Let's say my character has blindsight and is wearing boots of elvenkind through a fog cloud. The enemy can neither see me, nor hear me. And they don't have any special sense to help them pinpoint my position. Can they still make a perception check to find my position? Using which sense? And in general, how absurdly easy (or difficult) should an action be for there not to be need of an ability check? Especially since in my short experience, DMs never set a DC below 10, even for the easiest things in the world, which often leads to ridiculous situations.
IMO, your character could still be noticed by their breathing, the sound of their equipment (if any) while walking, or even their scent. You would need to Hide to get the DC for a creature to find you:
With the Hide action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check while you’re Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, and you must be out of any enemy’s line of sight; if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you.
On a successful check, you have the Invisible condition. Make note of your check’s total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.
Regarding the DC, personally, I think that if something is very easy to achieve, a roll isn't needed. Likewise, if something is impossible, I don't ask for a roll either. The 2024 DMG provides some advices, with the classical moon and arrow:
Is a D20 Test Warranted? If the task is trivial or impossible, don’t bother with a D20 Test. A character can move across an empty room or drink from a flask without making a Dexterity check, whereas no lucky die roll will allow a character with an ordinary bow to hit the moon with an arrow. Call for a D20 Test only if there’s a chance of both success and failure and if there are meaningful consequences for failure.
If you’ve decided that an ability check is called for, then most likely the task at hand isn’t a very easy one. Most people can accomplish a DC 5 task with little chance of failure. Unless circumstances are unusual, let characters succeed at such a task without making a check.
If you find yourself thinking, “This task is especially hard,” you can use a higher DC, but do so with caution and consider the level of the characters. A DC 25 task is very hard for low-level characters to accomplish, but it becomes more reasonable after 10th level or so. A DC 30 check is nearly impossible for most low-level characters. A 20th-level character with proficiency and a relevant ability score of 20 still needs a 19 or 20 on the die roll to succeed at a task of this difficulty.
Let's say my character has blindsight and is wearing boots of elvenkind through a fog cloud. The enemy can neither see me, nor hear me. And they don't have any special sense to help them pinpoint my position. Can they still make a perception check to find my position? Using which sense? And in general, how absurdly easy (or difficult) should an action be for there not to be need of an ability check? Especially since in my short experience, DMs never set a DC below 10, even for the easiest things in the world, which often leads to ridiculous situations.
Under these circumstances the enemy can still hear you, only your steps make no sound. A DM could say ability checks that rely on sight or hearring your steps automatically fail for example.
You now have good set up to Hide though, you're Heavily Obscured out of any enemy’s line of sight and also have Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks so it should be easier to conceal yourself.
Yeah, the item description for the Boots of Elvenkind pretty much answers the OP's question. That item doesn't make you automatically hidden. It says that it gives you advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks, implying that attempting to Hide is still necessary in order to become hidden. This advantage is the mechanic for setting the DC a bit higher (on average) for an enemy to be able to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check if they take a Search action.
Let's say my character has blindsight and is wearing boots of elvenkind through a fog cloud. The enemy can neither see me, nor hear me. And they don't have any special sense to help them pinpoint my position. Can they still make a perception check to find my position? Using which sense? And in general, how absurdly easy (or difficult) should an action be for there not to be need of an ability check? Especially since in my short experience, DMs never set a DC below 10, even for the easiest things in the world, which often leads to ridiculous situations.
Under these circumstances the enemy can still hear you, only your steps make no sound. A DM could say ability checks that rely on sight or hearring your steps automatically fail for example.
You now have good set up to Hide though, you're Heavily Obscured out of any enemy’s line of sight and also have Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks so it should be easier to conceal yourself.
Yeah, that's what bothers me. If I'm invisible thanks to fog cloud and blindsight, I already have advantage, which can't stack. In that situation, it feels like hiding the sound of your steps gives no advantage whatsoever, and I might be stomping the ground with clown shoes without it making any difference to my rolls. Also, that armor sound thing maybe makes sense for armors that already give you disadvantage on stealth checks, precisely because of the sound it makes. But if my armor doesn't have such a disadvantage, then it shouldn't make a specific sound when I move around, otherwise it would already have that disadvantage. Having light armor shouldn't be less stealthy than being naked, is what I'm getting at. As for the breathing... fine, let's say I hold my breath. I can do it for several minutes under water, so a few rounds of holding my breath shouldn't be a problem. Personally, I don't pant like a dog, when I breathe, but for the sake of argument, we can cross that off the list too.
