
A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.
Creatures without eyes, such as grimlocks and gray oozes, typically have this special sense, as do creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons.
If a monster is naturally blind, it has a parenthetical note to this effect, indicating that the radius of its blindsight defines the maximum range of its perception."
And
"Blind Fighting
You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you."
The only mention of blindsight seeing past invisibility specifically states "unless the creature successfully hides from you." Now clearly that is because its a player ability, but until i see someplace else in 5e rules that blindsight sees through invisibility I am ruling it using the PC rules for it. Jeremy Crawford made a tweet about it, but it more so supports the Blind Fighting ruleing with Blindsight.
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Of course you can make perception checks to find someone invisible. Invisible doesn't mean a ghost. And you don't have to be an owl to do it.
IIRC RAW is that the invisible creature has advantage on their stealth check, but the owl has advantage on their perception check. Do a contested check, and if they have the same bonus, it's even money.
Of course winning the contested check does not necessarily mean you can pinpoint the location of the creature. I'd probably allow that on a win by 5 or 10 more.
A similar question arises for keen smell, although I don't think I'd allow the target to make a stealth check (hygiene check, maybe?). I'd just set a pretty high DC for the perception check - 15 or maybe 20 - representing how the average person with perception +0 can't often detect the presence of a creature by smell.