D&D (2024) Line of sight ruling

[DrJawaPhD]

That’s kinda the problem though. The sage advice pretty much says they are the same.

The Sage Advice neither confirms nor contradicts any claims about closing your eyes - it was not addressing that scenario.

The Sage Advice answers whether you have Line of Sight on something that is imperceptible to you. Your eyes are open, your head is pointed directly at it, but you cannot see it because it is magically invisible or you are blinded or whatever. Line of Sight is broken because you have no possible way to see the target from your location.

 

[MerricB]

That’s kinda the problem though. The sage advice pretty much says they are the same.

I've been going through different configurations in my head...

• You avert your eyes
• You close your eyes
• You have a blindfold on
• You have the blindness condition due to a spell.

Also:

• The target is invisible
• The target is hidden and behind full cover
• The target is hidden and behind 3/4 cover
• The target is behind 3/4 cover

With those first four states, when does it start being "you no longer have line-of-sight"? It's seems to me that having the blindness condition would prevent you having a line of sight, but you then begin wondering why the other states don't apply. Where's the cutoff?

But then I started looking at how it applies to hiding... and things got weirder.

Imagine there's a brightly lit room. There's the ninja and the blind monk.

The ninja cannot hide from the blind monk, despite the monk being unable to see him. That's because the requirements are cover or heavy obscurment (and no line-of-sight).
Turn off the lights, and the ninja can hide.

(This is because heavily obscured gives blindness, not blindness makes things heavily obscured!)

The obscurement/blindness interaction did occur in 2014, but because the rules for when it was appropriate to hide weren't defined, it didn't come up. Now that they've tried to codify things, the rules start breaking.

Most of us are going to keep DM ruling it, of course.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That’s kinda the problem though. The sage advice pretty much says they are the same.

Nope, possible to see does not mean the same as actively looking at.

 

[MerricB]

The Sage Advice neither confirms nor contradicts any claims about closing your eyes - it was not addressing that scenario.

The Sage Advice answers whether you have Line of Sight on something that is imperceptible to you. Your eyes are open, your head is pointed directly at it, but you cannot see it because it is magically invisible or you are blinded or whatever. Line of Sight is broken because you have no possible way to see the target from your location.

It also goes further and defines what Line of Sight means.

"Speaking of “line of sight,” the game uses the English meaning of the term, which has no special meaning in the rules."

And that's really interesting.

 

[Lanefan]

I've been going through different configurations in my head...

• You avert your eyes
• You close your eyes
• You have a blindfold on
• You have the blindness condition due to a spell.

Also:

• The target is invisible
• The target is hidden and behind full cover
• The target is hidden and behind 3/4 cover
• The target is behind 3/4 cover

With those first four states, when does it start being "you no longer have line-of-sight"? It's seems to me that having the blindness condition would prevent you having a line of sight, but you then begin wondering why the other states don't apply. Where's the cutoff?

I suspect what they're after is that if you could see it if you looked in its direction with your uncovered eyes open or if it could see you ditto, you have line of sight to whatever "it" is for purposes of things like fear effects. Which means, of the eight situations above, line of sight would exist in all but (for sure) the one where the target is both hidden and covered and (maybe) the one where the target is just hidden.

The potential ability to see, though, I would think still allows you to (try to) look away or avert your gaze.

But then I started looking at how it applies to hiding... and things got weirder.

Imagine there's a brightly lit room. There's the ninja and the blind monk.

The ninja cannot hide from the blind monk, despite the monk being unable to see him. That's because the requirements are cover or heavy obscurment (and no line-of-sight).
Turn off the lights, and the ninja can hide.

So being Blind by RAW doesn't put the blinded creature in darkness? That seems a fairly glaring oversight, unless they just assume it to be the case rather than write it out.

(This is because heavily obscured gives blindness, not blindness makes things heavily obscured!)

Yeah, I can see how this gets confusing in a hurry.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

...Where's the cutoff?

