Okay, I'll bite. Aside from all the rules that say to check Perception to find a hidden creature, which qualifies as a Search under the PHB's action table, how do you think the rules say you can find a hidden creature?
The rules for Hiding which say the DM determine circumtances appropriate for hiding.
Yes, hiding with the Hide action, not maintaining being hidden.
The rules doesn't say the DM determine circumtances appropriate for taking the Hide action, but for hiding period, which is throughout.
I'd rule an enemy may find you if you light a lantern in darkness for example.
Okay, I'll bite. Aside from all the rules that say to check Perception to find a hidden creature, which qualifies as a Search under the PHB's action table, how do you think the rules say you can find a hidden creature?
The rules for Hiding which say the DM determine circumtances appropriate for hiding.
Yes, hiding with the Hide action, not maintaining being hidden. Once you've succeeded in the Hide action, you have Invisible until the circumstances are appropriate to stop being hidden, which are spelled out.
Again, the text doesn't say that. There is other text that says you can't make an Opportunity Attack against creatures you can't see, but that is exclusive to Opportunity Attacks. The text we are discussing, the Concealment section of the Invisibility Condition, makes none of these claims.
So again, you are claiming something the text doesn't say (though in fairness, one part of that claim is made in different text).
No, I'm not. Concealed creatures aren't affected by any effect that requires being seen, not just the enumerated actions in the entire PHB. Being noticed visually is an effect of being seen. Being hidden means your location is not known.
Concealed: You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen.
Unseen Attackers and Targets: If you are hidden when making an attack roll, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
Skulker feat, Sniper: If you make an attack roll while hidden and the rollmisses, making the attack roll doesn’t reveal your location.
I did not say it was limited to the enumerated effects. I said it was limited to effects.
Being seen is not 'an effect'. Thus, the Concealment feature is irrelevant.
I've got no idea why you are bringing up Unseen Attackers and Targets. We are not talking about Attacks. Thus, Unseen Attackers and Targets is irrelevant.
The sniper feature only addresses making attacks. Again, we are not talking about attacks. Again, irrelevant.
Now, do you have something in the text that says that you are actually Invisible (not merely implied by the name, which we have shown can lead to a false interpretation) or that standing out in the open does not result in you being 'found'?
I did not say it was limited to the enumerated effects. I said it was limited to effects.
Being seen is not 'an effect'. Thus, the Concealment feature is irrelevant.
I've got no idea why you are bringing up Unseen Attackers and Targets. We are not talking about Attacks. Thus, Unseen Attackers and Targets is irrelevant.
The sniper feature only addresses making attacks. Again, we are not talking about attacks. Again, irrelevant.
Now, do you have something in the text that says that you are actually Invisible (not merely implied by the name, which we have shown can lead to a false interpretation) or that standing out in the open does not result in you being 'found'?
You had bolded and underlined where I wrote that being hidden means your location is not known, and you wrote "The text doesn't say that." Did I misunderstand, or do you agree that being hidden means that your location is not known?
You say "actually Invisible," which is contradictory because yes, you actually do have the capital-I Invisible condition. If you mean lowercase-i invisible, as in supernaturally transparent, then no. I mean what the Concealed effect says, that no effect that requires you to be seen has any effect. That means that a creature's Perception, which relies on senses, excludes vision while you have the Invisible condition.
I did not say it was limited to the enumerated effects. I said it was limited to effects.
Being seen is not 'an effect'. Thus, the Concealment feature is irrelevant.
I've got no idea why you are bringing up Unseen Attackers and Targets. We are not talking about Attacks. Thus, Unseen Attackers and Targets is irrelevant.
The sniper feature only addresses making attacks. Again, we are not talking about attacks. Again, irrelevant.
Now, do you have something in the text that says that you are actually Invisible (not merely implied by the name, which we have shown can lead to a false interpretation) or that standing out in the open does not result in you being 'found'?
You had bolded and underlined where I wrote that being hidden means your location is not known, and you wrote "The text doesn't say that." Did I misunderstand, or do you agree that being hidden means that your location is not known?
Whether I agree is irrelevant. We are discussing your argument that it is 'RAW'. Please show where it is written.