If I'm invisible thanks to fog cloud and blindsight, I already have advantage, which can't stack. In that situation, it feels like hiding the sound of your steps gives no advantage whatsoever, and I might be stomping the ground with clown shoes without it making any difference to my rolls.
It would mean they don't know where you are (like, what square on the map you are in), and can't target you.
If you're still making noise, they can still try to hit you, represented by (only) disadvantage.
I thought that too at first but the rules are a bit more specific. They can try and target me even if they don't know where I am. What they do is target a location they think I'm at, with disadvantage, and if I end up not being there, it's an automatic miss. https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/phb-2024/playing-the-game#Covertable
I feel like this idea that enemies suddenly develop super senses, like smelling your location despite not being a bear or a dog, or hearing the sound your clothes make as they rub on, as if they suddenly developed the hearing sense of a bat, and doing that in the middle of a fight... It makes no sense, and it's clearly just an attempt to undermine the player's attempt at stealth.
I mean, imagine if I, as a player, did that... I'm a human and I say: "I take a sniff and focus on my hearing to pinpoint the location of that invisible hag while she moves, and I do that during her turn". Wouldn't that sound ridiculous? If I can't do that, then neither can they...
It's also worth noting that while hearing is mentioned in this paragraph as a possible sense to locate opponents, smell isn't. Smell, especially, shouldn't allow a creature who doesn't have an especially keen sense of smell to pinpoint a creature's location. At best, if the creature is very stinky, it should only give them a vague idea of how close they are... and with a delay.
Yeah, that's what bothers me. If I'm invisible thanks to fog cloud and blindsight, I already have advantage, which can't stack. In that situation, it feels like hiding the sound of your steps gives no advantage whatsoever, and I might be stomping the ground with clown shoes without it making any difference to my rolls. Also, that armor sound thing maybe makes sense for armors that already give you disadvantage on stealth checks, precisely because of the sound it makes. But if my armor doesn't have such a disadvantage, then it shouldn't make a specific sound when I move around, otherwise it would already have that disadvantage. Having light armor shouldn't be less stealthy than being naked, is what I'm getting at. As for the breathing... fine, let's say I hold my breath. I can do it for several minutes under water, so a few rounds of holding my breath shouldn't be a problem. Personally, I don't pant like a dog, when I breathe, but for the sake of argument, we can cross that off the list too.
You don't have the Invisible condition in Fog Cloud, instead others have the Blindedcondition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space. You,re right in that you would already have Advantage, but you would only be fully concealed with the Hide Action, unless the DM decides otherwise due to favorable circumstances as the one you describe, but the rules themselves don't necessarily do.
I understand that, but that doesn't justify the enemies suddenly having super senses and knowing my location based on absurd perception checks. The enemies are not Superman.
Can they still make a perception check to find my position? Using which sense?
You can still be detected via hearing, and smell. Your breathing and your equipment still makes noise, and you still smell as normal. It would be pretty hard unless you were very close by, but possible.
And in general, how absurdly easy (or difficult) should an action be for there not to be need of an ability check?
Depends, a Goliath with a 20 STR should be able to do things without needing an ability check that a gnome with 8 STR would need an ability check for.
Lots of stuff doesn't need ability checks: walking, talking, hiring someone to do something for you, buying goods at normal prices, climbing a ladder or set of stairs, wading through calm water, writing letters/notes, jumping you normal jump distance, carrying stuff within your carry weight, searching a container for something it contains, etc... etc...
I understand that, but that doesn't justify the enemies suddenly having super senses and knowing my location based on absurd perception checks. The enemies are not Superman.
Depends who/what they are, they very well could be.
I understand that, but that doesn't justify the enemies suddenly having super senses and knowing my location based on absurd perception checks. The enemies are not Superman.
Being able to know which 5ft square you are in, just enough to make a wild swing (disadvantage) isn't actually that superhuman.
(Things like advantage and disadvantage paper over lots of detail in the game; making them all equivalent removes a lot of tactical detail, but within that conceit, the invisibility rule isn't unreasonable.)
You can still be detected via hearing, and smell. Your breathing and your equipment still makes noise, and you still smell as normal. It would be pretty hard unless you were very close by, but possible.
Unless the PC has chimes hanging from their clothes, breathes like they're having sex, and hasn't bathed in 2 weeks, I can't imagine how that could be perceivable in the middle of a fight, unless the enemy has exceptional hearing, or smell. Like a werewolf would have. Also, I think that a disadvantage is a very bad way to represent that difficulty. Not only because disadvantages don't stack (and accumulating stealth skills should logically have a cumulative effect), but also because many monsters a big bonuses to their perception, usually because of 1 specific sense. But that perception bonus doesn't get a penalty if that sense is somehow negated or obstructed, which is not fair.
