D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[Thommy H-H]

eh, it does not truly work, either Hide or the Invisibility spell get the short end of the stick, but you certainly can handwave the issues away

Well, as I've said a couple of times, while Hide and Invisibility both grant the Invisible condition, they both impose different methods of losing it which change how they work to some extent. Much like how you might get the Poisoned condition from being bitten by a snake or from a demon cursing you. Both have the same effect in game terms, but you might be able to recover from the snake venom by repeating the save at the end of your turn, while the demon's curse is magic that needs Remove Curse or Greater Restoration to shift (these are just random examples).

So, the Invisible condition from the Hide action is fragile: you can't make any noise louder than a whisper, and someone can remove it from you by making a successful Search action. It's tricky to maintain once you get into the thick of combat.

The Invisible condition from the Invisibility spell is more robust: you can lose it by making an attack or casting a spell, just like if you'd taken the Hide action, but apart from that you'll still gain the benefits of being Invisible even if you run in front of some guards yelling at the top of your lungs.

And I don't think, therefore, it's particularly challenging to see those as two different things in the game's fiction, even though they make use of the same condition (that unfortunately shares a name with one of them). Just like the snake bite and the demon curse are different things that happen to share some rules.

they could just have two conditions, that way they are compatible and can avoid all this nonsense

Yes, but they would do the same thing. Because, again, the Invisible condition actually says nothing about you being transparent or anything like that. It just means "not able to be seen". The magical or not aspect of it is covered by the circumstances that grant you the condition and the way they say it works. Likewise, Poisoned doesn't say "a snake bit you" either. You can get it lots of ways, including by magic (or demon, or whatever).

Once again, not defending anything. Just saying how I think it's meant to work.

 

[Micah Sweet]

punish is a strong word, I won’t let them use the RAW interpretation but that is it

@Chaosmancer strongly implied punish.

 

[Thommy H-H]

You keep saying that, but you exactly as much in the way of a citation saying that as I do. Nothing. The difference is that RAW currently backs me up, not this idea.

The rules are right there on page 1, man. It says what the Invisible condition actually does. There's nothing else there.

 

[Maxperson]

The rules are right there on page 1, man. It says what the Invisible condition actually does. There's nothing else there.

Correct, so there's no difference between the invisibility condition caused by hiding(except where specifically noted) and by invisibility. Literally nothing says that they are different with regard to being visible or invisible. There's no citation to say that you are correct. At least not yet. We still need to see the general stealth rules.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Correct, so there's no difference between the invisibility condition caused by hiding(except where specifically noted) and by invisibility. Literally nothing says that they are different with regard to being visible or invisible. There's no citation to say that you are correct. At least not yet. We still need to see the general stealth rules.

Um. Isn't that what I've been saying...? The Invisible condition does what it says it does, which is just the three things listed (Surprise, Concealment, Attacks Affected). Whether you get it from the Hide action or by casting a spell or having a magic item or whatever, that's what the condition does. But the method by which it's granted imposes further restrictions on it - for example, if you get it from the Hide action, you lose it by making a noise, or by being found by someone taking the Search action.

What the Invisibility condition doesn't do is make any reference to you being One Ring-style "invisible". If it did, it wouldn't work as a condition you get from just taking the Hide action. That's why I think it should have had a different name. And I don't have a citation for that because I can't prove a negative: the rules do what they say they do. The onus is on you to find something in the three rules the Invisible condition has that says you are literally "invisible" in the sense that most of us would mean the word.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Um. Isn't that what I've been saying...? The Invisible condition does what it says it does, which is just the three things listed (Surprise, Concealment, Attacks Affected). Whether you get it from the Hide action or by casting a spell or having a magic item or whatever, that's what the condition does. But the method by which it's granted imposes further restrictions on it - for example, if you get it from the Hide action, you lose it by making a noise, or by being found by someone taking the Search action.

What the Invisibility condition doesn't do is make any reference to you being One Ring-style "invisible". If it did, it wouldn't work as a condition you get from just taking the Hide action. That's why I think it should have had a different name. And I don't have a citation for that because I can't prove a negative: the rules do what they say they do. The onus is on you to find something in the three rules the Invisible condition has that says you are literally "invisible" in the sense that most of us would mean the word.

Right. The invisibility condition doesn't say that it actually makes you invisible. But if it doesn't, then the second and third bullet points do not actually do anything, as perfectly normal vision nullifies them.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Right. The invisibility condition doesn't say that it actually makes you invisible. But if it doesn't, then the second and third bullet points do not actually do anything, as perfectly normal vision nullifies them.

That's a fair point. We don't have the vision rules yet. I've been reading "somehow sees you" as being a reference to Blindsight, Truesight, etc., with which ones might apply dependent on the method by which you gain the Invisible condition. There may be some more "common sense" approaches listed in the rules for vision and awareness, but my feeling atm is that all that stuff is rolled into the Invisible condition.

 

[Maxperson]

What the Invisibility condition doesn't do is make any reference to you being One Ring-style "invisible". If it did, it wouldn't work as a condition you get from just taking the Hide action. That's why I think it should have had a different name. And I don't have a citation for that because I can't prove a negative: the rules do what they say they do. The onus is on you to find something in the three rules the Invisible condition has that says you are literally "invisible" in the sense that most of us would mean the word.

This is where you are going wrong. Invisibility/invisible as it is commonly understood in D&D is one ring style invisibility. Absent something in the hiding rules or invisibility condition saying it isn't one ring style, it is. That's what it has meant for 50 years and nothing yet seen shows that to have changed.

I also think it should have had a different name. That would have made it much easier to understand and allowed them to write it out differently than the invisible condition. It also would have prevented hiding from making someone one ring style invisible(as the rules are written).

You say that the hide action can't make you one ring style invisible, but it can. All it takes is being written that way by the designers, which unfortunately is what they did by assigning it the invisible condition.

The commonly understood meaning of invisible/invisibility doesn't go away just because you want to make more sense of the hiding rules. That's why the hiding rules are so poorly written. They shouldn't work to make the hider invisible, but unfortunately they do.

Lastly, I didn't ask you to prove a negative. I asked you to prove a positive. Show me where it is written that the invisible condition granted by hiding is different than the one granted by invisibility.

 

[Charlaquin]

I just wish they'd called the Invisible condition Concealed or something. That's all this is: semantic confusion. The rules work fine if you don't get hung up on the fact that Invisible doesn't mean what you think it means based on how things have worked in the past.

Except that, again, the invisibility and greater invisibility spells only grant the condition. So if you assume the condition isn’t literal invisibility, neither are those spells.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Lastly, I didn't ask you to prove a negative. I asked you to prove a positive. Show me where it is written that the invisible condition granted by hiding is different than the one granted by invisibility.

No, that's asking me to prove a negative - you're asking me to find you were it says something isn't something else. That's not how D&D's rules work. I could equally ask you to show me where it says a Longsword doesn't deal 33d10 damage. The rules say what they do, not what they don't do, or the PHB would contain all human knowledge.