Someone dove into the bushes and hid. They have only 3/4 cover and I know they haven't moved out. Can I hit them with an arrow? What's the penalty?
Uh, that's the cover rules, which is mostly separate from Hide, especially when you establish they only have 3/4 cover. Not really helping me see your point.
It is not the cover rules. The cover rules are one set (they add +5 to their AC) and the Invisibility condition is another (attacks against them have Disadvantage).
So shooting at a character who has hidden in the bushes is harder than shooting at someone who has not hidden in the bushes (in both cases they get cover, but in one case you can still see them and so your odds of hitting them are better).
If they only have 3/4 cover, they can't have hidden because you need total cover to hide. That's one of the few clear points in this mess.
Someone dove into the bushes and hid. They have only 3/4 cover and I know they haven't moved out. Can I hit them with an arrow? What's the penalty?
Uh, that's the cover rules, which is mostly separate from Hide, especially when you establish they only have 3/4 cover. Not really helping me see your point.
It is not the cover rules. The cover rules are one set (they add +5 to their AC) and the Invisibility condition is another (attacks against them have Disadvantage).
So shooting at a character who has hidden in the bushes is harder than shooting at someone who has not hidden in the bushes (in both cases they get cover, but in one case you can still see them and so your odds of hitting them are better).
If they only have 3/4 cover, they can't have hidden because you need total cover to hide. That's one of the few clear points in this mess.
My apologies. You are correct. They would need Total Cover. That does not obviate the point, however.
Rogue moves to a location that allows them to make a hide action (behind a tree for total cover). Archerr circles around the tree but the rogue continued to move after hiding and so is no longer behind the tree. However, there are only three locations (clumps of tall grass) that the rogue could have moved to and remained hidden. Archer cannot spot the rogue because the rogue rolled too well, but archer decides to fire into one of the clumps of grass. Unluckily for the rogue the archer guessed correctly.
Caster follows archer and casts Conjure Elemental, then sweeps the area of effect over all three clumps of grass.
Rogue continues to remain hidden, despite the fact that they were attacked and archer and caster decide the rogue must have escaped through magical means. Foolishly archer and caster begin to set up camp and rogue attacks them. New initiatives are rolled.
The Invisible condition handles all three of these.
Sure, they could set up a condition called 'Unseen', but if they did, why would that effects of that condition be any different from Invisible? It makes much more sense to have one condition.
This makes no sense. The reason why the hidden creature's position becomes known after attacking is precisely because its position is unknown before attacking.
Fallacy of the converse. The reason why the hidden creature's position becomes known after attacking is because it might have been unknown before attacking.
This would be a reasonable conclusion if the statement in question existed alone in a vacuum. But it does not. The concept is given by the entirety of the sidebar and needs to be fully read as a whole to understand the concept that is being presented. When I quoted this section of the rules earlier, I specifically underlined and highlighted three different portions of it. That was not random. I was showing the portions of the rule which all relate to the same scenario so that it would be more obvious how the concept of hiding is defined. For reference, I'll post that again here:
Unseen Attackers and Targets
When you make an attack roll against a target you can’t see, you have Disadvantage on the roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn’t in the location you targeted, you miss.
When a creature can’t see you, you have Advantage on attack rolls against it.
If you are hidden when you make an attack roll, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
Again, the sidebar is presenting rules for two scenarios: The first is when you can hear a creature but cannot see it, in which case you can pinpoint its location. The second is when you cannot hear and also cannot see the creature, so you have to guess the square. The sidebar goes on to make it obvious that being hidden refers to this second scenario. Yes, it would have been better if a few additional words were used here so that this would all be more obvious. But the authors chose to be as brief as possible while sacrificing clarity.
This is 100% totally incorrect. Perception checks always use a combination of senses and in this game hearing a creature is enough to pinpoint its exact location such that you do not have to guess the square (See the Unseen Attackers and Targets sidebar for the exact details on this).
