Appreciate the relation of experiences. First, we're in clear conclusion that invisible creatures can't avoid being noticed by allowing others to pass.
However, I still maintain that a creature has to do something to make noise, they don't simply inherently make it by existing. Same with tracks- most of the world's area would leave tracks, but many places wouldn't- I dare say, most of the time in an RPG, creatures aren't making noticeable tracks due to what they're walking on.
I'm mostly finding myself nodding to your experience, but I'll bluntly call BS on a person making noise when they're standing still. If they're loaded with dangling metal things, sure, but otherwise, no. Also, all of your experience with blind fighting was mutual blind fighting. You earlier said I didn't have experience fighting an invisible opponent?
Let me tell you my experience 'fighting' an invisible opponent. I was doing US Marine training in South Carolina on a river boat, in an overnight exercise (we sure did that a lot). We have night vision, but they're not working well. They might have been hand-me-downs that were broken, or it might have been so cold that it was interfering with them- frost was building up on our body armor as we flew down the river. The moon was bright, though, and we could easily see the river and the tree tops. Under the trees, though? Not a damn thing. Total darkness. What I could see under the trees, was the flash of gunfire at about 60 feet. We take some shots with our crew served weapons, and are given the response of more flashes of gunfire. The patrol commander decides to stop the boats to engage the enemy. An enemy we could not see. For a short time in this mock combat, the boats in the patrol are laying down blindly into the forest, including myself on a M240. I point in the general direction of the flashes I saw, but they must have been moving- unless there were a hundred men in the mock combat on the ground. They could easily see us thanks to the moonlight, but with them under the trees, we weren't doing much more than making noise with our machine guns. The chances of hitting a person like that would have been small (but not insignificant).
In a real engagement, the virtue of sheer firepower of the boat's standard-equipped M2 would have made an extended exchange in our favor, but would have been absolutely hopeless at ~60 feet range without the ability to see the enemy and no M2 (or mini-gun or grenade launcher the boats sometimes had). We pretended that we suppressed the enemy in the training exercise, because US soldiers are trained to believe in victory if they just fight.
Which goes into the next part about hearing. It is hard to imagine being able to see fine but have an utterly invisible opponent, but as you say, its not so hard to tell where the sound of footsteps are if you listen. If you stop relying on sight. In the middle of a combat, the sound of some footsteps- or even light jingle of chain mail- is not going to register in your mind when you're using your eyes and fighting something. If you're already next to the invisible thing, that's a different story- but put more than 10 ft between you and it, and you're not going to pick up on the tell-tell signs when your attention is elsewhere.
Especially if that something wasn't even known to be there in the first place. An invisible man just standing in a room when you enter doesn't make any perceptible sound unless he's draped in bells (mild exaggeration). LARPing has a massive disadvantage in relating to this: you can't completely avoid meta-gaming in live play. Like a person lying, you can't completely amend the perception of reality to accommodate the role-play. I don't know how far you go in LARPing, but it ranges from absurd paladin-like looking the other way to blatant disregard and pointing out workarounds that are only vaguely possible. (invisible zombie wall anyone?)
The key part for all this is: "The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves." Both noise and tracks are situational- in other words, creatures don't make noise just by existing. A creature doesn't have to be making a stealth check to avoid making noise, and doesn't have to be making a survival check to not make tracks. Only in situations where their actions can create noise or leave tacks do they have to make the check. In your mind, sure, let it be moving in anything more than robes and soft boots. In my mind, the cutoff is much higher. Where that cutoff is subjective to the GM, and naturally should vary depending on the circumstances- was the invisible creature hidden to begin with? The case remains, though, that the creature must be doing something to make noise for hearing to work.
The only comment I would add to your table is that three quarters cover does NOT allow a creature to take the hide action. Even a creature with three quarters cover can be clearly seen even if someone else can't necessarily see all of them. As long as a creature can be seen or heard it can not attempt to take an action to hide. (Hidden is defined as being both unseen and unheard).
