5e invisibility and Detect Magic

[Ovinomancer]

I've made no assumptions at all regarding golems, possessed dolls and undead. I've made a decision about them based on reasoning.

Really. Which fictional facts did you use to get to your reasoning?

Dude. Making an assumption is a-okay. All of our games are full of our assumptions. My only point is that we should be aware of that and not blame the rules for not working with our assumptions. If you really need to believe that you've come to a reasoned belief based on a fictional sketch and your preferences, okay, you have. I'm okay with your assumption here as well.

 

[Maxperson]

Really. Which fictional facts did you use to get to your reasoning?

Dude. Making an assumption is a-okay. All of our games are full of our assumptions. My only point is that we should be aware of that and not blame the rules for not working with our assumptions. If you really need to believe that you've come to a reasoned belief based on a fictional sketch and your preferences, okay, you have. I'm okay with your assumption here as well.

I'm not assuming that things work a certain way. I have decided that they do work that way for my game. There is a difference between an assumption about how things work and a decision about how things work.

You want to know which facts? Here's one for you. It's an absolute fact that golems in my game can be absolutely still. That's indisputable.

I hope you can learn to see the difference.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm not assuming that things work a certain way. I have decided that they do work that way for my game. There is a difference between an assumption about how things work and a decision about how things work.

You want to know which facts? Here's one for you. It's an absolute fact that golems in my game can be absolutely still. That's indisputable.

I hope you can learn to see the difference.

Okay, a decision to narrate your fiction in a soecific way is fine. That's not reasoning, though, which was what I was responding to. I'm glad we've laid that to rest.

Your decision is great, btw. I recommend that if you have one of your absolutely still golems be invisible in a corner, that you not roll DEX(stealth) for it -- the results might not agree with your decision.

 

[Oofta]

Okay, a decision to narrate your fiction in a soecific way is fine. That's not reasoning, though, which was what I was responding to. I'm glad we've laid that to rest.

Your decision is great, btw. I recommend that if you have one of your absolutely still golems be invisible in a corner, that you not roll DEX(stealth) for it -- the results might not agree with your decision.

But that's kind of been the whole point of the argument, hasn't it? That it's up to the DM to decide if an opposed stealth/perception check is required to be hidden?

Sometimes the stealth rules don't apply and it's up to the DM to decide when it's possible to hide and when it's needed.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But that's kind of been the whole point of the argument, hasn't it? That it's up to the DM to decide if an opposed stealth/perception check is required to be hidden?

Sometimes the stealth rules don't apply and it's up to the DM to decide when it's possible to hide and when it's needed.

Yes, yes it has. I'm pretty sure I've been saying exactly this all along. Decide: yes, no, maybe. If maybe, roll. The corollary is if you decide no and roll, the problem isn't the rules.

 

[Hriston]

So when you ask a player what his PC is doing and he says, "I'm just going to stand here." you make him roll a dex stealth check?

If his goal in doing so is to remain unnoticed? Not really. I would need a little more information that tells me his PC is trying to keep quiet. Otherwise, it's an auto-failure. But I would definitely ask for that clarification.

 

[Hriston]

There's nothing like a good Hiding/Perception thread!

Agreed! It's certainly one of the types of thread where I feel I have something to contribute.

That's what the iron golem in the 4e rulebooks looks like. The one in the AD&D MM is a bit more like a statue cast in iron.

The picture in the 5e MM looks like that too, more like a suit of armor than a statue, but not really enough to be mistaken for one. The 5e iron golem also doesn't have any traits related to appearing to be a statue or anything besides what it is. The AD&D iron golem has this note in its description, "It will stand, non-functioning, as a guard until some event takes place, i.e. until a door is opened, a book read, etc.", which seems to open the door for its use as a DM gotcha somewhat more than its description in the 5e MM. The Moldvay Basic monster, Living Statue, also comes to mind in this discussion.

My take on this is that if an invisible gargoyle fails a DEX(Stealth) check then the PCs might notice eg wind blowing through an invisible statute, or water dripping onto it, or whatever narration makes sense in the context.

My understanding of the False Appearance trait that gargoyles and certain other monsters have is that it grants the ability to hide in the open because it takes care of sight-obscuring circumstances for the creature. The result of the gargoyle's DEX (Stealth) check then determines whether it pulls off the ruse or if some twitch or other small movement or noise gives it away as not really a statue. In the case of an invisible gargoyle, False Appearance is redundant because the visual component is taken care of by invisibility, so a failed DEX (Stealth) would simply reveal the presence of a creature just as it would had the gargoyle not been invisible.

(I can't get help from either AD&D - the MM says nothing about gargoyles looking like statues - nor 4e - in 4e a gargoyle's stone form gives it DR and regen, but doesn't affect its ability to Hide or Bluff.)

It seems that in 5e the role of "Living Statue" was grafted onto the gargoyle but not the golem. For a golem that's meant to resemble a statue, I'd add False Appearance to tie that narrative to a mechanic.

