Even granting you the everyday definition of concealment, it is completely different than invisibility. Thus even using the planeplain definition, your view is wrong as you are making concealed and invisible interchangeable, when they are not in common usage.
Don't put words in my mouth. The authors have defined the invisible condition (in the glossary) as, in part, "concealed." "incapable by nature of being seen" sure. Meaning all the arguments of the form "no text prevents looking right at you with no effort" are bullshit.
I'm not, I simply defined the term as it is used in everyday usage. Now if you mean to say that the book redefines the term concealed to mean something else, then that's a different issue.
But that also should not only be in the glossary, it should be included in the actual condition.
I'm not, I simply defined the term as it is used in everyday usage. Now if you mean to say that the book redefines the term concealed to mean something else, then that's a different issue.
But that also should not only be in the glossary, it should be included in the actual condition.
I'm not defining anything, I'm just referencing a book we haven't read yet (heh)
To break it down, with a tiny bit of simplication:
The book defines the "invisible condition" (in the glossary), and that definition uses the word "concealed" (even names it as an effect of the condition) and has a clause about "unless [they] can somehow see you."
The book does not define the word "concealed." It is not an entry in the glossary (to the best of my knowledge), which basically means they have not redefined the word. Given DnD's propensity, for better or worse, to use natural language, they don't need to define it. (You defined it in your previous post, which was convenient, in a way that fully matches the meaning of the word as used. It's the last piece of the puzzle! The key that solves the problem! You can't be seen through normal means!)
I'm not, I simply defined the term as it is used in everyday usage. Now if you mean to say that the book redefines the term concealed to mean something else, then that's a different issue.
But that also should not only be in the glossary, it should be included in the actual condition.
I'm not defining anything, I'm just referencing a book we haven't read yet (heh)
To break it down, with a tiny bit of simplication:
The book defines the "invisible condition" (in the glossary), and that definition uses the word "concealed" (even names it as an effect of the condition) and has a clause about "unless [they] can somehow see you."
The book does not define the word "concealed." It is not an entry in the glossary (to the best of my knowledge), which basically means they have not redefined the word. Given DnD's propensity, for better or worse, to use natural language, they don't need to define it. (You defined it in your previous post, which was convenient, in a way that fully matches the meaning of the word as used. It's the last piece of the puzzle! The key that solves the problem! You can't be seen through normal means!)
That's my problem. Concealed by definition means if you are standing in front of someone you are not concealed.
That's my problem. Concealed by definition means if you are standing in front of someone you are not concealed.
What if I'm wearing really good camo? Or an invisibility cloak? Or I'm being really subtle while someone shines a really bright light in your face? Or I'm standing behind you while you try to aim spells at my friends? (Yeah, I know there's a whole bunch of people in this thread in complete denial about stealth being possible outside of cover/obscurement...)
The book does not define the word "concealed." It is not an entry in the glossary (to the best of my knowledge), which basically means they have not redefined the word.
The problem is that standard lexical parsing indicates that they are at least contextually redefining the term (note that even slight rewording would change this; for example, if the text started with "You are concealed." instead of just "concealed" it would have different meaning).
That's my problem. Concealed by definition means if you are standing in front of someone you are not concealed.
What if I'm wearing really good camo? Or an invisibility cloak? Or I'm being really subtle while someone shines a really bright light in your face? Or I'm standing behind you while you try to aim spells at my friends? (Yeah, I know there's a whole bunch of people in this thread in complete denial about stealth being possible outside of cover/obscurement...)
Important clarification. If you are wearing an invisible cloak then the proper term is invisible not concealed as the two do not mean the samething.
2nd I think there are exceptions where it makes sense, such as the person looking being distracted. But I think those would be exceptions
The book does not define the word "concealed." It is not an entry in the glossary (to the best of my knowledge), which basically means they have not redefined the word.
The problem is that standard lexical parsing indicates that they are at least contextually redefining the term (note that even slight rewording would change this; for example, if the text started with "You are concealed." instead of just "concealed" it would have different meaning).
They are, at most, expanding the definition with mechanical context. Most any editor, when seeing something like "Concealed: you are concealed. [mechanics]" would remove the "you are concealed" part for being redundant. Publishers are stingy with wordcount, and they are not treating the language like a programming language. (Speaking, literally, as someone who has written and edited published rules text. But not for DnD, and I can't say I'm a fan of modern DnD's "have your cake and eat it too" approach to never clarifying things.)
