Assuming you don't require the hide action, what do you roll perception against to locate a creature? Stealth would be appropriate if they had taken the hide action, but if they aren't trying to be quiet I don't know what to make the check against.
Play it by ear, adjusting the DC depending on the exact situation. Is there a full-scale battle raging around them? Make it a high DC. Is it an otherwise unoccupied room with no one else making any noise? Make it a lower DC. Plenty of RPGs have put these sort of decisions moment by moment in the DM's hands, it's not that hard once you're used to the idea.
Could an invisible person pick up a , let' say a branch, and sneak up behind someone and whop them over the head with the branch and remain invisible?
By Crawford-adjusted RAW (via Sage Advice), this would be difficult, because the stick wouldn't be invisible unless you were holding it when the spell was cast. It would be the old movie trope of the floating stick circling around behind you.
... If you are hidden - both unseen and unheard - when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses. (PHB p195)
Why is hidden singled out as the case where you give away your location when you attack unless hidden is the only case where your location is unknown before the attack?
Hidden doesn’t require you to Hide, it requires that you are unseen and unheard. There is more than one way to achieve that. If you are invisible and too far away to be heard, or background noise is too loud, or target is deaf, or Silence spell, or etc.
That's fine by me as long as you don't require the Hide action. If I cast invisibility during a noisy battle, and then simply move 10 feet to my left, you should no longer know where I am automatically. If you're watching for footprints in the blood, you have super hearing, etc., that's another story. But someone turning invisible should not be automatically locatable. That's the point.
Assuming you don't require the hide action, what do you roll perception against to locate a creature? Stealth would be appropriate if they had taken the hide action, but if they aren't trying to be quiet I don't know what to make the check against.
I was thinking about this myself. In lieu of a stealth check, you could use the invisible creature's passive stealth as the DC of the perception check. Since the target is invisible, you might choose to add +5 to the passive stealth. I have never actually done this in gameplay.
If the invisible creature is not trying to be silent, then I run passive perception versus passive stealth and apply environmental factors to the perception roll for advantage or disadvantage (e.g. advantage at close range with low ambient noise; disadvantage at more than 30 feet or loud ambient noise).
If they fail to perceive passively, I let them choose whether to make an active check at the cost of one of their actions.
Assuming you don't require the hide action, what do you roll perception against to locate a creature? Stealth would be appropriate if they had taken the hide action, but if they aren't trying to be quiet I don't know what to make the check against.
I was thinking about this myself. In lieu of a stealth check, you could use the invisible creature's passive stealth as the DC of the perception check. Since the target is invisible, you might choose to add +5 to the passive stealth. I have never actually done this in gameplay.
If the invisible creature is not trying to be silent, then I run passive perception versus passive stealth and apply environmental factors to the perception roll for advantage or disadvantage (e.g. advantage at close range with low ambient noise; disadvantage at more than 30 feet or loud ambient noise).
If they fail to perceive passively, I let them choose whether to make an active check at the cost of one of their actions.
Please forgive me if I am misinterpreting what you meant by this line, but RAW is what’s in the books and in the errata and nothing else. Sage Advice is Jeremy’s interpretation of the intent of the written rules. It is the definition of RAI.
Please forgive me if I am misinterpreting what you meant by this line, but RAW is what’s in the books and in the errata and nothing else. Sage Advice is Jeremy’s interpretation of the intent of the written rules. It is the definition of RAI.
I just mean that a lot of people take Crawford's twitter and SA statements to be bible. I don't--I don't even take PHB statements to be bible :). But when there has been a clarification about a rule like that, I do think it's important to point out. But I do think Sage Advice has reached a stage where it is treated by many many people as more than RAI. You'll just see those sorts of answers to questions all the time: "Can I do X?" "No, Crawford said such and such in SA."
I understand that. And this is me pushing back against that 😄
I get you :) I just did need to clarify what I meant. I just sometimes mention those things because some people take SA so strictly. Right now I'm not sure which ruling for invisibility I like better. I'm thinking maybe Greater Invisibility would be a spell that would allow things picked up to be invisible, while standard Invis would keep things you pick up after visible.
Please forgive me if I am misinterpreting what you meant by this line, but RAW is what’s in the books and in the errata and nothing else. Sage Advice is Jeremy’s interpretation of the intent of the written rules. It is the definition of RAI.