• You avert your eyes
• You close your eyes

About right here.

• You have a blindfold on
• You have the blindness condition due to a spell

If you have a solid opaque blindfold on, then you would have to at least use an object interaction to remove it in order to see. You have legitimately imposed a condition on yourself.

Looking away or keeping your eyes closed is an attempt not a certainty, especially in a battle. Chances are you aren't going to succeed, and will be opening and closing your eyes, looking the direction you are trying not to, etc.

I mean, maybe if you are a warforged or something you could spin that you just activate the "eyes shut" mode and it stays that way unless you use some sort of action to turn it off, but for most characters you just can't reliably do that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

they just assume it to be the case rather than write it out.

The thing with plain English is this is implied by the use of the word “blind”. The rules do not have to explain what it means.

 

[James Gasik]

I believe that the rules on Medusa's permit you to avert your eyes, but is there anything on the rules that even allows characters to close their eyes or that say that closing your eyes is sufficient to Blind you? If so than anyone who has you mind controlled could just make you close your eyes to let their ally attack you with Advantage.

They could, however, command you to fall prone, which doesn't even take an action.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The Sage Advice neither confirms nor contradicts any claims about closing your eyes - it was not addressing that scenario.

The Sage Advice answers whether you have Line of Sight on something that is imperceptible to you. Your eyes are open, your head is pointed directly at it, but you cannot see it because it is magically invisible or you are blinded or whatever. Line of Sight is broken because you have no possible way to see the target from your location.

If you close your eyes, nothing is perceptible to you by sight. You don't have line of sight to anything.

A simpler and more consistent rule would have been:

• Anything which is within your visual range is something you have line of sight to, unless an object or entity you can't see through, of sufficient size, is in the way, such as a solid stone wall, a darkness spell, or a Gargantuan creature.
• Even if you close your eyes or look away, you still have line of sight to an object or entity you could see if you weren't doing that.
• Exception: You never have line of sight to a creature that is invisible to you, unless you have an effect like true sight which overcomes invisibility.
• A creature that normally has sight, but which has been blinded (such as by a blindfold, the blindness spell, or being injured in its eyes), does not have line of sight to any target.

Single, general, pretty straightforward rule, which eliminates possible playing-sillybuggers rules-manipulation via "I close my eyes"/"I look away" type shenanigans.

 

[Lanefan]

If you close your eyes, nothing is perceptible to you by sight. You don't have line of sight to anything.

A simpler and more consistent rule would have been:

• Anything which is within your visual range is something you have line of sight to, unless an object or entity you can't see through, of sufficient size, is in the way, such as a solid stone wall, a darkness spell, or a Gargantuan creature.
• Even if you close your eyes or look away, you still have line of sight to an object or entity you could see if you weren't doing that.
• Exception: You never have line of sight to a creature that is invisible to you, unless you have an effect like true sight which overcomes invisibility.
• A creature that normally has sight, but which has been blinded (such as by a blindfold, the blindness spell, or being injured in its eyes), does not have line of sight to any target.

Single, general, pretty straightforward rule, which eliminates possible playing-sillybuggers rules-manipulation via "I close my eyes"/"I look away" type shenanigans.

The problem there is that the phrase "line of sight" is often used to also mean "line of effect", such as the Fear example; and that gets confusing when windows are involved. I have line of sight to you through a window, as in I can see you out there, but not line of effect as there's a physical obstruction in the way.

Consider the following sequence (let's assume an open field with no cover, for simplicity):

1. I hit you with a Fear effect, you blow your save and start running away
2. Someone else hits me with a Blindness effect
3. Because I'm now blind, does that mean (or more importantly, should that mean) you're no longer scared of me even though you can still see big scary old me over there? IMO no it shouldn't.

This could be solved if it were noted that line of sight works in both directions; if you can see it or if it can or could* see you, there's line of sight.

* - if it had eyes, to cover situations when the target is an object