There is nothing in the Unseen Attackers and Targets section that supports your interpretation. Essentially you're trying to argue that all characters have an improved version of Tremorsense and Tremorsense itself is useless.
Nope. Tremorsense is a totally different concept and it's not useless at all.
Basically, the main use for Tremorsense is to find hidden creatures.
Normally, if you can hear a creature but cannot see them you can still pinpoint their location. However, if you cannot hear the creature and you also cannot see the creature then that creature is hidden from me which means that I am unable to pinpoint its location . . . UNLESS I have some other unusual ability that allows me to do so such as Tremorsense:
A creature with Tremorsense can pinpoint the location of creatures and moving objects within a specific range, provided that the creature with Tremorsense and anything it is detecting are both in contact with the same surface (such as the ground, a wall, or a ceiling) or the same liquid.
As for this statement of yours: "There is nothing in the Unseen Attackers and Targets section that supports your interpretation" . . .
. . . I really have no idea what you are talking about. The Unseen Attackers and Targets sidebar very clearly and explicitly says exactly what I've claimed above -- in this game hearing a creature is enough to pinpoint its exact location such that you do not have to guess the square. I mean, this is not even debatable. The text cannot be clearer on that:
When you make an attack roll against a target you can’t see, you have Disadvantage on the roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location [ because it cannot be seen or heard ] or targeting a creature you can hear but not see [ in which case you do not have to guess the square because the target's location is known ].
If they only have 3/4 cover, they can't have hidden because you need total cover to hide. That's one of the few clear points in this mess.
Actually, this has been changed in the 2024 ruleset. 3/4 cover is enough as long as the enemy doesn't notice you at that moment for some reason (he was distracted or looking the other way or whatever):
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.
The value (success or failure) of the Stealth roll is meant to model whether or not you actually were out of sight and can remain out of sight while attempting to be stealthy behind Three-Quarters Cover.
Now, technically, of course, the phrase "line of sight" is used incorrectly here and should be changed. But there was a recent Sage Advice where they pretty much admit that they messed up with that wording and that we should ignore what "line of sight" actually means in the game and should instead interpret that phrase to mean something more like "you must be out of any enemy's view" or something similar that gets the point across that 360-degree awareness at all times is no longer assumed and maybe at a certain moment a creature does not notice you even though noticing you visually would have been possible if it was looking in the right place at that moment.
Sure, they could set up a condition called 'Unseen', but if they did, why would that effects of that condition be any different from Invisible? It makes much more sense to have one condition.
In game terms, having the Invisible condition is a bit different than being Unseen. It's one of the ways of being Unseen, but it's not the only way.
(As a side note here, as currently written the Invisible condition does not actually make a creature invisible. This is a bug, and should be corrected via errata, so we are all mostly ignoring this fact in these discussions. Rightly so, since the consequences of this error are beyond the scope of threads like these.)
The invisible condition grants a series of benefits that affect initiative and also certain effects that would otherwise target you and also the adjudication of attacks. Being Unseen mainly only grants a benefit that affects the adjudication of attacks.
There is nothing in the Unseen Attackers and Targets section that supports your interpretation. Essentially you're trying to argue that all characters have an improved version of Tremorsense and Tremorsense itself is useless.
"When you make an attack roll against a target you can’t see, you have Disadvantage on the roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or targeting a creature you can hear but not see." This indicates an either-or: you only have to guess at a creature's location if you can neither see nor hear it.
Does this make tremorsense kind of useless? Yes. However, I blame the rules being a poorly thought out mess, not that either rule does not mean what it says.
There is nothing in the Unseen Attackers and Targets section that supports your interpretation. Essentially you're trying to argue that all characters have an improved version of Tremorsense and Tremorsense itself is useless.
"When you make an attack roll against a target you can’t see, you have Disadvantage on the roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or targeting a creature you can hear but not see." This indicates an either-or: you only have to guess at a creature's location if you can neither see nor hear it.
