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

[dco]

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.

In that world magic was extremely rare, people would be confused and afraid of someone using cantrips or any other spell. Smaug detects the invisible hobbit, he can't see Bilbo but knows he is there.

 

[MrHotter]

There is nothing in the rules allowing invisible creatures to be immune to aoe attacks. If the aoe area includes the invisible creature he would roll his save the same as anyone else.

Attack rolls against an invisible character have disadvantage, and they are considered to be 'heavily obscured' when it comes to hiding. Neither one of those things would affect an AOE spell.

As the DM you can always determine if the aoe caster has enough information to pick a good spot to cast the aoe spell. If the invisible character has not been detected, then there would be no reason to toss out a fireball. If the invisible character is talking or making any other noise (intentionally or by failing a stealth check), then the invisibility would not help hide your location.

 

[seebs]

I am pretty sure that none of this extra functionality was ever intended for invisibility. It gave you immunity to being seen. It didn't make you immune to an attack which happened where you are.

A lot of the handwaving assumes retroactive editing of NPC locations. But that doesn't work for PCs.

Anyway, thought experiment: Two high-level thieves are handcuffed together, and haven't got tools to pick the lock. They fall in a pit. One of them drinks a potion of invisibility for no particular reason, before they both fall asleep.

A wizard teleports in nearby, and for no particular reason, casts a fireball down the corridor the pit is in. The fireball expands to fill available space.

The thieves are both asleep, and can't hear or see anything. They're in the same location. The invisible thief can't just have wandered elsewhere temporarily. And then... What? Somehow one of them is completely immune, and the other gets hit? That's stupid.

I haven't seen anything to indicate intent that invisibility would provide immunity to anything other than being specifically targeted for an attack. This is a castle in the sky derived from one word, "attack", and this in a game where "level" means at least four things.

 

[Uller]

How does the invisible character know (in all instances) what spell is being cast and where it's AoE is? How do they know that see invisibility or detect magic isn't being cast? (thus making it more advantageous to remain still and out of line of sight). You folks are making a lot of assumptions to maintain a fairly ridiculous position. What if the invisible undetected creature is also unconscious or restrained? Still can't be affected by an AoE?

 

[Hriston]

Also, on the dragon's detection of invisiblity - per the MM, p 29, "Because of these keen senses, all dragons are able to detect hidden or invisible creatures within 1” per age level." So if the halfling is 30' away it is noticed by the dragon unless the dragon is only age category 2 or less.

This dragon was specified as young, which is age category two, so its auto-detect only extends to 20 feet.

Hriston's 20% chance was taken from the table for detection of invisibility by level and HD, on p 60 of the DMG.

Correct, an average size red dragon is a 10 HD monster with an exceptional intelligence rating.

 

[Hriston]

Clearly you don't understand what clearly means. "Obscured" and "seen clearly" are mutually exclusive.

Some things really are just game jargon. Lightly and heavily obscured are bolded in the text and so are called out as terms of jargon that refer to areas in which certain mechanical considerations prevail. "Seen clearly" is not, thus it retains its natural language meaning. The end result is you can be seen clearly in a lightly obscured area.

 

[Eltab]

the elves are changing their location so as to avoid being in a room where there's a fireball.

And when the elves duck into the last room of a dead-end hallway and the PCs reach it - therefore there is nowhere else to sneak away to - do the elves in that room get hit by the Fireball? Why / why not?

I'll save you working through a trivial case:
when they realize they are in a dead-end hallway, the Elves can decide (common sense argues strongly along this line anyways) that the time for hiding is gone and the time for counter-attack has come. That leads to combat, which is not the problem at hand.

 

[Hriston]

Hehe. The mental gymnastics around here are approaching gold medal caliber.

