Oh wise Dungeon Masters of the Web, I beseech thee with my offerings of Mountain Dew and Cheetoes to impart upon me thy knowledge.
An interaction happened during a recent game and I was hoping to get some insight / pointed towards official literature that states how this interaction plays out.
Basically, one character cast See Invisibility, a 2nd level spell which says, "For the duration, you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible, and you can see into the Ethereal Plane. Ethereal creatures and objects appear ghostly and translucent." They saw a Quasit that was invisible and hucked a dagger at it. Nat 20, thing is dead.
Invisibility is a condition with the following effects: *An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of hiding, the creature is heavily obscured. The creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves. *Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage.
The conflict is that one player (my Rules Manager who looks up interactions and mechanics for me) believes that the spell See Invisibility doesn't actually negate the disadvantage on attack rolls, just lets the character know the general area where the target is. They state that they are still obscured and removes the guess work of trying to find the exact location. The Casting Player argues that since the spells says that "you see invisible creatures as if they are visible," that means they should be able to ignore the Invisibility condition as a whole.
Now, while I'm inclined to side with the Casting Player (the wording does make sense in that way to me), I can also see the Rules Manager's side in that the spell doesn't explicitly say to ignore disadvantage from Invisibility and they're usually pretty accurate with RAW rulings, which we are trying to stick to. I ended up sticking with the Casting Player for this one (mostly because one shotting an invisible creature is kinda metal), but told the group I would research for future interactions.
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Feel free to check out my home brew, the Laika - a race of humanoid canines. (Current Version: 3)
The see invisible says "you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible." So you can take this to imply that the "invisible" condition doesn't apply to the creature with See Invisible.
The same would apply to creatures with Truesight, such as those who have cast the True Seeing spell.
See invisible prevents the invisible creature from having the Invisible condition relative to the creature that can see them because to them ... they are NOT invisible. :)
"you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible."
If you see them as if they were visible then they can't be invisible to you. That is just the meaning of the word invisible and if a creature is not invisible to you then they can't benefit from the invisible condition with respect to creatures to whom they are visible.
However, I've seen your rules lawyer's argument and I think there is an idiotic tweet out there by JC doubling down on that viewpoint. It is based on the idea that a creature has a condition applied to it and the condition is on the creature and isn't affected by abilities that would individually negate the condition since the creature is either subject to the condition or it is not. Which doesn't make sense in the context of invisibility where it is possible for some creatures to see it and some not.
Keep in mind that if you go with the latter argument then creatures with blindsight, truesight or see invisible would all still have disadvantage to hit an invisible creature even if they aren't using sight to see them or have enhanced senses making them visible to them. Since that makes no sense to me as a DM, I go with seeing an invisble creature, makes them visible to that creature and negates the invisible condition for the creature that can see them.
Logically if you can see invisible creatures as if they were visible then you shouldn't have disadvantage on the attacks against the invisible creature and they shouldn't have advantage against you BUT.
The invisible condition has two seperate features. "Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage." applies whenever you are invisible whether the enemy can see you or not. So RAW the rules manager is correct.
Furthermore Jeremy Crawford made it cear that this is the rule as intended as explained from 20 min into This video.
Every table I play on homebrews the rule to "Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage unless the opponent is able to see the creature though magic or special senses." but this is neither RAW or RAI.
Furthermore Jeremy Crawford made it cear that this is the rule as intended as explained from 20 min into This video.
Easily the most disappointing part of the whole discussion. When I saw that he couldn't be bothered to take a stand for obvious common sense and instead demurely avoided all risk of contradicting anything written, I realized it wasn't a battle worth fighting anymore. Now I'll just wait for the updated rules, which resolve the disconnect in a single sentence.
I would rule that advantage and disadvantage are removed by the spell.
Think of it this way. How was advantage gained in the first place? By being unseen. So as soon as the caster can see the invisible person all the modifiers are removed. Though the invisible character might not know it at the time.
I also rule that the invisible character gets advantage in stealth roles also. Against those who can not see him. But not against those who are actively "seeing" by a different means.
invisibility should not have been included in the Conditions section of the book. A Condition is something a target has, regardless of observers. Invisibility is something you have with respect to observers (i.e. you can be invisible to one observer and visible to another).
Invisibility should be part of Cover and Concealment rules.
Something like:
Unseen. You cannot see the target. This could be caused by darkness, your blindness, their invisbility, heavily-obscuring objects blocking line of sight, or some other reason. Your attacks on them are at disadvantage and their attacks on you are at advantage.