They're allowed to "expand" and "narrow" some words all they want. That doesn't make "concealed" a meaningless label. (In fact, since it's not its own glossary entry, it's not getting redefined.)
They're defining it within the specific context. It might have other meanings elsewhere.
You seem to be making the argument that the "can somehow see you" clause means they can just look right at you with no effort.
No, the argument is that no text prevents looking right at you with no effort.
If that were true they wouldn't have called it being "concealed"! That word is not without meaning. Your argument is deliberately obtuse. If you were trying to teach these rules to someone I would accuse you of malice.
These people are being deliberately obtuse and draconian in their interpretations...and they say I'm biased.
Like you said, the Invisible condition is defining what it does, and it's being ambiguous on how to negate it because that's the job of the feature or effect that gave it to you to determine. Their claim that no text is preventing them from doing what they claim is based on pure conjecture and flawed reading, because they want the condition to spell it out like in 2014. It's not.
Hide has 5 things that negate or break it: Perception check, sound louder than whisper, enemy finds you, make an attack roll and casting with a verbal component
Invisibility has 3 things that break it: make an attack, deal damage, or casting a spell.
A lot of their claims about being able to see you can apply to the Hide action, because they can be catalogued under the "an enemy finds you" trigger. But the Invisibility spell doesn't have this, so how can an enemy find you when that is not a mechanism the spell provides? This is where their argument of "I can just look and see you" falls short.
But it doesn't matter, because they are splitting hairs for every word, and the only ones that do so are people trying to squeeze every last benefit from rules, people that want to win arguments no matter what, or people arguing in bad faith.
Edit: oh, and I forgot one more...Tech Editors to make your life miserable on every article you write.
2nd I think there are exceptions where it makes sense, such as the person looking being distracted. But I think those would be exceptions
OK. Would "someone cast a frickin Invisibility spell on you" or "you are being really stealthy during a distracting fantasy combat" count as exceptions? Those are the particular examples being discussed, around and around, in this thread.
They are, at most, expanding the definition with mechanical context. Most any editor, when seeing something like "Concealed: you are concealed. [mechanics]" would remove the "you are concealed" part for being redundant.
I wasn't arguing for that. The text doesn't have a :, it has a . that is, because of how the phrase is constructed, largely functioning as a :, and a : is an equivalence indicator.
They are, at most, expanding the definition with mechanical context. Most any editor, when seeing something like "Concealed: you are concealed. [mechanics]" would remove the "you are concealed" part for being redundant.
I wasn't arguing for that. The text doesn't have a :, it has a . that is, because of how the phrase is constructed, largely functioning as a :, and a : is an equivalence indicator.
You're either an English teacher or a Tech Editor, because I have never seen anyone on the Internet argue syntax and grammar to this level. Know where I have seen this? From the Tech Editors at work
You're either an English teacher or a Tech Editor, because I have never seen anyone on the Internet argue syntax and grammar to this level. Know where I have seen this? From the Tech Editors at work
You must live in a bit of an internet bubble, because that level of text analysis occurs all the time in disputes about rules. In any case, your complaint appears to be "You're talking like someone whose profession is writing clear and unambiguous text", and I'm not sure why you think that's a bad thing.
They are, at most, expanding the definition with mechanical context. Most any editor, when seeing something like "Concealed: you are concealed. [mechanics]" would remove the "you are concealed" part for being redundant.
I wasn't arguing for that. The text doesn't have a :, it has a . that is, because of how the phrase is constructed, largely functioning as a :, and a : is an equivalence indicator.
I don't really care about the punctuation in the hypothetical. You suggested adding a "You are concealed" sentence to the entry, and I'm telling you that most any professional editor would strike that out immediately. They would (probably) see it as reduntant and not worth the 3 words, especially in a "natural language" context (fraught as it is) where you're not supposed to provide definitions of words that don't violate their common meaning.
And sure, if they felt the need to add a "Concealed condition" to the glossary, they would have defined it. Their decision to make hiding give you the invisible condition, which is the crux of all this nonsense, negated any need to do that. They chose to give hidden characters the invisible condition to make hiding more powerful, or differently powerful, I would presume. Hell, maybe they did it just to make the glossary one term shorter! I don't know.