If the creature ducks out of sight, they then have total cover, can not be seen and can take the hide action. This inclucdes situations like hiding behind a wall with an arrow slit. However, if you had a wall with arrow slits spaced 12" apart and the creature was larger than 12" so that some part of their body was visible no matter where they stood behind the wall then they might qualify for 3/4 cover but they still can not hide.
Also, your table is incomplete in terms of the use of truesight. This can be used to detect someone in normal or magical darkness or someone who is invisible. Thus true sight can be used in cases where you indicated only Non-visual perception which you decided did not include truesight.
You've also left out the halfling ability to hide behind a creature at least one size larger than they are. This one comes in handy in combat.
Finally, one point to make is that as soon as a creature is seen .. it is no longer hidden. In combat, you can't usually hide and sneak up on someone because the rules state that the person is alert and paying attention and unless specifically distracted will notice the approach of any creature ... so that creature can not remain hidden. It can be used for a ranged attack where you just pop out to make the attack but not when a creature needs to approah their target.
No matter how good a creature's stealth ability, if they are seen (or heard) then they are NOT hidden.
Since 5e I’ve always used Invis as “unseen but very much heard and defected in other ways”. It’s simple and fits within the rules very well. The one benefit is you can Stealth at any time while invisible (even in plain Line of Sight of non-See-Invis enemies) and it becomes very potent for Rogues.
I give those Invis people advantage on Stealth, just as I’d give Silenced (“unheard but still easily seen if someone looks”) people advantage on Stealth - but I’d still require it on both. Similar to how Boots of Elvenkind and Cloak of Elvenkind only provide advantage.
Invisibility plus Silence is equal to perfect Stealth IMO, requiring no roll or check. I could consider wearing Cloaks and Boots of Elvenkind to be perfect Stealth as well...
All very valid points! I might adjust how I use these 🙂. One sense I also forget often is Touch - the displacement of wind from someone moving near you is noticeable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I for one love this sheet. I’m letting my PCs use it for sure. Clarity is good :)
Appreciate the relation of experiences. First, we're in clear conclusion that invisible creatures can't avoid being noticed by allowing others to pass.
However, I still maintain that a creature has to do something to make noise, they don't simply inherently make it by existing. Same with tracks- most of the world's area would leave tracks, but many places wouldn't- I dare say, most of the time in an RPG, creatures aren't making noticeable tracks due to what they're walking on.
I'm mostly finding myself nodding to your experience, but I'll bluntly call BS on a person making noise when they're standing still. If they're loaded with dangling metal things, sure, but otherwise, no. Also, all of your experience with blind fighting was mutual blind fighting. You earlier said I didn't have experience fighting an invisible opponent?
Let me tell you my experience 'fighting' an invisible opponent. I was doing US Marine training in South Carolina on a river boat, in an overnight exercise (we sure did that a lot). We have night vision, but they're not working well. They might have been hand-me-downs that were broken, or it might have been so cold that it was interfering with them- frost was building up on our body armor as we flew down the river. The moon was bright, though, and we could easily see the river and the tree tops. Under the trees, though? Not a damn thing. Total darkness. What I could see under the trees, was the flash of gunfire at about 60 feet. We take some shots with our crew served weapons, and are given the response of more flashes of gunfire. The patrol commander decides to stop the boats to engage the enemy. An enemy we could not see. For a short time in this mock combat, the boats in the patrol are laying down blindly into the forest, including myself on a M240. I point in the general direction of the flashes I saw, but they must have been moving- unless there were a hundred men in the mock combat on the ground. They could easily see us thanks to the moonlight, but with them under the trees, we weren't doing much more than making noise with our machine guns. The chances of hitting a person like that would have been small (but not insignificant).
In a real engagement, the virtue of sheer firepower of the boat's standard-equipped M2 would have made an extended exchange in our favor, but would have been absolutely hopeless at ~60 feet range without the ability to see the enemy and no M2 (or mini-gun or grenade launcher the boats sometimes had). We pretended that we suppressed the enemy in the training exercise, because US soldiers are trained to believe in victory if they just fight.