In many cases, JCs tweets are how he would play it at a table he was running and thus are neither RAW nor strictly RAI. In a lot of cases, he appears to have answered without referring to the text of the rules or reading various other relevant rules sections. This is why they changed his rulings in the latest sage advice from being rules clarifications to suggestions of how he would play it and not official errata.
Keep in mind that the implementation of the rules are entirely up to the DM depending on the situation.
That said ... if someone casts an invisibility spell ... you can't see them BUT you still know where they are. They can then attempt to move. Depending on the situation their movement may be perceptible by changes in the environment or you may be able to hear them, either their footsteps, the clink of their armor or weapons, the bouncing of their pack. Most adventurers are carrying a LOT of stuff and are not specifically prepared to move silently. So unless there are environmental factors to prevent it, then you will STILL know roughly where the creature has moved to. You still can't see them, you still have disadvantage on attacks against them, however, within the typical 5' or so, you still know where they are.
It is a DM call as far as what range you can still track a creature by the noise, footprints, swirling in smoke or fog, that might accompany its movement.
By taking the hide action, a character attempts to move stealthily, minimizing the signs and noise of its passage. A successful stealth check by a heavily obscured creature means that you no longer know the rough area where the creature is located. If you wish to attack at this point you then have to guess a location.
RAW, this is how the vision/hidden rules work. Turning invisible doesn't make you hidden.
In addition, if you are invisible (say greater invisibility) the rules explicitly state that you reveal your location when you attack whether that attack hits or misses. This could be from hundreds if feet away. You still reveal your location and attacks against you will be at disadvantage because you are invisible but attackers do not need to guess your location. This is what the rules say RAW. On top of that, the rule states that you reveal your location if you are hidden. This also implies that your location was ALREADY known if you were not hidden otherwise the text would simply say that your location is revealed when you attack.
Characters in D&D have far more refined senses than we do. They can be aware of their surroundings (even behind them) while engaging in combat against multiple opponents. They have truly impressive levels of awareness. A lot of DMs put forward the argument that an invisible character becomes hidden because they would be unable to track or hear the character over the noise of combat and other disctractions. However, D&D characters already have the ability to keep track of any opponent that can be seen from their location in any direction. You can't sneak up on someone in combat since they could clearly see you and if if you are visible then you can't be hidden. So when DMs reach for "realism" reasons to try to say why a person might not be able to remain aware of the location of an invisible character, you have to ask why they are using our reality and capabilities of non-adventurers as the reference point for what an adventurer in D&D may or may not be capable of ... which is why a lot of folks fall back on what the rules say and only impose additional restrictions if the situation requires it (eg. silence + invisibility on a clean floor might make it difficult to keep track of the location of a target while silence+invisibility walking through puddles will still be very easy to keep track of a creature's location).
Keep in mind that the implementation of the rules are entirely up to the DM depending on the situation.
That said ... if someone casts an invisibility spell ... you can't see them BUT you still know where they are. ...
RAW, this is how the vision/hidden rules work. Turning invisible doesn't make you hidden.
Again, that's one interpretation of the RAW. It's not the only plausible interpretation, as being Hidden is not the only way to trigger parts of the Unseen Targets text. In particular, one interpretation is that simply being Unseen triggers the part about the possibility of auto-missing if you don't guess correctly where they are.
There are multiple non-ridiculous interpretations of the text here.
But someone turning invisible should not be automatically locatable. That's the point.
I play it the other way. You are automatically located unless you've taken steps not to be.
Turning invisible is a good first step, but you are still revealing your location by your sound, tracks and perhaps scent. To become hidden you have to do something about those. For example, moving carefully, muffling your gear, staying downwind. In game terms, taking the Hide Action.
Having invisibility being an automatic-hide is too powerful. If you play it like that then an encounter with a poltergeist is no fun (which I learnt the hard way watching players get angrier and angrier at an unbeatable encounter).
That is a good point there. Lots of good advise here. I have several NPCs that use invisibility which is the reason I started this post in the first place. I needed some ideas on how to use them without making them invincible.
But someone turning invisible should not be automatically locatable. That's the point.
I play it the other way. You are automatically located unless you've taken steps not to be.