In both cases, you have to apply the entire paragraph. This means you have Disadvantage on the attack roll and if you don't target the correct space, you automatically miss for both cases - not just one.
If there was a rule for targeting via hearing, there would be a rule for targeting via hearing. There is not. Everything that allows you to directly target an opponent is based on various forms of sight or explicitly calls out the exception (such as Tremorsense).
Sure, they could set up a condition called 'Unseen', but if they did, why would that effects of that condition be any different from Invisible?
In 2014, hidden is 'you have not been seen', whereas invisible is 'you cannot be seen'. Those are not the same concept.
As far as the Condition goes, they are. The problem is that you are hung up on the name.
Imagine if they just called the Condition 'Condition 3' instead of 'Invisible'. Condition 3 has the three rules that you get Advantage on Initiative, people who make attack rolls to hit you have Disadvantage, and spells that require the caster to see their target can't affect you.
Then they say that if you Hide you gain Condition 3, but it ends if someone finds you, you make a noise louder than a whisper, etc.. They also say that the Invisibility spell gives you Condition 3, but it ends if you cast a spell, make an attack, etc.
That seems to work perfectly fine. Unfortunately they gave it a descriptive name instead of Condition 3 and people seem to want to infer that the Condition has additional effects because of that descriptive name.
And Invisible is not unique in the fact that the descriptive name may apply in cases that do not, strictly, match the name. Poisoned is often used in cases where a character is suffering from the effect of something other than a poison (such as a disease), yet most people have no problems with that.
The actual text: "Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed.". It's not just spells. It's anything that would require sight - including locating/noticing you. So while it could have potentially been written more clearly, 'Invisible' does actually make you Invisible.
The problem is that tying mundane Hide to what is indicated to be explicit invisibility creates illogical and potentially broken results. Claiming that Hide trumps unobscured LoS is counterintuitive to existing 5e experience, largely negates the value of the Invisibility spell, and requires extrapolating from negative space that clear LoS is insufficient to meet the “an enemy finds you” criteria on the combat map. I’m aware people are quick to jump on the point that there’s no explicit rule defining baseline awareness of characters in combat, but insisting on only applying what is explicitly written is a dead end because there’s no definition at all, and so by RAW alone you have no proof that a character is ever able to be aware of something without making a Search Action.
Given that I think everyone can agree such an interpretation is unfeasible and that as there’s no rules like facing to automatically define a field of awareness, the only logical conclusion is that barring a condition like Blinded, characters maintain sufficient awareness of the map that stepping into their LoS qualifies as them finding you. No, it’s not spelled out point by point in RAW, but as RAW does not bother to give a point by point explanation of how senses work, we clearly need to default to common sense if we’re going to have a functional game.
While the 2024 rules may be 'counterintuitive to existing 5e experience', that's the whole point. The 2024 rules fix the mess from 2014 where Stealth/Hide were mostly useless because of the randomness of DM rulings. 2024 rules were designed to make Stealth/Hide reliable and predictable without all the mess of 2014 rules.
Nor is there the confusion with finding someone. You need some form of sight or effect that mimics sight to locate an enemy. This is not absent from the rules but laid out all across the rules.
You have to work pretty hard to ignore so many rules, insist that "Invisible doesn't mean Invisible" and delete features like Naturally Stealthy, Skulker or Supreme Sneak from your version of the rulebook. It's hard to see any purpose to such an extraordinary effort to ignore the clear text.
Unfortunately they gave it a descriptive name instead of Condition 3 and people seem to want to infer that the Condition has additional effects because of that descriptive name.
Yes, calling something 'Invisible' leads people to believe it confers invisibility. Funny how that works
And you're ignoring the confusion caused by the interaction of the "Invisible" condition with something like see invisibility, which should have absolutely no utility when you're trying to find someone who's merely hiding and isn't actually invisible
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Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
. . . so by RAW alone you have no proof that a character is ever able to be aware of something without making a Search Action. . .
