D&D 5E How powerfull is a permanent blur item?

[Caliban]

Grappling is an attack, no? I would assume it would be done at Disadvantage, too? Once grappled the effect would be in place. Add Web and other AOE grappling effects to the list of ways to reduce the Cloak's effectiveness.

Not a "normal" grapple - it's an opposed skill check - Athletics vs Athletics or Acrobatics. (Although certain monsters have a Grapple ability that triggers on a successful attack - they would have to deal with the Displacement effect on their initial attack.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

D&D, like life, requires adaptation to challenges presented. In this case it is a Cloak of Displacement. It is very hard to hit a high AC character using the CoD with conventional attacks. However there are several convenient work arounds. Do ANY damage to the character wearing one, so Magic Missile, any save-for-half damage attacks and the like will remove the effect in some part until the PC's next turn. Truesight can help. Anything that gives an opponent advantage over the CoD player - Reckless Attack, Pack Tactics, Faerie Fire and so on, brings it back to a standard roll.

Might the DM have to 'go out of their way' to deal with this? Sure. The DM in question said the CoD was "literally game-breaking". If I'm a DM and the game is being broken, I have some level of responsibility in adjusting it to provide a challenging and entertaining experience for my players. That's what DM's there for. Does it mean every encounter has to be tilted to deal with the CoD? Of course not. But have having some tricks up your sleeve to keep the party on their toes is not a bad thing. Nor is pointing this out a condemnation of a poster.

Oh, no doubt you bear responsibility for your game. But that doesn't mean that getting around a nearly unhittable character with some workaround doesn't break your game. You couldn't, for instance, have an encounter with giants that was meaningful without adding servitors with spells. Or a dragon, for that matter, who cannot take advantage of melee attacks after breathing (absent legendary actions, of course, but those are very limited). You've essentially ruled out most of the Monster Manual as effective without adding something to specifically counter the cloak. Depending on playstyle, this can have huge repercussions in game. If I'm running a sandbox, where the world doesn't adapt to the PCs without cause as a matter of convention, then this is an issue not easily solved. Or, if I've already established some fictions about enemies (who they are, races, capabilities, etc.) then making sudden changes to that to "fix" the cloak is also not easily done.

And, thank you, you've again led me to the conclusion that "fixing" mechanical issues within the game narrative is a bad choice. If the cloak was an issue, it should have been dealt with at the meta level of discussion with players as to why it's affecting gameplay and then adjusting the cloak's mechanics or swapping it for something else. Any time you change the gameplay to offset something in the rules, that's a failure to deal with root causes, which quite often results in knock-on effects that are equally destabilizing.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Not a "normal" grapple - it's an opposed skill check - Athletics vs Athletics or Acrobatics. (Although certain monsters have a Grapple ability that triggers on a successful attack - they would have to deal with the Displacement effect on their initial attack.)

I think you're right. The CoD specifies it imposes Disadvantage on 'attack rolls' and while a Grapple utilizes the Attack action it uses a Strength (Athletics) check to resolve.

 

[FrogReaver]

There is a difference of degrees. Or in the case of your intentionally-ridiculous example, magnitudes.

I item does not need to be an "I win" button in every circumstance to be game breaking. It just has to be an "I win" button in enough circumstances - which a cloak of displacement is not, given that it really only does anything at all in a single, very specific circumstance: when no one is doing anything harmful to the character that doesn't involve attack rolls, and the character already has a high enough AC to make accuracy of attack rolls low enough not to still hit while rolling with disadvantage, and nothing you are facing can see through illusions.

Thank you. I intended my example to be overly ridiculous. But it illustrated my point exactly. What makes something game breaking is not that it ceases to be "circumstantially powerful". Instead it's because it's very powerful in enough circumstances.

I would not call taking attack rolls to be a "single very specific circumstance". It's a general thing and it's going to happen a lot. It meets my threshold for happening in enough circumstances. You may differ in opinion on how strong +4 ac is really. It keeps you alive longer but not your companions and doesn't generally help you kill the enemies faster.