Turning invisible is a good first step, but you are still revealing your location by your sound, tracks and perhaps scent. To become hidden you have to do something about those. For example, moving carefully, muffling your gear, staying downwind. In game terms, taking the Hide Action.
Having invisibility being an automatic-hide is too powerful. If you play it like that then an encounter with a poltergeist is no fun (which I learnt the hard way watching players get angrier and angrier at an unbeatable encounter).
I get what you're saying, I just prefer to go with "you are still possibly revealing your location by sound, tracks, scent, etc". :) What I'm rejecting is the notion that knowing your location when you are invisible is automatic unless you also do something else. I think that, many times, being invisible would be enough. But not all the time, certainly.
If you think it's OP, then you should do something to mitigate that, absolutely. I just think that being invisible would in fact be very, very powerful. And it should be :)
I can't think of a time when I wouldn't allow somebody a chance at all to still know where the invisible person is. But I can easily imagine times and situations where going invisible and moving 5 feet to the left would make it nearly impossible for them to know your location. For example, in the middle of a raging battle, when there are dozens of other enemies around you and possibly attacking you, metal is clanging around everywhere, people are screaming, your head is ringing, etc. So there should be rolls in both cases.
In the same way, I can imagine times when even taking the Hide action and rolling really well would still leave you easily findable. For example, if you and your opponent found yourself in a 10x10 brightly lit room with closed doors (or hidden doors you can't find) and nothing else in the room but the two of you (no furniture, no other creatures), plain walls, floor, and ceiling all around...I'm really not seeing how a Hide roll would possibly be successful. Right? This is the room--explain how even the best Rogue could Disengage and then successfully hide here :)
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So that's the big difference--I just don't want these things to be automatic. Invisibility often times would be enough to not be found. Not always, but sometimes. Thus, I don't think you should be automatically findable. :)
But someone turning invisible should not be automatically locatable. That's the point.
I play it the other way. You are automatically located unless you've taken steps not to be.
Turning invisible is a good first step, but you are still revealing your location by your sound, tracks and perhaps scent. To become hidden you have to do something about those. For example, moving carefully, muffling your gear, staying downwind. In game terms, taking the Hide Action.
Having invisibility being an automatic-hide is too powerful. If you play it like that then an encounter with a poltergeist is no fun (which I learnt the hard way watching players get angrier and angrier at an unbeatable encounter).
You've obviously put some thought into this. I feel like invisible creatures automatically being located unless they hide really mitigates the special ability of the rogue's level 14 blindsense. "Starting at 14th level, if you are able to hear, you are aware of the location of any hidden or invisible creature within 10 feet of you." If you have to be a level 14 rogue and the invisible creature has to be within 10 feet of you to automatically hear where it is without a perception check, it seems way too generous to automatically let everyone on the battlefield know where the invisible creature is unless they make a noise like shouting or knocking over a vase, as exampled in PHB p.177.
Then again, the biggest advantage of being invisible is baked right into the condition itself. If you are not seen, many spells and abilities simply cannot target you at all. And attacks against you get disadvantage. Tell you what. Next time I run an invisible monster at my table, I'll try using it your way and we will see how I like it and how the players like it.
EDIT: The way you run invisibility, if there were two invisible creatures in close proximity to each other, would everyone automatically know there were two of them?
My question would also be this: if you walk into a room where an invisible creature is standing, already invisible but not having taken the Hide action...would you automaticallyknow that the creature was there? E.G. I am standing in Room X, you are outside in the hallway beyond a heavy, closed wooden door. I cast invisibility, but simply remain standing in the middle of the room--I do not take the Hide action. You then open the door and walk into the room. Would you automatically know I was there? Without having to make a perception roll of any kind?
So you are absolutely refusing to use Stealth eventhough you could have before the encounter began. You are just standing there breathing heavily, clearing your throat, tapping your foot, prepping yourself for combat, doing whatever else you might do if you are not trying to be quiet.
The enemy opens the door, hears you, signals to the wizard who casts Fireball. Or maybe a druid casts Faerie Fire. Or maybe cast Flaming Sphere and roll it until they hit you. The enemy knows you are there but they realize you will be tough to hit because they can’t see you, so they will use tactics that work.
