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Is It Impossible To Benefit From 'One With Shadows'?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6906069" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>I'm strongly considering the ruling, and I think you make a good argument, but I don't think it is 100% apparent from the rules. So I'm discussing from the perspective that this isn't how it works. If it does, it gives me the utility I want from it.</p><p></p><p>The main objection that I can see is that the rules seem to me to assume that the act of making your check assumes both an active attempt to be quiet and an active attempt to take advantage of your visual obscurement. If no one can possibly detect your presence just because no one is there it seems you are skipping half of the situation and just trying to be quiet. Granted, if you are invisible first (through another ability) and hide, it is mostly being quiet, though you are probably also trying to avoid displacing objects and such that might give away visual cues to your presence. Of course, counter-argument is that you are still able to try to address those visual cues before you become invisible, in anticipation of the fact that you will become invisible as the final step of cementing your hiding attempt.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Invisibility is useful, but it is of rather limited use because of how the detection rules work. As others have said, if you are invisibly lurking in a room, and someone comes into it with their Passive Wisdom (Perception) "up" (I tend to require them to either be actively staying alert, or be very close to the perception target for that to apply, but some DMs probably keep it on all the time), they are automatically going to know you are there. Sure there is some benefit, but is that really the benefit that the invocation implies you are getting? It sure seems to me like it is supposed to allow you to be <em>undetected</em> (which in most important situations in 5e requires hiding) not just have an edge against attackers.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For me, the main strength of being hidden outside of combat, is that you can be lurking around with <em>no one aware of your presence</em>. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If your dwarf is invisible with that invocation, then he can't do anything but stand there and be harder to hit. Is that really what he should be doing in the middle of combat?</p><p></p><p>If that is all the invocation allows, then it's just a minor combat option--give up your action and move (a pretty extreme sacrifice) for opponents to have a harder time hitting you and not be able to use targeted spells (or similar effects on you).</p><p></p><p>When I read this invocation, before taking into account the very limitation we are talking about in this thread, the image that comes to <em>my</em> mind is a guy moving to the side of a street into dim light and getting a chance to become hidden, and then just remaining there with his presence completely unknown as others move right past him. I'm sure that isn't a minority expectation of the feature.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 6906069, member: 6677017"] I'm strongly considering the ruling, and I think you make a good argument, but I don't think it is 100% apparent from the rules. So I'm discussing from the perspective that this isn't how it works. If it does, it gives me the utility I want from it. The main objection that I can see is that the rules seem to me to assume that the act of making your check assumes both an active attempt to be quiet and an active attempt to take advantage of your visual obscurement. If no one can possibly detect your presence just because no one is there it seems you are skipping half of the situation and just trying to be quiet. Granted, if you are invisible first (through another ability) and hide, it is mostly being quiet, though you are probably also trying to avoid displacing objects and such that might give away visual cues to your presence. Of course, counter-argument is that you are still able to try to address those visual cues before you become invisible, in anticipation of the fact that you will become invisible as the final step of cementing your hiding attempt. Invisibility is useful, but it is of rather limited use because of how the detection rules work. As others have said, if you are invisibly lurking in a room, and someone comes into it with their Passive Wisdom (Perception) "up" (I tend to require them to either be actively staying alert, or be very close to the perception target for that to apply, but some DMs probably keep it on all the time), they are automatically going to know you are there. Sure there is some benefit, but is that really the benefit that the invocation implies you are getting? It sure seems to me like it is supposed to allow you to be [I]undetected[/I] (which in most important situations in 5e requires hiding) not just have an edge against attackers. For me, the main strength of being hidden outside of combat, is that you can be lurking around with [I]no one aware of your presence[/I]. If your dwarf is invisible with that invocation, then he can't do anything but stand there and be harder to hit. Is that really what he should be doing in the middle of combat? If that is all the invocation allows, then it's just a minor combat option--give up your action and move (a pretty extreme sacrifice) for opponents to have a harder time hitting you and not be able to use targeted spells (or similar effects on you). When I read this invocation, before taking into account the very limitation we are talking about in this thread, the image that comes to [I]my[/I] mind is a guy moving to the side of a street into dim light and getting a chance to become hidden, and then just remaining there with his presence completely unknown as others move right past him. I'm sure that isn't a minority expectation of the feature. [/QUOTE]
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