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

[Oofta]

Yeah, the first, useful clause does that, but the second clause is different and doesn't confer anything.

Everyone detects the invisible creature though -- it's not hiding. The only way the ranger ability makes sense is if you totally ignore the designers input and say that all invisible things cannot be noticed, even if they don't hide. So far, you're the only person in the thread that's asserted this as a baseline (and kudos for that, btw, I appreciate your clear stance on the matter).

We're talking about feral senses, right? Because either the book is wrong (which is an odd stance to take) or the opinion of the authors is that there are times where an invisible creature can be heard but their exact location can be narrowed down with any precision.

I think the latter is just as plausible if not more so. Just because you know there's someone is there because you heard them (so therefore not hidden) doesn't mean you automatically know where they are within 5 ft. Or of course just pick and choose which parts of the book are the rules and which are not.

 

[Oofta]

If a wolf howls in the darkness do you notice it? I would say yes. Do you know exactly (within 5 ft) where it is? Unless it is close enough to touch, probably not.

Notice does not mean "know exact location".

 

[Ovinomancer]

My stance is that you don't automatically know location of invisible things. This is not the same that they cannot be noticed. They can be noticed (i.e. their presence know) and even their location can be known if they give it away or someone notices them for some other reason. In many circumstnace a perception check would be quite warranted. I simply do not think that such detection is an automatic success, as that would be blatantly absurd in most circumstances. The ranger's feature however allows this detection to happen automatically up to thirty feet. My interpretation doesn't ignore any rules and corresponds with common sense.

This still isn't meaningfully different from hidden -- a creature can be hidden but you might know something is nearby. @Oofta's example of the distant yelling orc is such (sorry, I didn't get to that one and recall it here). In game terms, that orc is hidden -- you can't see it, you can locate it by hearing or noticing it's passage, and you don't know where it is. The distant yelling lets you know something is going on, but you can't do much with it. Same with anything hidden -- the presence of a tell that says something is off but that doesn't reveal the location of the creature is still inside the hiding rules. What you're proposing is a second, identical set of rules to hidden, but not called hidden, so that the ranger ability can work. There's no functional difference other than one class' 18th level ability. That doesn't strike you as extremely odd design to not ever be mentioned anywhere else?

Again, you can easily rule that invisible creatures are automatically hidden -- you need no special rules or strange side-along duplicate rules for this. And, it would work just fine.

 

[Ovinomancer]

We're talking about feral senses, right? Because either the book is wrong (which is an odd stance to take) or the opinion of the authors is that there are times where an invisible creature can be heard but their exact location can be narrowed down with any precision.

I think the latter is just as plausible if not more so. Just because you know there's someone is there because you heard them (so therefore not hidden) doesn't mean you automatically know where they are within 5 ft. Or of course just pick and choose which parts of the book are the rules and which are not.

Not wrong, redundant. Because, if feral senses is correct, there's a lot of other rules that are equally redundant -- like the invisibility spell and the rules for hiding and unseen attackers. All of those reference invisibility as being always able to hide. What does hide do? It makes you unseen, unheard, and your location unknown. If you already get all of that with invisibility, why are there rules for hiding while invisible? You don't need to be unseen, that's covered. Unheard doesn't matter, either, because you can't be located by invisibility. And your location is already unknown, usually. So, why have rules to get things you already supposedly have? The answer is that you only get unseen from invisibility. None of the other parts of hidden are accrued, normally. Which is why, if you really want to disappear, you have to hide (or be stealthy outside of combat round tracking).

If a wolf howls in the darkness do you notice it? I would say yes. Do you know exactly (within 5 ft) where it is? Unless it is close enough to touch, probably not.

Notice does not mean "know exact location".

"Notice" was used earlier in the thread to indicate locating a creature. At the time, no one remarked on it, although I thought it was ripe for a semantics attack as the rules only use it in relation to surprise.

 

[Helldritch]

So, in the first, there's a non-hidden creature that isn't detectable and no checks against any passive perceptions are made? Do I have the right of this?

Sure. But you failed. The bird served as a distraction, so did the ominous statue. So you were at disadvantage -5. With that in mind, I would use the characters I have from last campaign and none would have succeeded. And this can happen in many other situations.
Ho and the treath was a high level warlock with boots of elven kind and a wand of fireball.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This still isn't meaningfully different from hidden -- a creature can be hidden but you might know something is nearby. @Oofta's example of the distant yelling orc is such (sorry, I didn't get to that one and recall it here). In game terms, that orc is hidden -- you can't see it, you can locate it by hearing or noticing it's passage, and you don't know where it is.

