D&D 5E Invsibility vs Cloak of Elvenkind

[Springheel]

The problem, as I see it, is that the rules generally (but not always) seem to distinguish between noticing someone by sight or noticing someone by sound.

"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." (PHB 183)

But there are no guidelines anywhere for when DMs should allow detection of a hiding creature based on sight and when to use sound. In the majority of cases, both would apply to varying degrees.

 

[Oofta]

The problem, as I see it, is that the rules generally (but not always) seem to distinguish between noticing someone by sight or noticing someone by sound.

"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." (PHB 183)

But there are no guidelines anywhere for when DMs should allow detection of a hiding creature based on sight and when to use sound. In the majority of cases, both would apply to varying degrees.

I would say that's because it doesn't make sense to have hard and fast rules. Are you trying to avoid detection while invisible and sneeze? In a noisy city square that may not be enough to reveal your location. Even in the middle of the night in an otherwise empty hallway, are you right next to a guard or 30 feet away? The former the guard is going to know where you are, the latter and the guard knows there's something down the hallway somewhere but not the exact location.

 

[Springheel]

I didn't say hard and fast rules. I said guidelines.

Your example is a case in point. Should distance affect stealth? Nothing in the book suggests it should.

 

[epithet]

In my experience, most stealth checks (by a wade margin) are made one character trying to sneak past a typically alert other character. This is a check opposed by passive perception, which is, I think, key to understanding why invisibility is awesome from a game mechanics perspective.

The cloak of elvenkind lets the sneaker roll twice and take the better roll. There is still often going to be a chance of failure, although with proficiency and a good Dex bonus you're probably going to beat the passive perception with your roll. However, a creature that relies primarily on sight to perceive things is going to have disadvantage trying to perceive things it cannot see. That disadvantage translates into a -5 to passive perception, taking your average creature with a 12 passive perception down to a 7. That means that unless you count a 1 as an automatic failure, a +4 dex and a proficiency bonus of 3 means that mechanically, even a vigilant guard will have no chance to perceive the invisible sneaker.

It gets better, though. There are many, many ways to get advantage on an ability check. Spending a little time on careful preparation, like describing how your character hands the coin purse off to another character, binds jingly things in strips of cloth, takes off boots to pad across the floor in socks or barefoot, and moving at a slow speed can at many tables get you advantage on the skill check, especially if it comes with a hindrance like being unable to draw a weapon in less than a full action because it's bound up to keep it from rattling in its scabbard. If nothing else could apply, then there is always inspiration to get advantage on the roll. None of that stacks with the cloak, because you can't get double advantage, but it absolutely stacks with the disadvantage the poor vigilant guard has to perceive something he can't see.

 

[epithet]

I didn't say hard and fast rules. I said guidelines.

Your example is a case in point. Should distance affect stealth? Nothing in the book suggests it should.

That's why you have a DM at the table. Based on the circumstances, perceiving something beyond a certain distance suffers disadvantage. About twice that far and it's impossible, no roll needed. How far that certain distance is becomes a judgement call for the DM, based most often on what just seems right at the moment. Rulings, not rules. DM like a boss.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

That's why you have a DM at the table. Based on the circumstances, perceiving something beyond a certain distance suffers disadvantage. About twice that far and it's impossible, no roll needed. How far that certain distance is becomes a judgement call for the DM, based most often on what just seems right at the moment. Rulings, not rules. DM like a boss.

That's already more guidelines for stealth in your post than in the PHB.

 

[Hriston]

Oh brother. We're about to dive headfirst into a sophomore epistemology seminar...

If you know a person is standing 10 feet to your left but the only thing you see to your left is a tree stump, then the same logic applies: the person must somehow occupying the same space as a tree stump.

But that runs up against the assumption that two solid objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and I think the visual evidence of the tree stump outweighs the auditory evidence of the cloak-wearer.

The problem with this logic is that you're stipulating you know that a person is standing 10 feet to your left. Knowledge is by definition true: with that knowledge, there must be a person precisely there, and all other observations must be made consistent with that fact. But that's not how hearing actually works.

But it is how hiding works in 5e. You don't need to see a creature to know its precise location. You can locate it with hearing or some other sense, or even by noticing signs of its passage.

From human ears you can get reasonably good information about the direction of a sound and rather less good information about its distance -- certainly not information accurate enough to know the sound came from a specific location with a degree of confidence that requires you to conclude invisibility when you don't see anything there.

"Invisibilty" doesn't need to be understood as such for someone to conclude that someone is there without visual evidence. If visual evidence is required, however, advice was given in AD&D to describe signs of a detected invisible creature as a shimmering in the air, showing the creature's location.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But that runs up against the assumption that two solid objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and I think the visual evidence of the tree stump outweighs the auditory evidence of the cloak-wearer.

