D&D 5E Greater Invis and Stealth checks, how do you rule it?

[Xetheral]

Because of where the judgement call is made. Here's an analogy -- in football, a first down is when the offense moves the ball at least 10 yards from the location at the start of the down. This is the baseline. Most of the time it's pretty clear if the ball is under that or over that -- situation where everyone would agree one way or the other. There's a judgement call when you're nearby, based on where an official spots the ball, that could result in being over or under the line. This largely encapsulates my position. @Oofta's position, as presented, is that it's always up the official when a first down occurs -- there is no baseline of 10 yards, it's just whenever the official determines that this is good enough.

So, sure, there are judgement calls in both, but it's frankly ridiculous to say that because there are judgement calls the approaches are the same.

Your analogy seems inapt to me. The judgement call on whether or not an invisible creature is hard enough to locate to warrant deviating from a default isn't inherently a question of numerical measurement. You might decide to create such a numerical threshold at your table (e.g. beyond x feet the default doesn't apply), but a DM using @Oofta's approach could create an equivalent threshold (e.g. beyond x feet an invisible creature's location is unknown).

So while I agree that DM determinations will vary wildly from DM to DM, I don't think the degree of variation at a particular table depends on whether the DM is describing their approach as determining whether to depart from a default, or determining the result directly. For any metric a DM might apply to determine whether or not to depart from a default, an equivalent metric exists to determine whether or not the invisible character's location is known.

 

[Dausuul]

Because of where the judgement call is made. Here's an analogy -- in football, a first down is when the offense moves the ball at least 10 yards from the location at the start of the down. This is the baseline. Most of the time it's pretty clear if the ball is under that or over that -- situation where everyone would agree one way or the other. There's a judgement call when you're nearby, based on where an official spots the ball, that could result in being over or under the line. This largely encapsulates my position. @Oofta's position, as presented, is that it's always up the official when a first down occurs -- there is no baseline of 10 yards, it's just whenever the official determines that this is good enough.

So, sure, there are judgement calls in both, but it's frankly ridiculous to say that because there are judgement calls the approaches are the same.

Except that in this case, there are no yard lines and some officials think a yard is 1 foot and others think it's 10 feet and others have just sort of a gut feeling that a yard is about, oh, this long, but of course you have to adjust that based on circumstances.

When the gray area is big enough, it overwhelms the rule.

 

[Maxperson]

1st: Thank-you for not ignoring my question

2nd: I just don't get where it says sneaking is an action. Is that PHB? I always assumed you could sneak quietly as part of your move.

I get it that HIDING requires an action in combat because you have to physically find a place to hide and try to evade notice - hence the Rogue's ability to do it as a cunning action but hiding isn't a button you push to go into stealth mode. If you are invisible, you don't really need to find a place to hide. You just need to quietly tip toe around and not be heard.

So, if my character has a 50 foot movement speed and I'm 10 feet from an enemy, I could sneak using 20 feet of my movement, attack and then retreat. Could I not use the rest of my 30 feet to try to quietly move 15 feet and try to elude detection so they don't know which way my character went?

I mean, I get the action tax on Stealth as a game balance thing. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

The action really isn't hide. That's what the players tell you, but the ability check is Dex(Stealth). Stealth covers action where you are being stealthy such as sneaking, remaining still and quiet, hiding, etc.

Look at it like this. I can sneak slowly, being or trying to be quiet. I can stroll at half speed, not trying to be quiet. Or I can stomp at half speed. It's the effort to be quiet that triggers stealth, not the speed.

 

[Flamestrike]

Allowing someone other than a 14th level ranger to actually pinpoint the space where an invisible foe is,

An invisible (but not hidden) creature is not 'pinpointed' by anyone.

The game simply assumes that (until they choose to Hide) nearby creatures have a very rough idea of where they are; enough to attack them (at disadvantage).

You know; know where they are well enough to advance while wildly waving a sword from side to side and have a chance of hitting. Lobbing a few shots in their vicinity with a hope and a prayer and have a chance one of those arrows finds its mark.

Not well enough to target them with many spells (other than AoEs).

You cant (for example) target them at all with healing word, hex, hold person, magic missile, acid splash, divine word, dominate person, bless, hunters mark, maze, polymorph, disintegrate, counterspell, charm person, fear, banishment, hellish rebuke, levitate, chain lightning, blight, Geas, hold monster, immolation, eyebite, harm, heal, and literally dozens of other spells, nor can you Dodge their attacks, or make attacks of opportunity against them. You cant exclude them from the damage from your spirit guardians either even if they're friends.

