D&D 5E DM Help! My rogue always spams Hide as a bonus action, and i cant target him!

[pemerton]

Gygax's example with the rock face assumes that such a determination has not already been made. If it had already been made, he would have had to come up with a different example of how the bound PC made that save.

In which case, mutatis mutandis for the halfing in the corridor. Eg the halfling is able to duck down low below the flames.

So you have an issue with a breath weapon having the one additional property of anti-invisibility, but you don't have a problem with invisibility having the myriad of additional properties of, breath weapon immunity, fireball immunity, sleep immunity, cone of cold immunity, ice storm immunity, meteor swarm immunity, flame strike immunity, gaze attack immunity, lightning bolt immunity, web immunity, cloudkill immunity, and much, much more. Seems odd to me.

That's the point of invisibility - it plays rather like it works in Tolkien, for instance (when the ring-bearer turns invisible, people get confused and wonder where he has gone - they don't just start guessing what square he is in).

It's not inherently better or worse to run invisibility that way, or the 4e/5e way (as least in my view). But they're not the same way.

 

[Maxperson]

In which case, mutatis mutandis for the halfing in the corridor. Eg the halfling is able to duck down low below the flames.

That's the point of invisibility - it plays rather like it works in Tolkien, for instance (when the ring-bearer turns invisible, people get confused and wonder where he has gone - they don't just start guessing what square he is in).

It's not inherently better or worse to run invisibility that way, or the 4e/5e way (as least in my view). But they're not the same way.

I rather guarantee you that if Bilbo had been invisible and dragonfire had engulfed him, he'd have died. Tolkien wasn't silly like that.

No second level spell was intended to make you immune to every attack form. For invisibility to have the properties you claim it has, it would have had to be 11th level or higher.

 

[Satyrn]

I rather guarantee you that if Bilbo had been invisible and dragonfire had engulfed him, he'd have died. Tolkien wasn't silly like that.

Old age didn't kill Bilbo. Tolkien was very silly.

 

[pemerton]

I rather guarantee you that if Bilbo had been invisible and dragonfire had engulfed him, he'd have died. Tolkien wasn't silly like that.

But if Bilbo ducked below the flames, he wouldn't have been engulfed in them!

No second level spell was intended to make you immune to every attack form. For invisibility to have the properties you claim it has, it would have had to be 11th level or higher.

Let's look at it another way: magic-users in AD&D are already very powerful. Do they need to be even more powerful, by having an ability to attack invisible but undetected targets (via AoE) that weapon-users lack?

 

[guachi]

The discussion between [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] is about Gygax's AD&D, not 5e. The context for the discussion is a comparison of the AD&D elf ability to become invisible in natural surroundings to the 5e elf ability Mask of the Wild.

Then why are you on a 5e forum discussing 1e rules?

There is an appropriate forum to discuss 1e. This isn't it.

 

[KahlessNestor]

And yet Bilbo still got attacked and knocked out for most of the Battle of Five Armies.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

 

[Maxperson]

But if Bilbo ducked below the flames, he wouldn't have been engulfed in them!

Flames expand. There is no ducking at that point. A breath weapon doesn't expand in every direction except for down.

Let's look at it another way: magic-users in AD&D are already very powerful. Do they need to be even more powerful, by having an ability to attack invisible but undetected targets (via AoE) that weapon-users lack?

Better that than allowing spellcaster to literally be immune to every magical and non-magical spell and attack type from a mosquito to a God by virtue of using a 2nd level invisibility spell. You are ramping UP their power, not lowering it.

 

[Maxperson]

Then why are you on a 5e forum discussing 1e rules?

There is an appropriate forum to discuss 1e. This isn't it.

It's all connected in this instance. If you bothered to follow the thread you'd know that.

 

[pemerton]

Then why are you on a 5e forum discussing 1e rules?

There is an appropriate forum to discuss 1e. This isn't it.

There are over 600 posts in this thread - for me, yours is coming up as post 675. Somewhere over 100 or more posts ago, the comparison of Mask of the Wild to the AD&D ability of elves was raised (originally by me). The current discussion follows on from that.

When discussing some contentious point of game rules, it is pretty normal to compare it to what has gone before in the 40-year tradition of the game. There's nothing strange or objectionable about that. As I posted upthread, it's probably not the first thing you'd raise in respect of a topic. But after 600+ posts, people are probably moving on from the first thing they woudl raise.

 

[pemerton]

Better that than allowing spellcaster to literally be immune to every magical and non-magical spell and attack type from a mosquito to a God by virtue of using a 2nd level invisibility spell. You are ramping UP their power, not lowering it.

That depends to a significant extent on how silent movement is adjudicated. Most illusionists and magic-users won't have a Move Silently score.

It depends on other factors, too, like how big a role dungeon doors play in the game - an invisible caster who opens a door is reasonably likely to be detected. (But not if s/he gains surprise, probably with a 3 in 6 chance to do so.)

In my experience, invisibility is mostly a power issue in games with a strong social/political component - what Gygax called "city adventures" - because it makes infiltration too easy. Especially in skill-based systems where anyone can have a move silently chance. But the AD&D rules were written mostly with a dungeoneering context in mind, and in that context I'm not sure that invisibility is overpowered, as opposed to just another element for scouting and evasion.