Blindsight is a catch-all for things like super-hearing, super-smell, and indeed specifies that it is "without relying on sight," so I would wager that Blindsight will join Tremorsense in the "not sight" category. But Darkvision and Truesight already specify that their creature can "see", so I'd wager that they will continue to. We'll have Blindsight and Tremorsense in one pile, and regular Vision, Darkvision, and Truesight in the other.
Blindsight is a catch-all for things like super-hearing, super-smell, and indeed specifies that it is "without relying on sight," so I would wager that Blindsight will join Tremorsense in the "not sight" category. But Darkvision and Truesight already specify that their creature can "see", so I'd wager that they will continue to. We'll have Blindsight and Tremorsense in one pile, and regular Vision, Darkvision, and Truesight in the other.
Blindsight literally has “sight” in its name, so I’ll take that wager 😉
Blindsight is a catch-all for things like super-hearing, super-smell, and indeed specifies that it is "without relying on sight,"
Blindsight is clearly intended to serve the functions of sight -- there are creatures with "blindsight 60' (blind beyond this distance)", which doesn't make any sense unless blindsight counts as sight.
It would be great if the new rules, instead of having two terms that are very similar, had distinct terms for senses that don't count as seeing a creature and senses that still do even if it doesn't rely on traditional vision. It seems like there should be other sense options, especially for monsters, that would allow targeting of spells and abilities without vision.
Unless, maybe, sight isn't going to be the default precise locator anymore.
Blindsight is a catch-all for things like super-hearing, super-smell, and indeed specifies that it is "without relying on sight,"
Blindsight is clearly intended to serve the functions of sight -- there are creatures with "blindsight 60' (blind beyond this distance)", which doesn't make any sense unless blindsight counts as sight.
There is also the relatively newly introduced fighting style called Blindflighting (Tasha's) that provides blindsight in a 10' radius.
If blindsight doesn't let the user effectively see the opponent then this fighting style would do nothing. The location of an attacker is known as soon as they attack or if their position was known and they haven't taken the hide action (and the DM decides that a creature isn't automatically hidden due to ambient conditions preventing its detection by other means) so a feat that lets you know where a creature is within 10' is virtually useless if it doesn't also cancel the disadvantage you would have to hit the target and the advantage they would have to hit you if they can see you (eg magical darkness). Similarly, in fog it would provide no benefit since when two creatures can't see each other advantage and disadvantage cancel leaving a straight roll.
If they decide Blindsight isn't considered "seeing the target" then I'd have to say the designers need to be sent back to design school :)
It would be great if the new rules, instead of having two terms that are very similar, had distinct terms for senses that don't count as seeing a creature and senses that still do even if it doesn't rely on traditional vision.
Game systems with a robust set of rules for exotic senses usually have multiple keywords for senses, one of which is whether the sense can be used to make an aimed attack (other major concerns are what it can detect, whether it can positively identify things it can detect, what sort of range does it have, what sort of field of view it has, what sort of action is required to use it, and what it can and cannot see through). However, D&D 5e has generally been resistant to providing rigorous rules.
Blindsight is a catch-all for things like super-hearing, super-smell, and indeed specifies that it is "without relying on sight," so I would wager that Blindsight will join Tremorsense in the "not sight" category. But Darkvision and Truesight already specify that their creature can "see", so I'd wager that they will continue to. We'll have Blindsight and Tremorsense in one pile, and regular Vision, Darkvision, and Truesight in the other.
I'll take that bet. Tremorsense has never been a form of sight but people were often convinced it was, so the new definition being explicit is helpful. Blindsight has always been sight but people (including you, clearly!) have sometimes been convinced it wasn't, so hopefully it will be explicitly clarified in the other direction.
The "piles" have always been like this:
Tremorsense is functionally super-hearing - creatures within range that can be Tremorsensed are automatically located. It is the only one of the senses you listed that isn't sight.
Basic sight is you can see normally in bright light, with disadvantage in dim, and not at all in darkness, through non-darkness sources of heavily obscured, or when what you want to see is invisible.
Darkvision upgrades basic sight so you see normally in dim and with disadvantage + in black and white in darkness.
