D&D 5E Can you Help when you can't see?

[merwins]

How would you rule this, or want it to be ruled?

Enemy: Orc that's smarter and stronger than the average orc.
Player character: Warlock who has cast Darkness on a mobile source that she's carrying. She also has Devil's Sight.
Player character: Arcane Trickster with a Familiar

Orc outside the Darkness assesses the situation and figures out that the Warlock is likely in the center of the Darkness. Rushes in to attack. His initiative is after the Darkness is cast, but before the Trickster acts.

Trickster on the outside of the Darkness sends his Familiar in to Help him attack.

Easy decisions:
Warlock has advantage on all targets.
Trickster has disadvantage on all targets.
Familiar can't attack.

More difficult decisions:
Determining where combatants are inside the Darkness.
Determining whether the Familiar is allowed to Help when it can't see.
Determining if the Trickster can be helped when he can't see anything in the Darkness.

RAW: Help for attacks doesn't require sight, just the 5 ft proximity.

Would you allow the Trickster to negate his disadvantage on attacking the Orc within the Darkness? Why or why not?
And what happens if the Trickster misses his shot? No consequence/risk for the Warlock in the Darkness? What would you rule?

I'll post my compromise solution tomorrow. As with all compromises, no one was unhappy or happy, but we got past the rough edges on the encounter.

There's going to be a LOT more of this. I expect my players to get creative with their abilities.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Without the ability to attack, I don't get how the familiar could provide a meaningful distraction to an enemy that can't even see it.

The Help action is supposed to represent something like a full-size humanoid grabbing at their weapon, or a dog nipping at their heels. An invisible cat (or whatever) simply isn't acting on that level.

 

[merwins]

There are two schools of thought on a familiar Helping to attack.

The first is that you have to be able to do something to be able to Help do it. In this case, because a standard familiar can't attack, advocates suggest that it cannot Help attack either.

The second is that Helping as written is separate from any requirement of ability to perform. I believe this perspective has been supported by official or semi-official sources.

Found link:
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questi...-grant-advantage-on-an-attack-to-a-near-by-al

 

[Imaculata]

You can rule it either way. What would be most fun for your players?

 

[Oofta]

Would you allow the Trickster to negate his disadvantage on attacking the Orc within the Darkness? Why or why not?

According to the official SA-Compendium.pdf a familiar can help.

While you can't perform skills that require sight if you can't see, nothing says that you need to be able to see to help. However ... that gets into targeting.

And what happens if the Trickster misses his shot? No consequence/risk for the Warlock in the Darkness? What would you rule?

When targeting something you can't see, you declare what square you are attacking. Or for that matter which creature the familiar was distracting.

If there are two targets in the darkness, the player declares what square they are attacking and depending on how lenient you are they also tell you which square the familiar is helping them attack. If there is a creature in that square, that is the one they attacked without disadvantage. If there is no creature in that square nothing happens.

The way I run it (with no support from the rules) is that I'm pretty lenient on perception checks in combat. I adjust the difficulty to locate the creature if the check is done on the fly. Typically the obscured creature will get a "free" stealth check and the person trying to perceive will need to make an active perception check at disadvantage.

Of course things work a little differently if the orc is screaming in battle rage and so on.

 

[ClearlyTough69]

As you're already said, the Arcane Trickster attacks at disadvantage because he has the blinded condition. However, by RAW, this is cancelled out because the Orc can't see him either (Unseen Attackers and Targets, PHB p 194). Once there's one instance of advantage and disadvantage for a creature, other instances have no impact (Advantage and Disadvantage, PHB p 173). So whether or not the familiar can help, it won't make any difference!

 

[akr71]

I would need to know what the familiar is before ruling. If the familiar is a creature with Keen Senses (other than eyesight), I would have it succeed on a Perception check before I would allow it to Help on the Arcane Trickster's Attack. I would be inclined to set the DC on the check somewhere between 10 & 15, cuz that's what my gut says. I would also be inclined to rule that the familiar can only make its check and Help on the second round of combat - again because of gut feeling.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If the familiar cannot see in the Darkness, and lacks any other advanced senses, I would rule that they cannot effectively use the Help action.

Using a familiar to spam the Help action is a pet peeve of mine, to be honest, and doing so will most likely result in a monster with AoE attack showing up and catching the familiar in the blast radius.

As for the missed shot, I generally only rule friendly fire if the PC rolls a Nat 1.

 

[merwins]

So, just to close the loop, here's how I resolved the situation:

The familiar can do exactly what the orc did. Rush in, and attempt to find the opponent using sound, movement and their intuition as to where the "center" of the darkness is.

The part that stuck in my craw was that the familiar could potentially help the Trickster with no consequence to the Warlock. Both the Orc and the Warlock are equally difficult targets, and potentially in very close proximity.

And I don't think 5E has rules for firing blindly into melee -- If you miss target X, what about target Y?

So I gave the Trickster player a choice. They could take the standard disadvantage for firing into darkness OR they could negate the disadvantage with their familiar.

BUT, if they negated the disadvantage (increasing their chance of hitting the Orc) and they failed, they'd have to make a second attack roll for friendly fire against the Warlock, reflecting the greater likelihood that their arrow would find any target.

Just one of many possible solutions, but my players were content with it.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

My ruling:

First, the familiar can't help. The Orc can't see it, so won't notice it as any threat.

Second, the Rogue has no idea where anyone is, so they have to pick a target square. If they happen to pick the square where the warlock or familiar is, then they might hit a friendly.