Yes, I do think you are wrong. I think that just like you are subjected to unconscious condition when you are unconscious, when you wake up you have countered that condition. You don't counter the condition by countering its effects, you counter the condition by countering the condition: by standing up you are on longer prone; by waking up you are no longer unconscious. Otherwise, as I've said, you imply that countering the disadvantage would counter blinded.
Now whether this extends to blindsight countering blinded, I will leave that up to you. I would imagine that seeing is the counter to being blinded, not blindsight... but that's just an opinion. I'm not even sure if it is a good one.
Edit: just to address the other point: "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." Whether the creature has disadvantage or not beyond its range of blindsight is a question of no value.
In case it wasn't clear in my post, yes, this exactly. The PHB uses "counter" in the sense of "end the condition." Icon is using "counter" in the sense of "counteract one of the condition's effects." That isn't the same thing, and leads to very different results.
My question is, do you think I am wrong about the meaning of the quoted passage (the italicized portion)? I don't think I am. There are certainly logical exceptions to it (unconscious condition and prone immunity being one), but overall i think it holds up. I'd add one other one conundrum in the opposite direction. A [monster]grimlock[monster] is blind beyond the radius of it's blindsight. It is also immune to the blinded condition. Does that mean that it suffers no disadvantage attacking a creature beyond its blindsight range?
Just as your position would infer that a blinded creature with blindsight has disadvantage even in range of it's blindsight, it would also infer the grimlock could attack without disadvantage outside of its blindsight range. Neither one is a logical outcome.
Yes, I do think you are wrong. I think that just like you are subjected to unconscious condition when you are unconscious, when you wake up you have countered that condition. You don't counter the condition by countering its effects, you counter the condition by countering the condition: by standing up you are on longer prone; by waking up you are no longer unconscious. Otherwise, as I've said, you imply that countering the disadvantage would counter blinded.
that was actually my point…what I had originally said was exactly that
Now whether this extends to blindsight countering blinded, I will leave that up to you. I would imagine that seeing is the counter to being blinded, not blindsight... but that's just an opinion. I'm not even sure if it is a good one.
seeing is the counter to blinded. Blindsight is seeing. Ergo…
Edit: just to address the other point: "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." Whether the creature has disadvantage or not beyond its range of blindsight is a question of no value.
Gridlocks may not be smart, but I’m sure they don’t just give up the moment their prey moves further than 60 feet away from them. You are basically saying they don’t have object permanence.
Yes, I do think you are wrong. I think that just like you are subjected to unconscious condition when you are unconscious, when you wake up you have countered that condition. You don't counter the condition by countering its effects, you counter the condition by countering the condition: by standing up you are on longer prone; by waking up you are no longer unconscious. Otherwise, as I've said, you imply that countering the disadvantage would counter blinded.
Now whether this extends to blindsight countering blinded, I will leave that up to you. I would imagine that seeing is the counter to being blinded, not blindsight... but that's just an opinion. I'm not even sure if it is a good one.
Edit: just to address the other point: "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." Whether the creature has disadvantage or not beyond its range of blindsight is a question of no value.
In case it wasn't clear in my post, yes, this exactly. The PHB uses "counter" in the sense of "end the condition." Icon is using "counter" in the sense of "counteract one of the condition's effects." That isn't the same thing, and leads to very different results.
I wasn’t, you were, it was in fact your whole dang argument, that blindsight only countered one of the two effects of blinded
We might be talking past each other! Apologies if I misstated your position.
I don't think that Blindsight "counters" Blinded at all. To the extent that Blindsight lets you "see" in a way that provides an exception/exemption from Blinded's "A blinded creature can't see," fine, it has an ability that provides a specific exception to that effect of Blinded. From that exception, do I draw the conclusion that the condition's other effects ("automatically fails any ability check that requires sight" and "Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage") have also been overcome, or that the condition as a whole has been "countered"? No. That seems to be what YOU are saying (but correct me if I'm wrong), but that is not what I think the rules provide for, and I do not see a way to fairly/consistently arbitrate that other than in an all-or-nothing approach.
Forced to pick between "all" (an exception to one part of a condition is a "counter" to the entire condition) and "nothing" (an exception to one part of a condition is an exception only to that specific part of the condition and no others, even if they might seem logically related), I pick nothing . To frame that in the context of Blinded, I would say: "even though Blindsight lets you "see" while Blinded, a Blinded creature nevertheless suffers advantage on attacks against it, and has disadvantage on its own attack rolls."
My question is, do you think I am wrong about the meaning of the quoted passage (the italicized portion)? I don't think I am. There are certainly logical exceptions to it (unconscious condition and prone immunity being one), but overall i think it holds up. I'd add one other one conundrum in the opposite direction. A [monster]grimlock[monster] is blind beyond the radius of it's blindsight. It is also immune to the blinded condition. Does that mean that it suffers no disadvantage attacking a creature beyond its blindsight range?