Truesight upgrades darkvision so you see normally in darkness, it has an explicit override letting you see normally in magical darkness that has text in it blocking darkvision, it lets you see invisible creatures, automatically "beats" visual illusions, miraculously "beats" shapechangers and magical transmutations to see the original form, and sees into the Ethereal Plane. A creature with both Truesight and Darkvision has no use at all for Darkvision.
Blindsight is generally an upgrade to Truesight - without special rules to the contrary you now see through almost all sources of something being heavily obscured, including opaque total cover. This will provide all of the benefits of Truesight for most purposes - no disadvantage in dim light or darkness (regardless of magical darkness that says it blocks darkvision) and Invisibility doesn't matter to you. You won't get the weirder Truesight benefits having to do with shapechangers and the Ethereal Plane, but you'll get a weaker version of illusion defeating: strictly visual illusions won't matter to you. On the other hand, under most DMs you'll be even worse off than Darkvision's black and white, as you won't be able to perceive anything that isn't a difference in texture (e.g. a tile mosaic will just look like tiles to you).
I'll take that bet. Tremorsense has never been a form of sight but people were often convinced it was, so the new definition being explicit is helpful.
Tremorsense has never specifically said whether it's a form of sight. It wouldn't have invalidated anything if they ruled that it did function as sight, but it also doesn't invalidate anything to rule that it doesn't.
While Blindsight may have "sight" in the name, it also has "blind" in the name. Who cares what the name is, look at the description:
A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.
Creatures without eyes, such as grimlocks and gray oozes, typically have this special sense, as do creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons.
If a monster is naturally blind, it has a parenthetical note to this effect, indicating that the radius of its blindsight defines the maximum range of its perception.
Nothing within Blindsight says that a creature can "see" or has "sight," and in fact, the first sentence says quite the opposite. Instead, this special sense grants it "perception."
A monster with tremorsense can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius, provided that the monster and the source of the vibrations are in contact with the same ground or substance.
Tremorsense can't be used to detect flying or incorporeal creatures. Many burrowing creatures, such as ankhegs, have this special sense.
Note the similarities: Tremorsense is also a special sense with no mention of "sight" or "seeing"... and with the new playtest rules, we have a good indication that this omission was as RAI as it is RAW.
A monster with darkvision can see in the dark within a specific radius. The monster can see in dim light within the radius as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. The monster can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. Many creatures that live underground have this special sense.
Darkvision doesn't merely let a creature "detect," "perceive," or "pinpoint"... it lets them "see."
Blindsight and Tremorsense use very similar language, which is very dissimilar from Darkvision and Truesight. Merely because Blindsight allows one to effectively "perceive" creatures is not to say that it allows one to "see" them... one need only look at Perception to see that it contemplates perception by hearing, or by other special senses, with no sight or vision involved.
Perception
Your Wisdom (Perception) check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses. For example, you might try to hear a conversation through a closed door, eavesdrop under an open window, or hear monsters moving stealthily in the forest. Or you might try to spot things that are obscured or easy to miss, whether they are orcs lying in ambush on a road, thugs hiding in the shadows of an alley, or candlelight under a closed secret door.
Blindsight does not permit a creature to "see" an enemy, because it doesn't say it does, while other special senses do. Just like you can't target a creature that you must "see" using Tremorsense (because it doesn't say you can), you also can't target a creature that you must "see" using Blindsight (for the same reason).
I look forward to the new PHB printing making this more explicit, as it has forecasted it intends to.
If you have Blindsight, you can effectively see within a specific range without relying on physical sight. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind Total Cover, even if you’re Blinded or in Darkness. Moreover, you can effectively see a Hidden or an Invisible creature in that range.
But ooooooof is that poorly written. You can see, without seeing? A+ use of vocabulary, JC, you've outdone yourself again. You can see even if you're Blinded... but lets see if they phrase that tight enough to provide you immunity to being Blinded, or if that's going to remain a tangle. And "you can effectively see a Hidden" creature? Wtf does that even mean, does that mean that you cannot ever Hide from a creature with Blindsight, or only that you'll get some benefits but not others?
Looking closer at Hide and Hidden... yeah, that seems to be the intent, Blindsight is just a total defense against stealth, period.