You say "actually Invisible," which is contradictory because yes, you actually do have the capital-I Invisible condition. If you mean lowercase-i invisible, as in supernaturally transparent, then no.
You can have the Poisoned Condition while not being 'actually poisoned'. I used 'actually Invisible' to distinguish it from merely possessing the Invisibility Condition.
I mean what the Concealed effect says, that no effect that requires you to be seen has any effect.. That means that a creature's Perception, which relies on senses, excludes vision while you have the Invisible condition.
No, It doesn't mean that. No effect that requires you to be seen has any effect means no effect that requires you to be seen has any effect. The statement purely refers to effects and perceiving someone is not an effect. Thus, it has zero meaning as far as Perception goes.
You are claiming something the text doesn't say.
Now, I will say that your claim is not unreasonable, but again, we aren't talking about whether claims like this are reasonable or unreasonable. We are simply talking about what the text says.
Scenario: Rogue moves away from an enemy and Hides behind a column. Total cover, out of line of sight, and the stealth roll totals 20. Obviously now hidden and Invisible. On the enemy's turn, it goes to the rogue's last seen location, but the rogue, though now within line of sight, is still Invisible and can't be seen.
...seen because it's now in enemy's undistracted view and the DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.
This is also RAW, refusing to acknowledge this is another issue.
Any argument reliant on "DM discretion" rules is inherently not RAW. RAW indicates the rules before the DM starts tinkering to make outcomes more to their liking.
DM discretion is RAW when the RAW says "the DM decides" or when the RAW doesn't explicitly define something. D&D 5e is massively dependent on DM rulings by design. There are plenty of other systems designed to provide RAW rulings for as much as possible to avoid being DM-dependent, and indeed earlier versions of D&D had much more explicit guidance for DMs on what they should / shouldn't allow various spells to do.
Scenario: Rogue moves away from an enemy and Hides behind a column. Total cover, out of line of sight, and the stealth roll totals 20. Obviously now hidden and Invisible. On the enemy's turn, it goes to the rogue's last seen location, but the rogue, though now within line of sight, is still Invisible and can't be seen.
...seen because it's now in enemy's undistracted view and the DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.
This is also RAW, refusing to acknowledge this is another issue.
Any argument reliant on "DM discretion" rules is inherently not RAW. RAW indicates the rules before the DM starts tinkering to make outcomes more to their liking.
DM discretion is RAW when the RAW says "the DM decides" or when the RAW doesn't explicitly define something. D&D 5e is massively dependent on DM rulings by design. There are plenty of other systems designed to provide RAW rulings for as much as possible to avoid being DM-dependent, and indeed earlier versions of D&D had much more explicit guidance for DMs on what they should / shouldn't allow various spells to do.
The entire rules set is "the DM decides". What that phrase means is that the DM can, at their discretion, decide not to use the rules as written. Ergo, any argument predicated on a "DM decides" passage is inherently acknowledging that what they're arguing isn't RAW.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand why this is so is to consider the DM who uses that exact same passage to rule that the Mariachi band standing in full view can Hide anyway - despite the rules saying they can't.
"RAW" is an objective, DM-independent standard. Any use of DM fiat as an argument about RAW is thus invalid.
Like i said, RAW is what a text says in context, without regard to the designers’ intent, nothing about DM per se.
The only rules approach making any refenrence to DM from Sage Advice is RAF.
''The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.'' is in fact RAW is it's written in Hiding rules. Failing to acknowle this may be a result from misunderstanding the rules approach of RAW, RAI, RAF.
No, It doesn't mean that. No effect that requires you to be seen has any effect means no effect that requires you to be seen has any effect. The statement purely refers to effects and perceiving someone is not an effect. Thus, it has zero meaning as far as Perception goes.
You are claiming something the text doesn't say.
Now, I will say that your claim is not unreasonable, but again, we aren't talking about whether claims like this are reasonable or unreasonable. We are simply talking about what the text says.
Gosh, you really got me, I guess drawing the conclusion that the negation of any effect that requires being seen means you can't be seen is a real logical leap. But it doesn't say that, so it can't be true. I guess we can't treat the Invisibility spell like that either. Oh well, gg.