Many monster abilities also cant affect them. A Demi-lich cant target them with its Vile curse, or its Life drain. It doesn't know their location well enough, even when they're not hidden. A Mummy Lord cant target them with its Dreadful glare. It simply doesnt know where they are with sufficient accuracy to target them. A Nothic cant target them with its Rotting Gaze, or its Weird insight. A Beholder cant target them with any of its eye rays while they're invisible. A Knight and a Death Knight cant Parry their attacks.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

None of those monsters and other hostile creatures can pinpoint an invisible creatures location. They have a rough idea where the invisible (but not hidden) creature is. That's it. Enough to make spell and weapon attacks against that invisible (but not hidden) creature at disadvantage in their general vicinity, with an outside chance of hitting.

That's it.

What you're missing is: The Game already takes into account the difficulty of precisely targeting an invisible (but not hidden) creature. It's worked into every single special ability and spell in the game, most of which simply cant be used against an invisible creature.

If the invisible creature was also hidden, you cant even make weapon or spell attacks (or AoE's) against them without a very lucky guess before hand.

 

[Oofta]

1st: Thank-you for not ignoring my question

2nd: I just don't get where it says sneaking is an action. Is that PHB? I always assumed you could sneak quietly as part of your move.

I get it that HIDING requires an action in combat because you have to physically find a place to hide and try to evade notice - hence the Rogue's ability to do it as a cunning action but hiding isn't a button you push to go into stealth mode. If you are invisible, you don't really need to find a place to hide. You just need to quietly tip toe around and not be heard.

So, if my character has a 50 foot movement speed and I'm 10 feet from an enemy, I could sneak using 20 feet of my movement, attack and then retreat. Could I not use the rest of my 30 feet to try to quietly move 15 feet and try to elude detection so they don't know which way my character went?

I mean, I get the action tax on Stealth as a game balance thing. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

For #2 it's in chapter 9 of the PHB under "Actions in Combat" and "Hide". The DM gets to decide when a stealth ability check is possible. But that's a whole other topic.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Your analogy seems inapt to me. The judgement call on whether or not an invisible creature is hard enough to locate to warrant deviating from a default isn't inherently a question of numerical measurement. You might decide to create such a numerical threshold at your table (e.g. beyond x feet the default doesn't apply), but a DM using @Oofta's approach could create an equivalent threshold (e.g. beyond x feet an invisible creature's location is unknown).

The analogy used the 10 yards to first down in football to represent an understood baseline with room for adjudication. It wasn't meant to be any reference to a specific distance at which invisibility functions differently.

So while I agree that DM determinations will vary wildly from DM to DM, I don't think the degree of variation at a particular table depends on whether the DM is describing their approach as determining whether to depart from a default, or determining the result directly. For any metric a DM might apply to determine whether or not to depart from a default, an equivalent metric exists to determine whether or not the invisible character's location is known.

I disagree. There's a large difference between saying there's a general case that holds unless something everyone can see alters it leading to a GM ruling and saying there is no general case, it's always the GM's ruling. The former is much more player facing -- the players can easily understand the working of the world and make choices without having to ask questions about the situation. The latter is more GM facing -- the GM understands the world but has to relate the understanding to the players or have the players ask questions about the GM's understanding so the players can make choices. This is a fundamental difference in approach in general, and in this specific case it's still a fundamental difference in approach.

With regard to what the podcast is saying, it's approaching it from the former position -- it's normal for invisible creatures to be located unless there's a special circumstance. I cannot agree with an argument that says that since there's room for GM arbitration here, that means that it also means there's no normal -- it's all GM determining every situation independently. That's not the approach discussed, even if that approach is a perfectly fine approach.

Since I took some time to say things that could be viewed as dismissive of an approach, let me point out where I think my approach can have problems. For one, it requires fortune in the middle -- after the broad strokes are determined, the decision is made, and then the rest of the scene is narrated in. This looks like the my example earlier of the monk running off (initially established fiction), I then decide that there's no special circumstance so he's located, and then the narration comes back in and a trail of kicked up dust is added to the fiction as to why the monk is detected. This, fundamentally, strikes some as not good. That's cool, I get it, I was in that group not that long ago. Secondly, I think it strikes some as gameable -- any time you have a fixed or largely fixed baseline, players might game it. I don't have that concern, but I understand it, and my approach definitely opens itself up to that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Except that in this case, there are no yard lines and some officials think a yard is 1 foot and others think it's 10 feet and others have just sort of a gut feeling that a yard is about, oh, this long, but of course you have to adjust that based on circumstances.