Just as your position would infer that a blinded creature with blindsight has disadvantage even in range of it's blindsight, it would also infer the grimlock could attack without disadvantage outside of its blindsight range. Neither one is a logical outcome.
Yes, I do think you are wrong. I think that just like you are subjected to unconscious condition when you are unconscious, when you wake up you have countered that condition. You don't counter the condition by countering its effects, you counter the condition by countering the condition: by standing up you are on longer prone; by waking up you are no longer unconscious. Otherwise, as I've said, you imply that countering the disadvantage would counter blinded.
that was actually my point…what I had originally said was exactly that
Now whether this extends to blindsight countering blinded, I will leave that up to you. I would imagine that seeing is the counter to being blinded, not blindsight... but that's just an opinion. I'm not even sure if it is a good one.
seeing is the counter to blinded. Blindsight is seeing. Ergo…
Edit: just to address the other point: "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." Whether the creature has disadvantage or not beyond its range of blindsight is a question of no value.
Gridlocks may not be smart, but I’m sure they don’t just give up the moment their prey moves further than 60 feet away from them. You are basically saying they don’t have object permanence.
Literally No. to all of it.
You didn't make that first point, you made the opposite: countering one provision counters the whole thing. That is distinctly different from my point that the counter to a condition is something that cures the condition such as standing up or waking up.
Seeing is the counter to blinded, but blindsight doesn't say that you see. That is why it is a bit of a grey area, as I said.
I didn't imply that gridlocks forget as soon as something passes their perception. But it is beyond their perception. Does a gridlock attack a creature at disadvantage or straight roll beyond their blindsight? Neither, they cannot attack it. They may want to move in the direction they think their prey is, but they have no way of knowing where their prey is. A PC could walk out of its range of blindsight and make big loop around it, and the gridlock would have no idea that it happened. It cannot perceive creatures beyond its blindsight using any visual sense.
Seeing is the counter to blinded, but blindsight doesn't say that you see. That is why it is a bit of a grey area, as I said.
I didn't imply that gridlocks forget as soon as something passes their perception. But it is beyond their perception. Does a gridlock attack a creature at disadvantage or straight roll beyond their blindsight? Neither, they cannot attack it. They may want to move in the direction they think their prey is, but they have no way of knowing where their prey is. A PC could walk out of its range of blindsight and make big loop around it, and the gridlock would have no idea that it happened. It cannot perceive creatures beyond its blindsight using any visual sense.
I hate to sow division in the ranks, but just to be clear, I don't agree with either of those.
Seeing isn't the counter to Blinded, any more than moving is the counter to Petrified. That's straying back into Icon's position that overcoming one effect of Blinded counters the entire condition.
I also don't hold that a creature that can't see a creature has no other way to perceive that creature (hearing, scent, feeling its passage, etc.). Gets into that old "what do you know about a creature you can't see but isn't Hidden? What if you can't perceive them at all but they aren't Hidden?" chestnut.
Seeing is the counter to blinded, but blindsight doesn't say that you see. That is why it is a bit of a grey area, as I said.
I didn't imply that gridlocks forget as soon as something passes their perception. But it is beyond their perception. Does a gridlock attack a creature at disadvantage or straight roll beyond their blindsight? Neither, they cannot attack it. They may want to move in the direction they think their prey is, but they have no way of knowing where their prey is. A PC could walk out of its range of blindsight and make big loop around it, and the gridlock would have no idea that it happened. It cannot perceive creatures beyond its blindsight using any visual sense.
I hate to sow division in the ranks, but just to be clear, I don't agree with either of those.
Seeing isn't the counter to Blinded, any more than moving is the counter to Petrified. That's straying back into Icon's position that overcoming one effect of Blinded counters the entire condition.
You may be right there, I may have misstated it, but certainly blindsight doesn't indicate that it naturally counters blinded as standing up naturally counters prone. A person *may* decide that it does, but they aren't required to.
I also don't hold that a creature that can't see a creature has no other way to perceive that creature (hearing, scent, feeling its passage, etc.). Gets into that old "what do you know about a creature you can't see but isn't Hidden? What if you can't perceive them at all but they aren't Hidden?" chestnut.
Well, on that note, we know exactly what happens for such a monster: "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." A textualist would say the monster apparently cannot hear you, you are completely out of range of its perception, apparently by any sense.
That's fair. But its debatable whether "Hidden" can ever automatically attach when you are "both unseen and unheard" (as the Unseen Attackers section in Chapter 9 contemplates), or if in fact Hiding is always something that you have to set out to do with a Stealth check while unseen and unheard (as Chapter 7 contemplates), or if instead there's three states at play here (regular Unseen, Unseen+Unheard-which-is-treated-like-Hidden, and True Hidden).