By the same token, invisibility runs up against the assumption that light cannot pass through a solid object without reflecting or refracting. You're telling me that a guard's powers of detection are stumped against the cloak of elvenkind by one physical assumption, but that against invisibility he is quite willing to discard another, very similar physical assumption. This guard's faith in regular natural laws and his understanding of magic's ability to override them seem very arbitrary.

Furthermore, when visual and auditory evidence are inconsistent, a person tends to get confused and want to investigate further. If *clang clang clang* "Hmm, all I see there is a stump" leads to "Oh well, I must just be hearing things, no need to get alarmed", then *clang clang clang* "Hmm, all I see there is thin air" should as well.

But it is how hiding works in 5e. You don't need to see a creature to know its precise location. You can locate it with hearing or some other sense, or even by noticing signs of its passage.

You are arguing that the rules make it just as easy for one human being to locate another without their eyes as with. You are now acknowledging that this differs from reality, in which eyes are a pretty important component of our sensorium and when we can't use them, finding stuff becomes much harder. But you are still defending these rules. Why? If what you say is true, isn't this a big problem?

"Invisibilty" doesn't need to be understood as such for someone to conclude that someone is there without visual evidence. If visual evidence is required, however, advice was given in AD&D to describe signs of a detected invisible creature as a shimmering in the air, showing the creature's location.

Nor does the cloak of elvenkind need to be understood as such for someone to conclude that someone is there without visual evidence. And if visual evidence is required, signs might include a corner fluttering or the colors shifting, showing the creature's location.

 

[Hriston]

By the same token, invisibility runs up against the assumption that light cannot pass through a solid object without reflecting or refracting. You're telling me that a guard's powers of detection are stumped against the cloak of elvenkind by one physical assumption, but that against invisibility he is quite willing to discard another, very similar physical assumption. This guard's faith in regular natural laws and his understanding of magic's ability to override them seem very arbitrary.

Invisibility offers no positive sensory evidence to counter the auditory evidence of the creature's presence. The cloak does just that.

Furthermore, when visual and auditory evidence are inconsistent, a person tends to get confused and want to investigate further. If *clang clang clang* "Hmm, all I see there is a stump" leads to "Oh well, I must just be hearing things, no need to get alarmed", then *clang clang clang* "Hmm, all I see there is thin air" should as well.

Agreed about the confusion, but again the positive visual evidence provided by the cloak seems stronger to me than the negative evidence of not seeing an invisible creature. Thus the advantage.

You are arguing that the rules make it just as easy for one human being to locate another without their eyes as with. You are now acknowledging that this differs from reality, in which eyes are a pretty important component of our sensorium and when we can't use them, finding stuff becomes much harder. But you are still defending these rules. Why? If what you say is true, isn't this a big problem?

No, if you can locate someone with your eyes they can't hide from you at all.

Nor does the cloak of elvenkind need to be understood as such for someone to conclude that someone is there without visual evidence. And if visual evidence is required, signs might include a corner fluttering or the colors shifting, showing the creature's location.

Yeah, but that's a failed Stealth check on the part of the cloak wearer. We were discussing situations where an invisible creature would fail while a cloak wearer wouldn't, and why that would be the case.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Couple of things:

1) You've misused the Pauli Exclusion Principle. There's plenty of empty space for a person and a rock to coexist by being physically interpenetrated without invoking the principle. In fact, if you just randomly stuck things together, you'd still almost never run into a Pauli exception.

2) Your argument about the stump versus empty space doesn't hold water. You keep invoking additional assumptions to make your argument work, and those assumptions don't hold. If the guard knows exactly where the sound comes from, seeing nothing or seeing a rock doesn't change that he knows something is there. This is the nature of the check result that you've presented -- the guard knows. Seeing nothing, you assume the guard would discount the clear visual evidence of nothing there (lack of evidence, in this case, is evidence) and investigate. But you then assume that the guard, with the same certainty of presence, would never investigate a rock that made the sounds he knows occurred. Either you are postulating the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal as your guard, or he has serious mental issues. Neither is a general state, so the guard should investigate the rock as much as he investigates the empty space.

3) You actually narrate both results of a check with advantage? How does that work for you?

4) Your entire argument begs the question. The issue is why does a cloak of elvenkind provide advantage on stealth checks, but invisibility does not. Your answer is an example where the cloak of elvenkind invokes strange guard logic to succeed at a stealth check while invisibility fails a stealth check, which assumes the answer as evidence of the answer. To clarify, to show why a cloak works better than invisibility, your example is one where a cloak wearer makes his contests roll while the invisibility user fails theirs. Hard to see how that works as proof, being totally uneven in outcome to begin with. It's a bad construct, which is probably why it requires so many additional assumptions on one side while discarding similar assumptions on the other to prop up. Poorly.

5) I really thought I had another point, but I've misplaced it. Now, the question is, is it invisible or wearing a cloak of elvenkind....