D&D (2024) Line of sight ruling

[Lanefan]

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.

You'd think, right? But there's those who want to lawyer up on it, and for those people the wording needs to be a lot tighter.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

But they will--almost surely--be expected to do so. Which is the whole point of actually nailing down basic, commonly-important rules....which includes things like sneaking.

We don't need rules for how to grade test papers or perform haberdashery or the like, because these things are pretty rare for Heroic Adventurers to do (whether that's Greek-style "Heroic" or modern/Christianized-style "Heroic"). But rules for skulking about? Yeah those are probably going to come up often enough, and invite enough scrutiny, that being clear and specific is warranted.

"Natural language" is presumptively fine for things that would pretty obviously be unnecessary effort if we created rules for them, like paper-grading or haberdashery. It's probably also fine for things that are near to adventuring but not adventuring itself, e.g. Bard sing but we don't really need rules for composing songs.

But stealth and sight? Those are kinda really important for doing combat. Don't leave core, foundational stuff to be "implied". Speak clearly and concisely on the things that actually do warrant speaking.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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

It's not the caster being blinded that alters the fear spell. It's the target being blinded.

If you cannot see the thing you're afraid of, you don't know which direction to run. That seems perfectly adequate for a spell of the Illusion school that causes someone to be so frightened they run away.

If you can't see the illusion that you're supposed to be frightened of, why would you still be frightened? Obviously being blinded would be a real pain and not fun, but it wouldn't be "brain has stopped working, please leave a message after the AHHHH!!!" fear.

Edit: And yes, if the spell writers (or editors) have been so sloppy as to conflate line-of-sight with line-of-effect, then of course there are going to be problems. It is possible to see something you cannot affect. It is also possible to affect something you cannot see (e.g. sickening radiance explicitly says that it "spreads around corners", so it clearly can affect targets you can't see that are physically behind a solid wall.)

Yet another place where treating "natural language" as though it can bear the burden of specificity and clarity leads to a serious problem, if they were so foolish as to conflate these things. Even I, as critical as I am of 5e, would need to see an actual citation for that.

Edit II: Electric Boogaloo
Having checked, 5e does not explicitly use the phrase "line of effect"....but in the Spellcasting rules it lays out everything needed for the definition thereof. That is, every spell has a point or object/entity of origin, with a specific shape of area of effect, usually cone, cube, cylinder, line, or sphere starting from that point. Within the defined area of effect, the spell's effects extend along unblocked lines (really "rays" but I won't quibble too hard) from the point of origin. For something to block a spell's effects, it must provide total cover--so things which do not provide total cover do not block a spell's effects. It doesn't explicitly say so, but the existence of spells like sickening radiance implies that this unnamed-but-defined line of effect rule allows exceptions with spells that specify that they spread around corners.

Functionally, this means 5e has the rules for line of effect, without ever using the phrase "line of effect".

 

[MerricB]

More fun...

The general interpretation (that several people have said to me) is that the line of sight requirement for hiding does not apply when you have 3/4 cover. It's a perfectly reasonable interpretation of how the rule is supposed to work - while not being what the rule says.

And it's worth noting that this Sage Advice doubles down on the "you can't hide if someone has line of sight to you" ruling, as part of the Blindsight/True Seeing ruling.

So...
You can hide if you have 3/4 cover and someone has line of sight to you.

Does this mean...
You can hide if you have total cover behind a completely transparent Wall of Force and someone has line of sight to you?

Surely not! But by the 3/4 cover ruling, it would follow for the full cover ruling... if we were looking for consistency in how the rule is written.

All of which points to the utter failure of the rule as written.

How to fix it?

Well, I'd start with the following:

• You may only hide if no enemy has a clear line of sight to you.
• An enemy has a clear line of sight to you if you are not behind 3/4 (opaque) cover or better, or otherwise impossible to see by that enemy (e.g. invisible or in total darkness, and the enemy has no special means of detecting you in those states).

We can probably improve the wording, but it's much better than the backwards way 2024 does it...

 

[aco175]

When Scooby and Shaggy run away after being frightened by a monster or ghost, they need to be in another room that does not have line of sight before they can eat a Scooby-Snack and make their save.