As I stated before, 5E suffers from too many similar-but-distinct systems in this context. Very fraught to start dragging in discussion about what a Grimlock archer can and can't do right now, other than just accepting that we know at least that it can't "perceive" targets beyond its Blindsight range, despite being immune to Blinded.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. The rules are pretty vague when it comes to the senses. DMs will just have to use common sense to judge how stuff like this interacts.
My question is, do you think I am wrong about the meaning of the quoted passage (the italicized portion)? I don't think I am. There are certainly logical exceptions to it (unconscious condition and prone immunity being one), but overall i think it holds up. I'd add one other one conundrum in the opposite direction. A [monster]grimlock[monster] is blind beyond the radius of it's blindsight. It is also immune to the blinded condition. Does that mean that it suffers no disadvantage attacking a creature beyond its blindsight range?
Just as your position would infer that a blinded creature with blindsight has disadvantage even in range of it's blindsight, it would also infer the grimlock could attack without disadvantage outside of its blindsight range. Neither one is a logical outcome.
Yes, I do think you are wrong. I think that just like you are subjected to unconscious condition when you are unconscious, when you wake up you have countered that condition. You don't counter the condition by countering its effects, you counter the condition by countering the condition: by standing up you are on longer prone; by waking up you are no longer unconscious. Otherwise, as I've said, you imply that countering the disadvantage would counter blinded.
that was actually my point…what I had originally said was exactly that
Now whether this extends to blindsight countering blinded, I will leave that up to you. I would imagine that seeing is the counter to being blinded, not blindsight... but that's just an opinion. I'm not even sure if it is a good one.
seeing is the counter to blinded. Blindsight is seeing. Ergo…
Edit: just to address the other point: "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." Whether the creature has disadvantage or not beyond its range of blindsight is a question of no value.
Gridlocks may not be smart, but I’m sure they don’t just give up the moment their prey moves further than 60 feet away from them. You are basically saying they don’t have object permanence.
Literally No. to all of it.
You didn't make that first point, you made the opposite: countering one provision counters the whole thing. That is distinctly different from my point that the counter to a condition is something that cures the condition such as standing up or waking up.
The point I made in my first post on the topic, with explanation in blue:
The rules for conditions say: A condition lasts either until it is countered (the prone condition is countered by standing up, for example) or for a duration specified by the effect that imposed the condition. There are no rules* for countering single provisions of conditions based on that sentence, you counter the whole condition (This is the exact position you are claiming I did not make). So if blindsight counters naturally the first provision of blinded, it also counters the second, because it's all or nothing (I was framing the statement in the context of Chicken's position, from context, it is very easy to see that I am saying "all or nothing" in reference to countering the entire condition as a whole, not point by point). *Note: other effects might remove advantage or disadvantage, but that is due to the general rules of advantage/disadvantage, not due to them countering the condition itself
Seeing is the counter to blinded, but blindsight doesn't say that you see. That is why it is a bit of a grey area, as I said.
I thought this thread was about proving the RAI of these opinions. I agree the RAW is unclear and the whole vision and senses sections need revisiting, especially if PCs are gaining senses once relegated only to monsters.
I didn't imply that gridlocks forget as soon as something passes their perception. But it is beyond their perception. Does a gridlock attack a creature at disadvantage or straight roll beyond their blindsight? Neither, they cannot attack it. They may want to move in the direction they think their prey is, but they have no way of knowing where their prey is. A PC could walk out of its range of blindsight and make big loop around it, and the gridlock would have no idea that it happened. It cannot perceive creatures beyond its blindsight using any visual sense.
Can you attack a creature that is invisible if you don't know where it is? The rules say you can, but you have to guess the spot first...Grimlocks would work the same way, but because they cannot be blinded, they would not have disadvantage if they chose the right spot where a normal creature that is blinded would. (Source: Unseen Attackers Rules in Chapter 9 Combat of the PHB https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets)
Putting aside the rest of it, I'm failing to see your logic here:
Can you attack a creature that is invisible if you don't know where it is? The rules say you can, but you have to guess the spot first...Grimlocks would work the same way, but because they cannot be blinded, they would not have disadvantage if they chose the right spot where a normal creature that is blinded would. (Source: Unseen Attackers Rules in Chapter 9 Combat of the PHB https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets)
Rather than the mere link that I've thrown up a couple times, lets quote it more fully and try to find where you're finding "blinded" in there:
Combatants often try to escape their foes' notice by hiding, casting the invisibility spell, or lurking in darkness.
When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you're guessing the target's location or you're targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.
When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.