Yes there is. Passive Perception. That is explicitly included to show that characters (especially those with high Perception) can notice things people might have trouble finding without making a Search action.
Unfortunately they gave it a descriptive name instead of Condition 3 and people seem to want to infer that the Condition has additional effects because of that descriptive name.
Yes, calling something 'Invisible' leads people to believe it confers invisibility. Funny how that works
And you're ignoring the confusion caused by the interaction of the "Invisible" condition with something like see invisibility, which should have absolutely no utility when you're trying to find someone who's merely hiding and isn't actually invisible
And yet you have no difficulty with the fact that the Poisoned Condition does not mandate that a character actually be poisoned. Again, I agree that the name could be better. I'm just saying that the fact they chose that word is not 'game breaking' as long as people do not try to grant abilities to the Condition that the Condition does not state.
Additionally, I'm not ignoring the confusion of the Invisible Condition with spells like See Invisibility at all. The spell clearly states how it works. You might feel that it should have no utility, but that is similar to the situation if you felt that Fireball should give people the Burning Condition. You are free to houserule that it occurs, but by RAW the effects are defined (i.e., See Invisibility along with True Seeing detect characters hidden by from sight by Stealth). I will point out that if the designers did not wish See Invisibility to spot characters using Stealth it would have been very easy for them to do so and simply include that in the text of the spell (look at True Seeing which explicitly states that it only sees through magical disguises, making it clear that the spell does not pierce the use of the Disguise kit).
. . . so by RAW alone you have no proof that a character is ever able to be aware of something without making a Search Action. . .
Yes there is. Passive Perception. That is explicitly included to show that characters (especially those with high Perception) can notice things people might have trouble finding without making a Search action.
And we have no RAW for applying that to general awareness, so my point stands that trying to apply the negative space of “it doesn’t explicitly say characters have constant 360 LoS for the purposes of a combat map” is not a useful datapoint because we have no explicit RAW for awareness in general. Passive Perception has no actual examples of how it is supposed to be implemented, just a vague “The DM uses this score when determining whether a creature notices something without consciously making a Wisdom (Perception) check”. Granting that it means one would not need to take an Action to see basically anything in character, a purely literal reading of the rules still suggests one needs to stop and consult the character sheet to see if they can be aware of any given thing, which I expect everyone can agree is not RAI. Which leads me to
While the 2024 rules may be 'counterintuitive to existing 5e experience', that's the whole point. The 2024 rules fix the mess from 2014 where Stealth/Hide were mostly useless because of the randomness of DM rulings. 2024 rules were designed to make Stealth/Hide reliable and predictable without all the mess of 2014 rules.
Nor is there the confusion with finding someone. You need some form of sight or effect that mimics sight to locate an enemy. This is not absent from the rules but laid out all across the rules.
You have to work pretty hard to ignore so many rules, insist that "Invisible doesn't mean Invisible" and delete features like Naturally Stealthy, Skulker or Supreme Sneak from your version of the rulebook. It's hard to see any purpose to such an extraordinary effort to ignore the clear text.
The 2024 rules demonstrably do not fix anything regarding Stealth, as evidenced by the ongoing debate over the mechanics and intent of the 2024 Hide Action, whereas the functionality of the 2014 iteration was quite clear-cut.
Can you point to the rule/passage that describes sight as you describe it in the new core books? It’s a commonly raised point on both sides of this debate that there’s no explicit RAW affirming combat awareness as there was in the 2014 DMG.
And what “clear text” is there? The part that says “you’re invisible until you’re found”, which is either substantially pointless if LoS allows one to be found or a catch-22 “I’m hidden until you find me, but you can’t find me because I’m hidden”, even in cases where one could turn a corner in normal light and have unobstructed LoS on a stationary target?
. . . so by RAW alone you have no proof that a character is ever able to be aware of something without making a Search Action. . .
Yes there is. Passive Perception. That is explicitly included to show that characters (especially those with high Perception) can notice things people might have trouble finding without making a Search action.