If they don’t have access to spells, the enemy can move into the room. They hear your breathing getting louder so they know they are getting closer. If one tries to move through your space, they won’t be able to. The one that has found you calls out and the rest surround you. Good luck.
So you are absolutely refusing to use Stealth eventhough you could have before the encounter began. You are just standing there breathing heavily, clearing your throat, tapping your foot, prepping yourself for combat, doing whatever else you might do if you are not trying to be quiet.
No. I am simply standing there, breathing normally, not clearing my throat, not tapping my foot, not prepping. Just standing there. Compare it to me right now, just before I type this reply. I am just sitting here. I am not breathing 'heavily'. I am not tapping my foot. I am not clearing my throat. I am sitting quietly at my table. But I am certainly not Hiding.
It's clear, given your interpretation of what I would be doing, that you can see that you're faced with one of several choices and you don't like any of them:
I am not Hiding. The person entering the room would know I was there, and know exactly where I was, even though I am invisible, because I am not hiding.
I am in fact Hiding. Standing there normally, without taking any particular action, constitutes Hiding.
I am not Hiding. And the person entering the room would not know I was there.
You don't want to choose 1, because that sounds absurd, that someone walking into the room suspecting nothing would automatically know I was there.
You don't want to choose 3, because you want Hiding to be required to have any chance to have your location unknown.
So you are tempting to pick 2--that standing there normally constitutes Hiding. (Well, first, you explicitly added features to my description of what I'm doing, so as to make 1 sound like the right answer. But if I am not doing those things, then 1 sounds wrong. :)
So I'm suspecting that you want to go with 2. But notice now what happens when you pick 2.
Simply standing in one place normally (i.e. not holding one's breath, but not breathing 'heavily) constitutes Hiding.
There is no specific action one has to do to Hide--like crouch down, hold your breath, move to keep an object between you and someone else, etc. Simply standing normally, like many people do throughout the day at for example a bus stop, is 'Hiding'. If you're leaning against a wall outside a restaurant waiting for a friend, watching the world go by, arms crossed and looking around...you are 'Hiding'.
Now, say you're in a room, checking behind a statue for a secret door, and a bad guy walks into the room. You are behind a statue, and out of sight. You have not declared that you are Hiding, and you were in no way intending to 'not be found'. You just happen to be standing behind the statue, not making any particular noises.
What do we say to this? That you are assumed to have been Hiding, because you weren't tapping your foot, breathing heavily, etc? But you did not specifically take the Hiding action.
So if you are not Hiding, then you would then be immediately located by the person entering the room, on your interpretation.
However, if you decided to take the Hide action as the door opened, you could accomplish this Hiding...by doing nothing. By simply continuing to remain standing normally. Because standing there normally is, on 2 above, 'Hiding'. :)
So you would not be Hiding until you got the chance to simply say, as a player, "I am Hiding". Before that, you're just standing there...out of sight...but not Hiding...and therefore automatically locatable. But now, by just continuing to do the very same thing, no movement necessary at all, you would be 'Hiding'.
:)
It seems to me that 1 and 2 above are both absurd results. Someone walking into a room where I was standing normally but invisibily would not automatically know I was there. That's absurd. But it's also absurd to say that standing normally constitutes Hiding.
So we're left with 3 as the most reasonable decision of the three, by far.
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There's one other option to go with, and that's to separate 'Being Hidden' from 'Taking the Hide Action'. You might say, in the case of Invisible Me above, that if I'm just standing there quietly but normally, that I would be 'Hidden'. Not that I 'took an action', but that I was 'Hidden', because I was not making any particular noise. Similarly, you standing behind the statue would qualify for 'being Hidden', just because of where you were standing, and that you weren't making any particular noises.
And that makes sense, that sounds okay. But now notice that, if I turn invisible with a spell, and I simply do nothing...wouldn't I then similarly be 'Hidden'? In the same way that I was 'Hidden' by just standing in the middle of the room doing nothing?
In short, either Hiding can be accomplished literally by your character doing nothing, just you declaring the action, or I cannot be automatically found even if I'm not hiding.