If you are hidden — both unseen and unheard — when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
Hmmmm.... no mention of Blinded that I see, just independent rules about attacking enemies you can't see. A Grimlock is immune to Blinded, but not immune to suffering disadvantage on attacks against creatures they can't see in general. If a creature is outside of its Blindsight radius, then it is something that the Grimlock cannot see. "When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll." So, just like any other creature, Grimlock archers would have disadvantage if they chose the right spot to attack a target they could not see.
What part of that is hanging you up? Are you under the impression that the Unseen Attackers & Targets rule depends upon the Blinded condition?
In the real world, people who were blind learned how to fight. It's called, naturally, Blind Fighting. Primarily, it is a function of hearing. Not so much that your hearing is better, just that you learn to pay more attention to it. Sadly, most popular fiction plays up the fighting style by giving the character super powerful hearing. Rutger Hauer is in a movie called "Blind Fury" where they do that. The trouble is, combat is very noisy, and with super hearing, you ought not be able to fight at all. There is a single scene where he suffers that effect. He's in a room filled with musical instruments, and a microphone gets turned on. He's completely disorientated by it. The only reason he's able to fight later is that he attacks from stealth.
Daredevil has the same problem, only more so. Good thing he's a comic book character. He gets to completely ignore all consequences of his being blind.
The term "Blindsight" contradicts itself. It really needs a new name. Perhaps "Perceive the Unseen" would work.
The point I made in my first post on the topic, with explanation in blue:
The rules for conditions say: A condition lasts either until it is countered (the prone condition is countered by standing up, for example) or for a duration specified by the effect that imposed the condition. There are no rules* for countering single provisions of conditions based on that sentence, you counter the whole condition (This is the exact position you are claiming I did not make). So if blindsight counters naturally the first provision of blinded, it also counters the second, because it's all or nothing (I was framing the statement in the context of Chicken's position, from context, it is very easy to see that I am saying "all or nothing" in reference to countering the entire condition as a whole, not point by point). *Note: other effects might remove advantage or disadvantage, but that is due to the general rules of advantage/disadvantage, not due to them countering the condition itself
I don't understand why you keep defending this incorrect statement. The part in blue doesn't fix the problem that I've bolded. If you counter bullet point 1 of a condition, fine, you can ignore that part. That does not counter the condition or the other parts of it. If you are immune to disadvantage, that doesn't counter blinded, just the way that if something makes you immune to bullet point 1. In short, it is not all or nothing. You can avoid some effects of conditions while still being under the condition. You must counter the condition to end it. Examples: stand up (prone), be woken (unconscious), rest (exhaustion), teleport away (grappled), protection from poison(poisoned).
To repeat myself, counter means "cure" or "undo" rather than "ignore part of." If you want to cure blinded, then you need something like lesser restoration, not something like faerie fire.
The point I made in my first post on the topic, with explanation in blue:
The rules for conditions say: A condition lasts either until it is countered (the prone condition is countered by standing up, for example) or for a duration specified by the effect that imposed the condition. There are no rules* for countering single provisions of conditions based on that sentence, you counter the whole condition (This is the exact position you are claiming I did not make). So if blindsight counters naturally the first provision of blinded, it also counters the second, because it's all or nothing (I was framing the statement in the context of Chicken's position, from context, it is very easy to see that I am saying "all or nothing" in reference to countering the entire condition as a whole, not point by point). *Note: other effects might remove advantage or disadvantage, but that is due to the general rules of advantage/disadvantage, not due to them countering the condition itself
I don't understand why you keep defending this incorrect statement. The part in blue doesn't fix the problem that I've bolded. If you counter bullet point 1 of a condition, fine, you can ignore that part. That does not counter the condition or the other parts of it. If you are immune to disadvantage, that doesn't counter blinded, just the way that if something makes you immune to bullet point 1. In short, it is not all or nothing. You can avoid some effects of conditions while still being under the condition. You must counter the condition to end it. Examples: stand up (prone), be woken (unconscious), rest (exhaustion), teleport away (grappled), protection from poison(poisoned).
To repeat myself, counter means "cure" or "undo" rather than "ignore part of." If you want to cure blinded, then you need something like lesser restoration, not something like faerie fire.
Counter means “speak or act in opposition to” (Source Google/Oxford). It’s not a game term, so I don’t know why you are so adamantly defining it to exclude blindsight, which acts in opposition to being unable to see, which is the game definition of blinded. Yes healing/curing also does that, but so does an ability that replaces sight with another sense, which is what blindsight is
Counter means “speak or act in opposition to” (Source Google/Oxford). It’s not a game term, so I don’t know why you are so adamantly defining it to exclude blindsight, which acts in opposition to being unable to see, which is the game definition of blinded. Yes healing/curing also does that, but so does an ability that replaces sight with another sense, which is what blindsight is
Yep, I agree. Blinded is the condition of being unable to see. The counter to being unable to see is being able to see. If you are able to see then you are not Blinded. If you are able to see then you suffer none of the ill effects of the condition Blinded, because you have countered that condition in its entirety.
