So here's an issue I've seen a few times. A character is invisible and with boots of elvenkind making it so the common folk cant SEE them, nor can they HEAR them OR notice footprints. I know RAW all invisibility and the boots do is give advantage on stealth, but imho, it almost feels like there shouldn't even be a roll?
Or at the very least, the enemy's Passive Perception should have disadvantage (-5).
idk... How do/would you guys handle it? RAW or something else?
The Boots of Elvenkind don't stop you from leaving tracks. You need the spell Pass Without Trace for that.
I use the Rules As Written. An Invisible character with Pass Without Trace and Boots of Elvenkind gets a +10 to Dexterity(Stealth) checks and Advantage on the check but the check still needs to be made.
Lets say that had all that on! (that exact situation just came up lol) and they STILL failed (somehow!) How would you as a DM narrate that failure? invisible, soundless, leaving no tracks... what would a failure with all that look like?
Lets say that had all that on! (that exact situation just came up lol) and they STILL failed (somehow!) How would you as a DM narrate that failure? invisible, soundless, leaving no tracks... what would a failure with all that look like?
The boots dont make you soundless. They make your footsteps silent.
Pass Without Trace means you don't leave traces behind from being tracked after passing but does not actually stop you being perceived directly.
Perception covers all five senses, not just sight and sound.
Even with the boots, PWT and invisibility a creature in your presence can still smell you, hear your breath/clothes/heartbeat/weapons/items in backpack/etc, they can still feel disturbed air flow, they can see dust be disturbed in the air or on the ground, and so on.
The combination of items and spells makes you harder to detect, no doubt, it's your Stealth with advantage +10 against their active Perception at disadvantage or passive Perception with -5 penalty, as per RAW. But it's not impossible for them to detect you.
There's a reason why you use Wis for perception. Wisdom in D&D represents the instinctual and subconscious part of your mind: they stuff your brain does without you having to actively do anything. Humans are very perceptive on a biological level. Go into a busy cafe with a friend. Have you ever been in the situation where you hear your friend find but everything else is nonsensical background noise - until somebody says your name, or mentions a movie you recently watched, and suddenly you're able to hear that person more clearly even when they're on the other side of the noisy room? This is because even though you think it's just background noise, its actually not. Your brain is picking up every syllable of every word spoken in that room by everybody. The reason you don't hear it is because your brain automatically considers it irrelevant to you and discards it before it reaches your conscious awareness - so to your conscious self it's all blurry noise, until the brain picks up something it finds relevant (your name, the movie, etc) and retains it. It does this for all senses. Your conscious perception of your environment is actually a filtered fraction - it's what the instinctual and subconscious part of your mind decided it was relevant and retained it with everything else being lost. This is why you get things like "the feeling of being watched" when you think you're alone, why you start humming to music you can't hear but then turn on your radio to the local station and suddenly find it playing the song you're humming and at the same part of it (you were actually hearing another radio also listening to it, but it went to subconscious only). This is also why people can seem to train their sense of smell, taste and sight and why people who are blind suddenly hear better: it's not because the physical parts of the body responsible for sensing have suddenly mutated or something - it's just the brain learning to retain more.
This is how mentalist illusions work - they play with this disparity between what you actually sense physically and what you are aware of. This is why you roll Wisdom. It's basically how much of the environment your brain is letting you be aware of, even though your brain actually can hear every breath and heartbeat within a small room and can even track movement in an adjacent room behind a wall of wood or light stone. So yes, you might be invisible and your footsteps are silent, but the brain of the guard 20 feet from you is still picking up your breath and heartbeat, it can still sense the air being moved and all of that, with the rolls determining just how much of that they get to be aware of.
I hope I have explained that well enough.
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Thank you! This is actually very helpful! Not just for this situation but for another I have in a separate campaign that has a character with a 30 passive perception (10 + 10expertise + 5Wis +5Observant Feat) and she notices EVERYTHING and this gave me a cool new way of narrating it other than, "You notice their foot sticking out" lol
Lets say that had all that on! (that exact situation just came up lol) and they STILL failed (somehow!) How would you as a DM narrate that failure? invisible, soundless, leaving no tracks... what would a failure with all that look like?
As the character attempts to sneak past the guard he turns toward that direction a caughs up a huge ball of phlegm and spits it their direction and it somehow stops mid air.... the character steps into a puddle and they see the ripples.... the character is paying so much attention to the guard as he sneaks that he doesn't see a board propped up against the wall and accidentally bumps it over...
