Magic Missile while blinded

Mad Hamish · Oct 4, 2010

Minifig said:
Me too.. because to hit something you have to perceive it, and to perceive it's existence, you have to do a perception check.

That just makes logical sense to me, if you're blinded, you'd get the debuff against you too.

There are a couple of factors here
a) You're getting confused between 'terms of art' and the general meanings of words

if a word in D&D has a game definition it doesn't mean anything more or less than that in the game. The Immobilised condition doesn't do anything more than the condition description says, blinded doesn't do anything more than the description says etc.

b) You've got to be careful about what common sense seeming stuff applies to D&D
lots of people use common sense arguments to say 'a martial powered character couldn't do that' and nerf a heap of classes which causes imbalances. It gets especially bad when combined with a)

As to the idea that you have to see somebody to affect them many a person has been hit by blind fire in the real world and, unlike Shadowrun, there's nothing explicite in the D&D magic system stating that you have to be able to perceive a target directly.

Shin Okada · Oct 4, 2010

Minifig said:
Me too.. because to hit something you have to perceive it, and to perceive it's existence, you have to do a perception check.

To hit something (though, by the rule MM does not HIT anything), you have to perceive it?. On that part, you are not right.

You can throw in a fireball in somewhere and still attack someone whom you did not know he was there. It is like throwing in a grenade in a room even if you don't know someone is in the room or not.

To target someone. you have to perceive it? I guess you are right.

To perceive it's existence, you have to do a perception check? On this part, you are not right.

In D&D 4e, you do not need to make a perception checks to perceive someone's existence unless when that one is hiding.

In the heat of battle, combatants are assumed that unless they are hiding, making enough noise and such. Thus it is easy to perceive a combatant's location without any perception skill check at all. Instead, that's the invisible or totally concealed combatant who needs to make a Stealth check in order to make his existence not being perceived.

On Puget Sound · Oct 4, 2010

MY magic missiles are flying silver piranhas made of pure force, that dissipate after biting. So of course they have eyes. Not my fault if yours don't.

DracoSuave · Oct 4, 2010

Minifig said:
Me too.. because to hit something you have to perceive it,

This part is true.

and to perceive it's existence, you have to do a perception check.

This part is not. If it is not hidden from you (i.e. it did not succeed in a stealth check against your passive perception) than you've perceived it because it failed to hide.

In a technical sense you are correct--Finding something that is hidden is an opposed check... it is their Stealth roll vs a Passive Perception. You win if your Passive Perception is higher, or if they tie you and your Perception mod is higher. Passive Perception is, by the rules, you taking 10 on your Perception check, and it therefore counts as you making a perception check.

In other words, if they are not hidden from you, you made your perception check without ever rolling the dice.

This point is moot however. The rules say explicitly that if they do not make a Stealth check (either by succeeding or just not making it at all) then you can perceive their location. 'Making a perception check' only applies when they've successfully made their stealth check against you; this is the only occurance where you must make perception checks to find them.

Invisible does not mean 'imperceptible.' It means 'cannot be seen.' Blind does not mean 'cannot perceive the world.' It means 'cannot see.' Neither confer the ability to hide from anyone without making a roll.

That just makes logical sense to me, if you're blinded, you'd get the debuff against you too.

Which is fine, you do have penalties for being blinded... but those penalties do not apply to magic missile. If you know in what square the target is, you can magic missile it. The rules are extremely clear on this point.

Neonchameleon · Oct 4, 2010

Minifig said:
I still disagree with that. I still think you need a line of sight to have a line of effect.

The reason is because how can you effect something you can't see?

Simple. I can't see you but can hear you behind that book case. I push the book case over on you. There. I've affected you. I've just been attacked by an invisible sword, so I thunderwave the area it's coming from, forcing everything in that area backwards. I've affected whoever was there whether I could see them or not.

