D&D 5E Invsibility vs Cloak of Elvenkind

[abirdcall]

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.

Players don't declare that they are rolling for checks. They declare what their characters are doing.

Then the DM determines the outcome. If that is in doubt, there are consequences for failure, and it's interesting, the DM may then call for a roll. The DM determines the ability, the skill if applicable, the DC, and whether advantage or disadvantage is appropriate.

It's entirely possible and within the rules to just succeed at hiding.

 

[Hriston]

Imagine a situation where an invisible creature fails an attempt to hide due to making a noise that gives away its location. The eyes of anyone keeping watch would be attracted to the source of the noise, but would fall on empty air, leading to the conclusion that the noise was made by some invisible creature.

On the other hand, when the wearer of a cloak of elven kind makes some small noise, a look-out's eyes might be fooled into noticing what looks like some plausible element of the surroundings, like a stone or a tree trunk, but is actually the hider itself. Advantage comes from the likelihood that the look-out will then train its eyes elsewhere in search of the source, or at least doubt that what it heard was a creature.

 

[Springheel]

If they hear noise and see empty air, they get suspicious, but if they hear noise and see a rock, they think nothing of it?

 

[Hriston]

They think they know that what they're looking at is a rock, so they look elsewhere for the source of the noise. The invisible creature has no such built in source of misdirection, although one could easily be improvised to gain a similar advantage.

 

[Kobold Stew]

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.

This is remarkably helpful. Thank you.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Imagine a situation where an invisible creature fails an attempt to hide due to making a noise that gives away its location. The eyes of anyone keeping watch would be attracted to the source of the noise, but would fall on empty air, leading to the conclusion that the noise was made by some invisible creature.

IMC, invisibility magic is not so common that creatures would come to that conclusion. If creatures hear a sound in the forest without an obvious source, they react much as you or I would if we heard a sound in the forest without an obvious source: if they're on guard or otherwise suspicious, they'll certainly put their guard up, but the most reasonable conclusion for them to ultimately come to is that it's a squirrel somewhere their eye missed. Because the last hundred times they heard something like that, it was. (Seriously, how endemic do cloaks of invisibility have to be for a guard to think, "Oh no! Invisible creature!" every time they hear rustling leaves?)

And if creatures have special reason to believe that invisibility magic is in use (e.g., they know the PCs are around and what they can do), they can just as easily have special reason to believe that elven stealth magic is in use, and thereby be suspicious of any "rock" they see that wasn't there before. So no general advantage there either. A cloak of elvenkind is pretty much a lesser (but still very useful) cloak of invisibility. Unambiguously better against see invisibility, though. True seeing, more ambiguous.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I've given XP to the comments that I agree with in the thread, and am posting just to toss a wrench into some gears to make a vaguely related point:

(this is the wrench) An invisible character wearing a cloak of elvenkind still gets advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide, since the rules don't call out the two effects as incompatible.

(this is my point) magic, in D&D, is not science - it isn't constant; it doesn't make sense; it just does what it says it does, and the result being aimed for is an enjoyable game, nothing more.

 

[Kobold Stew]

(this is the wrench) An invisible character wearing a cloak of elvenkind still gets advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide, since the rules don't call out the two effects as incompatible.

Don't they?
"An invisible creature is impossible to see..." (definition). Therefore, detection is by other senses, not sight.
A cloak "shifts color" (object description, and OP), and so its effect is described entirely in terms of sight.
I would say the rules call out the two effects as incompatible.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

(this is the wrench) An invisible character wearing a cloak of elvenkind still gets advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide, since the rules don't call out the two effects as incompatible.

(this is my point) magic, in D&D, is not science - it isn't constant; it doesn't make sense; it just does what it says it does, and the result being aimed for is an enjoyable game, nothing more.

An invisible creature doesn't normally need to make Dexterity (Stealth) checks to hide, because other creatures automatically fail Wisdom (Perception) checks to spot it. If the other creatures are under the effect of see invisibility, though, and therefore can make Wisdom (Perception) checks to see the invisible creature, then yeah, cloak of elvenkind can help. All of which makes sense.

 

[jgsugden]

If you tried to simplify invisibility and hiding, the rules will not make sense. If you try and incorporate the complexities of the situation, the rules become incomprehensible. It is a no-win situation. If you really want consistency in the game then you need to have the DM adjust to the situation and apply checks that make sense even if they're not exactly what the rules state.