Taking the text to rational conclusions is sometimes necessary, but the text alone is usually sufficient to address most applications. I never said that nothing aside from the RAW in its pure form can be applied to making decisions on how the game is played. Just that you shouldn't unnecessarily depart from it. All the contrary interpretations that I've seen about how hidden ends are weak and inconsistent, and not supported by the text of the Hide action, Hiding rule, or any rule-adjacent language.
Treating natural language as meaning what it says should be the default position. Hidden creatures are classified as Unseen Attackers, which I wasn't even aware was still in the rules til yesterday. Well, "unseen" is synonymous with "not visible." Is that interpretation a homebrew departure from the RAW? I don't believe so. But is it a departure from the RAW to say there are other ways to find a hidden creature than what the RAW says multiple times? Yes, I think that's incorrect. It's better to find out how to play within the explicit rules instead of coming up with extra alternative ones that would significantly alter the mechanics that govern the world, and combat in particular.
Gosh, you really got me, I guess drawing the conclusion that the negation of any effect that requires being seen means you can't be seen is a real logical leap.
As written, nothing about the invisible condition specifies that you can't be seen. if you're going to argue RAW, you have to deal with RAW.
Gosh, you really got me, I guess drawing the conclusion that the negation of any effect that requires being seen means you can't be seen is a real logical leap.
As written, nothing about the invisible condition specifies that you can't be seen. if you're going to argue RAW, you have to deal with RAW.
It's literally the name of the condition. In visible. Not seen.
Gosh, you really got me, I guess drawing the conclusion that the negation of any effect that requires being seen means you can't be seen is a real logical leap.
As written, nothing about the invisible condition specifies that you can't be seen. if you're going to argue RAW, you have to deal with RAW.
It's literally the name of the condition. In visible. Not seen.
And it literally says you stop being hidden if you're found, but apparently standing clear LoS doesn't mean found despite that being a literal definition doesn't count because that's not expressly spelled out further down. See the issue?
It's literally the name of the condition. In visible. Not seen.
And it literally says you stop being hidden if you're found, but apparently standing clear LoS doesn't mean found despite that being a literal definition doesn't count because that's not expressly spelled out further down. See the issue?
No, because having the Invisible condition means that you can't be seen, so LoS doesn't matter. And it isn't in the list of how hidden can end, so there's no issue here.
Or are you also going to argue that having the Grappled condition doesn't necessarily mean you're in physical contact with the grappler? There's nothing that says so in the condition's text. And the grappler only needs a free hand to grapple with the unarmed strike, it doesn't say anything about making or staying in contact.
It's literally the name of the condition. In visible. Not seen.
Which does not matter in the slightest. Names are names, not rules. The invisible condition has defined effects. Being difficult to see is not one of them.
Is this RAI? No, but that's irrelevant; RAI is also that things behave in an intuitive manner, and that means stealth is not supernatural invisibility, it's sneaking around, hiding behind things, camouflage, and so on.
Or are you also going to argue that having the Grappled condition doesn't necessarily mean you're in physical contact with the grappler?
If you acquire the grappled condition because the attacker used an unarmed strike to engage in grappling, you're in physical contact because of the way those latter rules are written. If you somehow become grappled by some other effect (e.g. grasping vine) physical contact is not required.
It's literally the name of the condition. In visible. Not seen.
Which does not matter in the slightest. Names are names, not rules. The invisible condition has defined effects. Being difficult to see is not one of them.
Is this RAI? No, but that's irrelevant; RAI is also that things behave in an intuitive manner, and that means stealth is not supernatural invisibility, it's sneaking around, hiding behind things, camouflage, and so on.
The names of conditions are descriptive of the effects of the conditions. This is a preposterous line of argument.
The names of conditions are descriptive of the effects of the conditions. This is a preposterous line of argument.
The entire rule glossary is structured in the form Name : Definition. The meaning of a condition is what its definition says.
The fundamental thing to understand about the 5e rules is that they were not written by rules lawyers; there are good things to be said about its writing, but 'clear and concise' is not one of them. Thus, in any situation where RAW has counterintuitive results, the correct thing to do is assume it's a mistake (in terms of rules clarity, I would say that the progression is 4e > 3e > 2e > 5e > 1e).
It's literally the name of the condition. In visible. Not seen.
And it literally says you stop being hidden if you're found, but apparently standing clear LoS doesn't mean found despite that being a literal definition doesn't count because that's not expressly spelled out further down. See the issue?