Huh? .....................Egads...what a mess....lol
I didn't realize how complicated invisibility could be... I simply wanted to use it as a tool to give an attacker an edge, or give a person being attacked an edge, didn't know I had to go all logic on it to figure out how to make it work, too bad my game sessions are only going to be 3 hours, it'll take 2 hours to figure out how the heck to use the spell correctly, I may even need to start a discussion board dedicated to just invisibility. Geeeezzzz. Oh well, carry on, this is interesting.
Here's a philosophical question for ya. Suppose there is a creature or race of beings who's natural form is invisible, they can become visible at will, but naturaly that are invisible. Now suppose that one of these beings were standing in said room not doing anything, not intending to hide or anything, they are just there, and I walk into said room not looking for anything , not listening for anything, just entering the room for whatever reason. Now since I suspect nothing, and not trying too..would the invisible being constiture being hidden, or would it just be that they are simply there, not using magic, or anything, it is simply the way they exist like we exist as visible beings?
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Play it by ear, adjusting the DC depending on the exact situation. Is there a full-scale battle raging around them? Make it a high DC. Is it an otherwise unoccupied room with no one else making any noise? Make it a lower DC. Plenty of RPGs have put these sort of decisions moment by moment in the DM's hands, it's not that hard once you're used to the idea.
By Crawford-adjusted RAW (via Sage Advice), this would be difficult, because the stick wouldn't be invisible unless you were holding it when the spell was cast. It would be the old movie trope of the floating stick circling around behind you.
That's fine by me as long as you don't require the Hide action. If I cast invisibility during a noisy battle, and then simply move 10 feet to my left, you should no longer know where I am automatically. If you're watching for footprints in the blood, you have super hearing, etc., that's another story. But someone turning invisible should not be automatically locatable. That's the point.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
If the invisible creature is not trying to be silent, then I run passive perception versus passive stealth and apply environmental factors to the perception roll for advantage or disadvantage (e.g. advantage at close range with low ambient noise; disadvantage at more than 30 feet or loud ambient noise).
If they fail to perceive passively, I let them choose whether to make an active check at the cost of one of their actions.
Nice and simple, I like it.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Please forgive me if I am misinterpreting what you meant by this line, but RAW is what’s in the books and in the errata and nothing else. Sage Advice is Jeremy’s interpretation of the intent of the written rules. It is the definition of RAI.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I just mean that a lot of people take Crawford's twitter and SA statements to be bible. I don't--I don't even take PHB statements to be bible :). But when there has been a clarification about a rule like that, I do think it's important to point out. But I do think Sage Advice has reached a stage where it is treated by many many people as more than RAI. You'll just see those sorts of answers to questions all the time: "Can I do X?" "No, Crawford said such and such in SA."
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
I understand that. And this is me pushing back against that 😄
"Not all those who wander are lost"
In the end, like all things, it's up to the GM =)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I get you :) I just did need to clarify what I meant. I just sometimes mention those things because some people take SA so strictly. Right now I'm not sure which ruling for invisibility I like better. I'm thinking maybe Greater Invisibility would be a spell that would allow things picked up to be invisible, while standard Invis would keep things you pick up after visible.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
In many cases, JCs tweets are how he would play it at a table he was running and thus are neither RAW nor strictly RAI. In a lot of cases, he appears to have answered without referring to the text of the rules or reading various other relevant rules sections. This is why they changed his rulings in the latest sage advice from being rules clarifications to suggestions of how he would play it and not official errata.
Keep in mind that the implementation of the rules are entirely up to the DM depending on the situation.
That said ... if someone casts an invisibility spell ... you can't see them BUT you still know where they are. They can then attempt to move. Depending on the situation their movement may be perceptible by changes in the environment or you may be able to hear them, either their footsteps, the clink of their armor or weapons, the bouncing of their pack. Most adventurers are carrying a LOT of stuff and are not specifically prepared to move silently. So unless there are environmental factors to prevent it, then you will STILL know roughly where the creature has moved to. You still can't see them, you still have disadvantage on attacks against them, however, within the typical 5' or so, you still know where they are.
It is a DM call as far as what range you can still track a creature by the noise, footprints, swirling in smoke or fog, that might accompany its movement.
By taking the hide action, a character attempts to move stealthily, minimizing the signs and noise of its passage. A successful stealth check by a heavily obscured creature means that you no longer know the rough area where the creature is located. If you wish to attack at this point you then have to guess a location.