You're either an English teacher or a Tech Editor, because I have never seen anyone on the Internet argue syntax and grammar to this level. Know where I have seen this? From the Tech Editors at work
You must live in a bit of an internet bubble, because that level of text analysis occurs all the time in disputes about rules. In any case, your complaint appears to be "You're talking like someone whose profession is writing clear and unambiguous text", and I'm not sure why you think that's a bad thing.
Internet bubble? Not really. I just havent seen this happen in the 5 years since I returned to the game, but I see this every day at work
I don't really care about the punctuation in the hypothetical. You suggested adding a "You are concealed." sentence the entry, and I'm telling you that most any professional editor would strike that out immediately. They would (probably) see it as reduntant and not worth the 3 words.
They should have either left out the word "concealed" completely (because it's a sentence fragment), or expanded it to a proper sentence. As currently written, it appears as a "term: definition of term" block, and that doesn't mean "You are concealed and these other effects apply", it means "You are concealed, which means X".
There are a ton of ways they could have cleaned it up. They didn't use any of them.
I don't really care about the punctuation in the hypothetical. You suggested adding a "You are concealed." sentence the entry, and I'm telling you that most any professional editor would strike that out immediately. They would (probably) see it as reduntant and not worth the 3 words.
They should have either left out the word "concealed" completely (because it's a sentence fragment), or expanded it to a proper sentence. As currently written, it appears as a "term: definition of term" block, and that doesn't mean "You are concealed and these other effects apply", it means "You are concealed, which means X".
There are a ton of ways they could have cleaned it up. They didn't use any of them.
And they saw no need to. For me and a lot of folks the rules are clear, but from what I see here and on other forums, the folks that don't consider them clear are the ones coming up with most of these absurd interpretations.
The following two ways to write the Invisible Condition are mechanically identical:
1. you experience the following effects. Concealed. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you.
2. you experience the following effects.Tiddlywinks. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you.
As you can see, the actual bolded word followed by the period that is used has no impact whatsoever on how the Condition is defined. It is quite literally a name, or a label. It's one of a list of labels which enumerate the various effects that are experienced by a creature who has this Condition. You can name something whatever you want. The thing that this label is actually labelling is explicitly defined immediately following this word. This effect has absolutely nothing at all to do with being concealed in the natural language sense of the word. It's just what they chose to name this effect. The actual effect being defined here is: "You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you." None of that relates to actually being concealed at all.
As has already been mentioned, you see this same writing style all the time in monster stat blocks. The goblin monster has this feature: "Nimble Escape. The goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns." The words "nimble escape" are not mechanically relevant. It's just what they chose to name this particular ability. The actual ability is explicitly defined -- the goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns." That's what the ability actually DOES. It happens to be CALLED "nimble escape", but they could have named it anything.
They're allowed to "expand" and "narrow" some words all they want. That doesn't make "concealed" a meaningless label. (In fact, since it's not its own glossary entry, it's not getting redefined.)
They're defining it within the specific context. It might have other meanings elsewhere.
You seem to be making the argument that the "can somehow see you" clause means they can just look right at you with no effort.
No, the argument is that no text prevents looking right at you with no effort.
If that were true they wouldn't have called it being "concealed"! That word is not without meaning. Your argument is deliberately obtuse. If you were trying to teach these rules to someone I would accuse you of malice.
These people are being deliberately obtuse and draconian in their interpretations...and they say I'm biased.
Like you said, the Invisible condition is defining what it does, and it's being ambiguous on how to negate it because that's the job of the feature or effect that gave it to you to determine. Their claim that no text is preventing them from doing what they claim is based on pure conjecture and flawed reading, because they want the condition to spell it out like in 2014. It's not.
Hide has 5 things that negate or break it: Perception check, sound louder than whisper, enemy finds you, make an attack roll and casting with a verbal component
Invisibility has 3 things that break it: make an attack, deal damage, or casting a spell.
A lot of their claims about being able to see you can apply to the Hide action, because they can be catalogued under the "an enemy finds you" trigger. But the Invisibility spell doesn't have this, so how can an enemy find you when that is not a mechanism the spell provides? This is where their argument of "I can just look and see you" falls short.
But it doesn't matter, because they are splitting hairs for every word, and the only ones that do so are people trying to squeeze every last benefit from rules, people that want to win arguments no matter what, or people arguing in bad faith.
Edit: oh, and I forgot one more...Tech Editors to make your life miserable on every article you write.