. . .Granting that it means one would not need to take an Action to see basically anything in character, a purely literal reading of the rules still suggests one needs to stop and consult the character sheet to see if they can be aware of any given thing, which I expect everyone can agree is not RAI. . .
That purely literal reading only makes that suggestion if you ignore things such as "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" and the fact that the DC for a Very Easy task is a 5 (which means the only way someone could miss that on a Passive Check is to have a penalty from a low Ability score and Disadvantage on the roll, which creates the situation where it is possible for something to be missed, and "there are meaningful consequences for failure")
. . . so by RAW alone you have no proof that a character is ever able to be aware of something without making a Search Action. . .
Yes there is. Passive Perception. That is explicitly included to show that characters (especially those with high Perception) can notice things people might have trouble finding without making a Search action.
. . .Granting that it means one would not need to take an Action to see basically anything in character, a purely literal reading of the rules still suggests one needs to stop and consult the character sheet to see if they can be aware of any given thing, which I expect everyone can agree is not RAI. . .
That purely literal reading only makes that suggestion if you ignore things such as "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" and the fact that the DC for a Very Easy task is a 5 (which means the only way someone could miss that on a Passive Check is to have a penalty from a low Ability score and Disadvantage on the roll, which creates the situation where it is possible for something to be missed, and "there are meaningful consequences for failure")
And does “perceiving someone in an open well lit space” meet the criteria for trivial? Because here is where we return to the point that defaulting to the “Invisible” condition and “hidden until you’re found” is bad design because if the above does meet the criteria then “invisible” is being applied counterintuitively since they’re clearly still visible, and if not then we have the converse issue of what should be a trivial capability and consequent effect become impossible for an irrational reason.
I will point out that if the designers did not wish See Invisibility to spot characters using Stealth it would have been very easy for them to do so and simply include that in the text of the spell (look at True Seeing which explicitly states that it only sees through magical disguises, making it clear that the spell does not pierce the use of the Disguise kit).
This is a case where I truly do not care what the RAI is. I used the word 'should' for a reason
See Invisibility should not help you spot someone who's merely hiding. That's utterly stupid
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Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Sure, they could set up a condition called 'Unseen', but if they did, why would that effects of that condition be any different from Invisible?
In 2014, hidden is 'you have not been seen', whereas invisible is 'you cannot be seen'. Those are not the same concept.
As far as the Condition goes, they are. The problem is that you are hung up on the name.
No, they are not the same. Invisible includes "perception rolls to see the character automatically fail" (at least, in 2014. 2024 invisibility doesn't actually have any language indicating that the creature is difficult to see).
Sure, they could set up a condition called 'Unseen', but if they did, why would that effects of that condition be any different from Invisible?
In 2014, hidden is 'you have not been seen', whereas invisible is 'you cannot be seen'. Those are not the same concept.
As far as the Condition goes, they are. The problem is that you are hung up on the name.
No, they are not the same. Invisible includes "perception rolls to see the character automatically fail" (at least, in 2014. 2024 invisibility doesn't actually have any language indicating that the creature is difficult to see).
As you yourself point out, "perception rolls to see the character automatically fail" does not exist in 2024. While the Conditions have the same name they are not, in fact, identical to one another. Had they called it 'Condition 3' you would not be attempting to be adding 2014 wording to the Condition.
That is, at least partially, what I mean by 'being hung up on the name'. You are trying to add features to the Condition that it does not explicitly have due to the name itself.
As you yourself point out, "perception rolls to see the character automatically fail" does not exist in 2024.
And you have to either retcon it back in, or render invisibility from effects other than hide totally nonsensical because invisibility is negated if the observer can 'somehow see' the invisible creature, and if you don't assume there's anything to the invisible condition preventing them from being seen, they just get seen and invisibility has no effect.
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If they only have 3/4 cover, they can't have hidden because you need total cover to hide. That's one of the few clear points in this mess.
My apologies. You are correct. They would need Total Cover. That does not obviate the point, however.
