D&D 5E How would you rule on this Dispell Magic?

[Maxperson]

I'm sure you meant "does" instead of "dies" but cannot interpret "tin."

Anyway, I think your paraphrase of the invisible condition makes things more ambiguous.
The invisible condition states on p. 291 of the PHB:
"Invisible: 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. The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.
Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have advantage."

From that, our flyer cannot be seen and doesn't leave tracks. Some people have mentioned you could hear him breathing - he's moving 4 times walking speed above everyone's head. You guys must know some really heavy breathers.

I'm not sure what the phrase "For the purpose of Hiding" means.
If it means, "If the invisible creature takes the Hide action" or if it means that invisibility grants heavily obscured automatically.
I'm leaning toward the latter.

The rules say you are hidden if you are both unseen and unheard. While you are not automatically hidden if you are simply invisible, if you are also in a position where someone can't hear you, you become automatically hidden.

PHB Page 195: If you are hidden—both unseen and unheard—when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.

 

[Oofta]

For the question of whether or not the target could have been perceived there are so many issues
- Is the flyer wearing heavy armor that might be clanking?
- How big is the hallway? There are times when I don't see someone but still know they're there if they're close enough.
- How quiet is the environment? Tomb silent? New York downtown traffic jam quiet?
- What's the lighting situation?
- Is there a ray of light shining down illuminating the motes of dust?
- Are there cobwebs? Vines hanging down from the ceiling?
- How closely is the person doing the observation paying attention? Do they have a near godlike passive perception?
....

The list could go on. Being able to detect someone who is invisible is incredibly circumstantial.

 

[Harzel]

Dispel does not interrupt the flyer's action so would be cast when the flyer is out of the dungeon, clearly with a wall(s) between him and caster.
Even if invisibility didn't keep flyer from being perceived, would the dispel - though within range - work?
I don't think dispeller could intuit which flight path it was going once it left her line of sight.

Whenever there is not a clear path between the flyer and the caster, the caster cannot cast the spell because he cannot target the flyer. RAW is very clear about this. However, that seems to leave a timing issue: when did the caster attempt to cast the spell?

If this is occurring during combat and the table is using the usual cyclic initiative and the flyer times his movement so that he doesn't end a turn where the caster can target him, then on the caster's turn the caster will not be able to cast dispel magic on the flyer, unless the caster can himself move to a spot where he has a clear path.

If this is not in combat, then it's up to the DM how to run this 'encounter'. If he chooses to use discrete sequential turns as in combat, then the stuff above applies. If the DM allows concurrent actions, then it will be up to him to decide how to determine whether the caster can cast before the flyer 'escapes'. Just off the top of my head, I might have the caster make a DEX check, maybe DC 15.

 

[plisnithus8]

- Is the flyer wearing heavy armor that might be clanking?
- How big is the hallway? There are times when I don't see someone but still know they're there if they're close enough.
- How quiet is the environment? Tomb silent? New York downtown traffic jam quiet?
- What's the lighting situation?
- Is there a ray of light shining down illuminating the motes of dust?
- Are there cobwebs? Vines hanging down from the ceiling?
- How closely is the person doing the observation paying attention? Do they have a near godlike passive perception.

- Yes, eldritch knight in plate mail that is magical granting invisibility.
- The dispelling wizard was in a large room with a 15' ceiling.
- The wizard was in the room with over 30 creatures finishing combat with a mummy.
- candle chandeliers (magic)
- It was day so sunlight was completely ng down staircase to large room; no mention of motes.
- None mentioned, probably not.
- She was not looking down ladder or paying attention to knight. She had been paying attention to a hostile mummy. She is a 3rd level hafling bard (College of Damce), no god.

 

[Oofta]

- Yes, eldritch knight in plate mail that is magical granting invisibility.
- The dispelling wizard was in a large room with a 15' ceiling.
- The wizard was in the room with over 30 creatures finishing combat with a mummy.
- candle chandeliers (magic)
- It was day so sunlight was completely ng down staircase to large room; no mention of motes.
- None mentioned, probably not.
- She was not looking down ladder or paying attention to knight. She had been paying attention to a hostile mummy.

So it's totally the DM's call. I'd probably have given you a "free" stealth check with advantage. The wand flying through the air is a giveaway that something is going on and in your passage you might have bumped a chandelier or set them swaying. Especially because you have to be high enough not to bump into somebody while also not hitting a light fixture.

Other cases I may have given the observer disadvantage or just said it wasn't possible. In this case? Unlikely but plausible.

She is a 3rd level hafling bard (College of Damce), no god.

Don't be so sure a PC can't have impossibly high passive perception. I had a bard in a campaign that had maxed out their perception (shield, expertise, a feat, decent wisdom) to where it was in the mid-to-high 20s at 10th level.

I think the moral of this story is: much like beauty, effectiveness of invisibility is in the eye of the beholder. And if you try to fly through the beholder's anti-magic cone you're hosed. Or something.

 

[plisnithus8]

much like beauty, effectiveness of invisibility is in the eye of the beholder. And if you try to fly through the beholder's anti-magic cone you're hosed. Or something.

