The whole invisibility / unseen rules have driven me spare at times. I know the now generally accepted interpretation seems to be that if your invisible, your unseen, not hiding, ie your location is known, but you can't be seen. That said I seem to have come full circle on this and have noticed something that I'm not sure has been mentioned before.

So bare with me as I go through the thought process.

I was looking at the weapon of warning in the DMG, which lead me to look at the Rod Of Alertness.

"While in that bright light, you and any creature that is friendly to you gain a +1 bonus to AC and Saving Throws and can sense the location of any Invisible Hostile creature that is also in the bright light."

That last sentence implies that its giving the user the power to sense the location of a hostile invisible, something that if we go with the now accepted interpretation, anyone can do.

This then lead me to take another look at the "Invisible Condition statement"

• An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a spe⁠cial sense. For the purpose of Hiding, the creature is heavily obscured. The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.
• Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have advantage.

The important part I clearly missed when I've read that 100's of times before is:

The creature’s location "can" be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.

It doesn't say -> The creature’s location "is" or "will be" detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.

So "can" equals "might" equals CONTEST, and you cant "contest" unless you have something you can "contest" against.

So being invisible implies you have an automatic stealth result, be it passive or active, I would go as much to say its active, roll a stealth check when you go invisible, and again whenever you doing something that might require another check, ie move, attack, talk etc. It certainly gives some meaning back to items like Boots of Elvenkind.

And lets face it, magic invisibility should always be greater than someone just trying to hide in the shadows, even if they are skilled. This interpretation doesn't hurt those skilled in stealth, in fact it makes them better. It just bumps the power of invisibility.

So, I'm not sure the above has ever been brought up before, I certainly haven't come across it.

Cheers, let the comments fly :)

The rules are a little threadbare in (quite a few) places. Invisibility vs hiding is one of them. They sort of grant that same benefits and sort of strengthen each other's benefit at the same time.

In both cases you are a hidden target and unseen attacker. Hiding has details for when and how you are noticed. Invisibility does not have such details, only saying you can be noticed, but not what the DC is or if there should be a contest.

Also, you some incorrect leaps in logic: "can" does not equal "might," it often equals "able if willing." "Might" does not equal "contest," though it can, sometimes it means a check against a flat DC.

Being able to see tracks is completely up to DM (as they determine what the ground is). Sand and mud wouldn't even need a check to see fresh tracks.

Hearing or otherwise sensing invisible creatures is also up to DM a bit. But something to consider, if you are not trying to be stealthy, you don't roll stealth. And boots on a hard surface or non-light armor is going to make noise if you don't actively move stealthily. No automatic stealth.

As far as rules are concerned, there is no difference between invisibility and total darkness (except darkness is easier to overcome). Shadows are usually dim light, so invisibility is better than that.

The basic issue with invisibility and location is that you have three options:

1. Invisible characters have their position known unless/until they successfully Hide (they may Hide without any other source of cover or concealment). Characters traveling slowly are permitted to Hide before the start of combat.
2. Invisible characters have unknown position, but may be located with a free action Perception vs Hide.
3. Invisible characters are impossible to attack unless you successfully play Battleships for that one tile on the map that holds the invisible target.

Option 3 is obviously overpowered, so we have to discard it. I prefer option 1 because it's the way perception/stealth normally works, invisibility just lets you use it when exposed.

The effect of light is to remove the ability to hide without another source of cover or concealment.

Ok, so "can" is not "might" bad choice of words, but "can" as worded would mean "possibility" as in Possibility ( Smoking can cause cancer.) So its not a given, so contest/check? Even if the ground was muddy, the prints might not be noticed, because there is no reason to look there?.

Quote from EdgeOfTheWorld >>

Ok, so "can" is not "might" bad choice of words, but "can" as worded would mean "possibility" as in Possibility ( Smoking can cause cancer.) So its not a given, so contest/check? Even if the ground was muddy, the prints might not be noticed, because there is no reason to look there?.

 Rod of alertness appears to automatically detect invisible foes, disallowing stealth.

I think its says "Sense", so you know where they are, but still cant see them?

For those laying in late, my whole argument rests on the interpretation of the the word "can" as written in the condition invisible. All the rest is fluff. I assumed like everybody else, that "can" meant "does", but i think now its a Possibilty: Smoking can cause cancer vs Smoking does cause cancer' its only now that I'm questioning that assumption. So would tracks be seen, that's up to the GM or it could be a contest, therefore needing a DC vs perception.

If you're chewing on the word 'can', then it's more like "I can jump high". It doesn't mean I'm always jumping high, but if I so choose I can definitely jump high (Disclaimer: I cannot jump that high in real life).

An invisible creature cannot be seen without special senses (Blindsight, Truesight, or specific things like See Invisibility or stuff like the Rod of Alertness). Its location can be known, if a creature is particularly unstealthy and/or the situation makes it difficult to hide (if the invisible creature is standing in a puddle or something, or if it's raining). If an invisible creature chooses not to/is unable to hide, then everyone knows where it is, but still suffers disadvantage when attacking it, and the creature gets advantage on attack rolls against them.

If an invisible creature chooses to hide, then a creature would have to use its action to make a Wisdom (Perception) check contesting the invisible creature's stealth roll. On a success, that creature would know the location of the invisible creature, otherwise not. I would also say (this is my personal ruling, not necessarily RAW) that the detecting creature could, as part of the same action, point out or shout out the location of the invisible creature, cancelling out the benefits of its stealth for everyone until the invisible creature moves and hides again.

If an invisible creature chooses to hide and no creature contests or is able to beat its stealth roll, then everyone is swinging blind. All attacks against the creature at disadvantage, and will automiss if you don't target the correct tile. There is room for a house ruling that certain weapons can attack a wider arc (e.g a greataxe vs a rapier) and target multiple tiles, potentially at further disadvantage or a damage penalty.

TL:DR, an invisible creature's location is known if it makes no attempt to hide, or if the situation makes it impossible for that creature to hide. If the creature chooses to hide, then its stealth roll would need to be contested by another creature's perception check (which would be an action, for the sake of balance) in order for the invisible creature's location to be known.

Are there two threads for this?

I just made a second thread because thinking about this gave me another question about the Invisible condition, and I didn't want to hijack this one.

Edit: I see what you mean, but the other thread was necroed so I wouldn't really say that there are two threads.

The "can" and "may" mean that if it does not preclude another condition. Saying you see the invisible creature no matter what means that if the character was blinded or unconscious that the invisible thing would be seen, which it cannot since the condition doesn't allow it. If you aren't blinded or something like that, the invisible creature would be visible to you.

I don't think we needed two different threads for OP's same question that he posted in a reply in the other thread, with identical wording, and juggling three invisibility threads right now with very related questions is a little burdensome. Ah well. 

In the spirit of copy pasta, please see my reply here. TLDR, Hidden, Heavily Obscured, Invisible, and Blinded all do the exact same thing, but all work completely differently, but are all inter-related and consequences of each other. On top of that there's some mention of some other states ("unseen", "unheard") which are not defined but which may have mechanical consequences distinct from any of the above.

I normally am a big stickler for RAW, but I don't think there IS a coherent RAW reading of these four rules, and trying to draw lines between them that "make sense" is a lost cause. Just arbitrarily pick a rule of thumb, and roll with it.