Similarly, Invisible is the condition of being unseen (and generally unseeable). The counter to being unseen is being seen. If someone can see you then you are not Invisible. If someone can see you then you gain none of the benefits of being invisible to that creature because the condition has been countered.
Neither Blinded nor Invisible are actually conditions that apply purely to a creature. They are entirely relational. You can be simultaneously blinded as far as one creature goes (outside your blindsight range) while able to see another creature. You would have disadvantage to attack anything you are blind to, while being able to attack normally anything you can see. Likewise you can be Invisible to the goblin but the dragon with truesight can see you plainly and you are not invisible to it.
The condition descriptions for Blinded and Invisible just explain the effects of interactions between you and any thing or anyone that you are blind to, or unseen by - as well as changing your personal settings from 'able to see' or 'able to be seen' to default to the opposites, until or unless some other feature or effect counters the condition (like possessing Blindsight, or a creature spotting you with truesight).
So a blindsight radius of 10ft will counter the Blinded condition for you with regards to everything and everyone within that radius. It will not at all counter the Blinded condition outside that radius - so you are still getting the full effects of Blinded condition out there. It will likewise counter the Invisible condition for any creatures in that radius with respect to you - so they will not gain any benefits from that condition against you.
There are no rules* for countering single provisions of conditions based on that sentence, you counter the whole condition (This is the exact position you are claiming I did not make). So if blindsight counters naturally the first provision of blinded, it also counters the second, because it's all or nothing (I was framing the statement in the context of Chicken's position, from context, it is very easy to see that I am saying "all or nothing" in reference to countering the entire condition as a whole, not point by point). *Note: other effects might remove advantage or disadvantage, but that is due to the general rules of advantage/disadvantage, not due to them countering the condition itself
I don't understand why you keep defending this incorrect statement. The part in blue doesn't fix the problem that I've bolded. If you counter bullet point 1 of a condition, fine, you can ignore that part. That does not counter the condition or the other parts of it. If you are immune to disadvantage, that doesn't counter blinded, just the way that if something makes you immune to bullet point 1. In short, it is not all or nothing. You can avoid some effects of conditions while still being under the condition. You must counter the condition to end it. Examples: stand up (prone), be woken (unconscious), rest (exhaustion), teleport away (grappled), protection from poison(poisoned).
To repeat myself, counter means "cure" or "undo" rather than "ignore part of." If you want to cure blinded, then you need something like lesser restoration, not something like faerie fire.
Counter means “speak or act in opposition to” (Source Google/Oxford). It’s not a game term, so I don’t know why you are so adamantly defining it to exclude blindsight, which acts in opposition to being unable to see, which is the game definition of blinded. Yes healing/curing also does that, but so does an ability that replaces sight with another sense, which is what blindsight is
I'm not trying to exclude anything. I'm trying to point out something that you still don't seem to understand or let go (essentially separately from the discussion around blinded/blindsight): being able to avoid part the effects of a condition does not counter that condition.
It’s suspicious, Icon, that you avoided responding to my last post. I take it that yes, you had been conflating Unseen Attackers & Targets with Heavily Obscured, and thought Unseen keyed off of Blinded?
- - -
It doesn’t matter what counter ordinarily means… it can have lots of meanings. Respond to, balance out, defeat, etc etc… The meaning we’re provided in 5E by way of example is, end the condition.
A blindsight creature, not immune to blinded, can become blinded by way of a spell of effect. The sense is not (pre)countering the condition. You are arguing that Blindsight will render the entire condition (not just it’s individual effects) ineffective/meaningless while it us up. No example of that EVER happening is provided in 5E that I’m aware of… creatures don’t have abilities that let them move while restrained, they have immunity to restrained. It would be VERY UNUSUAL for Blinded to be the only? condition that is “countered” by a sense which does not end the condition… without any written rule text to that effect, just as a sort of unwritten assumption that is meant to be self evident.
I understand that in plain English “blinded” is the opposite of “seeing.” But since we’re talking about thoroughly defined conditions, senses, and game terms here… plain English takes a back seat to what the rules TELL us about these systems. They do not tell us that seeing a target means you cannot suffer Blinded penalties towards it. It is NOT difficult to rationalize that, as anyone that has driven around a corner to find bright sun in their eyes or found themselves on top of a snowy mountain on a sunny day can attest.
So a blindsight radius of 10ft will counter the Blinded condition for you with regards to everything and everyone within that radius. It will not at all counter the Blinded condition outside that radius - so you are still getting the full effects of Blinded condition out there. It will likewise counter the Invisible condition for any creatures in that radius with respect to you - so they will not gain any benefits from that condition against you.