Which goes into the next part about hearing. It is hard to imagine being able to see fine but have an utterly invisible opponent, but as you say, its not so hard to tell where the sound of footsteps are if you listen. If you stop relying on sight. In the middle of a combat, the sound of some footsteps- or even light jingle of chain mail- is not going to register in your mind when you're using your eyes and fighting something. If you're already next to the invisible thing, that's a different story- but put more than 10 ft between you and it, and you're not going to pick up on the tell-tell signs when your attention is elsewhere.
Especially if that something wasn't even known to be there in the first place. An invisible man just standing in a room when you enter doesn't make any perceptible sound unless he's draped in bells (mild exaggeration). LARPing has a massive disadvantage in relating to this: you can't completely avoid meta-gaming in live play. Like a person lying, you can't completely amend the perception of reality to accommodate the role-play. I don't know how far you go in LARPing, but it ranges from absurd paladin-like looking the other way to blatant disregard and pointing out workarounds that are only vaguely possible. (invisible zombie wall anyone?)
The key part for all this is: "The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves." Both noise and tracks are situational- in other words, creatures don't make noise just by existing. A creature doesn't have to be making a stealth check to avoid making noise, and doesn't have to be making a survival check to not make tracks. Only in situations where their actions can create noise or leave tacks do they have to make the check. In your mind, sure, let it be moving in anything more than robes and soft boots. In my mind, the cutoff is much higher. Where that cutoff is subjective to the GM, and naturally should vary depending on the circumstances- was the invisible creature hidden to begin with? The case remains, though, that the creature must be doing something to make noise for hearing to work.
The only comment I would add to your table is that three quarters cover does NOT allow a creature to take the hide action. Even a creature with three quarters cover can be clearly seen even if someone else can't necessarily see all of them. As long as a creature can be seen or heard it can not attempt to take an action to hide. (Hidden is defined as being both unseen and unheard).
If the creature ducks out of sight, they then have total cover, can not be seen and can take the hide action. This inclucdes situations like hiding behind a wall with an arrow slit. However, if you had a wall with arrow slits spaced 12" apart and the creature was larger than 12" so that some part of their body was visible no matter where they stood behind the wall then they might qualify for 3/4 cover but they still can not hide.
Also, your table is incomplete in terms of the use of truesight. This can be used to detect someone in normal or magical darkness or someone who is invisible. Thus true sight can be used in cases where you indicated only Non-visual perception which you decided did not include truesight.
You've also left out the halfling ability to hide behind a creature at least one size larger than they are. This one comes in handy in combat.
Finally, one point to make is that as soon as a creature is seen .. it is no longer hidden. In combat, you can't usually hide and sneak up on someone because the rules state that the person is alert and paying attention and unless specifically distracted will notice the approach of any creature ... so that creature can not remain hidden. It can be used for a ranged attack where you just pop out to make the attack but not when a creature needs to approah their target.
No matter how good a creature's stealth ability, if they are seen (or heard) then they are NOT hidden.
Since 5e I’ve always used Invis as “unseen but very much heard and defected in other ways”. It’s simple and fits within the rules very well. The one benefit is you can Stealth at any time while invisible (even in plain Line of Sight of non-See-Invis enemies) and it becomes very potent for Rogues.
I give those Invis people advantage on Stealth, just as I’d give Silenced (“unheard but still easily seen if someone looks”) people advantage on Stealth - but I’d still require it on both. Similar to how Boots of Elvenkind and Cloak of Elvenkind only provide advantage.
Invisibility plus Silence is equal to perfect Stealth IMO, requiring no roll or check. I could consider wearing Cloaks and Boots of Elvenkind to be perfect Stealth as well...
Good discussion 🙂
All very valid points! I might adjust how I use these 🙂. One sense I also forget often is Touch - the displacement of wind from someone moving near you is noticeable.