Anyway, as you suggested upthread, an invisible statue seems likely to cause some alarm. Personally if a creature has the ability to look like a statue, I think it undermines that stealth capacity by then turning it invisible!

Right, it's mostly redundant! The main advantages in using invisibility, however, are not having any sort of visual presence (which in the case of a blown Stealth check doesn't matter), and not immediately revealing what the creature looks like when its Stealth check is failed.

With respect to the higher DC - it would be easy enough to rule that the golem has Advantage on its attempt to hide, giving it a +5 on a passive check and hence an overall result of 14. But you seem to be contemplating "super-advantage" that (to some extent) goes contrary to bounded accuracy in the strictest sense - are there other context, outside of hiding/perception, where that would make sense?

If calling for a DEX (Stealth) check, I wouldn't use a passive score for the result, but rolling with advantage (or disadvantage) is something I might consider under the right circumstances. Setting a DC for a task not otherwise covered by the rules, however, seems to be one of the primary jobs of the DM in 5e, so my recommendation to set a DC to find the invisible golem by normal means of Perception was directed at those who might feel that the difficulty of doing that was unrelated to the golem's ability to hide, the idea being that the golem isn't making any particular effort to escape notice, but rather shares certain qualities with objects. On the other hand, some of the posters in this thread seem to take issue with there being any possibility of noticing the golem without resort to some extraordinary means, such as use of true seeing or spreading flour all over the room, so that simply staying alert for hidden foes would result in an auto-failure. This falls within the DM's role of deciding whether a result is certain or requires a roll to determine the outcome.

 

[Oofta]

The picture in the 5e MM looks like that too, more like a suit of armor than a statue, but not really enough to be mistaken for one.

Just a note, from the MM description of Iron Golem: "An iron golem’s shape can be worked into any form, though most are fashioned to look like giant suits of armor."

So they can look like whatever the creator decides, although presumably it would still need a way to move around and have arms to slam people upside the head.

As for the rest? We'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Maxperson]

My understanding of the False Appearance trait that gargoyles and certain other monsters have is that it grants the ability to hide in the open because it takes care of sight-obscuring circumstances for the creature. The result of the gargoyle's DEX (Stealth) check then determines whether it pulls off the ruse or if some twitch or other small movement or noise gives it away as not really a statue. In the case of an invisible gargoyle, False Appearance is redundant because the visual component is taken care of by invisibility, so a failed DEX (Stealth) would simply reveal the presence of a creature just as it would had the gargoyle not been invisible.

This makes no sense. Why give it the ability to hide in plain sight, then give it virtually no ability to hide in plain sight. Were that ability meant to be for visibility only, it would give some sort of bonus, but it fails to even give advantage. A dex bonus of 0 and no bonus to hiding for the ability means that it will be noticed the majority of the time by anyone with a bonus and the vast majority of the time by a group of people. The whole point of the ability is that it gets the jump of those it attacks. The wording in gargoyles in 5e says that they can be perfectly still by the way, and prior editions also said that they could be perfectly still. Below are quotes from 5e and 3e.

5e: "A gargoyle lurks among masonry and ruins, as still as any stone sculpture."

3e: "Gargoyles often appear to be winged stone statues, for they can perch indefinitely without moving and use this disguise to surprise their foes."

Both editions let you know that they can be perfectly still with those statements. Stone sculptures don't move a hair, and perching indefinitely without moving is also perfect stillness.

For you to be correct here, you have to ignore both logic and flat out statements to the contrary. Invisibility would only remove the ability to mistake it for a statue, not the perfect stillness and therefore perfect silence of gargoyle itself.

 

[Oofta]

This makes no sense. Why give it the ability to hide in plain sight, then give it virtually no ability to hide in plain sight. Were that ability meant to be for visibility only, it would give some sort of bonus, but it fails to even give advantage. A dex bonus of 0 and no bonus to hiding for the ability means that it will be noticed the majority of the time by anyone with a bonus and the vast majority of the time by a group of people. The whole point of the ability is that it gets the jump of those it attacks. The wording in gargoyles in 5e says that they can be perfectly still by the way, and prior editions also said that they could be perfectly still. Below are quotes from 5e and 3e.

5e: "A gargoyle lurks among masonry and ruins, as still as any stone sculpture."

3e: "Gargoyles often appear to be winged stone statues, for they can perch indefinitely without moving and use this disguise to surprise their foes."

Both editions let you know that they can be perfectly still with those statements. Stone sculptures don't move a hair, and perching indefinitely without moving is also perfect stillness.

For you to be correct here, you have to ignore both logic and flat out statements to the contrary. Invisibility would only remove the ability to mistake it for a statue, not the perfect stillness and therefore perfect silence of gargoyle itself.

Some people seem to want to insist that no monster can ever get the drop on their PCs unless the DM is cheating. Next thing you know you'll be saying that cloakers, gray oozes, mimics, piercers and white maws don't need to make stealth checks because they're indistinguishable from mundane inanimate objects as well.

After all, there might be a wind ... or they might be passing wind ... or something.