No, because having the Invisible condition means that you can't be seen, so LoS doesn't matter. And it isn't in the list of how hidden can end, so there's no issue here.
Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you.
If you have only mundane methods of concealment, somebody having direct, uninterrupted, line of sight on you ought to count.
Conditions may have names, but they are still convenience packages of mechanics that can be applied outside of the context implied by the name. Poisoned needn't mean actually poisoned -- it's often used for nausea, for instance.
IS invisible a bad choice for the name of the condition? Evidently so, given that we're 42 repetitive pages into just this thread.
There are several ways that they could've avoided this source of confusion, but they failed to.
Or are you also going to argue that having the Grappled condition doesn't necessarily mean you're in physical contact with the grappler? There's nothing that says so in the condition's text. And the grappler only needs a free hand to grapple with the unarmed strike, it doesn't say anything about making or staying in contact.
Elements monks can grapple without physical contact. A number of spells can.
As the book says:
Condition
A condition is a temporary game state. The definition of a condition says how it affects its recipient,
The definition. Not the name. If you want additional context, you need to look at how the condition was applied.
Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you.
If you have only mundane methods of concealment, somebody having direct, uninterrupted, line of sight on you ought to count.
Not if your stealth roll is higher than 15 and their perception roll, and you don't cause the effects of Hide to end. Hide/Invisible/Concealed allows you to pass below notice, very mundanely.
The rules doesn't say the DM determine circumtances appropriate for taking the Hide action, but for hiding period, which is throughout.
I'd rule an enemy may find you if you light a lantern in darkness for example.
I did not say it was limited to the enumerated effects. I said it was limited to effects.
Now, do you have something in the text that says that you are actually Invisible (not merely implied by the name, which we have shown can lead to a false interpretation) or that standing out in the open does not result in you being 'found'?
You had bolded and underlined where I wrote that being hidden means your location is not known, and you wrote "The text doesn't say that." Did I misunderstand, or do you agree that being hidden means that your location is not known?
You say "actually Invisible," which is contradictory because yes, you actually do have the capital-I Invisible condition. If you mean lowercase-i invisible, as in supernaturally transparent, then no. I mean what the Concealed effect says, that no effect that requires you to be seen has any effect. That means that a creature's Perception, which relies on senses, excludes vision while you have the Invisible condition.
I remember some people being confused about the change and asking for confirmation.
One consequence of this change is that if an Unarmed Strike is made as part of a Bonus Action or Reaction, you can also choose Grapple or Shove.
And here's a funny interaction: RAW, having the Blinded condition doesn't affect grappling or shoving.
Whether I agree is irrelevant. We are discussing your argument that it is 'RAW'. Please show where it is written.
You can have the Poisoned Condition while not being 'actually poisoned'. I used 'actually Invisible' to distinguish it from merely possessing the Invisibility Condition.
No, It doesn't mean that. No effect that requires you to be seen has any effect means no effect that requires you to be seen has any effect. The statement purely refers to effects and perceiving someone is not an effect. Thus, it has zero meaning as far as Perception goes.
You are claiming something the text doesn't say.
Now, I will say that your claim is not unreasonable, but again, we aren't talking about whether claims like this are reasonable or unreasonable. We are simply talking about what the text says.
DM discretion is RAW when the RAW says "the DM decides" or when the RAW doesn't explicitly define something. D&D 5e is massively dependent on DM rulings by design. There are plenty of other systems designed to provide RAW rulings for as much as possible to avoid being DM-dependent, and indeed earlier versions of D&D had much more explicit guidance for DMs on what they should / shouldn't allow various spells to do.
The entire rules set is "the DM decides". What that phrase means is that the DM can, at their discretion, decide not to use the rules as written. Ergo, any argument predicated on a "DM decides" passage is inherently acknowledging that what they're arguing isn't RAW.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand why this is so is to consider the DM who uses that exact same passage to rule that the Mariachi band standing in full view can Hide anyway - despite the rules saying they can't.
"RAW" is an objective, DM-independent standard. Any use of DM fiat as an argument about RAW is thus invalid.
Like i said, RAW is what a text says in context, without regard to the designers’ intent, nothing about DM per se.