Right. But certainly if you know that they're nearby you have 'noticed' them, and thus 'noticing' doesn't necessarily mean knowing the location?

The distant yelling lets you know something is going on, but you can't do much with it. Same with anything hidden -- the presence of a tell that says something is off but that doesn't reveal the location of the creature is still inside the hiding rules. What you're proposing is a second, identical set of rules to hidden, but not called hidden, so that the ranger ability can work. There's no functional difference other than one class' 18th level ability. That doesn't strike you as extremely odd design to not ever be mentioned anywhere else?

Again, you can easily rule that invisible creatures are automatically hidden -- you need no special rules or strange side-along duplicate rules for this. And, it would work just fine.

Yes, that probably would be more straightforward. But I didn't write these rules, I'm just reading them. Though one reasonable difference might be that while hiding the stealth check is being made, conceivably other methods might not involve that and could just have a perception DC set by the GM like with many other skill checks.

But I alluded to this earlier, but you didn't answer: what are objects that you cannot see? Are they hidden? Is a chest behind a corner hidden, is an invisible chair hidden?

 

[Oofta]

Not wrong, redundant. Because, if feral senses is correct, there's a lot of other rules that are equally redundant -- like the invisibility spell and the rules for hiding and unseen attackers. All of those reference invisibility as being always able to hide. What does hide do? It makes you unseen, unheard, and your location unknown. If you already get all of that with invisibility, why are there rules for hiding while invisible? You don't need to be unseen, that's covered. Unheard doesn't matter, either, because you can't be located by invisibility. And your location is already unknown, usually. So, why have rules to get things you already supposedly have? The answer is that you only get unseen from invisibility. None of the other parts of hidden are accrued, normally. Which is why, if you really want to disappear, you have to hide (or be stealthy outside of combat round tracking).

Nobody has said that I am aware of that you never know where an invisible creature is. That's different from saying that you always know where an invisible creature is. In some cases you will know where a creature is that you cannot see, sometimes you won't. Fully supported by all the rules and the podcast with Crawford.

 

[Hriston]

My example has remained static, except for your request for the reason the PC walked in. And it's impossible without the PC falling, badly spraining an ankle, or the like which didn't happen, because D&D rules.

First, I agree that D&D totally rules.

So here's my understanding of the example of play and the fiction it gives rise to:

DM: You come to a door. What do you do?​

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Max: I alertly go into the room. If I see anything, I leave and get to the rest of the group.​

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DM: OK, the door opens into a large room that's about sixty-five feet long and fifty feet wide, and you don't see anything until you've walked about ten feet into the room. (I don't know why this would be, but maybe there's some intervening feature of the room that screens the goblins from view until then.) When you get ten feet in, you see ten goblins against the opposite wall of the room, and they begin moving towards you. What do you do?​

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Max: I turn to leave immediately the instant I see the goblins.​

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DM: Make a Dexterity check to determine your initiative versus the goblins. The goblins got a 15. If you win, you can get to the door first and leave, but if you lose, the goblins will have gotten the drop on you and will get to the door ahead of you to block your escape.​

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Max: Darn it, I got a 10.​

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DM: Too bad, the goblins rush past you as you turn to leave, giving you the chance to make an opportunity attack against one of them, and stand in two rows in front of the door, barring your way. What do you do?​

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And so on...​

I honestly don't see how this is an absurd narrative.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Nobody has said that I am aware of that you never know where an invisible creature is. That's different from saying that you always know where an invisible creature is. In some cases you will know where a creature is that you cannot see, sometimes you won't. Fully supported by all the rules and the podcast with Crawford.

100% agree -- sometimes you will know and sometimes you will not. But, according to the podcast and the rules, you will usually know unless there's a reason not to, and invisibility alone isn't enough.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

100% agree -- sometimes you will know and sometimes you will not. But, according to the podcast and the rules, you will usually know unless there's a reason not to, and invisibility alone isn't enough.

The rules basically say nothing about knowing the locations of creatures in general. The default state that you're imagining simply isn't something that exists in the rules.