"Invisible" means "not visible", so if a creature has a way of making the target visible (at least to them) then the target is no longer "invisible" to any creature who can now see it.
Crawford ruled otherwise, but he's made other bad rulings before, which is why there's the Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury meme of, "I recognize that the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid *** decision, I've elected to ignore it." which I believe is the position of most rational DMs.
Always remember that the rules exist to facilitate the game, and that the DM always has the final say, and can trump official rulings if it makes the game at your table better.
invisibility should not have been included in the Conditions section of the book. A Condition is something a target has, regardless of observers. Invisibility is something you have with respect to observers (i.e. you can be invisible to one observer and visible to another).
Invisibility should be part of Cover and Concealment rules.
Something like:
Unseen. You cannot see the target. This could be caused by darkness, your blindness, their invisbility, heavily-obscuring objects blocking line of sight, or some other reason. Your attacks on them are at disadvantage and their attacks on you are at advantage.
I mostly agree with this statement. Invisibility is the only relative condition. All the other conditions are absolute conditions, so the rule "anything that negates a condition ends it" applies to everything but invisibility. If you negate invisibility by being able to see an invisible creature, you don't end the condition relative to everyone--you just end its effect relative to you. I suppose the only part where I disagree is that I'm fine with invisibility being a condition. It just doesn't work like the other ones do.
I mostly agree with this statement. Invisibility is the only relative condition. All the other conditions are absolute conditions, so the rule "anything that negates a condition ends it" applies to everything but invisibility. If you negate invisibility by being able to see an invisible creature, you don't end the condition relative to everyone--you just end its effect relative to you. I suppose the only part where I disagree is that I'm fine with invisibility being a condition. It just doesn't work like the other ones do.
Good point about negating the condition. I saw a post on another forum where someone pointed out that a really strict reading of the rules is that see invisible negates invisbility for everyone. I.e. once one person can see you, the condition is negated completely, so everyone can now see you.
That is not logical, Its not a magic canceling spell. Its a spell that allows the caster to see the invisible.
Now he could take his time and call out that some one invisible is in the area but explaining it enough will take far more time than one round and in that time the invisible person can move.
There are other spells that would make the invisible visible to everyone. Faerie fire for one.
That is not logical, Its not a magic canceling spell. Its a spell that allows the caster to see the invisible.
Having someone be invisible at the same time that he is seen as if he was visible isn't logical either.
If I had to choose between having the conditions still work (and give advantage/disadvantage) while being seen or ending the condition (for all) when seen then I would definately choose the latter. Fortunately I can choose option 3 instead and have the invisibility be relative to all other, i.e give advantage/disadvantage versus those who can't see him and not do anything versus those who can see him (which seems to be what most in here think should happen).
Do not forget that the spell invisibility is a week spell in itself.
The caster can do nothing but move for the most part. As soon as he attacks or casts a spell the invisibility ends.
There is a lot more to invisibility than the spell itself. In combat it is a one shot bonus and out of combat the limitations are less (though you can not cast message to tell your allies what you see)
At higher levels there is the greater invisibility spell and the monks empty body that allow them to remain invisible even after making an attack or casting a spell. Some monsters like the invisible stalker are permanently invisible.
Even with the invisibility spell (or other features that require an action to turn invisible and it is ended if you attack or cast a spell) invisibility is a great option to try and escape especailly if your movement speed is greater than your enemy. One of the issues with the RAW invisibility is:
DM: "The shadow mastiff turns invisible and flies as fast as it can movement and dash is 80 feet. You can hear where it is so you can make a ranged attack at disadvantage"
Ranger: "See invisibility is still up so I can see it, I shoot it with my longbow"
DM: "The fact that you can see it is irrelevent the attack is still at disadvantage"
The RAW about the Invisible condition depends on how you interpret what's written. Some say that it's as your rules lawyer says based on Jeremy Crawford's statement that each benefit of the condition is independent of each other. That said, statements by devs aren't official rulings, only what's in the Sage Advice Compendium are official rulings and this clarification about the Invisible condition is excluded from the Sage Advice Compendium, the latest update of which was after Jeremy Crawford made his statement.