RAW, this is how the vision/hidden rules work. Turning invisible doesn't make you hidden.
In addition, if you are invisible (say greater invisibility) the rules explicitly state that you reveal your location when you attack whether that attack hits or misses. This could be from hundreds if feet away. You still reveal your location and attacks against you will be at disadvantage because you are invisible but attackers do not need to guess your location. This is what the rules say RAW. On top of that, the rule states that you reveal your location if you are hidden. This also implies that your location was ALREADY known if you were not hidden otherwise the text would simply say that your location is revealed when you attack.
Characters in D&D have far more refined senses than we do. They can be aware of their surroundings (even behind them) while engaging in combat against multiple opponents. They have truly impressive levels of awareness. A lot of DMs put forward the argument that an invisible character becomes hidden because they would be unable to track or hear the character over the noise of combat and other disctractions. However, D&D characters already have the ability to keep track of any opponent that can be seen from their location in any direction. You can't sneak up on someone in combat since they could clearly see you and if if you are visible then you can't be hidden. So when DMs reach for "realism" reasons to try to say why a person might not be able to remain aware of the location of an invisible character, you have to ask why they are using our reality and capabilities of non-adventurers as the reference point for what an adventurer in D&D may or may not be capable of ... which is why a lot of folks fall back on what the rules say and only impose additional restrictions if the situation requires it (eg. silence + invisibility on a clean floor might make it difficult to keep track of the location of a target while silence+invisibility walking through puddles will still be very easy to keep track of a creature's location).
Again, that's one interpretation of the RAW. It's not the only plausible interpretation, as being Hidden is not the only way to trigger parts of the Unseen Targets text. In particular, one interpretation is that simply being Unseen triggers the part about the possibility of auto-missing if you don't guess correctly where they are.
There are multiple non-ridiculous interpretations of the text here.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
I play it the other way. You are automatically located unless you've taken steps not to be.
Turning invisible is a good first step, but you are still revealing your location by your sound, tracks and perhaps scent. To become hidden you have to do something about those. For example, moving carefully, muffling your gear, staying downwind. In game terms, taking the Hide Action.
Having invisibility being an automatic-hide is too powerful. If you play it like that then an encounter with a poltergeist is no fun (which I learnt the hard way watching players get angrier and angrier at an unbeatable encounter).
That is a good point there. Lots of good advise here. I have several NPCs that use invisibility which is the reason I started this post in the first place. I needed some ideas on how to use them without making them invincible.
I get what you're saying, I just prefer to go with "you are still possibly revealing your location by sound, tracks, scent, etc". :) What I'm rejecting is the notion that knowing your location when you are invisible is automatic unless you also do something else. I think that, many times, being invisible would be enough. But not all the time, certainly.
If you think it's OP, then you should do something to mitigate that, absolutely. I just think that being invisible would in fact be very, very powerful. And it should be :)
I can't think of a time when I wouldn't allow somebody a chance at all to still know where the invisible person is. But I can easily imagine times and situations where going invisible and moving 5 feet to the left would make it nearly impossible for them to know your location. For example, in the middle of a raging battle, when there are dozens of other enemies around you and possibly attacking you, metal is clanging around everywhere, people are screaming, your head is ringing, etc. So there should be rolls in both cases.
In the same way, I can imagine times when even taking the Hide action and rolling really well would still leave you easily findable. For example, if you and your opponent found yourself in a 10x10 brightly lit room with closed doors (or hidden doors you can't find) and nothing else in the room but the two of you (no furniture, no other creatures), plain walls, floor, and ceiling all around...I'm really not seeing how a Hide roll would possibly be successful. Right? This is the room--explain how even the best Rogue could Disengage and then successfully hide here :)
So that's the big difference--I just don't want these things to be automatic. Invisibility often times would be enough to not be found. Not always, but sometimes. Thus, I don't think you should be automatically findable. :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
You've obviously put some thought into this. I feel like invisible creatures automatically being located unless they hide really mitigates the special ability of the rogue's level 14 blindsense. "Starting at 14th level, if you are able to hear, you are aware of the location of any hidden or invisible creature within 10 feet of you." If you have to be a level 14 rogue and the invisible creature has to be within 10 feet of you to automatically hear where it is without a perception check, it seems way too generous to automatically let everyone on the battlefield know where the invisible creature is unless they make a noise like shouting or knocking over a vase, as exampled in PHB p.177.