When the gray area is big enough, it overwhelms the rule.

Sure, you can posit a grey area that big. The podcast, though, doesn't. I don't think the rules do. People are free to posit otherwise -- it's the spice of the game after all -- but my issue was claiming that the podcast makes the large grey area claim because it acknowledges some grey area. I also have an issue with the argument that if grey areas exist, approaches are not meaningfully different. In the analogy, the grey area is near the 1st yard line, usually within a foot of it. It's not so large as to be 8 yards away from it. A system of adjudication that has a small grey area is not functionally similar to one that has a large grey (or all grey, as in this case) area. That was the intent of the analogy and my point -- we're not doing the same thing at different scales, we're actually doing different thing even in parts of those things look similar.

 

[Helldritch]

1st: Thank-you for not ignoring my question

2nd: I just don't get where it says sneaking is an action. Is that PHB? I always assumed you could sneak quietly as part of your move.

I get it that HIDING requires an action in combat because you have to physically find a place to hide and try to evade notice - hence the Rogue's ability to do it as a cunning action but hiding isn't a button you push to go into stealth mode. If you are invisible, you don't really need to find a place to hide. You just need to quietly tip toe around and not be heard.

So, if my character has a 50 foot movement speed and I'm 10 feet from an enemy, I could sneak using 20 feet of my movement, attack and then retreat. Could I not use the rest of my 30 feet to try to quietly move 15 feet and try to elude detection so they don't know which way my character went?

I mean, I get the action tax on Stealth as a game balance thing. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

Me neither and so are my players. And neither are the rules.
Actions you can take are (PHB p192)
Cast a spell
Dash
Disengage
Dodge
Help
Hide
Ready
Search
Use an object and of course
Attack.
Stealth is not an action. It is part of the movement phase.
A skill check might be part of a move or an action. Example: Make an accrobatic check to jump from the stairs to catch the chandelier as it swing and shoot your hand crossbow at a foe right below with your free hand.

 

[Flamestrike]

2nd: I just don't get where it says sneaking is an action. Is that PHB? I always assumed you could sneak quietly as part of your move.

Sneaking is done in combat via the Hide action.

Just because they called it 'Hide' dont let that confuse you.

I get it that HIDING requires an action in combat because you have to physically find a place to hide and try to evade notice

No, its actually the other way around.

The Hiding (making yourself unseen) is easy. You simply move into total cover (or heavy obscurement) or otherwise make yourself unseen.

Once you're unseen (or 'unable to be seen clearly') you can attempt to be quiet with a Stealth check to 'Hide' (via the Hide action).

- hence the Rogue's ability to do it as a cunning action but hiding isn't a button you push to go into stealth mode. If you are invisible, you don't really need to find a place to hide. You just need to quietly tip toe around and not be heard.

Quietly tip-toeing around and trying to be quiet while unseen (invisible) is Hiding. Its what the Stealth skill does and is for, and what the Hide action lets you do.

If my character has a 50 foot movement speed and I'm 10 feet from an enemy, I could sneak using 20 feet of my movement, attack and then retreat. Could I not use the rest of my 30 feet to try to quietly move 15 feet and try to elude detection so they don't know which way my character went?

Nope. You reveal yourself from hiding when you attacked (hit or miss). At the end of your movement (after you moved away) seeing as you havent again become hidden, the game assumes your target has a rough idea where you are (enough to make weapon and spell attacks against you at disadvantage this round). You can always Hide whenever you want seeing as you're invisible though (on your next turn, using your action).

You could do the above if you're a Rogue however

Move 10 feet (invisible and hidden). Use Attack action to attack. Use Hide action (as a bonus action via cunning action) to re-enter Hiding.

Then you could move where you damn well wanted and your enemy wouldnt have a clue where you are without a lucky guess.

I mean, I get the action tax on Stealth as a game balance thing. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

The Hide action (and the Stealth skill) is used for hiding (as defined in the game, as 'any time you want to make your character unheard while he is also unseen').

It covers sneaking up behind someone who has his back to you, or when you want to be silent and sneaky when using cover, heavy obscurement or invisiblity. You take the Hide action, and roll Stealth (you sneaking up while unseen) vs their passive perception.

 

[Flamestrike]

Stealth is not an action. It is part of the movement phase.

Dude, it is an action (the Hide action) and you're doing it wrong.

How can you possibly come to that conclusion after listenting to the Podcast linked in this thread?