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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6977185" data-attributes="member: 42582">Well, there is page 60 of the DMG:Becoming invisible takes but a twinkling, but if the party is observed doing so, there is no reason why an opponent cannot attack with the standard penalty (-4) for inability to see the target. . . . Once detected, the invisible creature will be kept track of thereafter . . . Any attacks incur the -4 penalty of attacking on invisible opponent, of course, and the invisible creature likewise is entitled to +4 on saving throws.This seems to imply that if the party was not observed then they can't be attacked, not even with the standard penalty. The bit about a saving throw bonus if attacked also seems to suggest that, if not detected, no attack is possible (not even one that allows for a saving throw bonus).And then there is p 70:Invisible opponents are always at an advantage. They can only be attacked if they are attacking or otherwise detected somehow. These opponents always cause the attacker to attack at a -4 on “to hit” rolls because of the invisibility. They can never be attacked from flank or rear positions unless the attacker can see them (thus they are, in fact, visible!).This could be a targetting rule, but I don't think that's its most natural reading, given that  the same page, umder the heading "Who Attacks Whom", says that As with missile fire, it is generally not possible to select a specific opponent in a mass melee. If this is the case, simply use some random number generation to find out which attacks are upon which opponents . . .I think, taken as a whole,  [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] is correct to see the Chainmail legacy in all this: invisibilility, in effect, takes a character or unit "off the board". The function of abilities like ESP, Detect Magic, Detect Invisibility, etc, then becomes one of locating these characters/units.Whether this is good or bad play is another matter - obviously it depends a lot on broader asumptions about the campaign, how the GM and players are approaching it, etc.Here's a variant scenario that doesn't involve invisibility: the two thieves are handcuffed together, in the pit you mention, and the fireball is cast as you describe. Do the thieves get saving throws?One of the thieves is alseep, the other awake. Do they both get saving throws?If fireballs expand to fill every bit of space, how does anyone get a saving throw who is standing dead in the centre of it? (This is similar to Gygax's fighter chained to a rock while the dragon breathes.)AD&D is full of corner cases. It doesn't purport to be a "total" ruleset, in the sense of being able to cover every conceivable situation via the mechanics presented with no need for adjudication or extrapolation. (That's another respect in which the Chainmail legacy shows.)I know of three main ways of extrapolating. One is to focus on the fiction, to emphasise GM adjudicaiton of the fiction, and to bend the rules to fit. I suspect this is the most common way of running 5e. On this approach the thieves in the pit are most likely fried by the fireball regardless of whether or not they are awake or asleep, and regardless of whether or not they drank any potions. After all, what respite is there from the flames?Another approach is to rewrite the rules to be a total simulation (inspired by systems like RQ, RM, etc). 3E heads in this sort of direction, although with some legacy compromises (eg hit points) and some places where the veneer of simulation is thin (what exactly happens when a sleeping, handcuffed thief uses Evasion to take no damage from the fireball?).A third way is to stick to the rules, and to use them to set the parameters of the fiction even when this requires departing from simulation and instead adopting a "fortune in the middle" approach. This is what  [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] is advocating. And it's what I'm inclined to. (The most systematic generalisation of this approach in D&D design is 4e.)On this approach, corner cases might get adjudicated with no more sophistication then "the invisible guy happened to get lucky". (That is, it's not the case that, in the fiction, the invisibility offered any sort of protection.) It probably won't come up more than once in a campaign, so it's not as if some sort of strange pattern of good fortune to the invisible is going to emerge.</blockquote>

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