D&D 5E (2014) Can you Help when you can't see?

[cmad1977]

Mostly no.
Maybe sometimes.


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[futrtrubl]

My ruling:

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

The orc can't see it so it doesn't know the noise just over it's shoulder isn't a threat and so can be distracted by it.

But more importantly as has been mentioned this is moot because while the trickster has disadvantage he also already has advantage because the orc can't see him cancelling out to a straight roll. Any further adv or disadv is ignored. He still has to target the correct square to have a chance to hit and the familiar might be able to help him there with non-visual senses and some way to relay the info.

 

[Shiroiken]

A rule I remember from the playtest stated that you could not take the Help action if you couldn't take the action itself (this was based on skill and tool proficiency being required). This makes sense to me, so a creature that cannot attack cannot Help another creature attack (they are just not enough of a threat to draw attention). YMMV.