HIDDEN [CONDITION]
While you are Hidden, you experience the following effects:
Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen
Surprise. If you are Hidden when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.
Attacks Affected. Attack Rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your Attack Rolls have Advantage.
Ending the Condition. The Condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurrences: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an Attack Roll, you cast a Spell with a verbal component, or you aren’t Heavily Obscured or behind any Cover.
HIDE [ACTION]
With the Hide Action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must make a DC 15 Dexterity Check (Stealth) while you’re Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, and you must be out of any visible enemy’s line of sight; if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you. On a successful check, you are Hidden. Make note of your check’s total, which becomes the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom Check (Perception).
That... doesn't seem fun, or narratively intuitive for a lot of Blindsight creatures, and doesn't match up with a lot of literary examples. Oh well, I guess Hiding has been nerfed!
The problem is that they haven't come with a good alternative wording for "creature you can see"/etc that means "creature you can perceive with a sense of type X" (the only d20 based system I've seen do a competent job of this is Mutants and Masterminds, which is a superhero system. In that system, a power could have a range of perception, meaning it requires the user to detect the target with an 'accurate' sense).
That... doesn't seem fun, or narratively intuitive for a lot of Blindsight creatures, and doesn't match up with a lot of literary examples. Oh well, I guess Hiding has been nerfed!
It does match up with literary examples of Blindsight, which is extremely rare, as you might imagine. Most of the literary examples you're thinking of would have been statted in prior editions with Blindsense, which is Tremorsense without being limited to solids and liquids only - being able to use non-visual senses on the air so well that creatures are located no matter what. Of course, some of the examples you're thinking of could well be just Keen Senses (advantage on the relevant Perception checks) or the like, I can't be certain.
Blindsight has worked exactly like an ultrasound for as long as it's existed in D&D. You know how you can see the baby on an ultrasound? Same thing.
What I suggest you do in your games if you want people to be able to Hide from Blindsight is simply nerf your creatures to have Blindsense as I spelled out above (if you want them to be able to become Unseen but not Unheard) or even Keen Hearing if you want it to be possible to be so quiet the creature with active sonar has a chance not to hear you.
What happens if one creature sees you, but another doesn't? Are you considered hidden vs one, or not hidden at all?
What happens if you're Blinded, but have Blindsight? Explicitly you can still "effectively see"... but what about other Blinded bullet points about game effects that aren't explicitly whether you can see or not (disadvantage, etc.)
What happens if you're Invisible, but a creature with Blindsight sees you? Explicitly they can "effectively see" you... but what about other Invisible bullet points about game effects like your advantage on initiative, etc?
They need to condense all of this down into one condition, "hidden"
If you're blinded, all creatures are "hidden" against you, unless you detect them with another sense
supernatural senses should remove the passive hidden presumption for blinded eyes without requiring you to Search, but NOT presumptively prevent all active hiding attempts within their radius.
regular senses can also be used to attempt hidden creatures with a Search, even when you're blinded, they just might have higher DCs when you don't have your eyes to rely on
If you're concealed (whether by darkness, fog effects, cover, etc.), you are "hidden" against all creatures, unless they detect you (with a special sense that removes this presumption automatically, or with any sense with an active Search)
If you're Invisible, you are "hidden" against all creatures, unless they detect you (with a special sense that removes this presumption automatically, or with any sense with an active Search)
If you Hide, you are "hidden" against all creatures, unless they detect you with an active search (DM should be invited to set a lower DC for those with special senses vs. those using any normal sense)
You may be "hidden" against some creatures and not others; being discovered by one enemy does not necessarily end the condition in relation to others unless the DM determines that is appropriate.
If you are "hidden," you have advantage on attacks against creatures you are hidden from, and their attacks have disadvantage against you (if they can even pick the right square to attack)
There, see how all four contexts can be phrased in relation to a single concept, "hidden"? That's what's needed here, not carrying forward multiple overlapping conditions that describe the same situation from both the see-er's and the seen's perspective redundently.