I can't imagine how that could be perceivable in the middle of a fight
In the middle of a fight.. where you are desperately fighting for your life, you're likely to have some injuries/be bleeding and are swinging around a sword and/or casting spells. None of those things are particularly quiet or hard to detect. I mean if you are in a fog cloud swinging a sword at someone they definitely know exactly where you are from the way your sword hits them, seeing the ripples in the fog as you and your sword move through it, and the noise of your sword hitting things.
[...] Also, I think that a disadvantage is a very bad way to represent that difficulty. Not only because disadvantages don't stack (and accumulating stealth skills should logically have a cumulative effect)[...]
Mmm. But we're playing 5e. Previous editions might have what you're looking for, though complex rules aren’t always better.
You can still be detected via hearing, and smell. Your breathing and your equipment still makes noise, and you still smell as normal. It would be pretty hard unless you were very close by, but possible.
Unless the PC has chimes hanging from their clothes, breathes like they're having sex, and hasn't bathed in 2 weeks, I can't imagine how that could be perceivable in the middle of a fight, unless the enemy has exceptional hearing, or smell. Like a werewolf would have. Also, I think that a disadvantage is a very bad way to represent that difficulty. Not only because disadvantages don't stack (and accumulating stealth skills should logically have a cumulative effect), but also because many monsters a big bonuses to their perception, usually because of 1 specific sense. But that perception bonus doesn't get a penalty if that sense is somehow negated or obstructed, which is not fair.
Have you ever been in combat? It is amazing what your senses pick up.
As for not stacking, that is perfectly in line with other types of games as well as in real life. If there are 3 separate rows of hedges between you and me and we are shooting at each other, you get concealment from one hedge, the other 2 hedges do not increase your hiding ability.
No there is no logic about stealth having a cumulative effect. No matter how stealthy you are, one sneeze or one cough or one collision/knock/etc. of gear, coin etc., blows your stealth. You have to be 100% or otherwise it can all be for naught.
The primary reason invisibility doesn't prevent people from knowing your location in 5e is because "guess at the enemy's location" was terrible and unfun in previous editions, and basically made monsters with invisibility as a shtick binary -- if you had a means of negating invisibility they were very weak, if you didn't they were super strong.
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Let's say my character has blindsight and is wearing boots of elvenkind through a fog cloud.
The enemy can neither see me, nor hear me. And they don't have any special sense to help them pinpoint my position.
Can they still make a perception check to find my position? Using which sense?
And in general, how absurdly easy (or difficult) should an action be for there not to be need of an ability check?
Especially since in my short experience, DMs never set a DC below 10, even for the easiest things in the world, which often leads to ridiculous situations.
IMO, your character could still be noticed by their breathing, the sound of their equipment (if any) while walking, or even their scent. You would need to Hide to get the DC for a creature to find you:
Regarding the DC, personally, I think that if something is very easy to achieve, a roll isn't needed. Likewise, if something is impossible, I don't ask for a roll either. The 2024 DMG provides some advices, with the classical moon and arrow:
Natrel, this thread might be useful for your question or your DM: Invisible and boots of elvenkind
EDIT: and Rogue hide mechanics confusion
Under these circumstances the enemy can still hear you, only your steps make no sound. A DM could say ability checks that rely on sight or hearring your steps automatically fail for example.
You now have good set up to Hide though, you're Heavily Obscured out of any enemy’s line of sight and also have Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks so it should be easier to conceal yourself.
Yeah, the item description for the Boots of Elvenkind pretty much answers the OP's question. That item doesn't make you automatically hidden. It says that it gives you advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks, implying that attempting to Hide is still necessary in order to become hidden. This advantage is the mechanic for setting the DC a bit higher (on average) for an enemy to be able to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check if they take a Search action.
Yeah, that's what bothers me. If I'm invisible thanks to fog cloud and blindsight, I already have advantage, which can't stack. In that situation, it feels like hiding the sound of your steps gives no advantage whatsoever, and I might be stomping the ground with clown shoes without it making any difference to my rolls.
Also, that armor sound thing maybe makes sense for armors that already give you disadvantage on stealth checks, precisely because of the sound it makes. But if my armor doesn't have such a disadvantage, then it shouldn't make a specific sound when I move around, otherwise it would already have that disadvantage. Having light armor shouldn't be less stealthy than being naked, is what I'm getting at.
As for the breathing... fine, let's say I hold my breath. I can do it for several minutes under water, so a few rounds of holding my breath shouldn't be a problem.
Personally, I don't pant like a dog, when I breathe, but for the sake of argument, we can cross that off the list too.