Rogue moves to a location that allows them to make a hide action (behind a tree for total cover). Archerr circles around the tree but the rogue continued to move after hiding and so is no longer behind the tree. However, there are only three locations (clumps of tall grass) that the rogue could have moved to and remained hidden. Archer cannot spot the rogue because the rogue rolled too well, but archer decides to fire into one of the clumps of grass. Unluckily for the rogue the archer guessed correctly.
Caster follows archer and casts Conjure Elemental, then sweeps the area of effect over all three clumps of grass.
Rogue continues to remain hidden, despite the fact that they were attacked and archer and caster decide the rogue must have escaped through magical means. Foolishly archer and caster begin to set up camp and rogue attacks them. New initiatives are rolled.
The Invisible condition handles all three of these.
Sure, they could set up a condition called 'Unseen', but if they did, why would that effects of that condition be any different from Invisible? It makes much more sense to have one condition.
This would be a reasonable conclusion if the statement in question existed alone in a vacuum. But it does not. The concept is given by the entirety of the sidebar and needs to be fully read as a whole to understand the concept that is being presented. When I quoted this section of the rules earlier, I specifically underlined and highlighted three different portions of it. That was not random. I was showing the portions of the rule which all relate to the same scenario so that it would be more obvious how the concept of hiding is defined. For reference, I'll post that again here:
Again, the sidebar is presenting rules for two scenarios: The first is when you can hear a creature but cannot see it, in which case you can pinpoint its location. The second is when you cannot hear and also cannot see the creature, so you have to guess the square. The sidebar goes on to make it obvious that being hidden refers to this second scenario. Yes, it would have been better if a few additional words were used here so that this would all be more obvious. But the authors chose to be as brief as possible while sacrificing clarity.
Nope. Tremorsense is a totally different concept and it's not useless at all.
Basically, the main use for Tremorsense is to find hidden creatures.
Normally, if you can hear a creature but cannot see them you can still pinpoint their location. However, if you cannot hear the creature and you also cannot see the creature then that creature is hidden from me which means that I am unable to pinpoint its location . . . UNLESS I have some other unusual ability that allows me to do so such as Tremorsense:
As for this statement of yours: "There is nothing in the Unseen Attackers and Targets section that supports your interpretation" . . .
. . . I really have no idea what you are talking about. The Unseen Attackers and Targets sidebar very clearly and explicitly says exactly what I've claimed above -- in this game hearing a creature is enough to pinpoint its exact location such that you do not have to guess the square. I mean, this is not even debatable. The text cannot be clearer on that:
Actually, this has been changed in the 2024 ruleset. 3/4 cover is enough as long as the enemy doesn't notice you at that moment for some reason (he was distracted or looking the other way or whatever):
The value (success or failure) of the Stealth roll is meant to model whether or not you actually were out of sight and can remain out of sight while attempting to be stealthy behind Three-Quarters Cover.
Now, technically, of course, the phrase "line of sight" is used incorrectly here and should be changed. But there was a recent Sage Advice where they pretty much admit that they messed up with that wording and that we should ignore what "line of sight" actually means in the game and should instead interpret that phrase to mean something more like "you must be out of any enemy's view" or something similar that gets the point across that 360-degree awareness at all times is no longer assumed and maybe at a certain moment a creature does not notice you even though noticing you visually would have been possible if it was looking in the right place at that moment.
In game terms, having the Invisible condition is a bit different than being Unseen. It's one of the ways of being Unseen, but it's not the only way.
(As a side note here, as currently written the Invisible condition does not actually make a creature invisible. This is a bug, and should be corrected via errata, so we are all mostly ignoring this fact in these discussions. Rightly so, since the consequences of this error are beyond the scope of threads like these.)
The invisible condition grants a series of benefits that affect initiative and also certain effects that would otherwise target you and also the adjudication of attacks. Being Unseen mainly only grants a benefit that affects the adjudication of attacks.