As for Magic Missile, you miss what's special about it. It's a homing missile and automatically hits anyone. You can have superior cover against it (i.e. be looking out through an arrowslit) and total concealment (i.e. looking out through an arrowslit through a thick fog cloud). And it still won't worry the Magic Missile. The thing homes in using the magic that created it. For almost all other spells the caster needs to focus on the target - with Magic Missile the caster focusses on creating the homing missile and lets it do the work. That is why Magic Missile doesn't need a to hit roll - and that is why it still works when blinded.

Oh, and immobilised refers to someone being grabbed, or their feet being glued to the floor, or vines wrapping round their legs, or any one of a number of other effects. Restrained would be if their whole body was entangled - and if they were totally paralyzed they'd be helpless.

Amphimir Míriel · Oct 4, 2010

So, to recap:

1.- There is nothing in the actual rules that says you cannot attack [-]the darkness[/-] a target you cannot see with a magic missile, and have it hit the target with the same infallible precision as always.

2.- There's nothing that stops Minifig, or any other DM from requiring a perception check to make the attack, or simply from disallowing it completely. It is the DM's prerogative to make rulings at his/her games.

Glad we could all agree!

DEFCON 1 · Oct 4, 2010

Amphimir Míriel said:
So, to recap:

1.- There is nothing in the actual rules that says you cannot attack [-]the darkness[/-] a target you cannot see with a magic missile, and have it hit the target with the same infallible precision as always.

2.- There's nothing that stops Minifig, or any other DM from requiring a perception check to make the attack, or simply from disallowing it completely. It is the DM's prerogative to make rulings at his/her games.

Glad we could all agree!

That is exactly right, Amphimir. Now if we could only train folks here on the boards to respond to these arguments with "Well, I don't know what the real rule is, but I'm making the choice to use XXXX for my own game..." as opposed to "No, you're wrong, the rule is XXXX because it makes the most sense..." we'd all be a lot better off.

Pbartender · Oct 4, 2010

PHB said:
When you use a melee attack or a ranged attack, you can target a square instead of an enemy. This tactic is useful when an enemy has total concealment (page 281) and you have to guess its location.

In other words, you've made your Perception check and you beat the enemy's Stealth check by enough (by 10 or more) to know the exact square the "invisible" creature is standing in... (See the sidebar "Targetting What You Can't See" on PHB page 281) on page Then you can target that square, make the attack against the invisible enemy, and suffer any penalties to attack that total concealment inflict (none, in the case of Magic Missile). Otherwise, you guess on a target square and hope you get lucky.

Also, read page 273, as it's pretty clear about Line of Effect and Line of Sight. You can have one or the other, without having both. For example, fog may block line of sight, but it doesn't block line of effect. Likewise, a glass window blocks line of effect, but not line of sight.

The kicker is that you must have line of effect to the target's origin square to attack or create an effect, but you do not need line of sight (the last paragraph on PHB page 273).

havoclad · Oct 4, 2010

Pbartender said:
In other words, you've made your Perception check, and you beat the enemy's Stealth check by enough (by 10 or more) to know the exact square the "invisible" creature is standing in... (See the sidebar "Targetting What You Can't See" on PHB page 281) on page Then you can target that square, make the attack against the invisible enemy, and suffer any penalties to attack that total concealment inflict (none, in the case of Magic Missile). Otherwise, you guess on a target square and hope you get lucky.

Replace invisible with hidden in your quote and I believe it all is correct. While invisibility will generally help you in becoming or maintaining hidden, it will not grant it by itself.

If a target is invisible but not hidden you still know which square it is in.

Pbartender · Oct 4, 2010

havoclad said:
Replace invisible with hidden in your quote and I believe it all is correct. While invisibility will generally help you in becoming or maintaining hidden, it will not grant it by itself.

If a target is invisible but not hidden you still know which square it is in.

No... invisible is correct. If you've successfully made the Perception check to find the invisible target's location, then they are no longer hidden but they are still invisible.

Besides, I purposefully put the scare quotes there to denote the fact that the target simply can't be seen -- due to invisibility, blindness, darkness, fog... it doesn't matter -- rather than the specific condition.