It would mean they don't know where you are (like, what square on the map you are in), and can't target you.
If you're still making noise, they can still try to hit you, represented by (only) disadvantage.
I thought that too at first but the rules are a bit more specific. They can try and target me even if they don't know where I am. What they do is target a location they think I'm at, with disadvantage, and if I end up not being there, it's an automatic miss.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/phb-2024/playing-the-game#Covertable
I feel like this idea that enemies suddenly develop super senses, like smelling your location despite not being a bear or a dog, or hearing the sound your clothes make as they rub on, as if they suddenly developed the hearing sense of a bat, and doing that in the middle of a fight...
It makes no sense, and it's clearly just an attempt to undermine the player's attempt at stealth.
I mean, imagine if I, as a player, did that... I'm a human and I say: "I take a sniff and focus on my hearing to pinpoint the location of that invisible hag while she moves, and I do that during her turn". Wouldn't that sound ridiculous? If I can't do that, then neither can they...
It's also worth noting that while hearing is mentioned in this paragraph as a possible sense to locate opponents, smell isn't.
Smell, especially, shouldn't allow a creature who doesn't have an especially keen sense of smell to pinpoint a creature's location. At best, if the creature is very stinky, it should only give them a vague idea of how close they are... and with a delay.
You don't have the Invisible condition in Fog Cloud, instead others have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space. You,re right in that you would already have Advantage, but you would only be fully concealed with the Hide Action, unless the DM decides otherwise due to favorable circumstances as the one you describe, but the rules themselves don't necessarily do.
I understand that, but that doesn't justify the enemies suddenly having super senses and knowing my location based on absurd perception checks.
The enemies are not Superman.
You can still be detected via hearing, and smell. Your breathing and your equipment still makes noise, and you still smell as normal. It would be pretty hard unless you were very close by, but possible.
Depends, a Goliath with a 20 STR should be able to do things without needing an ability check that a gnome with 8 STR would need an ability check for.
Lots of stuff doesn't need ability checks: walking, talking, hiring someone to do something for you, buying goods at normal prices, climbing a ladder or set of stairs, wading through calm water, writing letters/notes, jumping you normal jump distance, carrying stuff within your carry weight, searching a container for something it contains, etc... etc...
Depends who/what they are, they very well could be.
Being able to know which 5ft square you are in, just enough to make a wild swing (disadvantage) isn't actually that superhuman.
(Things like advantage and disadvantage paper over lots of detail in the game; making them all equivalent removes a lot of tactical detail, but within that conceit, the invisibility rule isn't unreasonable.)
Unless the PC has chimes hanging from their clothes, breathes like they're having sex, and hasn't bathed in 2 weeks, I can't imagine how that could be perceivable in the middle of a fight, unless the enemy has exceptional hearing, or smell. Like a werewolf would have.
Also, I think that a disadvantage is a very bad way to represent that difficulty. Not only because disadvantages don't stack (and accumulating stealth skills should logically have a cumulative effect), but also because many monsters a big bonuses to their perception, usually because of 1 specific sense. But that perception bonus doesn't get a penalty if that sense is somehow negated or obstructed, which is not fair.
Or a huge number of other creatures... Are you assuming you are exclusively fighting human commoners?
No, you don't. Being invisible does not grant advantage, it merely permits making stealth checks (you cannot hide while in plain view).
In the middle of a fight.. where you are desperately fighting for your life, you're likely to have some injuries/be bleeding and are swinging around a sword and/or casting spells. None of those things are particularly quiet or hard to detect. I mean if you are in a fog cloud swinging a sword at someone they definitely know exactly where you are from the way your sword hits them, seeing the ripples in the fog as you and your sword move through it, and the noise of your sword hitting things.
Mmm. But we're playing 5e. Previous editions might have what you're looking for, though complex rules aren’t always better.
Have you ever been in combat? It is amazing what your senses pick up.
As for not stacking, that is perfectly in line with other types of games as well as in real life. If there are 3 separate rows of hedges between you and me and we are shooting at each other, you get concealment from one hedge, the other 2 hedges do not increase your hiding ability.
No there is no logic about stealth having a cumulative effect. No matter how stealthy you are, one sneeze or one cough or one collision/knock/etc. of gear, coin etc., blows your stealth. You have to be 100% or otherwise it can all be for naught.
The primary reason invisibility doesn't prevent people from knowing your location in 5e is because "guess at the enemy's location" was terrible and unfun in previous editions, and basically made monsters with invisibility as a shtick binary -- if you had a means of negating invisibility they were very weak, if you didn't they were super strong.