"When you make an attack roll against a target you can’t see, you have Disadvantage on the roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or targeting a creature you can hear but not see." This indicates an either-or: you only have to guess at a creature's location if you can neither see nor hear it.
Does this make tremorsense kind of useless? Yes. However, I blame the rules being a poorly thought out mess, not that either rule does not mean what it says.
In both cases, you have to apply the entire paragraph. This means you have Disadvantage on the attack roll and if you don't target the correct space, you automatically miss for both cases - not just one.
If there was a rule for targeting via hearing, there would be a rule for targeting via hearing. There is not. Everything that allows you to directly target an opponent is based on various forms of sight or explicitly calls out the exception (such as Tremorsense).
In 2014, hidden is 'you have not been seen', whereas invisible is 'you cannot be seen'. Those are not the same concept.
As far as the Condition goes, they are. The problem is that you are hung up on the name.
Imagine if they just called the Condition 'Condition 3' instead of 'Invisible'. Condition 3 has the three rules that you get Advantage on Initiative, people who make attack rolls to hit you have Disadvantage, and spells that require the caster to see their target can't affect you.
Then they say that if you Hide you gain Condition 3, but it ends if someone finds you, you make a noise louder than a whisper, etc.. They also say that the Invisibility spell gives you Condition 3, but it ends if you cast a spell, make an attack, etc.
That seems to work perfectly fine. Unfortunately they gave it a descriptive name instead of Condition 3 and people seem to want to infer that the Condition has additional effects because of that descriptive name.
And Invisible is not unique in the fact that the descriptive name may apply in cases that do not, strictly, match the name. Poisoned is often used in cases where a character is suffering from the effect of something other than a poison (such as a disease), yet most people have no problems with that.
The actual text: "Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed.". It's not just spells. It's anything that would require sight - including locating/noticing you. So while it could have potentially been written more clearly, 'Invisible' does actually make you Invisible.
The problem is that tying mundane Hide to what is indicated to be explicit invisibility creates illogical and potentially broken results. Claiming that Hide trumps unobscured LoS is counterintuitive to existing 5e experience, largely negates the value of the Invisibility spell, and requires extrapolating from negative space that clear LoS is insufficient to meet the “an enemy finds you” criteria on the combat map. I’m aware people are quick to jump on the point that there’s no explicit rule defining baseline awareness of characters in combat, but insisting on only applying what is explicitly written is a dead end because there’s no definition at all, and so by RAW alone you have no proof that a character is ever able to be aware of something without making a Search Action.
Given that I think everyone can agree such an interpretation is unfeasible and that as there’s no rules like facing to automatically define a field of awareness, the only logical conclusion is that barring a condition like Blinded, characters maintain sufficient awareness of the map that stepping into their LoS qualifies as them finding you. No, it’s not spelled out point by point in RAW, but as RAW does not bother to give a point by point explanation of how senses work, we clearly need to default to common sense if we’re going to have a functional game.
While the 2024 rules may be 'counterintuitive to existing 5e experience', that's the whole point. The 2024 rules fix the mess from 2014 where Stealth/Hide were mostly useless because of the randomness of DM rulings. 2024 rules were designed to make Stealth/Hide reliable and predictable without all the mess of 2014 rules.
Nor is there the confusion with finding someone. You need some form of sight or effect that mimics sight to locate an enemy. This is not absent from the rules but laid out all across the rules.
You have to work pretty hard to ignore so many rules, insist that "Invisible doesn't mean Invisible" and delete features like Naturally Stealthy, Skulker or Supreme Sneak from your version of the rulebook. It's hard to see any purpose to such an extraordinary effort to ignore the clear text.
Yes, calling something 'Invisible' leads people to believe it confers invisibility. Funny how that works
And you're ignoring the confusion caused by the interaction of the "Invisible" condition with something like see invisibility, which should have absolutely no utility when you're trying to find someone who's merely hiding and isn't actually invisible
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Yes there is. Passive Perception. That is explicitly included to show that characters (especially those with high Perception) can notice things people might have trouble finding without making a Search action.