The reason you can be found when it comes to invisibility is because perception is more than sight, but also sound, clues (like tracks). It doesn't break the invisible condition because you can't be seen, but someone still knows where you are because they can still perceive you and nothing about the invisible condition makes it so they cannot.
The condition doesn't say you can't be perceived. It just doesn't list that as something that can break the condition.
Which like I said is how Crawford ruled invisibility in 2014. Seems that is still the intent.
2nd I think there are exceptions where it makes sense, such as the person looking being distracted. But I think those would be exceptions
OK. Would "someone cast a frickin Invisibility spell on you" or "you are being really stealthy during a distracting fantasy combat" count as exceptions? Those are the particular examples being discussed, around and around, in this thread.
There is nothing in the invisible condition that makes you undetectable. Both the invisible spell and the HIde condition state ways that the condition may end. So even if we grant that the invisible condition makes one concealed. That doesn't mean you can't be detected by sound, tracks, making a noise, etc. It simply means that a perception check doesn't end the condition.
Which is collaborated with how the Rule Designers understood Invisibility in 2014, and it doesn't appear they have altered that philosophy.
I don't really care about the punctuation in the hypothetical. You suggested adding a "You are concealed." sentence the entry, and I'm telling you that most any professional editor would strike that out immediately. They would (probably) see it as reduntant and not worth the 3 words.
They should have either left out the word "concealed" completely (because it's a sentence fragment), or expanded it to a proper sentence. As currently written, it appears as a "term: definition of term" block, and that doesn't mean "You are concealed and these other effects apply", it means "You are concealed, which means X".
There are a ton of ways they could have cleaned it up. They didn't use any of them.
And they saw no need to. For me and a lot of folks the rules are clear, but from what I see here and on other forums, the folks that don't consider them clear are the ones coming up with most of these absurd interpretations.
Even if we grant you that the rules changed in 2024, you can't consider the interpretations absurd, because the interpretations are the current rules in 2014. They rewarded the way the wrote hidden and invisibility. It isn't absurd to take the rules at face value and believe the intent (and meaning) isn't different than 2014.
I'm not, I simply defined the term as it is used in everyday usage. Now if you mean to say that the book redefines the term concealed to mean something else, then that's a different issue.
But that also should not only be in the glossary, it should be included in the actual condition.
I'm not defining anything, I'm just referencing a book we haven't read yet (heh)
To break it down, with a tiny bit of simplication:
That's my problem. Concealed by definition means if you are standing in front of someone you are not concealed.
What if I'm wearing really good camo? Or an invisibility cloak? Or I'm being really subtle while someone shines a really bright light in your face? Or I'm standing behind you while you try to aim spells at my friends? (Yeah, I know there's a whole bunch of people in this thread in complete denial about stealth being possible outside of cover/obscurement...)
The problem is that standard lexical parsing indicates that they are at least contextually redefining the term (note that even slight rewording would change this; for example, if the text started with "You are concealed." instead of just "concealed" it would have different meaning).
Important clarification. If you are wearing an invisible cloak then the proper term is invisible not concealed as the two do not mean the samething.
2nd I think there are exceptions where it makes sense, such as the person looking being distracted. But I think those would be exceptions
They are, at most, expanding the definition with mechanical context. Most any editor, when seeing something like "Concealed: you are concealed. [mechanics]" would remove the "you are concealed" part for being redundant. Publishers are stingy with wordcount, and they are not treating the language like a programming language. (Speaking, literally, as someone who has written and edited published rules text. But not for DnD, and I can't say I'm a fan of modern DnD's "have your cake and eat it too" approach to never clarifying things.)
These people are being deliberately obtuse and draconian in their interpretations...and they say I'm biased.
Like you said, the Invisible condition is defining what it does, and it's being ambiguous on how to negate it because that's the job of the feature or effect that gave it to you to determine. Their claim that no text is preventing them from doing what they claim is based on pure conjecture and flawed reading, because they want the condition to spell it out like in 2014. It's not.
Hide has 5 things that negate or break it: Perception check, sound louder than whisper, enemy finds you, make an attack roll and casting with a verbal component
Invisibility has 3 things that break it: make an attack, deal damage, or casting a spell.
A lot of their claims about being able to see you can apply to the Hide action, because they can be catalogued under the "an enemy finds you" trigger. But the Invisibility spell doesn't have this, so how can an enemy find you when that is not a mechanism the spell provides? This is where their argument of "I can just look and see you" falls short.
