D&D 5E Invsibility vs Cloak of Elvenkind

The cloak of elvenkind gives the effect that "Wisdom (Perception) checks made to see you have disadvantage, and you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide, as the cloak's color shifts to camouflage you."

Yet, as far as I can tell, being completely invisible does NOT provide advantage on checks made to hide.

How does it make sense that camouflage makes it easier for you to hide, but being completely invisible does not?

Invisibility allows you to hide while standing in the middle of an empty, well-lit room.

A Cloak of Elvenkind still requires cover or concealment, but grants you advantage.

They simply offer different advantages is all.

But in certain circumstances, a cloak of elvenkind will make it easier to hide than invisibility will. I can't explain that. Why wouldn't invisibility also grant you an advantage?

Springheel said:

But in certain circumstances, a cloak of elvenkind will make it easier to hide than invisibility will. I can't explain that. Why wouldn't invisibility also grant you an advantage?

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It does better than mere advantage or disadvantage, but that applicable information is spread out across multiple locations in the Player's Handbook (PHB), not in the "Invisibility" spell.

Location 1: In Chapter 7 ("Using Ability Scores"), there is a sidebar on "Hiding," and the second sentence within the third paragraph says: "An invisible creature can't be seen, so it can always try to hide."

Location 2: In Chapter 8 ("Adventuring"), under the minor heading "Vision and Light," the nature of an "obscured" area is given as:
"A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
A heavily obscured area--such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage--blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A)."
[PH Errata: A heavily obscured area doesn't blind you, but you are effectively blinded when you try to see something obscured by it.]

Location 3: In Appendix A ("Conditions"), the entry for the "Blinded" condition says in its first bullet point, "A blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight."

Location 4: Also in Appendix A ("Conditions"), the entry for the "Invisible" condition says, "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. . . ." That's in the first bullet-point. Then, in the second bullet point, it goes on to say, "Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage."

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Putting all of those together:
• When you're invisible, you can always try to hide (from sidebar on hiding in Chapter 7).
• When you're invisible, you're heavily obscured for the purposes of hiding (from the entry for "Invisible" in Appendix A).
• When you're invisible, any creature trying to see you is effectively blinded with regard to seeing you (from the PH errata about "Vision and Light" in Chapter 8 about observers being "effectively blinded" when trying to notice something heavily obscured).
• A creature that is effectively blinded "automatically fails any ability check that requires sight," per the "Blinded" condition in Appendix A.

Therefore, when you're invisible and making no noise -- and not knocking things over or pushing branches aside, which an observer would notice -- tnen all observers automatically fail their passive perception checks to detect you when you're trying to hide. That's a lot more effective at hiding than merely having advantage or a roll, or their having disadvantage on their check.

Stealth and Spotting leaves a lot of room for DM adjudication.

Usually I prefer the middle road: the DM decides success or failure unless it isn't clear cut - then the dice decide. I'd allow Invisibility more leeway in the "autosuccess" department.

Even when in doubt the DM also determines situations for advantage/disadvantage which in the example of effective 'blindness' grants disadvantage on the spotter's side.

tuxgeo said:

It does better than mere advantage or disadvantage, but that applicable information is spread out across multiple locations in the Player's Handbook (PHB), not in the "Invisibility" spell.
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Putting all of those together:
• When you're invisible, you can always try to hide (from sidebar on hiding in Chapter 7).
• When you're invisible, you're heavily obscured for the purposes of hiding (from the entry for "Invisible" in Appendix A).
• When you're invisible, any creature trying to see you is effectively blinded with regard to seeing you (from the PH errata about "Vision and Light" in Chapter 8 about observers being "effectively blinded" when trying to notice something heavily obscured).
• A creature that is effectively blinded "automatically fails any ability check that requires sight," per the "Blinded" condition in Appendix A.

Therefore, when you're invisible and making no noise -- and not knocking things over or pushing branches aside, which an observer would notice -- tnen all observers automatically fail their passive perception checks to detect you when you're trying to hide. That's a lot more effective at hiding than merely having advantage or a roll, or their having disadvantage on their check.

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I was under the impression that the statement, "you can always TRY to hide" means that you still have to roll a stealth check. If you roll poorly, you're not hidden. There's nothing in the rules about getting advantage on that roll, even though vision is entirely out of the picture, so you're just as likely to roll poorly as you are well.

It's been a while since the last Stealth thread. You guys thing we can make it to page 50 with this one?

Springheel said:

But in certain circumstances, a cloak of elvenkind will make it easier to hide than invisibility will. I can't explain that. Why wouldn't invisibility also grant you an advantage?

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The cloak works with your surroundings to render you better than invisible. If you're crouched behind a bush in a pile of leaves, opponents can't see the depressions of your feet in the leaves because your cloak is covering them.

If you are instead invisible, opponents can potentially spot where you are standing because there are two weird foot-shaped depressions in the leaves.

Certainly, you can come up with circumstances where it won't make sense. Such as an invisible character wearing a Cloak of Elvenkind gaining advantage to hide in the middle of an empty, well-lit room. It's important to remember than unlike 3.x, 5e does not try to be a perfect simulation by RAW. It relies on DM rulings to make things run smoothly. So if you think a particular scenario doesn't make sense, make a ruling that is more in line with your sensibilities. Personally, I think for typical circumstances the RAW works fine.

Springheel said:

I was under the impression that the statement, "you can always TRY to hide" means that you still have to roll a stealth check. If you roll poorly, you're not hidden. There's nothing in the rules about getting advantage on that roll, even though vision is entirely out of the picture, so you're just as likely to roll poorly as you are well.

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Emphasis added, above.
Just how "poorly" would you have to roll to get a result below an "automatic fail" on the observer's Wisdom (Perception) result?

For example, say you roll the minimum on a d20, giving you a 1. If you're anti-Dextrous, you can subtract your Dexterity modifier (-2) from that, leaving you with a -1. If you're non-proficient in Stealth, you leave it at -1 without adding your Prof. bonus.
For an observer to see you, that observer would have to do better on its Wisdom (Perception) result than your -1 Dexterity (Stealth) result; but it does worse instead! Specifically, it does worse by automatically failing its Wisdom (Perception) check. (As the DM, you can rule that the Passive score doesn't apply because of the "automatic failure" rule.)

Springheel said:

I was under the impression that the statement, "you can always TRY to hide" means that you still have to roll a stealth check. If you roll poorly, you're not hidden. There's nothing in the rules about getting advantage on that roll, even though vision is entirely out of the picture, so you're just as likely to roll poorly as you are well.

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Up to the DM. I don't want to restart that thread, but in order for someone to detect you, they have to be able to detect you using one of the four senses (sight, smell, taste*, touch). So I would rule that you don't know the invisible elephant statue is in the middle of the room unless you walk into it.

Other DMs may rule differently.

*Ok, if you can taste your enemy you're probably too close.