PHB, pg. 183: Vision and Light
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring—noticing
danger, finding hidden objects, hitting an enemy in
combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few—
rely heavily on a character’s ability to see. Darkness
and other effects that obscure vision can prove a
significant hindrance.
A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In
a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog,
or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on
Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Please expound on how you reconcile the above with "seen clearly". Or maybe I'm just not using the same definitions of "seen" and "clearly" as you two. <shrug>

It says right there in your quote that Darkness obscures vision. A lightly obscured area, on the other hand, imposes merely mechanical effects.

So when you folks have been saying “seen clearly”, what you really meant was, “all senses clearly”? I wish y’all would stick to a point. Or at least say what you mean. It’s really tough trying to kick a football between goalposts that are dancing around the endzone.

I can't speak for others, but when I say "seen clearly", I'm only talking about vision. Being seen clearly is one of the conditions for denying an action declaration to hide. Once you have taken the action to hide, however, then other senses are involved in any effort to find you. For example, quiet noises you make can be heard if an observer's Wisdom (Perception) check exceeds your Dexterity (Stealth) check.

This sounds more like you two are having an issue with an aberrant definition of “clearly” than any problem with the rules. And are you guys using a binary definition of “seen”? Because if it *was* binary, I don’t see a need for “clearly” to be added in the first place?

"Clearly" was added for clarity (pun intended). Errata are not rules changes. Seen clearly or not seen clearly is still binary.

I mean, “block” vision? Who said anything about vision having to be “blocked”? I don’t recall that anywhere in the the Sage’s response.

There is no other way that vision is compromised in the rules other than by something that blocks it. A lightly obscured area imposes only a mechanical effect (disadvantage) on certain checks. This effect doesn't necessarily correspond to anything in particular in the fiction.

 

[ThePolarBear]

"Clearly" was added for clarity (pun intended). Errata are not rules changes. Seen clearly or not seen clearly is still binary.

Errata are text changes. If a phrase meaning changes due to the changes of text, the rule has changed. That's the whole point of errata. A simple forgotten "not" can change a rule upside down. Adding clearly to the text of hiding has changed the text from "you must not have line of sight no matter what" to " you are not required to not have line of sight, you just need your dm to say "ok it's fine"". This is a drastic rule change with just a single word change.

 

[Corwin]

It says right there in your quote that Darkness obscures vision. A lightly obscured area, on the other hand, imposes merely mechanical effects.

Okay. And? It also says lightly obscured can involve such areas as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage. What am I missing? What argument were you trying to make? That the words "lightly obscured" don't mean what I think it means? Are you familiar with "obscured" at all? If something is "lightly obscured," you consider it to still be "seen clearly." I don't. The usage of those words have meaning to me. Where does that leave us?

I can't speak for others, but when I say "seen clearly", I'm only talking about vision.

Cool. Me too.

Being seen clearly is one of the conditions for denying an action declaration to hide. Once you have taken the action to hide, however, then other senses are involved in any effort to find you. For example, quiet noises you make can be heard if an observer's Wisdom (Perception) check exceeds your Dexterity (Stealth) check.

Thanks for the refresher. But I've had all that figured out for a while now. And all on my own, too. I've wearing big boy pants!

"Clearly" was added for clarity (pun intended).

I'm sure you have a citing to corroborate your interpretation of *why* the Sage added "clearly". I look forward to reading his insights on the reasoning for that clarification.

Errata are not rules changes. Seen clearly or not seen clearly is still binary.

Again, I'm not sure how you reconcile something that is "lightly obscured," by definition, with something being "seen clearly." I just keep getting hung up on the meanings of "obscured" (even lightly) and being seen "clearly." You say binary. Yet, the rules themselves have three degrees. Not two. "Seen clearly" (as I see it, or un-obscured if you will), "lightly obscured" and "heavily obscured". Binary? Not by definition, no.

There is no other way that vision is compromised in the rules other than by something that blocks it. A lightly obscured area imposes only a mechanical effect (disadvantage) on certain checks. This effect doesn't necessarily correspond to anything in particular in the fiction.

That's a fine interpretation for your table. I concede that. You can enjoy the heck out of playing it that way. Pardon me if I disagree with your interpretation and choose to play it the way I read it.