Distract drop invisibility?

Does distracting, as in for the help action, drop invisibility (from the distracter) ? Reminder the spell mention

The spell ends for a target that attacks or casts a spell.

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and AL is RAW.

Update 1:

After the game (I wrote the following right after the GM ruling (which I didn't contest at that time)), the GM was leaning toward not dropping invisibility, so then I said if it's invisible then the invisible can move away w/o opp atk (without opportunity attack), he then told me he think he saw something about moving away after the help action causing opp atk from Jeremy Crawford.

No. Your ally is the one attacking, not you. Taking the Help action isn't attacking or casting a spell, so it doesn't end invisibility.

According to the rules I guess it doesn’t drop invisibility(which surprises me) but I would rule that the target would know where you are.

Narratively I’m not sure how you could possible distract someone without them knowing you’re there.


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Please note that 5E D&D is not as extensively defined as previous editions -- and the ALDMG specifically gives the DM authority to rule on a situation where there is disagreement over what the rules say.

In this situation, the rules do say that Invisibility ends for a character that attacks or casts a spell, but these are not necessarily the only conditions that can cause the spell to end. (For example, the spell is a Concentration spell, so it also ends if the caster loses concentration, despite the spell description not saying this.) A DM could certainly rule that using the Help action to allow an ally to gain Advantage in combat counts as an attack for purposes of ending the Invisibility spell.

One other point -- the rules for Opportunity Attacks say that "[y]ou can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach." If you are still invisible when you move away from an enemy, and if that enemy has no alternate senses that allow it to see you despite you being invisible, it does not get an opportunity attack against you.

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Pauper

Pauper said:

the ALDMG specifically gives the DM authority to rule on a situation where there is disagreement over what the rules say.

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Does this mean disagreement between 2 rules? Because if it's disagreement on how the GM (on his/her own or because a player pressured for it) sees the campaign setting and 1 rule, that seem more like RAI than RAW. I heard multiple times from multiple GM something like "If it's not written it doesn't apply.". If the former is correct, unless there's a rule contradicting the quote in the OP then wouldn't that apply RAW thus very specifically

attacks or casts

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and help not being listed would not apply in that mechanism (OP quote) ?
I'm just trying to understand your post and (perhaps because I'm tired or something) I don't see the--detailed--connection between some parts of your explanation.

Hriston said:

No. Your ally is the one attacking, not you. Taking the Help action isn't attacking or casting a spell, so it doesn't end invisibility.

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This.

cmad1977 said:

Narratively I’m not sure how you could possible distract someone without them knowing you’re there.

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We're not talking about knowing or not knowing they're there. We're talking about the magical effect invisibility.

Just because you're invisible doesn't (in 5E) mean the opponent doesn't know you're there.

Pauper said:

Please note that 5E D&D is not as extensively defined as previous editions -- and the ALDMG specifically gives the DM authority to rule on a situation where there is disagreement over what the rules say.

In this situation, the rules do say that Invisibility ends for a character that attacks or casts a spell, but these are not necessarily the only conditions that can cause the spell to end. (For examplthe rue, the spell is a Concentration spell, so it also ends if the caster loses concentration, despite the spell description not saying this.) A DM could certainly rule that using the Help action to allow an ally to gain Advantage in combat counts as an attack for purposes of ending the Invisibility spell.

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This is not a good argument from a legalistic point of view.

I don't contest your conclusion, that the DM is authorized to make rulings. However, the DM is authorized to make rulings because the rules say so, not because the rules does not specify every circumstance.

The fact that Invisibility does not specify every cause for it to end should not be taken as license to interpret it as "anything" can end it.

Instead, D&D is an exception-based rules design. So, nothing can end Invisibility except
1) general rules, such as
1a) "when the duration runs out", or
1b) causes that shut down spells in general (breaking Concentration, Dispel Magic etc)
1c) but also other general rules, such as the one empowering DMs to make rulings
2) specific exceptions
2a) ...mentioned in the spell: taking the Attack or Cast Spell action
2b) ...but also anywhere else: such as a hypothetical adventure saying "one round in any casting Invisibility, the Frog God's Curse ends the spell" for example

In short, it is better to justify "using Help ends Invisibility" because "the DM says so" than because of any implied rules disagreement, or because the DM is empowered to fill in any undefined states in the rules.