It’s suspicious, Icon, that you avoided responding to my last post. I take it that yes, you had been conflating Unseen Attackers & Targets with Heavily Obscured, and thought Unseen keyed off of Blinded?
- - -
It doesn’t matter what counter ordinarily means… it can have lots of meanings. Respond to, balance out, defeat, etc etc… The meaning we’re provided in 5E by way of example is, end the condition.
A blindsight creature, not immune to blinded, can become blinded by way of a spell of effect. The sense is not (pre)countering the condition. You are arguing that Blindsight will render the entire condition (not just it’s individual effects) ineffective/meaningless while it us up. No example of that EVER happening is provided in 5E that I’m aware of… creatures don’t have abilities that let them move while restrained, they have immunity to restrained. It would be VERY UNUSUAL for Blinded to be the only? condition that is “countered” by a sense which does not end the condition… without any written rule text to that effect, just as a sort of unwritten assumption that is meant to be self evident.
I understand that in plain English “blinded” is the opposite of “seeing.” But since we’re talking about thoroughly defined conditions, senses, and game terms here… plain English takes a back seat to what the rules TELL us about these systems. They do not tell us that seeing a target means you cannot suffer Blinded penalties towards it. It is NOT difficult to rationalize that, as anyone that has driven around a corner to find bright sun in their eyes or found themselves on top of a snowy mountain on a sunny day can attest.
Yeah, I’m currently traveling 5-6 states over and back for work today so typing anything longer than two sentences is a challenge. Short answer, yeah, I conflated the two. Long answer can wait til I get home
This digression into "what parts of a condition are avoided when you counter some other condition" is interesting.
I don't feel like the rules a clear about that, but I think it's probably something like this:
Generally, if you're able to counter or avoid the condition itself, you avoid all of it. So if you are able to "counter" Blinded with Blindsight in a certain radius, you counter all of the components of Blinded in that radius.
Being immune to some component of a condition doesn't usually make you immune to the whole condition. If you're immune to being prone, that doesn't make you immune to unconsciousness. One often needs to interpret the means of some immunities and possibly make exceptions in the right circumstances. A worm might be immune to being prone because it's always prone ;) Some mythically stable dwarven hero might be immune to prone because they're squat. But when you knock them out, they still fall over. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to make every call perfectly under the RAW, IMO.
That's why we still have Table Top RPGS -- because DMs aren't computers.
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In case it wasn't clear in my post, yes, this exactly. The PHB uses "counter" in the sense of "end the condition." Icon is using "counter" in the sense of "counteract one of the condition's effects." That isn't the same thing, and leads to very different results.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
that was actually my point…what I had originally said was exactly that
seeing is the counter to blinded. Blindsight is seeing. Ergo…
Gridlocks may not be smart, but I’m sure they don’t just give up the moment their prey moves further than 60 feet away from them. You are basically saying they don’t have object permanence.
I wasn’t, you were, it was in fact your whole dang argument, that blindsight only countered one of the two effects of blinded
We might be talking past each other! Apologies if I misstated your position.
I don't think that Blindsight "counters" Blinded at all. To the extent that Blindsight lets you "see" in a way that provides an exception/exemption from Blinded's "A blinded creature can't see," fine, it has an ability that provides a specific exception to that effect of Blinded. From that exception, do I draw the conclusion that the condition's other effects ("automatically fails any ability check that requires sight" and "Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage") have also been overcome, or that the condition as a whole has been "countered"? No. That seems to be what YOU are saying (but correct me if I'm wrong), but that is not what I think the rules provide for, and I do not see a way to fairly/consistently arbitrate that other than in an all-or-nothing approach.
Forced to pick between "all" (an exception to one part of a condition is a "counter" to the entire condition) and "nothing" (an exception to one part of a condition is an exception only to that specific part of the condition and no others, even if they might seem logically related), I pick nothing . To frame that in the context of Blinded, I would say: "even though Blindsight lets you "see" while Blinded, a Blinded creature nevertheless suffers advantage on attacks against it, and has disadvantage on its own attack rolls."
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Literally No. to all of it.
You didn't make that first point, you made the opposite: countering one provision counters the whole thing. That is distinctly different from my point that the counter to a condition is something that cures the condition such as standing up or waking up.
Seeing is the counter to blinded, but blindsight doesn't say that you see. That is why it is a bit of a grey area, as I said.
I didn't imply that gridlocks forget as soon as something passes their perception. But it is beyond their perception. Does a gridlock attack a creature at disadvantage or straight roll beyond their blindsight? Neither, they cannot attack it. They may want to move in the direction they think their prey is, but they have no way of knowing where their prey is. A PC could walk out of its range of blindsight and make big loop around it, and the gridlock would have no idea that it happened. It cannot perceive creatures beyond its blindsight using any visual sense.
