D&D 5E Feral Senses and Hiding???

[Bawylie]

I think this actually changes the meaning, and implies that being invisible makes you hidden, which it doesn’t.

It doesn’t imply that. Straightforwardly, the word ‘otherwise’ means “in some other manner or respect.”

 

[Hriston]

It doesn’t imply that. Straightforwardly, the word ‘otherwise’ means “in some other manner or respect.”

I think I understand what you mean and that it would be better stated as, “You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that the creature isn't hidden from you [by virtue of being heavily obscured by something other than being invisible] and you aren't blinded or deafened.” Is that correct?

Because I think that by saying “isn’t hidden from you” the text means just that: the creature’s DEX check hasn’t beat your WIS check in a contest.

Adding the “otherwise” condition changes the meaning to “is hidden from you by means of being heavily obscured due to invisibility”, and I don’t think that’s a straightforward reading of “isn’t hidden from you”.

 

[Bawylie]

Yeah. How about:

“You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that you are not blind or deaf and the creature isn't hidden from you in any other manner.” ?

 

[Hriston]

That’s the same thing, isn’t it?

It’s fine if that’s your understanding and you want to play it that way, but I think the wording “isn’t hidden from you” is intentional, meaning the creature isn’t hidden from you, like, at all. I don’t think the intent of this feature is to undo hiding, even if it’s facilitated by invisibility.

It’s basically saying that you’re aware of unhidden invisible creatures (that are trying to hide) without you yourself trying to be aware of them. At least, that’s my reading.

 

[Hriston]

I think I came up with an airtight way of phrasing this:

Your passive Perception is always on when it comes to noticing invisible creatures within 30 feet of you, provided that you aren’t blinded or deafened.

I think so many games use always-on passive Perception that it makes the feature seem worthless as written.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think I came up with an airtight way of phrasing this:

Your passive Perception is always on when it comes to noticing invisible creatures within 30 feet of you, provided that you aren’t blinded or deafened.

I think so many games use always-on passive Perception that it makes the feature seem worthless as written.

Yup, that was exactly my point. The way I've always read/run the whole "hiding" conglomeration of rules is that up until the point a creature decides to make the active choice to "hide" (and the demarcation of this point is the roll of a Dexterity (Stealth) check)... every creature knows where every other creature within range is, even if the target can't be noticed by one of the myriad of senses that make up a creature's "perception". A creature's "perception" involves sight, sound, smell, and touch... all of which are used to find other creatures. And it's not enough for a target to get out of one of those senses, they have to get out of all of them for them to be considered "hidden" and thus unnoticed and untargetable (barring random chance).

Thus the second point of Feral Senses to me is redundant to what creatures already do. Creatures already know where any and all other creatures are if they haven't yet made the choice to roll a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Even if the targeted creatures are invisible.

But really... at the end of the day, all that matters to all players is the game mechanic. The "you don't have to roll attacks against invisible creatures with disadvantage". That's the only part of Feral Senses that actually has a tangible meaning. Everything else is the fluffy, ribbon, narrative explanation that the hiding rules use a lot of, in order to let every table have a series of "rules" at hand to explain away whatever hiding rules they were going to use regardless of what was actually down in the book. And I've always contended that is exactly why they wrote the rules for hiding as they did-- because they knew every DM was going to make up their own rules for hiding anyway, so it was a waste of time for them to get too far into the weeds with it. Instead, they added in a whole bunch of narrative description and intention for what hiding and spotting people hiding was supposed to kind of represent, assuming that the DMs would take that intention and use it as their own personal verification for how they were running stealth and hiding.

 

[Horwath]

much simpler would be if they kept it simple:

You can see invisible creatures.

 

[Hriston]

Yup, that was exactly my point. The way I've always read/run the whole "hiding" conglomeration of rules is that up until the point a creature decides to make the active choice to "hide" (and the demarcation of this point is the roll of a Dexterity (Stealth) check)... every creature knows where every other creature within range is, even if the target can't be noticed by one of the myriad of senses that make up a creature's "perception". A creature's "perception" involves sight, sound, smell, and touch... all of which are used to find other creatures. And it's not enough for a target to get out of one of those senses, they have to get out of all of them for them to be considered "hidden" and thus unnoticed and untargetable (barring random chance).

Thus the second point of Feral Senses to me is redundant to what creatures already do. Creatures already know where any and all other creatures are if they haven't yet made the choice to roll a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Even if the targeted creatures are invisible.

But really... at the end of the day, all that matters to all players is the game mechanic. The "you don't have to roll attacks against invisible creatures with disadvantage". That's the only part of Feral Senses that actually has a tangible meaning. Everything else is the fluffy, ribbon, narrative explanation that the hiding rules use a lot of, in order to let every table have a series of "rules" at hand to explain away whatever hiding rules they were going to use regardless of what was actually down in the book. And I've always contended that is exactly why they wrote the rules for hiding as they did-- because they knew every DM was going to make up their own rules for hiding anyway, so it was a waste of time for them to get too far into the weeds with it. Instead, they added in a whole bunch of narrative description and intention for what hiding and spotting people hiding was supposed to kind of represent, assuming that the DMs would take that intention and use it as their own personal verification for how they were running stealth and hiding.

But this invisible creature within 30 feet of the ranger has made the choice to try to hide.

Here’s how I imagine this coming up in play:

A ranger is leading a party of halflings through a near-impenetrable marsh. He’s the only one with halfway decent Survival skills, so he needs to navigate so they don’t get lost, or they’ll never make it out alive. Now, Marsh is not one of this ranger’s favored terrains, so while he’s busy navigating, his passive Perception will not be consulted for noticing hidden threats. If he encounters a creature that is trying to hide, it will auto-surprise him. Well, as luck would have it, as the party approaches the darkest part of the marsh, an invisible wraith lays in wait, hiding not far from the path. The wraith’s DEX (Stealth) check is not that good, however. If the ranger wasn’t so busy navigating, he would notice it with his passive score. Luckily for him, his Feral Senses kick in as he gets within range, and he notices the telltale signs of an invisible creature hiding there in the swamp grass.