And yet you have no difficulty with the fact that the Poisoned Condition does not mandate that a character actually be poisoned. Again, I agree that the name could be better. I'm just saying that the fact they chose that word is not 'game breaking' as long as people do not try to grant abilities to the Condition that the Condition does not state.
Additionally, I'm not ignoring the confusion of the Invisible Condition with spells like See Invisibility at all. The spell clearly states how it works. You might feel that it should have no utility, but that is similar to the situation if you felt that Fireball should give people the Burning Condition. You are free to houserule that it occurs, but by RAW the effects are defined (i.e., See Invisibility along with True Seeing detect characters hidden by from sight by Stealth). I will point out that if the designers did not wish See Invisibility to spot characters using Stealth it would have been very easy for them to do so and simply include that in the text of the spell (look at True Seeing which explicitly states that it only sees through magical disguises, making it clear that the spell does not pierce the use of the Disguise kit).
And we have no RAW for applying that to general awareness, so my point stands that trying to apply the negative space of “it doesn’t explicitly say characters have constant 360 LoS for the purposes of a combat map” is not a useful datapoint because we have no explicit RAW for awareness in general. Passive Perception has no actual examples of how it is supposed to be implemented, just a vague “The DM uses this score when determining whether a creature notices something without consciously making a Wisdom (Perception) check”. Granting that it means one would not need to take an Action to see basically anything in character, a purely literal reading of the rules still suggests one needs to stop and consult the character sheet to see if they can be aware of any given thing, which I expect everyone can agree is not RAI. Which leads me to
The 2024 rules demonstrably do not fix anything regarding Stealth, as evidenced by the ongoing debate over the mechanics and intent of the 2024 Hide Action, whereas the functionality of the 2014 iteration was quite clear-cut.
Can you point to the rule/passage that describes sight as you describe it in the new core books? It’s a commonly raised point on both sides of this debate that there’s no explicit RAW affirming combat awareness as there was in the 2014 DMG.
And what “clear text” is there? The part that says “you’re invisible until you’re found”, which is either substantially pointless if LoS allows one to be found or a catch-22 “I’m hidden until you find me, but you can’t find me because I’m hidden”, even in cases where one could turn a corner in normal light and have unobstructed LoS on a stationary target?
That purely literal reading only makes that suggestion if you ignore things such as "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" and the fact that the DC for a Very Easy task is a 5 (which means the only way someone could miss that on a Passive Check is to have a penalty from a low Ability score and Disadvantage on the roll, which creates the situation where it is possible for something to be missed, and "there are meaningful consequences for failure")
And does “perceiving someone in an open well lit space” meet the criteria for trivial? Because here is where we return to the point that defaulting to the “Invisible” condition and “hidden until you’re found” is bad design because if the above does meet the criteria then “invisible” is being applied counterintuitively since they’re clearly still visible, and if not then we have the converse issue of what should be a trivial capability and consequent effect become impossible for an irrational reason.
This is a case where I truly do not care what the RAI is. I used the word 'should' for a reason
See Invisibility should not help you spot someone who's merely hiding. That's utterly stupid
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
No, they are not the same. Invisible includes "perception rolls to see the character automatically fail" (at least, in 2014. 2024 invisibility doesn't actually have any language indicating that the creature is difficult to see).
As you yourself point out, "perception rolls to see the character automatically fail" does not exist in 2024. While the Conditions have the same name they are not, in fact, identical to one another. Had they called it 'Condition 3' you would not be attempting to be adding 2014 wording to the Condition.
That is, at least partially, what I mean by 'being hung up on the name'. You are trying to add features to the Condition that it does not explicitly have due to the name itself.
And you have to either retcon it back in, or render invisibility from effects other than hide totally nonsensical because invisibility is negated if the observer can 'somehow see' the invisible creature, and if you don't assume there's anything to the invisible condition preventing them from being seen, they just get seen and invisibility has no effect.