I hate to sow division in the ranks, but just to be clear, I don't agree with either of those.
Seeing isn't the counter to Blinded, any more than moving is the counter to Petrified. That's straying back into Icon's position that overcoming one effect of Blinded counters the entire condition.
I also don't hold that a creature that can't see a creature has no other way to perceive that creature (hearing, scent, feeling its passage, etc.). Gets into that old "what do you know about a creature you can't see but isn't Hidden? What if you can't perceive them at all but they aren't Hidden?" chestnut.
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You may be right there, I may have misstated it, but certainly blindsight doesn't indicate that it naturally counters blinded as standing up naturally counters prone. A person *may* decide that it does, but they aren't required to.
Well, on that note, we know exactly what happens for such a monster: "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." A textualist would say the monster apparently cannot hear you, you are completely out of range of its perception, apparently by any sense.
That's fair. But its debatable whether "Hidden" can ever automatically attach when you are "both unseen and unheard" (as the Unseen Attackers section in Chapter 9 contemplates), or if in fact Hiding is always something that you have to set out to do with a Stealth check while unseen and unheard (as Chapter 7 contemplates), or if instead there's three states at play here (regular Unseen, Unseen+Unheard-which-is-treated-like-Hidden, and True Hidden).
As I stated before, 5E suffers from too many similar-but-distinct systems in this context. Very fraught to start dragging in discussion about what a Grimlock archer can and can't do right now, other than just accepting that we know at least that it can't "perceive" targets beyond its Blindsight range, despite being immune to Blinded.
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I've said it before, I'll say it again. The rules are pretty vague when it comes to the senses. DMs will just have to use common sense to judge how stuff like this interacts.
The point I made in my first post on the topic, with explanation in blue:
The rules for conditions say: A condition lasts either until it is countered (the prone condition is countered by standing up, for example) or for a duration specified by the effect that imposed the condition. There are no rules* for countering single provisions of conditions based on that sentence, you counter the whole condition (This is the exact position you are claiming I did not make). So if blindsight counters naturally the first provision of blinded, it also counters the second, because it's all or nothing (I was framing the statement in the context of Chicken's position, from context, it is very easy to see that I am saying "all or nothing" in reference to countering the entire condition as a whole, not point by point). *Note: other effects might remove advantage or disadvantage, but that is due to the general rules of advantage/disadvantage, not due to them countering the condition itself
I thought this thread was about proving the RAI of these opinions. I agree the RAW is unclear and the whole vision and senses sections need revisiting, especially if PCs are gaining senses once relegated only to monsters.
Can you attack a creature that is invisible if you don't know where it is? The rules say you can, but you have to guess the spot first...Grimlocks would work the same way, but because they cannot be blinded, they would not have disadvantage if they chose the right spot where a normal creature that is blinded would. (Source: Unseen Attackers Rules in Chapter 9 Combat of the PHB https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets)
Putting aside the rest of it, I'm failing to see your logic here:
Rather than the mere link that I've thrown up a couple times, lets quote it more fully and try to find where you're finding "blinded" in there:
Hmmmm.... no mention of Blinded that I see, just independent rules about attacking enemies you can't see. A Grimlock is immune to Blinded, but not immune to suffering disadvantage on attacks against creatures they can't see in general. If a creature is outside of its Blindsight radius, then it is something that the Grimlock cannot see. "When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll." So, just like any other creature, Grimlock archers would have disadvantage if they chose the right spot to attack a target they could not see.
What part of that is hanging you up? Are you under the impression that the Unseen Attackers & Targets rule depends upon the Blinded condition?
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In the real world, people who were blind learned how to fight. It's called, naturally, Blind Fighting. Primarily, it is a function of hearing. Not so much that your hearing is better, just that you learn to pay more attention to it. Sadly, most popular fiction plays up the fighting style by giving the character super powerful hearing. Rutger Hauer is in a movie called "Blind Fury" where they do that. The trouble is, combat is very noisy, and with super hearing, you ought not be able to fight at all. There is a single scene where he suffers that effect. He's in a room filled with musical instruments, and a microphone gets turned on. He's completely disorientated by it. The only reason he's able to fight later is that he attacks from stealth.
Daredevil has the same problem, only more so. Good thing he's a comic book character. He gets to completely ignore all consequences of his being blind.
The term "Blindsight" contradicts itself. It really needs a new name. Perhaps "Perceive the Unseen" would work.
<Insert clever signature here>
Chicken did a better job of explaining what happens to a creature outside of range of vision. On the other hand,
I don't understand why you keep defending this incorrect statement. The part in blue doesn't fix the problem that I've bolded. If you counter bullet point 1 of a condition, fine, you can ignore that part. That does not counter the condition or the other parts of it. If you are immune to disadvantage, that doesn't counter blinded, just the way that if something makes you immune to bullet point 1. In short, it is not all or nothing. You can avoid some effects of conditions while still being under the condition. You must counter the condition to end it. Examples: stand up (prone), be woken (unconscious), rest (exhaustion), teleport away (grappled), protection from poison(poisoned).
