D&D 5E Fixing Eldritch Blast

[neogod22]

The rules as written...
"When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll."
"When a creature can’t see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it."
"If multiple situations affect a roll and each one grants advantage or im poses disadvantage on it, you don’t roll more than one additional d20."


Of course, you can play as you wish.

I know what the RAW says, but the difference between a 20ft radius of darkness and someone going invisible is, when a creature goes invisible, you can still see the spot where they stood and target it. Whether you hit or not is up to the DM. A zone of darkness, you can't see the spot or anything around it. If you go in it, you can't see where you're at either, so how do you know what you're targeting? I adjust depending on the situation.

If an archer was standing outside the zone of darkness and decides he wants to fire at the target's last known position, I'll give you the attack at disadvantage, I will even give you the entire path of the arrow as your targeted squares. If the target is within that path and you hit, great. If not then you missed. If something else stepped in that path, you might have hit it instead. You'll never know because you can't see.

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[mellored]

I disagree. You have full concealment. To target you, someone must guess what space you are in.

Can you quote that from the book?

You must have a target. They have no target. It requires seeing the foe to know exactly where to shoot. If you cannot see them and only hear them "in that direction, somewhat" that's going to require the player to guess where to shoot. I know of zero DMs who would rule otherwise. It's pretty silly to claim you know where everything is in darkness. I mean...it's darkness. You know darkness. It's not a magical world concept - you KNOW the physics of this and you cannot know where everyone is, in complete darkness.

It's not hard to get a good idea of where someone is by sound. Here's a kid doing it. https://youtu.be/Oai7HUqncAA?t=281
And you can try it yourself. Get some nerf balls, close your eyes, and have someone walk around. Then throw the balls at them. You won't be off by more than 5'.


Though really, if you're going to play that way, everyone should lose their Dex to AC when in darkness as well (3e's flat footed). You can't dodge something you can't see coming, but armor would still work.

Let me ask you, have you ever played with it at the table? I mentioned it's something that only works on paper but not well in practice for a reason. It causes absolute chaos. The rest of the players at the table might tolerate it for a couple of combats, but not long term. It's simply not a tactic that works well with others. It puts the caster basically in control of most of the battlefield, for friend and foe, without much choice for the rest of the players.

We play by RAW at the table, and with darkness + devils sight, yes. There's no issue, and no chaos.

If you play differently, then you will have different results.

 

[neogod22]

Can you quote that from the book?

It's not hard to get a good idea of where someone is by sound. Here's a kid doing it. https://youtu.be/Oai7HUqncAA?t=281
And you can try it yourself. Get some nerf balls, close your eyes, and have someone walk around. Then throw the balls at them. You won't be off by more than 5'.


Though really, if you're going to play that way, everyone should lose their Dex to AC when in darkness as well (3e's flat footed). You can't dodge something you can't see coming, but armor would still work.

We play by RAW at the table, and with darkness + devils sight, yes. There's no issue, and no chaos.

If you play differently, then you will have different results.

When not in combat, in a quiet room, sure you can hear someone walking around, and may have a pretty good chance at hitting them, but you still have to guess where they are, and you still have a good chance at missing. In combat, when swords are clashing, spells are flying, people moving and yelling, you have no chance of finding them.

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[Mistwell]

I believe mellored is correct in this case. For example, invisible creatures (full concealment) can be targeted if they are not hidden per RAW.

You need to target it though. If you cannot identify where it is, you have to guess. There is no getting around that. It's not even an issue of RAW - you cannot see, the DM asks where you attack, and you have to answer. You have to pick a spot. There is no rules as written needed for "If you cannot see, then you don't know where stuff is". I mean, a table doesn't have to have a hide check for you to not know it's there in the dark, right? There is no rule that says you know where everything is in darkness unless it's made a hide check - you cannot see, you're not sure what space stuff is in, it's part of seeing!

For the sake of discussion, though, and given that not every group plays with minis on a grid, how do you propose the guess-the-space mechanic be handled by the "Theater of the Mind" folks?

Either the DM knows exactly where it is and the player says which cardinal direction they are attacking, or else they can use a grenade splash table to randomly choose a location.

 

[Mistwell]

Can you quote that from the book?

It's not hard to get a good idea of where someone is by sound. Here's a kid doing it. https://youtu.be/Oai7HUqncAA?t=281

How do they know who is friend and who is foe? They don't. Your allies don't make a specific ping sound. It's a battle, in the dark, and you're blind. This is a pretty silly argument - of course you cannot perfectly identify where everyone is when blind just because they have not rolled a hide check as an action. Nor could you perfectly navigate the rooms obstacles. Come on...have you honestly played a lot of games where that was a common ruling?

