D&D 5E Greater Invis and Stealth checks, how do you rule it?

[MGibster]

You really expect someone's sprinting that fast quietly? Or are their feet slamming the ground, their lungs pumping for air.... This person may be moving fast enough to go fwooosssh as they move through the air!

I once saw a documentary called Kung-Fu where a Shaolin monk walked across rice paper without making any noise or damaging the paper.

 

[Ovinomancer]

If the monk is in the area of a silence spell (no sound), and pass without trace (leaves behind no tracks or other traces of its passage and cannot be tracked), and greater invisibility (cannot see them)...then other than detection through scent, wouldn't that be a situation where no hide action is needed?

Ask your GM. No, seriously, this is the exact thing I was talking about earlier -- it's the area where the GM needs to make a call and issue a ruling. Whatever I say doesn't matter at your table.

However, I'd say that if the monk put this much effort into it, hiding sounds like a good reward. I'm fine with auto-hide at 100' or so with three different 2nd level spell effect ongoing from three different casters (each requires concentration). Free hide is really expensive, here, so I'd make that trade in a heartbeat.

 

[Mistwell]

Ask your GM. No, seriously, this is the exact thing I was talking about earlier -- it's the area where the GM needs to make a call and issue a ruling. Whatever I say doesn't matter at your table.

However, I'd say that if the monk put this much effort into it, hiding sounds like a good reward. I'm fine with auto-hide at 100' or so with three different 2nd level spell effect ongoing from three different casters (each requires concentration). Free hide is really expensive, here, so I'd make that trade in a heartbeat.

Agreed. It's highly situational, and we used something similar to scout the dragon's lair in Forge of Fury. We basically dumped a huge number of scouting spells on one guy, and prayed it was enough to not be detected by the dragon. And it worked. And it was just as you said, a DM call on expending great resource cost to get a scouting knowledge which a single higher level spell like arcane eye could do with one spell slot.

 

[Quickleaf]

So when I read the technical rules on hiding and stealth (in the scattered mess that they are) plus a lot of previous commentary on the subject, both on these boards and others....this is the general "by the book" definition of stealth as I understand it.

1) Greater Invis gives you total concealment, allowing for the option of stealth checks.
2) You must now make an action to become hidden...rolling a stealth check against passive perceptions.
3) Assuming you succeed, you are hidden, and you can walk around, and do certain things without having to reroll stealth.
4) Once you perform an action, stealth is lost, and enemies know what square you are in.
5) Unless you take a new action to hide (rolling a new stealth check), the enemies will automatically know what square your in.

Ok, that's pretty clear.

However, I have a situation where I have a monk that was given improved invisibility. The monk has 50 speed... and so using step of the wind he can make attacks and then move a full 100 speed away from the spot where he was "detected". I completely understand the being detected when he attacked, makes total sense.... but its quite weird in flavor that you can now track this guy who is still invisible over 100 feet away (and could even be behind other cover or barriers even) and not have to make a perception roll to still know where he is.

So I was curious how others do it. On the one hand, it suspends my disbelief a lot to run this by the book....but on the other I can see how powerful it would be to let it go without having to "restealth".

For me, I make sure to narrate an invisible character or creature leaving tell tale signs of passage if it has not hidden. For example:

Sand is kicked up in flurries by the monk's movement, the dune hissing in his wake. Careening around a corner into the alley, the monk knocks over a barrel and gets a wet tunic hanging on a clothesline wrapped around him momentarily. After the monk boots an orc in the head, then slides down the pine forest hillside to duck behind a boulder, the local songbirds enter a flurry of alarmed activity above his new position.

 

[Flamestrike]

Now do the same test but with combat noises and battlefield confusion where the one that has been attacked is screaming for help.

Can you really, but really hear the monk running? You don't. So the monk is hidden. Sometimes the rules do not cover the obvious.

Yes you can hear the monk. Hes not being quiet or taking any action to conceal his presence.

He can do that whenever he wants but chooses not to.

 

[Todd Roybark]

When someone isn't hidden, you don't have to guess the square. The running monk will be knocking up dust and making lots of noise.

My issue is being Invisible should not just result in having the opportunity to Hide.
Being Invisible should mean you automatically count as Hidden against sight based Investigation and Perception checks.

If you are Invisible, but not Hidden, anything around can hear you, pin point where you are down to a 5 foot area and attack you with disadvantage.

That is some BULL5e!!!!

 

[Kurotowa]

That is some naughty word 5e!!!!

It's balance. Or at least, it's a deliberate design choice to limit the absolute power of Invisibility and the degree to which it devalues the Stealth skill. In this way it's similar to how Knock now causes an audible alert that can be heard up to 300ft away. Concentration wasn't the only mechanical change made in 5e to rein in the ability of spells to trump all other abilities. Reducing Invisibility from "absolute magical stealth" to "Predator shimmer cloaking" is just one of many, though it is one that people keep tripping over.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My issue is being Invisible should not just result in having the opportunity to Hide.
Being Invisible should mean you automatically count as Hidden against sight based Investigation and Perception checks.

If you are Invisible, but not Hidden, anything around can hear you, pin point where you are down to a 5 foot area and attack you with disadvantage.

That is some naughty word 5e!!!!

What you've done here is start with a fiction in your head, then looked at what the game does, and, when these things don't match, blamed the game for the failure. I humbly recommend that if you're going to play a game, you should first look at what it does, then build your fiction. This way you'll avoid this kind of upset.

Or, alternatively, write your own rules/game to match the fiction you've already imagined. That works, too, but it is more work. I find taking the game as it is saves me time and upset.

 

[Todd Roybark]

I have no problem with the Heroic style. Eventually, Invisibility is easily dealt with in combat, in any edition of D&D.
5e, though makes Invisibility, almost trivial to melee attacks right out the gate. Meanwhile being unseen, cancels the "see target" requirement of many spells.
The Melee/Spellcaster nerf effect, didnt feel so stark in prior editions.

A Paladin in plate mail trying to hide behind /under a large table is less likely to be discovered if under the effects of a Pass without Trace spell, then while Invisible.

The PWoT Pally gets a net +5 to a Stealth roll. +10 for the spell, - 5 for Hvy Armor disadvantage
The Invisible Paladin gets a -5 to a Stealth roll. -5 for Hvy Armor disadvantage.

Being Invisibility should contribute more to being Hidden.

 

[Todd Roybark]

find taking the game as it is saves me time and upset.

LOL, I actually do this, which is in part why I like 5e so much. The system is easy to tell a story with.

The solution is also easy...grant an Invisible creature Advantage on their Stealth roll.
Bestow Disadvantage on the ability checks of creatures attempting to locate Invisible creatures, refrain from this if Keen senses are involved.

That works for me.

But sometime a little mock outrage, is therapeutic.