In my personal opinion, the second benefit of the condition is simply a reiteration of the Unseen Attacker rule and included for ease of use. The reason why is that it's the most logical interpretation and everything in the game operates as intended this way. On the other hand, if one rules as Jeremy Crawford does, it causes logical problems since many features stop working as intended with this interpretation. This means that See Invisibility, blindsight, and truesight, all abilities that are designed to either directly counter the illusion magic of Invisibility and similar magical effects, or don't even rely on sight-based perception, meaning they wouldn't perceive the illusion, fail to work as they should. Apparently according to Crawford, the grimlock is somehow disadvantaged against an invisible enemy, despite the fact that it has no eyes to perceive the illusion magic concealing their enemy.
I still feel pretty much like you do, but once that JC tweet came out, I basically threw in the towel in disgust, and now I'm waiting for the playtest rules to sort it out.
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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Oh wise Dungeon Masters of the Web, I beseech thee with my offerings of Mountain Dew and Cheetoes to impart upon me thy knowledge.
An interaction happened during a recent game and I was hoping to get some insight / pointed towards official literature that states how this interaction plays out.
Basically, one character cast See Invisibility, a 2nd level spell which says, "For the duration, you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible, and you can see into the Ethereal Plane. Ethereal creatures and objects appear ghostly and translucent." They saw a Quasit that was invisible and hucked a dagger at it. Nat 20, thing is dead.
Invisibility is a condition with the following effects:
*An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of hiding, the creature is heavily obscured. The creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.
*Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage.
The conflict is that one player (my Rules Manager who looks up interactions and mechanics for me) believes that the spell See Invisibility doesn't actually negate the disadvantage on attack rolls, just lets the character know the general area where the target is. They state that they are still obscured and removes the guess work of trying to find the exact location. The Casting Player argues that since the spells says that "you see invisible creatures as if they are visible," that means they should be able to ignore the Invisibility condition as a whole.
Now, while I'm inclined to side with the Casting Player (the wording does make sense in that way to me), I can also see the Rules Manager's side in that the spell doesn't explicitly say to ignore disadvantage from Invisibility and they're usually pretty accurate with RAW rulings, which we are trying to stick to. I ended up sticking with the Casting Player for this one (mostly because one shotting an invisible creature is kinda metal), but told the group I would research for future interactions.
Feel free to check out my home brew, the Laika - a race of humanoid canines. (Current Version: 3)
It's dumb, and they fixed it in the new playtest material.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
The see invisible says "you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible." So you can take this to imply that the "invisible" condition doesn't apply to the creature with See Invisible.
The same would apply to creatures with Truesight, such as those who have cast the True Seeing spell.
I go with Farling's interpretation :)
See invisible prevents the invisible creature from having the Invisible condition relative to the creature that can see them because to them ... they are NOT invisible. :)
"you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible."
If you see them as if they were visible then they can't be invisible to you. That is just the meaning of the word invisible and if a creature is not invisible to you then they can't benefit from the invisible condition with respect to creatures to whom they are visible.
However, I've seen your rules lawyer's argument and I think there is an idiotic tweet out there by JC doubling down on that viewpoint. It is based on the idea that a creature has a condition applied to it and the condition is on the creature and isn't affected by abilities that would individually negate the condition since the creature is either subject to the condition or it is not. Which doesn't make sense in the context of invisibility where it is possible for some creatures to see it and some not.
Keep in mind that if you go with the latter argument then creatures with blindsight, truesight or see invisible would all still have disadvantage to hit an invisible creature even if they aren't using sight to see them or have enhanced senses making them visible to them. Since that makes no sense to me as a DM, I go with seeing an invisble creature, makes them visible to that creature and negates the invisible condition for the creature that can see them.
Logically if you can see invisible creatures as if they were visible then you shouldn't have disadvantage on the attacks against the invisible creature and they shouldn't have advantage against you BUT.
The invisible condition has two seperate features. "Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage." applies whenever you are invisible whether the enemy can see you or not. So RAW the rules manager is correct.
Furthermore Jeremy Crawford made it cear that this is the rule as intended as explained from 20 min into This video.
Every table I play on homebrews the rule to "Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage unless the opponent is able to see the creature though magic or special senses." but this is neither RAW or RAI.
Easily the most disappointing part of the whole discussion. When I saw that he couldn't be bothered to take a stand for obvious common sense and instead demurely avoided all risk of contradicting anything written, I realized it wasn't a battle worth fighting anymore. Now I'll just wait for the updated rules, which resolve the disconnect in a single sentence.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I would rule that advantage and disadvantage are removed by the spell.
Think of it this way. How was advantage gained in the first place? By being unseen. So as soon as the caster can see the invisible person all the modifiers are removed.