They need to condense all of this down into one condition, "hidden"
I would probably go with a different term just to avoid confusion with the Hide action, such as Concealed (the term used in 3e and 4e). However, what they really need to do is come up with a word that means "detect with a sight-like ability" that is not "see", because there's no way to make blindsight not sound like nonsense while using "see".
When I initially read through the PHB I assumed the Blinded and Invisible conditions were simply reiterating the drawbacks oof being unable to see and benefits of being unseen respectively. It wasn't until I was shown the Dragon Talks where JC addressed this that I realized they were separated rules.
The fact that Hidden is now a condition in the play test material seems to make the Unseen Attackers and Targets rule irrelevant. I do appreciate WotC going about defining clear game terms this time (it certainly makes programming a VTT easier), but I feel like this all would have been a lot simpler and easier to understand if they leaned on the Unseen Attackers and Targets rule more.
UA talk isn't really helpful in the rules and mechanics forum. It doesn't really matter for 5e what the playtest packet says, and obviously the playtest rules aren't set in stone.
You're only hidden from people who can't see you. If you're invisible, heavily obscured or behind total cover and some creatures can still see or perceive you somehow (See Invisibility, Blindsight, X-Rays etc) while others don't, you should be hidden to some and not to others. I don't think ONED&D brings anything new here, but having Hidden being a condition is a good decision. What it doesn't address is the part of Unseen Attacks and Targets in the PHB refering to target location;
This is true whether you're guessing the target's location or you're targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.
If you have Blindsight, you can effectively see within a specific range without relying on physical sight. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind Total Cover, even if you’re Blinded or in Darkness. Moreover, you can effectively see a Hidden or an Invisible creature in that range.
But ooooooof is that poorly written. You can see, without seeing? A+ use of vocabulary, JC, you've outdone yourself again. You can see even if you're Blinded... but lets see if they phrase that tight enough to provide you immunity to being Blinded, or if that's going to remain a tangle. And "you can effectively see a Hidden" creature? Wtf does that even mean, does that mean that you cannot ever Hide from a creature with Blindsight, or only that you'll get some benefits but not others?
Looking closer at Hide and Hidden... yeah, that seems to be the intent, Blindsight is just a total defense against stealth, period.
HIDDEN [CONDITION]
While you are Hidden, you experience the following effects:
Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen
Surprise. If you are Hidden when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.
Attacks Affected. Attack Rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your Attack Rolls have Advantage.
Ending the Condition. The Condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurrences: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an Attack Roll, you cast a Spell with a verbal component, or you aren’t Heavily Obscured or behind any Cover.
HIDE [ACTION]
With the Hide Action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must make a DC 15 Dexterity Check (Stealth) while you’re Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, and you must be out of any visible enemy’s line of sight; if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you. On a successful check, you are Hidden. Make note of your check’s total, which becomes the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom Check (Perception).
That... doesn't seem fun, or narratively intuitive for a lot of Blindsight creatures, and doesn't match up with a lot of literary examples. Oh well, I guess Hiding has been nerfed!
However, they didn't change invisibility.
"INVISIBLE[CONDITION] While you are Invisible, you experience the following effects:
Unseeable.You can’t be seen, so you aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen.Any equipment youare wearing or carrying also can’t be seen. Surprise.If you are Invisible when you rollinitiative, you have Advantage on the roll.
Given some of the developer opinions floating around they need to make it explicit that if you can be seen by whatever method, you are no longer invisible (condition) to the creature that can see you.
RAW, you can cast a spell and select a target inside a heavily obscured area (i.e., in darkness) unless that spell specifically requires you to see the target.
Okay, the rule is that, although it seems strange to me because there isn't a clear path to it (considering you are suffering from blind condition when looking into that area):
A Clear Path to the Target (PHB, p. 204)
To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction.
Anyway, apart from my thoughts, if you select a target inside that heavily obscured area and, surprisingly, between you and the target, there is the wall mentioned in the rule, then "the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction", right? Good luck if you cast fireball 😅
Blindsight is a catch-all for things like super-hearing, super-smell, and indeed specifies that it is "without relying on sight," so I would wager that Blindsight will join Tremorsense in the "not sight" category. But Darkvision and Truesight already specify that their creature can "see", so I'd wager that they will continue to. We'll have Blindsight and Tremorsense in one pile, and regular Vision, Darkvision, and Truesight in the other.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Blindsight literally has “sight” in its name, so I’ll take that wager 😉
Blindsight is clearly intended to serve the functions of sight -- there are creatures with "blindsight 60' (blind beyond this distance)", which doesn't make any sense unless blindsight counts as sight.