To repeat myself, counter means "cure" or "undo" rather than "ignore part of." If you want to cure blinded, then you need something like lesser restoration, not something like faerie fire.
Counter means “speak or act in opposition to” (Source Google/Oxford). It’s not a game term, so I don’t know why you are so adamantly defining it to exclude blindsight, which acts in opposition to being unable to see, which is the game definition of blinded. Yes healing/curing also does that, but so does an ability that replaces sight with another sense, which is what blindsight is
Yep, I agree. Blinded is the condition of being unable to see. The counter to being unable to see is being able to see. If you are able to see then you are not Blinded. If you are able to see then you suffer none of the ill effects of the condition Blinded, because you have countered that condition in its entirety.
Similarly, Invisible is the condition of being unseen (and generally unseeable). The counter to being unseen is being seen. If someone can see you then you are not Invisible. If someone can see you then you gain none of the benefits of being invisible to that creature because the condition has been countered.
Neither Blinded nor Invisible are actually conditions that apply purely to a creature. They are entirely relational. You can be simultaneously blinded as far as one creature goes (outside your blindsight range) while able to see another creature. You would have disadvantage to attack anything you are blind to, while being able to attack normally anything you can see. Likewise you can be Invisible to the goblin but the dragon with truesight can see you plainly and you are not invisible to it.
The condition descriptions for Blinded and Invisible just explain the effects of interactions between you and any thing or anyone that you are blind to, or unseen by - as well as changing your personal settings from 'able to see' or 'able to be seen' to default to the opposites, until or unless some other feature or effect counters the condition (like possessing Blindsight, or a creature spotting you with truesight).
So a blindsight radius of 10ft will counter the Blinded condition for you with regards to everything and everyone within that radius. It will not at all counter the Blinded condition outside that radius - so you are still getting the full effects of Blinded condition out there. It will likewise counter the Invisible condition for any creatures in that radius with respect to you - so they will not gain any benefits from that condition against you.
I'm not trying to exclude anything. I'm trying to point out something that you still don't seem to understand or let go (essentially separately from the discussion around blinded/blindsight): being able to avoid part the effects of a condition does not counter that condition.
It’s suspicious, Icon, that you avoided responding to my last post. I take it that yes, you had been conflating Unseen Attackers & Targets with Heavily Obscured, and thought Unseen keyed off of Blinded?
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It doesn’t matter what counter ordinarily means… it can have lots of meanings. Respond to, balance out, defeat, etc etc… The meaning we’re provided in 5E by way of example is, end the condition.
A blindsight creature, not immune to blinded, can become blinded by way of a spell of effect. The sense is not (pre)countering the condition. You are arguing that Blindsight will render the entire condition (not just it’s individual effects) ineffective/meaningless while it us up. No example of that EVER happening is provided in 5E that I’m aware of… creatures don’t have abilities that let them move while restrained, they have immunity to restrained. It would be VERY UNUSUAL for Blinded to be the only? condition that is “countered” by a sense which does not end the condition… without any written rule text to that effect, just as a sort of unwritten assumption that is meant to be self evident.
I understand that in plain English “blinded” is the opposite of “seeing.” But since we’re talking about thoroughly defined conditions, senses, and game terms here… plain English takes a back seat to what the rules TELL us about these systems. They do not tell us that seeing a target means you cannot suffer Blinded penalties towards it. It is NOT difficult to rationalize that, as anyone that has driven around a corner to find bright sun in their eyes or found themselves on top of a snowy mountain on a sunny day can attest.
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^this paragraph should end this thread.
Yeah, I’m currently traveling 5-6 states over and back for work today so typing anything longer than two sentences is a challenge. Short answer, yeah, I conflated the two. Long answer can wait til I get home
This digression into "what parts of a condition are avoided when you counter some other condition" is interesting.
I don't feel like the rules a clear about that, but I think it's probably something like this:
Generally, if you're able to counter or avoid the condition itself, you avoid all of it. So if you are able to "counter" Blinded with Blindsight in a certain radius, you counter all of the components of Blinded in that radius.
Being immune to some component of a condition doesn't usually make you immune to the whole condition. If you're immune to being prone, that doesn't make you immune to unconsciousness. One often needs to interpret the means of some immunities and possibly make exceptions in the right circumstances. A worm might be immune to being prone because it's always prone ;) Some mythically stable dwarven hero might be immune to prone because they're squat. But when you knock them out, they still fall over. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to make every call perfectly under the RAW, IMO.
That's why we still have Table Top RPGS -- because DMs aren't computers.