A party of 10th level I run has an average passive perception of 21. A drow with a Dex of 18 and the ability to hide as a bonus action casts invisibility on herself.
So, being invisible only means players can attack with disadvantage. Ok, so far, so good. I have another question about that, but let's focus.
Now, having a hide bonus action, she can attempt to hide with advantage, due to invisibility. The maximum she can roll is a 20 +4(Dex), or 24. This means for the vast majority of the time, the hide is useless, even with invisibility. This is even before we get into that passive perception is the floor for the party. Active perception starts there (they cannot roll worse than 21 passive).
I would like my higher level drow enemies to legitimately have a reasonable chance to avoid attacks by hiding while invisible. But it seems not possible.
You party has invested a lot of resources so they don't get ambushed by hidden foes, it is ok if that is really hard to do to said party. In fact they should probably run into some failed ambushes and get to enjoy it.
Note: Invisibility does not give advantage to hide.
At level 10 a drow trying to hide only having a +4 is kind of weak, do they not have proficiency in stealth? that should boost them up a bit. And it wouldn't be unreasonable for a sneaky drow to have expertise in stealth. Now they have a reasonable chance to beat 21 with their +10 roll.
Yes, active searching your players might well beat that drow even with the high rolls, but that takes an Action... thus they aren't attacking, but they might very well pin point the square the drow is in (drow still invisible tho, and hidden for everyone else .. even if the player tells the party what square). But, again at this point your players heavily invested in perception uses up their turn to spot the character and allow others to attack at disadvantage. That's sounds like an Ok outcome, and if they roll badly they just wasted their action.
tl;dr give your drow enemies proficiency in stealth, or even expertise. And let some ambushes fail.
Thank you for the correction - yes, no advantage to hide while invisible. And I hadn't thought about proficiency or expertise - to be honest, this is the first time for me running a higher level campaign because of all the extra work involved. Trying to get up to speed on things that are just easier to DM at lower levels.
And yeah, I am happy to let ambushes fail - making impossible encounters wasn't my goal, only ones that can challenge - fairly and within the rules. Again, thanks!
I will use this moment to ask about the other question I had about attacking invisible foes. Attackers have disadvantage on their attacks. Yes, invisibility is not protection against all the other senses. But per the rules:
"When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. 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."
I don't know what to make of this - does the character have to pick the square they are attacking (assuming medium size here) if you are using a map? As a DM, do we indicate roughly where they sense something? Let's assume the attack isn't an AOE spell, but either direct ranged weapon or melee. In past times, I've never bothered to read this passage, but just applied the disadvantage. But I wonder if it should be harder than that?
What i do when a creature successfully hide is i'll remove the miniature from the table and secretly take note of it's location and have attacks select a square to attack.
Thank you for the correction - yes, no advantage to hide while invisible. And I hadn't thought about proficiency or expertise - to be honest, this is the first time for me running a higher level campaign because of all the extra work involved. Trying to get up to speed on things that are just easier to DM at lower levels.
And yeah, I am happy to let ambushes fail - making impossible encounters wasn't my goal, only ones that can challenge - fairly and within the rules. Again, thanks!
I will use this moment to ask about the other question I had about attacking invisible foes. Attackers have disadvantage on their attacks. Yes, invisibility is not protection against all the other senses. But per the rules:
"When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. 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."
I don't know what to make of this - does the character have to pick the square they are attacking (assuming medium size here) if you are using a map? As a DM, do we indicate roughly where they sense something? Let's assume the attack isn't an AOE spell, but either direct ranged weapon or melee. In past times, I've never bothered to read this passage, but just applied the disadvantage. But I wonder if it should be harder than that?
The location of invisible creatures is generally known, unless they successfully hide. This is because other creatures are tracking them by the noise they make (this is why I suggested boots of elvenkind, so your drow does get advantage since their hiding is purely sound-based).
If your drow does successfully hide (with expertise and the boots, +12 with advantage, a pretty good chance of beating that 21 passive perception), then the players would have to guess their location. If they guess wrong, it's an automatic miss, of course. If they guess right, proceed to "attack with disadvantage." If I wanted to be tough, I may have them roll the attack with disadvantage no matter what so they won't necessarily know whether or not they guessed correctly.
A successful hide means other creatures or players cannot tell where the hidden creature is at until something changes; it can be related to simply moving out of LoS before hiding. Arguably both can still allow for attack possibilities, depending on the circumstance. For example, if a creature with darkvision hides in darkness sufficient to heavily obscure them from another creature, they could still attack from within it. Even if they don’t hide, they would be unseen to a creature that lacked darkvision or another such sense.
