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

[eayres33]

Yeah for sure man. Make it your own game, and rule how you want to. Ignore rules or make it up as you go along. It's your game.

Im just making the observation that the OP's situation is covered by the rules. Clearly and unambiguously.

That's the weird thing about 5E ignoring the rules is following the rules, and following the rules means ignoring the rules.

 

[Oofta]

That's the weird thing about 5E ignoring the rules is following the rules, and following the rules means ignoring the rules.

Or just reading the rules without having a forgone conclusion. You can be hidden without taking the hide action, hiding is just one way to become hidden. Even then it's up to the DM to decide if you can ever successfully hide under the current circumstances.

Works just fine with all the rules. Rogue's blindsense and ranger's feral sense are not "mistakes". There are no contradictions in the podcast. I mean, seriously, how often can an invisible PC get 100 ft away from any enemy in a single round in your games? That's not an unusual circumstance?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Okay, I guess I don't follow that there's different levels of not being seen.

I'm not sure where you get levels.

Seeing something is just one sense that used to detect something. People have multiple senses. So you can be unseen and detected or you could have the potential for someone to see you(not heavily obscured) and yet go undetected.

Invisible is a strong combo with what?

Stealth

This seems like a huge advantage to invisibility in regards to hiding already, so why does it also need to impose disadvantage?

It doesn't NEED to, but in many situations, I could see it doing exactly that.

I don't follow. It's very strong when paired with silence, as I said, which seems good cause to grant a free hide attempt or impose disadvantage, as you're now down to only being able to observe signs of passage.

Observe seems to imply that you are relying on your Sight to detect them. You already said you don't consider smell at all. With your over-emphasis on needing Sight and de-emphasis on alternate senses, I'm surprised that you wouldn't give disadvantage to perception when you lack the ability to see them, especially when the rules state that skills relying on Sight auto-fail.

If you mean invisible alone is good enough for disadvantage on perception checks, you can do that, but the rules are pretty clear that's not what's on tap.

What's clear in the rules is that when you are invisible is you are heavily obscured and when you are heavily obscured you automatically fail any skill checks that involve sight. And since sight is a major factor for being able to detect a hidden foe, it makes sense to me that you'd be at some kind of disadvantage since you can only rely in hearing, smell, noticing tracks or other minute details that might easily be overlooked.

As you've made clear, there's no disadvantage for not being seen by non-invisible creatures in order to hide.

Not true. Hiding behind a wall or giant rock where someone has no chance of seeing you might warrant a check at disadvantage. It's no different than the penalties associated with dim light which seems to only impede vision and not any other sense.

You can, obviously, do whatever you like.

Obviously.

 

[Helldritch]

Or just reading the rules without having a forgone conclusion. You can be hidden without taking the hide action, hiding is just one way to become hidden. Even then it's up to the DM to decide if you can ever successfully hide under the current circumstances.

Works just fine with all the rules. Rogue's blindsense and ranger's feral sense are not "mistakes". There are no contradictions in the podcast. I mean, seriously, how often can an invisible PC get 100 ft away from any enemy in a single round in your games? That's not an unusual circumstance?

An out of the ordinary circumstance, calls for an out of the ordinary ruling. Rules do not cover every possible situations and those it covers might have a detail, however small, that finally put the ruling in the out of the ordinary zone.

This is why I usually put DMs' judgment and logic above the rules.