It would be great if the new rules, instead of having two terms that are very similar, had distinct terms for senses that don't count as seeing a creature and senses that still do even if it doesn't rely on traditional vision. It seems like there should be other sense options, especially for monsters, that would allow targeting of spells and abilities without vision.
Unless, maybe, sight isn't going to be the default precise locator anymore.
There is also the relatively newly introduced fighting style called Blindflighting (Tasha's) that provides blindsight in a 10' radius.
If blindsight doesn't let the user effectively see the opponent then this fighting style would do nothing. The location of an attacker is known as soon as they attack or if their position was known and they haven't taken the hide action (and the DM decides that a creature isn't automatically hidden due to ambient conditions preventing its detection by other means) so a feat that lets you know where a creature is within 10' is virtually useless if it doesn't also cancel the disadvantage you would have to hit the target and the advantage they would have to hit you if they can see you (eg magical darkness). Similarly, in fog it would provide no benefit since when two creatures can't see each other advantage and disadvantage cancel leaving a straight roll.
If they decide Blindsight isn't considered "seeing the target" then I'd have to say the designers need to be sent back to design school :)
Game systems with a robust set of rules for exotic senses usually have multiple keywords for senses, one of which is whether the sense can be used to make an aimed attack (other major concerns are what it can detect, whether it can positively identify things it can detect, what sort of range does it have, what sort of field of view it has, what sort of action is required to use it, and what it can and cannot see through). However, D&D 5e has generally been resistant to providing rigorous rules.
I'll take that bet. Tremorsense has never been a form of sight but people were often convinced it was, so the new definition being explicit is helpful. Blindsight has always been sight but people (including you, clearly!) have sometimes been convinced it wasn't, so hopefully it will be explicitly clarified in the other direction.
The "piles" have always been like this:
Tremorsense has never specifically said whether it's a form of sight. It wouldn't have invalidated anything if they ruled that it did function as sight, but it also doesn't invalidate anything to rule that it doesn't.
While Blindsight may have "sight" in the name, it also has "blind" in the name. Who cares what the name is, look at the description:
Nothing within Blindsight says that a creature can "see" or has "sight," and in fact, the first sentence says quite the opposite. Instead, this special sense grants it "perception."
Compare with Tremorsense:
Note the similarities: Tremorsense is also a special sense with no mention of "sight" or "seeing"... and with the new playtest rules, we have a good indication that this omission was as RAI as it is RAW.
Contrast with Darkvision
Darkvision doesn't merely let a creature "detect," "perceive," or "pinpoint"... it lets them "see."
Blindsight and Tremorsense use very similar language, which is very dissimilar from Darkvision and Truesight. Merely because Blindsight allows one to effectively "perceive" creatures is not to say that it allows one to "see" them... one need only look at Perception to see that it contemplates perception by hearing, or by other special senses, with no sight or vision involved.
Blindsight does not permit a creature to "see" an enemy, because it doesn't say it does, while other special senses do. Just like you can't target a creature that you must "see" using Tremorsense (because it doesn't say you can), you also can't target a creature that you must "see" using Blindsight (for the same reason).
I look forward to the new PHB printing making this more explicit, as it has forecasted it intends to.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
First, I'll acknowledge that Quindraco won the bet, they tipped Blindsight into the Darkvision and Truesight camp, only Tremorsense is a non-sight sense it looks like.
But ooooooof is that poorly written. You can see, without seeing? A+ use of vocabulary, JC, you've outdone yourself again. You can see even if you're Blinded... but lets see if they phrase that tight enough to provide you immunity to being Blinded, or if that's going to remain a tangle. And "you can effectively see a Hidden" creature? Wtf does that even mean, does that mean that you cannot ever Hide from a creature with Blindsight, or only that you'll get some benefits but not others?