That's why a hidden creature is always better off moving after hiding as any attacker can easily guess the target's last location since it's the space from which it disappear and lost track of.
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A party of 10th level I run has an average passive perception of 21. A drow with a Dex of 18 and the ability to hide as a bonus action casts invisibility on herself.
So, being invisible only means players can attack with disadvantage. Ok, so far, so good. I have another question about that, but let's focus.
Now, having a hide bonus action, she can attempt to hide with advantage, due to invisibility. The maximum she can roll is a 20 +4(Dex), or 24. This means for the vast majority of the time, the hide is useless, even with invisibility. This is even before we get into that passive perception is the floor for the party. Active perception starts there (they cannot roll worse than 21 passive).
I would like my higher level drow enemies to legitimately have a reasonable chance to avoid attacks by hiding while invisible. But it seems not possible.
What am I missing? Help?
You party has invested a lot of resources so they don't get ambushed by hidden foes, it is ok if that is really hard to do to said party. In fact they should probably run into some failed ambushes and get to enjoy it.
Note: Invisibility does not give advantage to hide.
At level 10 a drow trying to hide only having a +4 is kind of weak, do they not have proficiency in stealth? that should boost them up a bit. And it wouldn't be unreasonable for a sneaky drow to have expertise in stealth. Now they have a reasonable chance to beat 21 with their +10 roll.
Yes, active searching your players might well beat that drow even with the high rolls, but that takes an Action... thus they aren't attacking, but they might very well pin point the square the drow is in (drow still invisible tho, and hidden for everyone else .. even if the player tells the party what square). But, again at this point your players heavily invested in perception uses up their turn to spot the character and allow others to attack at disadvantage. That's sounds like an Ok outcome, and if they roll badly they just wasted their action.
tl;dr give your drow enemies proficiency in stealth, or even expertise. And let some ambushes fail.
Being invisible doesn’t give you advantage on checks made to hide.
That aside, it sounds like you’re the GM. Just give the drow expertise in stealth and boots of elvenkind.
Thank you for the correction - yes, no advantage to hide while invisible. And I hadn't thought about proficiency or expertise - to be honest, this is the first time for me running a higher level campaign because of all the extra work involved. Trying to get up to speed on things that are just easier to DM at lower levels.
And yeah, I am happy to let ambushes fail - making impossible encounters wasn't my goal, only ones that can challenge - fairly and within the rules. Again, thanks!
I will use this moment to ask about the other question I had about attacking invisible foes. Attackers have disadvantage on their attacks. Yes, invisibility is not protection against all the other senses. But per the rules:
"When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. 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."
I don't know what to make of this - does the character have to pick the square they are attacking (assuming medium size here) if you are using a map? As a DM, do we indicate roughly where they sense something? Let's assume the attack isn't an AOE spell, but either direct ranged weapon or melee. In past times, I've never bothered to read this passage, but just applied the disadvantage. But I wonder if it should be harder than that?
What i do when a creature successfully hide is i'll remove the miniature from the table and secretly take note of it's location and have attacks select a square to attack.
The location of invisible creatures is generally known, unless they successfully hide. This is because other creatures are tracking them by the noise they make (this is why I suggested boots of elvenkind, so your drow does get advantage since their hiding is purely sound-based).
If your drow does successfully hide (with expertise and the boots, +12 with advantage, a pretty good chance of beating that 21 passive perception), then the players would have to guess their location. If they guess wrong, it's an automatic miss, of course. If they guess right, proceed to "attack with disadvantage." If I wanted to be tough, I may have them roll the attack with disadvantage no matter what so they won't necessarily know whether or not they guessed correctly.
Thank you - and a successful hide is different than going out of line of sight because the hider is assumed to be still in a position to see / attack?
A successful hide means other creatures or players cannot tell where the hidden creature is at until something changes; it can be related to simply moving out of LoS before hiding. Arguably both can still allow for attack possibilities, depending on the circumstance. For example, if a creature with darkvision hides in darkness sufficient to heavily obscure them from another creature, they could still attack from within it. Even if they don’t hide, they would be unseen to a creature that lacked darkvision or another such sense.
That's why a hidden creature is always better off moving after hiding as any attacker can easily guess the target's last location since it's the space from which it disappear and lost track of.