Also a character can have mid ac and still greatly benefit from such an item. Super low ac not so much. Being hit 19 out of 20 times and 18 out of 20 times makes little difference lol.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There is a difference of degrees. Or in the case of your intentionally-ridiculous example, magnitudes.

I item does not need to be an "I win" button in every circumstance to be game breaking. It just has to be an "I win" button in enough circumstances - which a cloak of displacement is not, given that it really only does anything at all in a single, very specific circumstance: when no one is doing anything harmful to the character that doesn't involve attack rolls, and the character already has a high enough AC to make accuracy of attack rolls low enough not to still hit while rolling with disadvantage, and nothing you are facing can see through illusions.

The +2000 damage also only does anything at all in a single, very specific circumstance: when you hit something with your +2000 weapon. Therefore, +2000 weapons are not game breaking because they are not "I win" buttons in enough circumstances, as defined by me.

Really?

 

[FrogReaver]

What level does a wizard get an at will level 2 spell

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Oh, no doubt you bear responsibility for your game. But that doesn't mean that getting around a nearly unhittable character with some workaround doesn't break your game. You couldn't, for instance, have an encounter with giants that was meaningful without adding servitors with spells. Or a dragon, for that matter, who cannot take advantage of melee attacks after breathing (absent legendary actions, of course, but those are very limited). You've essentially ruled out most of the Monster Manual as effective without adding something to specifically counter the cloak. Depending on playstyle, this can have huge repercussions in game. If I'm running a sandbox, where the world doesn't adapt to the PCs without cause as a matter of convention, then this is an issue not easily solved. Or, if I've already established some fictions about enemies (who they are, races, capabilities, etc.) then making sudden changes to that to "fix" the cloak is also not easily done.

And, thank you, you've again led me to the conclusion that "fixing" mechanical issues within the game narrative is a bad choice. If the cloak was an issue, it should have been dealt with at the meta level of discussion with players as to why it's affecting gameplay and then adjusting the cloak's mechanics or swapping it for something else. Any time you change the gameplay to offset something in the rules, that's a failure to deal with root causes, which quite often results in knock-on effects that are equally destabilizing.

How do you handle monsters with non-magic weapon resistance? Do the players find a way to get magic weapons and use other tactics to deal with them? Or does that break the game? Are Displacer Beasts completely broken?!?

In your encounter with Giants, have them attempt to grapple the Cloaked player. Have a dragon use it's Legendary Action Wing Attack to good effect. The MM is a good resource but monsters should be more than a rote set of actions in a stat block.

You continue to beat the dead horse that the Cloak of Displacement is fundamentally broken as a reason to deny offered methods to deal with it. But it's not broken to any degree that many other means of magic are broken. In a game I played over the weekend we had to fight some invisible assassins and none of us had reliable methods of detecting them. They did a lot of damage but we adapted, improvised and overcame. It's what the game is about. Of course YMMV.

 

[jaelis]

What level does a wizard get an at will level 2 spell

So is your contention that, indeed, a Cloak of Displacement makes the game unplayable? As in, unenjoyable unless you change the rules significantly? Or are you trying to argue some more theoretical point?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

What level does a wizard get an at will level 2 spell

At a level where all its' opponents will have Blindsight, Tremorsense or Truesight.

 

[Caliban]

The effect of an item like the Cloak of Displacement (or a permanent blur item) depends greatly on two things - the AC of person wearing the cloak, and how many opponents in the campaign rely on attack rolls to do damage.

If the player has a really high AC (due to magic armor, spells, or very high stats), then the cloak has a huge effect. If they have a low AC the cloak still helps, but it won't be nearly as powerful.

If the campaign is mostly dealing with opponents that use weapon and natural weapon attacks, then the Disadvantage comes into play all the time. If the campaign has a healthy dose of opponents who use other attack options (grappling, spells, damage aura's, trample attacks, engulf attacks, etc.) then the cloak is less significant. If the campaign features mainly enemy spellcasters who focus on AoE's, debuffs, and crowd control spells then the cloak barely matters.

If you don't want to include a lot of variant attack opponents, don't give out a cloak of displacement.