Looking closer at Hide and Hidden... yeah, that seems to be the intent, Blindsight is just a total defense against stealth, period.
That... doesn't seem fun, or narratively intuitive for a lot of Blindsight creatures, and doesn't match up with a lot of literary examples. Oh well, I guess Hiding has been nerfed!
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The problem is that they haven't come with a good alternative wording for "creature you can see"/etc that means "creature you can perceive with a sense of type X" (the only d20 based system I've seen do a competent job of this is Mutants and Masterminds, which is a superhero system. In that system, a power could have a range of perception, meaning it requires the user to detect the target with an 'accurate' sense).
It does match up with literary examples of Blindsight, which is extremely rare, as you might imagine. Most of the literary examples you're thinking of would have been statted in prior editions with Blindsense, which is Tremorsense without being limited to solids and liquids only - being able to use non-visual senses on the air so well that creatures are located no matter what. Of course, some of the examples you're thinking of could well be just Keen Senses (advantage on the relevant Perception checks) or the like, I can't be certain.
Blindsight has worked exactly like an ultrasound for as long as it's existed in D&D. You know how you can see the baby on an ultrasound? Same thing.
What I suggest you do in your games if you want people to be able to Hide from Blindsight is simply nerf your creatures to have Blindsense as I spelled out above (if you want them to be able to become Unseen but not Unheard) or even Keen Hearing if you want it to be possible to be so quiet the creature with active sonar has a chance not to hear you.
They've perpetuated the confusion about:
They need to condense all of this down into one condition, "hidden"
There, see how all four contexts can be phrased in relation to a single concept, "hidden"? That's what's needed here, not carrying forward multiple overlapping conditions that describe the same situation from both the see-er's and the seen's perspective redundently.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I would probably go with a different term just to avoid confusion with the Hide action, such as Concealed (the term used in 3e and 4e). However, what they really need to do is come up with a word that means "detect with a sight-like ability" that is not "see", because there's no way to make blindsight not sound like nonsense while using "see".
What I find really interesting is that there is the Unseen Attackers and Targets rule in 5e: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets
When I initially read through the PHB I assumed the Blinded and Invisible conditions were simply reiterating the drawbacks oof being unable to see and benefits of being unseen respectively. It wasn't until I was shown the Dragon Talks where JC addressed this that I realized they were separated rules.
The fact that Hidden is now a condition in the play test material seems to make the Unseen Attackers and Targets rule irrelevant. I do appreciate WotC going about defining clear game terms this time (it certainly makes programming a VTT easier), but I feel like this all would have been a lot simpler and easier to understand if they leaned on the Unseen Attackers and Targets rule more.
UA talk isn't really helpful in the rules and mechanics forum. It doesn't really matter for 5e what the playtest packet says, and obviously the playtest rules aren't set in stone.
You're only hidden from people who can't see you. If you're invisible, heavily obscured or behind total cover and some creatures can still see or perceive you somehow (See Invisibility, Blindsight, X-Rays etc) while others don't, you should be hidden to some and not to others. I don't think ONED&D brings anything new here, but having Hidden being a condition is a good decision. What it doesn't address is the part of Unseen Attacks and Targets in the PHB refering to target location;
However, they didn't change invisibility.
"INVISIBLE [CONDITION ]
While you are Invisible, you experience the following effects:
Unseeable. You can’t be seen, so you aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying also can’t be seen.
Surprise. If you are Invisible when you roll initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.
Attacks Affected. Attack Rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your Attack Rolls have Advantage."
Given some of the developer opinions floating around they need to make it explicit that if you can be seen by whatever method, you are no longer invisible (condition) to the creature that can see you.
RAW, you can cast a spell and select a target inside a heavily obscured area (i.e., in darkness) unless that spell specifically requires you to see the target.
Okay, the rule is that, although it seems strange to me because there isn't a clear path to it (considering you are suffering from blind condition when looking into that area):
Anyway, apart from my thoughts, if you select a target inside that heavily obscured area and, surprisingly, between you and the target, there is the wall mentioned in the rule, then "the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction", right? Good luck if you cast fireball 😅
clear path doesn't mean see-through visible path, it means uninterrupted physical path.