Tons of ways, just be creative and use what you have environmentally to create that flavor for the failure. Awesome dog BTW!!!! I have a malamute :)
So here's an issue I've seen a few times. A character is invisible and with boots of elvenkind making it so the common folk cant SEE them, nor can they HEAR them OR notice footprints. I know RAW all invisibility and the boots do is give advantage on stealth, but imho, it almost feels like there shouldn't even be a roll?
Or at the very least, the enemy's Passive Perception should have disadvantage (-5).
idk... How do/would you guys handle it? RAW or something else?
The Boots of Elvenkind don't stop you from leaving tracks. You need the spell Pass Without Trace for that.
I use the Rules As Written. An Invisible character with Pass Without Trace and Boots of Elvenkind gets a +10 to Dexterity(Stealth) checks and Advantage on the check but the check still needs to be made.
<Insert clever signature here>
Lets say that had all that on! (that exact situation just came up lol) and they STILL failed (somehow!) How would you as a DM narrate that failure? invisible, soundless, leaving no tracks... what would a failure with all that look like?
The boots dont make you soundless. They make your footsteps silent.
Pass Without Trace means you don't leave traces behind from being tracked after passing but does not actually stop you being perceived directly.
Perception covers all five senses, not just sight and sound.
Even with the boots, PWT and invisibility a creature in your presence can still smell you, hear your breath/clothes/heartbeat/weapons/items in backpack/etc, they can still feel disturbed air flow, they can see dust be disturbed in the air or on the ground, and so on.
The combination of items and spells makes you harder to detect, no doubt, it's your Stealth with advantage +10 against their active Perception at disadvantage or passive Perception with -5 penalty, as per RAW. But it's not impossible for them to detect you.
There's a reason why you use Wis for perception. Wisdom in D&D represents the instinctual and subconscious part of your mind: they stuff your brain does without you having to actively do anything. Humans are very perceptive on a biological level. Go into a busy cafe with a friend. Have you ever been in the situation where you hear your friend find but everything else is nonsensical background noise - until somebody says your name, or mentions a movie you recently watched, and suddenly you're able to hear that person more clearly even when they're on the other side of the noisy room? This is because even though you think it's just background noise, its actually not. Your brain is picking up every syllable of every word spoken in that room by everybody. The reason you don't hear it is because your brain automatically considers it irrelevant to you and discards it before it reaches your conscious awareness - so to your conscious self it's all blurry noise, until the brain picks up something it finds relevant (your name, the movie, etc) and retains it. It does this for all senses. Your conscious perception of your environment is actually a filtered fraction - it's what the instinctual and subconscious part of your mind decided it was relevant and retained it with everything else being lost. This is why you get things like "the feeling of being watched" when you think you're alone, why you start humming to music you can't hear but then turn on your radio to the local station and suddenly find it playing the song you're humming and at the same part of it (you were actually hearing another radio also listening to it, but it went to subconscious only). This is also why people can seem to train their sense of smell, taste and sight and why people who are blind suddenly hear better: it's not because the physical parts of the body responsible for sensing have suddenly mutated or something - it's just the brain learning to retain more.
This is how mentalist illusions work - they play with this disparity between what you actually sense physically and what you are aware of. This is why you roll Wisdom. It's basically how much of the environment your brain is letting you be aware of, even though your brain actually can hear every breath and heartbeat within a small room and can even track movement in an adjacent room behind a wall of wood or light stone. So yes, you might be invisible and your footsteps are silent, but the brain of the guard 20 feet from you is still picking up your breath and heartbeat, it can still sense the air being moved and all of that, with the rolls determining just how much of that they get to be aware of.
I hope I have explained that well enough.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Thank you! This is actually very helpful! Not just for this situation but for another I have in a separate campaign that has a character with a 30 passive perception (10 + 10expertise + 5Wis +5Observant Feat) and she notices EVERYTHING and this gave me a cool new way of narrating it other than, "You notice their foot sticking out" lol
As the character attempts to sneak past the guard he turns toward that direction a caughs up a huge ball of phlegm and spits it their direction and it somehow stops mid air.... the character steps into a puddle and they see the ripples.... the character is paying so much attention to the guard as he sneaks that he doesn't see a board propped up against the wall and accidentally bumps it over...
Tons of ways, just be creative and use what you have environmentally to create that flavor for the failure. Awesome dog BTW!!!! I have a malamute :)
Lower the dc?