Then again, the biggest advantage of being invisible is baked right into the condition itself. If you are not seen, many spells and abilities simply cannot target you at all. And attacks against you get disadvantage. Tell you what. Next time I run an invisible monster at my table, I'll try using it your way and we will see how I like it and how the players like it.
EDIT: The way you run invisibility, if there were two invisible creatures in close proximity to each other, would everyone automatically know there were two of them?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
My question would also be this: if you walk into a room where an invisible creature is standing, already invisible but not having taken the Hide action...would you automatically know that the creature was there? E.G. I am standing in Room X, you are outside in the hallway beyond a heavy, closed wooden door. I cast invisibility, but simply remain standing in the middle of the room--I do not take the Hide action. You then open the door and walk into the room. Would you automatically know I was there? Without having to make a perception roll of any kind?
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
So you are absolutely refusing to use Stealth eventhough you could have before the encounter began. You are just standing there breathing heavily, clearing your throat, tapping your foot, prepping yourself for combat, doing whatever else you might do if you are not trying to be quiet.
The enemy opens the door, hears you, signals to the wizard who casts Fireball. Or maybe a druid casts Faerie Fire. Or maybe cast Flaming Sphere and roll it until they hit you. The enemy knows you are there but they realize you will be tough to hit because they can’t see you, so they will use tactics that work.
If they don’t have access to spells, the enemy can move into the room. They hear your breathing getting louder so they know they are getting closer. If one tries to move through your space, they won’t be able to. The one that has found you calls out and the rest surround you. Good luck.
No. I am simply standing there, breathing normally, not clearing my throat, not tapping my foot, not prepping. Just standing there. Compare it to me right now, just before I type this reply. I am just sitting here. I am not breathing 'heavily'. I am not tapping my foot. I am not clearing my throat. I am sitting quietly at my table. But I am certainly not Hiding.
It's clear, given your interpretation of what I would be doing, that you can see that you're faced with one of several choices and you don't like any of them:
So I'm suspecting that you want to go with 2. But notice now what happens when you pick 2.
It seems to me that 1 and 2 above are both absurd results. Someone walking into a room where I was standing normally but invisibily would not automatically know I was there. That's absurd. But it's also absurd to say that standing normally constitutes Hiding.
So we're left with 3 as the most reasonable decision of the three, by far.
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There's one other option to go with, and that's to separate 'Being Hidden' from 'Taking the Hide Action'. You might say, in the case of Invisible Me above, that if I'm just standing there quietly but normally, that I would be 'Hidden'. Not that I 'took an action', but that I was 'Hidden', because I was not making any particular noise. Similarly, you standing behind the statue would qualify for 'being Hidden', just because of where you were standing, and that you weren't making any particular noises.
And that makes sense, that sounds okay. But now notice that, if I turn invisible with a spell, and I simply do nothing...wouldn't I then similarly be 'Hidden'? In the same way that I was 'Hidden' by just standing in the middle of the room doing nothing?
In short, either Hiding can be accomplished literally by your character doing nothing, just you declaring the action, or I cannot be automatically found even if I'm not hiding.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Huh? .....................Egads...what a mess....lol
I didn't realize how complicated invisibility could be... I simply wanted to use it as a tool to give an attacker an edge, or give a person being attacked an edge, didn't know I had to go all logic on it to figure out how to make it work, too bad my game sessions are only going to be 3 hours, it'll take 2 hours to figure out how the heck to use the spell correctly, I may even need to start a discussion board dedicated to just invisibility. Geeeezzzz. Oh well, carry on, this is interesting.
Here's a philosophical question for ya. Suppose there is a creature or race of beings who's natural form is invisible, they can become visible at will, but naturaly that are invisible. Now suppose that one of these beings were standing in said room not doing anything, not intending to hide or anything, they are just there, and I walk into said room not looking for anything , not listening for anything, just entering the room for whatever reason. Now since I suspect nothing, and not trying too..would the invisible being constiture being hidden, or would it just be that they are simply there, not using magic, or anything, it is simply the way they exist like we exist as visible beings?