The only rules approach making any refenrence to DM from Sage Advice is RAF.
''The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.'' is in fact RAW is it's written in Hiding rules. Failing to acknowle this may be a result from misunderstanding the rules approach of RAW, RAI, RAF.
So, can we at least agree that the title of this thread (i.e. 2024 stealth rules are COOL) is incorrect?
Yeah i bet SoulknifeInfiltrator didn't expect he'd create the most debated 5E24 Rules & Game Mechanic thread ;)
Gosh, you really got me, I guess drawing the conclusion that the negation of any effect that requires being seen means you can't be seen is a real logical leap. But it doesn't say that, so it can't be true. I guess we can't treat the Invisibility spell like that either. Oh well, gg.
Taking the text to rational conclusions is sometimes necessary, but the text alone is usually sufficient to address most applications. I never said that nothing aside from the RAW in its pure form can be applied to making decisions on how the game is played. Just that you shouldn't unnecessarily depart from it. All the contrary interpretations that I've seen about how hidden ends are weak and inconsistent, and not supported by the text of the Hide action, Hiding rule, or any rule-adjacent language.
Treating natural language as meaning what it says should be the default position. Hidden creatures are classified as Unseen Attackers, which I wasn't even aware was still in the rules til yesterday. Well, "unseen" is synonymous with "not visible." Is that interpretation a homebrew departure from the RAW? I don't believe so. But is it a departure from the RAW to say there are other ways to find a hidden creature than what the RAW says multiple times? Yes, I think that's incorrect. It's better to find out how to play within the explicit rules instead of coming up with extra alternative ones that would significantly alter the mechanics that govern the world, and combat in particular.
As written, nothing about the invisible condition specifies that you can't be seen. if you're going to argue RAW, you have to deal with RAW.
It's literally the name of the condition. In visible. Not seen.
And it literally says you stop being hidden if you're found, but apparently standing clear LoS doesn't mean found despite that being a literal definition doesn't count because that's not expressly spelled out further down. See the issue?
No, because having the Invisible condition means that you can't be seen, so LoS doesn't matter. And it isn't in the list of how hidden can end, so there's no issue here.
Or are you also going to argue that having the Grappled condition doesn't necessarily mean you're in physical contact with the grappler? There's nothing that says so in the condition's text. And the grappler only needs a free hand to grapple with the unarmed strike, it doesn't say anything about making or staying in contact.
Which does not matter in the slightest. Names are names, not rules. The invisible condition has defined effects. Being difficult to see is not one of them.
Is this RAI? No, but that's irrelevant; RAI is also that things behave in an intuitive manner, and that means stealth is not supernatural invisibility, it's sneaking around, hiding behind things, camouflage, and so on.
If you acquire the grappled condition because the attacker used an unarmed strike to engage in grappling, you're in physical contact because of the way those latter rules are written. If you somehow become grappled by some other effect (e.g. grasping vine) physical contact is not required.
The names of conditions are descriptive of the effects of the conditions. This is a preposterous line of argument.
The entire rule glossary is structured in the form Name : Definition. The meaning of a condition is what its definition says.
The fundamental thing to understand about the 5e rules is that they were not written by rules lawyers; there are good things to be said about its writing, but 'clear and concise' is not one of them. Thus, in any situation where RAW has counterintuitive results, the correct thing to do is assume it's a mistake (in terms of rules clarity, I would say that the progression is 4e > 3e > 2e > 5e > 1e).
Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you.
If you have only mundane methods of concealment, somebody having direct, uninterrupted, line of sight on you ought to count.
Conditions may have names, but they are still convenience packages of mechanics that can be applied outside of the context implied by the name. Poisoned needn't mean actually poisoned -- it's often used for nausea, for instance.
IS invisible a bad choice for the name of the condition? Evidently so, given that we're 42 repetitive pages into just this thread.
There are several ways that they could've avoided this source of confusion, but they failed to.
Elements monks can grapple without physical contact. A number of spells can.
As the book says:
The definition. Not the name. If you want additional context, you need to look at how the condition was applied.
Not if your stealth roll is higher than 15 and their perception roll, and you don't cause the effects of Hide to end. Hide/Invisible/Concealed allows you to pass below notice, very mundanely.