But it doesn't matter, because they are splitting hairs for every word, and the only ones that do so are people trying to squeeze every last benefit from rules, people that want to win arguments no matter what, or people arguing in bad faith.
Edit: oh, and I forgot one more...Tech Editors to make your life miserable on every article you write.
OK. Would "someone cast a frickin Invisibility spell on you" or "you are being really stealthy during a distracting fantasy combat" count as exceptions? Those are the particular examples being discussed, around and around, in this thread.
I wasn't arguing for that. The text doesn't have a :, it has a . that is, because of how the phrase is constructed, largely functioning as a :, and a : is an equivalence indicator.
You're either an English teacher or a Tech Editor, because I have never seen anyone on the Internet argue syntax and grammar to this level. Know where I have seen this? From the Tech Editors at work
You must live in a bit of an internet bubble, because that level of text analysis occurs all the time in disputes about rules. In any case, your complaint appears to be "You're talking like someone whose profession is writing clear and unambiguous text", and I'm not sure why you think that's a bad thing.
I don't really care about the punctuation in the hypothetical. You suggested adding a "You are concealed" sentence to the entry, and I'm telling you that most any professional editor would strike that out immediately. They would (probably) see it as reduntant and not worth the 3 words, especially in a "natural language" context (fraught as it is) where you're not supposed to provide definitions of words that don't violate their common meaning.
And sure, if they felt the need to add a "Concealed condition" to the glossary, they would have defined it. Their decision to make hiding give you the invisible condition, which is the crux of all this nonsense, negated any need to do that. They chose to give hidden characters the invisible condition to make hiding more powerful, or differently powerful, I would presume. Hell, maybe they did it just to make the glossary one term shorter! I don't know.
Internet bubble? Not really. I just havent seen this happen in the 5 years since I returned to the game, but I see this every day at work
They should have either left out the word "concealed" completely (because it's a sentence fragment), or expanded it to a proper sentence. As currently written, it appears as a "term: definition of term" block, and that doesn't mean "You are concealed and these other effects apply", it means "You are concealed, which means X".
There are a ton of ways they could have cleaned it up. They didn't use any of them.
And they saw no need to. For me and a lot of folks the rules are clear, but from what I see here and on other forums, the folks that don't consider them clear are the ones coming up with most of these absurd interpretations.
The following two ways to write the Invisible Condition are mechanically identical:
1. you experience the following effects. Concealed. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you.
2. you experience the following effects. Tiddlywinks. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you.
As you can see, the actual bolded word followed by the period that is used has no impact whatsoever on how the Condition is defined. It is quite literally a name, or a label. It's one of a list of labels which enumerate the various effects that are experienced by a creature who has this Condition. You can name something whatever you want. The thing that this label is actually labelling is explicitly defined immediately following this word. This effect has absolutely nothing at all to do with being concealed in the natural language sense of the word. It's just what they chose to name this effect. The actual effect being defined here is: "You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you." None of that relates to actually being concealed at all.
As has already been mentioned, you see this same writing style all the time in monster stat blocks. The goblin monster has this feature: "Nimble Escape. The goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns." The words "nimble escape" are not mechanically relevant. It's just what they chose to name this particular ability. The actual ability is explicitly defined -- the goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns." That's what the ability actually DOES. It happens to be CALLED "nimble escape", but they could have named it anything.
The reason you can be found when it comes to invisibility is because perception is more than sight, but also sound, clues (like tracks). It doesn't break the invisible condition because you can't be seen, but someone still knows where you are because they can still perceive you and nothing about the invisible condition makes it so they cannot.
The condition doesn't say you can't be perceived. It just doesn't list that as something that can break the condition.
Which like I said is how Crawford ruled invisibility in 2014. Seems that is still the intent.
There is nothing in the invisible condition that makes you undetectable. Both the invisible spell and the HIde condition state ways that the condition may end. So even if we grant that the invisible condition makes one concealed. That doesn't mean you can't be detected by sound, tracks, making a noise, etc. It simply means that a perception check doesn't end the condition.
Which is collaborated with how the Rule Designers understood Invisibility in 2014, and it doesn't appear they have altered that philosophy.
Even if we grant you that the rules changed in 2024, you can't consider the interpretations absurd, because the interpretations are the current rules in 2014. They rewarded the way the wrote hidden and invisibility. It isn't absurd to take the rules at face value and believe the intent (and meaning) isn't different than 2014.