We play by RAW at the table, and with darkness + devils sight, yes. There's no issue, and no chaos.

If you play differently, then you will have different results.

I will ask it again since you answered a slightly different question than the one I asked. I didn't ask if you play RAW at the table. I asked have you used darkness plus devil's sight at the table as a routine tactic, or not? How often did you use it? Did it, eventually, start to irritate your fellow players? I am betting it did if it was used for very long. Someone will have crashed into furniture. Someone will have had their line of sight from a spell cut off. Someone will get irritated this keeps happening because your PC has decided to completely alter the battlefield to their benefit several times a day.

 

[Tony Vargas]

We play by RAW at the table, and with darkness + devils sight, yes. There's no issue, and no chaos.

Yeah, but RAW is so edition-before-last. ;P

For the sake of discussion, though, and given that not every group plays with minis on a grid, how do you propose the guess-the-space mechanic be handled by the "Theater of the Mind" folks?

The orthodox answer would be: The DM describes the scene. "It's, like totally dark, you can hear fighting off to your left, and heavy breathing to the right and a little behind you, there's also a loud, rapid pounding noise. The air is close and dank. You smell something akin to metal & rotting lavender." The player describes his action. "I shuffle away from the pounding & heavy breathing and shoot a fireball towards the noise of the fight..." The DM narrates the result "The pounding noise follows you, getting faster as you go. The low roar of your fireball's detonation starts a split-second earlier than you'd've expected, and you can feel the heat of your own spell singeing you: make a DEX save..."

Or you could just roll some kind of 3e-style miss chance.

 

[Ristamar]

You need to target it though. If you cannot identify where it is, you have to guess.

You can target it, though, assuming it's not hidden. Invisibility does not hide your location by default, it just allows you to hide anywhere. Whether you find it to be realistic or not, mechanically, it's no different than any other form of being heavily obscured.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/19/dispel-invisibility-2/

 

[MarkB]

When not in combat, in a quiet room, sure you can hear someone walking around, and may have a pretty good chance at hitting them, but you still have to guess where they are, and you still have a good chance at missing. In combat, when swords are clashing, spells are flying, people moving and yelling, you have no chance of finding them.

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That's certainly a reasonable way to rule it, but the RAW rule it the other way - you know where someone is even if you can't see them, unless they take an action to hide.

How do they know who is friend and who is foe? They don't. Your allies don't make a specific ping sound. It's a battle, in the dark, and you're blind. This is a pretty silly argument - of course you cannot perfectly identify where everyone is when blind just because they have not rolled a hide check as an action. Nor could you perfectly navigate the rooms obstacles. Come on...have you honestly played a lot of games where that was a common ruling?

If you see your foes before the Darkness is cast, you know where they are at that moment. If they don't take an action to hide, you continue to know where they are at each subsequent moment.

It's not an aspect of the rules that I particularly like, but it's fairly unambiguous if you apply the stealth and perception rules as written.

 

[mellored]

Your allies don't make a specific ping sound

Do you think kobolds, half-orcs, and dragons sound the same?
Unless there's some deception checks going on (don't use darkness against kenku, that was a waste of a spell slot) you can easily recognise someone's voice.

Also, the warlock can still see, and give directions if needed.

I will ask it again since you answered a slightly different question than the one I asked. I didn't ask if you play RAW at the table. I asked have you used darkness plus devil's sight at the table as a routine tactic, or not?

Yes, playing by RAW.

How often did you use it?

About half the time. When I could pre-buff or knew it will be a long battle.
It's not worth missing a turn in small battles. And sometimes another spell is better, or the enemy has special senses.

Did it, eventually, start to irritate your fellow players?

No. The majority of the time it didn't affect them at all. As mentioned, RAW means normal attacks for everyone, which is how we play.

And semi-often my allies used the darkness to their advantage. They would simply ask me to move somewhere, I did, and then they could avoid an unwanted OAs or whatever. And once everyone was hiding in it to turn Medusa into a super easy encounter.

Of course,there were a few times where the monster's used it ot their advantage as well, but it helped the party more than hindered. Not even including the extra damage from the warlock.

 

[neogod22]

That's certainly a reasonable way to rule it, but the RAW rule it the other way - you know where someone is even if you can't see them, unless they take an action to hide.


If you see your foes before the Darkness is cast, you know where they are at that moment. If they don't take an action to hide, you continue to know where they are at each subsequent moment.

It's not an aspect of the rules that I particularly like, but it's fairly unambiguous if you apply the stealth and perception rules as written.

The difference between the players and the DM is, the players are confined to the rules. The DM is not. As a DM I can run the game as I see fit, which includes interpreting, changing, or ignoring rules.

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