Though the invisible character might not know it at the time.
I also rule that the invisible character gets advantage in stealth roles also. Against those who can not see him. But not against those who are actively "seeing" by a different means.
invisibility should not have been included in the Conditions section of the book. A Condition is something a target has, regardless of observers. Invisibility is something you have with respect to observers (i.e. you can be invisible to one observer and visible to another).
Invisibility should be part of Cover and Concealment rules.
Something like:
Unseen. You cannot see the target. This could be caused by darkness, your blindness, their invisbility, heavily-obscuring objects blocking line of sight, or some other reason. Your attacks on them are at disadvantage and their attacks on you are at advantage.
"Invisible" means "not visible", so if a creature has a way of making the target visible (at least to them) then the target is no longer "invisible" to any creature who can now see it.
Crawford ruled otherwise, but he's made other bad rulings before, which is why there's the Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury meme of, "I recognize that the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid *** decision, I've elected to ignore it." which I believe is the position of most rational DMs.
Always remember that the rules exist to facilitate the game, and that the DM always has the final say, and can trump official rulings if it makes the game at your table better.
I mostly agree with this statement. Invisibility is the only relative condition. All the other conditions are absolute conditions, so the rule "anything that negates a condition ends it" applies to everything but invisibility. If you negate invisibility by being able to see an invisible creature, you don't end the condition relative to everyone--you just end its effect relative to you. I suppose the only part where I disagree is that I'm fine with invisibility being a condition. It just doesn't work like the other ones do.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Good point about negating the condition. I saw a post on another forum where someone pointed out that a really strict reading of the rules is that see invisible negates invisbility for everyone. I.e. once one person can see you, the condition is negated completely, so everyone can now see you.
That is not logical, Its not a magic canceling spell. Its a spell that allows the caster to see the invisible.
Now he could take his time and call out that some one invisible is in the area but explaining it enough will take far more time than one round and in that time the invisible person can move.
There are other spells that would make the invisible visible to everyone. Faerie fire for one.
You're not wrong, although that tends to matter more in other subforums :)
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Having someone be invisible at the same time that he is seen as if he was visible isn't logical either.
If I had to choose between having the conditions still work (and give advantage/disadvantage) while being seen or ending the condition (for all) when seen then I would definately choose the latter. Fortunately I can choose option 3 instead and have the invisibility be relative to all other, i.e give advantage/disadvantage versus those who can't see him and not do anything versus those who can see him (which seems to be what most in here think should happen).
Do not forget that the spell invisibility is a week spell in itself.
The caster can do nothing but move for the most part. As soon as he attacks or casts a spell the invisibility ends.
There is a lot more to invisibility than the spell itself. In combat it is a one shot bonus and out of combat the limitations are less (though you can not cast message to tell your allies what you see)
At higher levels there is the greater invisibility spell and the monks empty body that allow them to remain invisible even after making an attack or casting a spell. Some monsters like the invisible stalker are permanently invisible.
Even with the invisibility spell (or other features that require an action to turn invisible and it is ended if you attack or cast a spell) invisibility is a great option to try and escape especailly if your movement speed is greater than your enemy. One of the issues with the RAW invisibility is:
The RAW about the Invisible condition depends on how you interpret what's written. Some say that it's as your rules lawyer says based on Jeremy Crawford's statement that each benefit of the condition is independent of each other. That said, statements by devs aren't official rulings, only what's in the Sage Advice Compendium are official rulings and this clarification about the Invisible condition is excluded from the Sage Advice Compendium, the latest update of which was after Jeremy Crawford made his statement.
In my personal opinion, the second benefit of the condition is simply a reiteration of the Unseen Attacker rule and included for ease of use. The reason why is that it's the most logical interpretation and everything in the game operates as intended this way. On the other hand, if one rules as Jeremy Crawford does, it causes logical problems since many features stop working as intended with this interpretation. This means that See Invisibility, blindsight, and truesight, all abilities that are designed to either directly counter the illusion magic of Invisibility and similar magical effects, or don't even rely on sight-based perception, meaning they wouldn't perceive the illusion, fail to work as they should. Apparently according to Crawford, the grimlock is somehow disadvantaged against an invisible enemy, despite the fact that it has no eyes to perceive the illusion magic concealing their enemy.
I still feel pretty much like you do, but once that JC tweet came out, I basically threw in the towel in disgust, and now I'm waiting for the playtest rules to sort it out.
"Not all those who wander are lost"