Funny you say that. My human eldritch knight and the halfling dancer are the normal ones. There's also a shardmind mystic and a beholder bard.

DM gave us each a wish. Beholder and shardmind jumped from level 3 to 15. Halfling has some sort of purifying sphere. My knight can ... ahem ... turn into a half-terrasque.

 

[Coroc]

They're not forgetting about context, they (or at least I) are taking account of the fact that RAW and RAI is that being invisible does not make a creature imperceptible. In this case, it sounds like you would rule that the combination of flying and invisibility automatically makes a creature imperceptible. I, on the other hand, feel that it is always up to the creature that wants to avoid detection to explicitly attempt to avoid detection (mechanically, usually a Stealth check) and only in very special cases is success guaranteed (creatures in a position to detect usually get a Perception check). It would also be possible to avoid detection by staying far enough away from those whose notice the creature wishes to avoid.

The way the case being discussed was presented, it sounds to me like the flyer made no attempt to be stealthy and passed very close by the other PCs. If that is the case, then I would definitely rule that the flyer is noticed. Narratively, that might be air movement, the rustle of clothing or equipment, odor, various bodily noises, or even brushing against one of the other PCs if the quarters are particularly close.

Other circumstances, I would handle differently. For instance, if the flyer was able to stay 30 ft away from the other PCs while going past them, they probably will not notice him (except for the complication of the wand being visible). As another example, if the flyer states that he is trying to be stealthy, he will get to make a stealth roll (with advantage if the wand weren't visible); the Perception rolls for the other PCs might or might not be at disadvantage depending on distance and what else is going on and whether the wand is visible.

Ok point taken, in my example with the guy in metal boots not trying to be stealthy while invisible, yes you can target him by pointing in his general direction.

But in the given example if you would say to the player make a stealth check, after you turn invisible and start flying, in this moment he is unobserved, if I interpreted the OP correctly. So that is an auto succeed for me so no need for it.

So he is stealthy automatically, because 20 ft / second do not produce any large air movement and since nothing is stated about him wearing a long billowing cloak it is just an assumption he might have one. Still no raw on this.

The conclusion for me is: The other guys ONLY see a flying wand. There is no clue at all that a person is attached to it!

If in your view this is not the case then tell me HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE THE SCENE TO YOUR PLAYERS AND BE TRUE TO RAW?

Anybody in this thread is evading giving me an answer to this elephant in the room!

Because you cannot!

You insist on RAW by the letter and still you neglect there is nothing in the RAW to describe a invisible person that gives himself away in a way like the OP.
There is no footsteps no rustling cloaks and no noticeable air draft.
Because the flying speed is low and constant and the person makes no local movement at all!´
Do you expect the flyer in this situation to state explicitely that he is holding his breath also, otherwise he is in plain sight for not being stealthy?

 

[Coroc]

You can target invisible things just fine, with dispel magic, if I recall. As mentioned below:

http://media.wizards.com/2017/podcasts/dnd/DnDPodcast_01_19_2017.mp3

7:20 Jeremy Crawford "One of the things I want to say, right at the outset, that is a misconception that often comes up related to spell targeting is that a spell does not require you to see your target, unless the spell says you do. Players will often think things need to be within line of sight for them to target them with their spell. That's only true for spells that say -- they usually say it in some form of like 'choose one creature you can see' -- that kind of thing. Otherwise, you can shoot in the dark. If the spell involves an attack role, our attack rules already have ways of dealing with you attacking something you can't see."

I think further on he kind of rationalizes it as simply a facet of being a magical effect in the first place.

See my post above, you are right but this does not apply, imho the others have by RAW no single clue that a flying wand is something other than just this.

 

[Coroc]

- Yes, eldritch knight in plate mail that is magical granting invisibility.
- The dispelling wizard was in a large room with a 15' ceiling.
- The wizard was in the room with over 30 creatures finishing combat with a mummy.
- candle chandeliers (magic)
- It was day so sunlight was completely ng down staircase to large room; no mention of motes.
- None mentioned, probably not.
- She was not looking down ladder or paying attention to knight. She had been paying attention to a hostile mummy. She is a 3rd level hafling bard (College of Damce), no god.

Oki we did not have a clue about all these preconditions in the first OP, but combat going of with 30 ppl? the wizard trying to dispel focussing on a most fearsome mummy?

Nah, no without altering my previous line of arguments based on other preconditions,
No way anyone sees the invisible flying EK even if his armor clanks like big ben at noon, there is plenty of other clanking and noise going on in the room.

 

[Coroc]

Ok here is another point from a total different perspective:

The wizard trying to dispel is a sharp mind: he is seeing a flying wand
He is reasoning to why the wand flies.
He guesses oh, someone under the effect of a invisibility spell flying is holding it. But then he recalls RAW for the invisibility spell, he is a wizard after all so that is not metagaming.
And it says all items picked up or held are turning invisible also. Since he cannot know about the special properties of this wand, he has to come to the conclusion that his first idea has to be wrong, if he is following in character logic.

He decides to target the wand. And that yields nothing.