A scared 5-year-old thinking the coat on the back of the door is a monster is not going to fine if you say just close your eyes or place a blindfold on him. The child or the coat needs to be removed from the room, and line of sight.

 

[el-remmen]

You no longer have to see the Medusa. (Funnily enough, it affects the medusa if it can see itself...)

 

[Charlaquin]

When Scooby and Shaggy run away after being frightened by a monster or ghost, they need to be in another room that does not have line of sight before they can eat a Scooby-Snack and make their save.

A scared 5-year-old thinking the coat on the back of the door is a monster is not going to fine if you say just close your eyes or place a blindfold on him. The child or the coat needs to be removed from the room, and line of sight.

That makes sense, but it isn’t what the sage advice ruling actually says.

 

[aco175]

That makes sense, but it isn’t what the sage advice ruling actually says.

It never does, does it.

 

[Lanefan]

It's not the caster being blinded that alters the fear spell. It's the target being blinded.

If you cannot see the thing you're afraid of, you don't know which direction to run. That seems perfectly adequate for a spell of the Illusion school that causes someone to be so frightened they run away.

If you can't see the illusion that you're supposed to be frightened of, why would you still be frightened? Obviously being blinded would be a real pain and not fun, but it wouldn't be "brain has stopped working, please leave a message after the AHHHH!!!" fear.

If the only sense involved is sight, then OK. But if the victim is hearing illusory screams and-or smelling illusory rot as well then being blinded might only serve to make the fear worse.

To be fair, this is one way in which 5e differs from what I'm used to; in my case a Fear effect would have a set duration regardless of the relative subsequent positioning of the source and target, thus allowing the target to run around a corner or through a door and, still frightened, keep on running (or, if there's nowhere to run, cower in a corner) until the fear wears off on its own.

Edit: And yes, if the spell writers (or editors) have been so sloppy as to conflate line-of-sight with line-of-effect, then of course there are going to be problems. It is possible to see something you cannot affect. It is also possible to affect something you cannot see (e.g. sickening radiance explicitly says that it "spreads around corners", so it clearly can affect targets you can't see that are physically behind a solid wall.)

Or casting any spell into darkness.

Yet another place where treating "natural language" as though it can bear the burden of specificity and clarity leads to a serious problem, if they were so foolish as to conflate these things. Even I, as critical as I am of 5e, would need to see an actual citation for that.

Edit II: Electric Boogaloo
Having checked, 5e does not explicitly use the phrase "line of effect"....but in the Spellcasting rules it lays out everything needed for the definition thereof. That is, every spell has a point or object/entity of origin, with a specific shape of area of effect, usually cone, cube, cylinder, line, or sphere starting from that point. Within the defined area of effect, the spell's effects extend along unblocked lines (really "rays" but I won't quibble too hard) from the point of origin. For something to block a spell's effects, it must provide total cover--so things which do not provide total cover do not block a spell's effects. It doesn't explicitly say so, but the existence of spells like sickening radiance implies that this unnamed-but-defined line of effect rule allows exceptions with spells that specify that they spread around corners.

Functionally, this means 5e has the rules for line of effect, without ever using the phrase "line of effect".

Does it also say you need line of effect between the caster and the spell's point of origin, for targeted spells? Example: if I'm in my hous looking out the window and I see you skulking around in the garden can I drop a Hold Person on you? I seem to recall the RAW answer here would be "no I can't" but that's never made sense to me.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

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.

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?

This is an excellent way to break the gray area and try to define exactly where the line is for your particular table.

Blindness condition due to a spell definitely breaks LoS (assuming no blindsight), so the line is drawn somewhere before this. For the rest, I would think it depends whether you would consider those scenarios as imposing the drawbacks of Blindness condition onto the character. Once the character has the Blinded condition, LoS is broken.

Personally I would rule that an involuntary blindfold (like someone tied it over your head and you aren't able to remove it) imposes Blindness and breaks LoS, but that the rest most likely would not. That could vary from DM to DM though

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

This list is more straightforward. If the target is invisible or successfully hidden, then they have the Invisibility condition and LoS is broken (assuming no blindsight). If the target does not have the Invisibility condition and is behind 3/4 cover, they can be seen and are within LoS.