There are no disagreements over what the rules say, and no undefined states (at least not in this case). There may well be cases where you, the DM, feel the rules yield unsatisfying results, and you are free to overrule those rules whenever you feel that is warranted.

Best regards

CapnZapp said:

This is not a good argument from a legalistic point of view.

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It's a good thing 5e isn't a 'legalistic' RPG ruleset, like Pathfinder, then.

I'm serious -- 5e has deliberately chosen to define very few general terms and provide a limited number of general rules. If you follow Jeremy Crawford on Twitter, you're no doubt aware of the number of times he says something along the lines of "there is no general rule for 'x' in Fifth Edition'.

The key insight is this:

Sage Advice Compendium said:

Many unexpected things can happen in a D&D campaign, and no set of rules could reasonably account for every contingency. If the rules tried to do so, the game would become unplayable. An alternative would be for the rules to severely limit what characters can do, which would be counter to the open-endedness of D&D. The direction we chose for the current edition was to lay a foundation of rules that a DM could build on, and we embraced the DM’s role as the bridge between the things the rules address and the things they don’t.

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CapnZapp said:

I don't contest your conclusion, that the DM is authorized to make rulings. However, the DM is authorized to make rulings because the rules say so, not because the rules does not specify every circumstance.

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I disagree -- as should be obvious from the quote above, the game is *designed* for the DM to make rulings where the rules do not (and cannot) cover all contingencies:

Sage Advice Compendium said:

The game’s rules are meant to help organize, and even inspire, the action of a D&D campaign. The rules are a tool, and we want our tools to be as effective as possible. No matter how good those tools might be, they need a group of players to bring them to life and a DM to guide their use.

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CapnZapp said:

The fact that Invisibility does not specify every cause for it to end should not be taken as license to interpret it as "anything" can end it.

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But, and this is the point, if a player presents a reasonable scenario under which Invisibility should end, and the DM agrees, then even though that scenario isn't presented in the rules, it is still allowed (and I would argue, expected) that the DM and player will agree that Invisibility would end. The rules do not stand in the way of the players and DM agreeing on their game experience.

Where the DM and player do not agree on their game experience, the player can appeal to the rules, but it is the responsibility of the DM to determine if the rules apply. As an example, you note that a hypothetical adventure might provide a different exception to ending Invisibility, which makes sense -- but the player would not necessarily know that the adventure provides an exception. Since only the DM is privy to all the rules in this case, it is the DM's job to adjudicate this disagreement.

But once you've accepted that the DM is allowed to make rulings when she has information that the players do not, it becomes a hazier question -- after all, the adventure, while approved for Adventurer's League, wasn't published by the D&D rules team, or even technically by WotC given the current use of DMs Guild as the AL adventure distrubution system. There are plenty of adventures that simply get the rules wrong -- such as the Season 5 adventure that calls for players to gain 'resistance 3' or 'resistance 5' rather than 'resistance' as defined in the core rules.

So there is frequently disagreement about the rules: disagreement between players and DMs over how to interpret spell descriptions, disagreement between adventures and the core rulebooks on how to adjudicate mechanics, even disagreement between posters on an internet discussion board on how the rules are organized and designed. To keep the game from devolving into a constant series of arguments over the rules, the AL explicitly bestows the power to decide 'what the rules are' to the DM. The DM isn't supposed to decide rulings based on whether or not she 'likes' the rules in the PH or adventure -- the AL does specify that DMs are expected to run the game according to the core rules -- but the crux of the problem is that nobody from the AL admin team is on hand to overrule the DM if she does decide to overrule a rule she doesn't like, and the players do not have the authority to overrule the DM. If you're looking for a 'legalistic' argument, that's the one to use.

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Pauper

So an invisible player could simply make a loud noise or shout something about the orc's mother without breaking invis. This is clearly allowed in the rules since there many places where the notion of hearing an invisible creature is detailed.