D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[mellored]

You’re not invisible, you have the Invisible condition.

Which prevents you from being affected by things that need to see you.
I.e. they can't see you.

Why couldn’t they have just had a Hidden condition?

My guess is that they where trying to simplify, since Hidden and Invisible cover a lot of the same ground.

 

[Charlaquin]

so you are saying the invisibility spell does something more than apply the invisible condition to someone?

That’s the only way I can make sense of these stealth rules. Basically, my thinking is that the invisibility spell gives you this condition and makes you impossible to see without truesight or until the spell ends. The condition gives you advantage on initiative rolls, gives you advantage on attack rolls against creatures that can’t see you, imposes disadvantage on attacks creatures that can’t see you make against you, and prevents you from being targeted by creatures that can’t see you with effects that require seeing their target (that clause seems redundant, but is needed to allow creatures with truesight or see invisibility to target invisible creatures). Mundane gives you that condition without making you impossible to see, and continues to leave it up to the DM to determine if a creature can see you or not, though it does provide some additional guidance in the form of specifying what degree of cover or obscuration are required to make the initial check, and noting that if you can see a creature, you can tell whether or not it can see you.

The fact that the condition is called “invisible” is extremely misleading under this interpretation, as it implies that the condition alone makes you impossible to see, but a careful reading of the text describing the actual effects of the condition doesn’t seem to say anything to that effect. They should just have renamed it to “hidden” or “concealed” or something. I suspect the only reason they did it was backwards compatibility related, so pre-revision features that reference the invisible condition wouldn’t have a broken reference.

 

[mamba]

According to my reading, no. Since stealth doesn’t make you literally invisible (despite the name of the condition), the guards are “somehow able to see you,” negating most of the benefits of the condition

I thought the 'somehow see you' was a reference to truesight, etc. not just a guard not having their eyes closed

It actually all works pretty well if you assume the “invisible” condition doesn’t actually make you invisible. Which, to be fair, the text of the condition never actually say it does.

yes, if you assume the condition does not what its name implies, and you remain in fact visible while having the invisible condition, then yes, it works

 

[TiQuinn]

It just amuses me that they continue to complicate a game that is supposed to be, and can be, very simple. The fact that as soon as we have this information, dozens of posts erupt about interpretation, use, etc. I just skimmed the thread but I don't recall a single person saying, "Finally, stealth rules that make sense and are easy to use! Thank you, WotC!"

I think they believe they’re being succinct and think that’s the same thing as clear. It’s also written in a way that seems designed to take the DM out of the role of being an adjudicator.

 

[Iosue]

One doesn’t have to interpret the invisible condition as literal invisibility (though IMO it’s kind of absurd not to) to reach the conclusion that these rules allow walking right past the guard. The hide action says you have the invisible condition until you’re spotted, and the invisible condition says you can’t be seen. This condition prevents you from being spotted, unless you break one of the other requirements such as making too much noise, or an enemy takes the search action and beats your stealth check with their perception check.

It does not say you cannot be seen.

The Invisible condition has three effects:
1) Advantage on initiative
2) Not affected by effects that require their target to be seen, unless you are seen
3) Advantage on attacks, Disadvantage to attacks against you, unless you are seen

That's it. Nothing about not being visible. Nothing about search actions or noise.

But what about the Hide action? Well, you have to be out of any enemy's line of sight to even take it in the first place.

So you take the Hide action. You are out of any enemy's line of sight, and you roll over 15, so a success and you have the Invisible condition. You step into an enemy's line of sight. They find you. The condition ends.

 

[MarkB]

Which prevents you from being affected by things that need to see you.
I.e. they can't see you.

But it only does that if they can't see you. Chicken and egg.

 

[Charlaquin]

except you can't be affected by things that requires you to be seen.

unless the creature can somehow see you. Which the guard can if you are not heavily obscured or behind total cover.

Such as guards seeing you...

It doesn’t say they can’t see you. It says they can’t affect you with things that require them to see you (such as most spells) unless they can see you. Under my reading, this benefit only serves to carve out an exception for cases where an effect (such as the invisibility spell) is preventing you from being seen, and another effect (such as the see invisibility spell) is allowing a creature to see you anyway. It is otherwise strictly tautological.

 

[mamba]

You’re not invisible, you have the Invisible condition.

true, but if the invisible condition does not mean I am invisible, then this is an utter failure by whoever named it (and to a degree its actual rules)

Why couldn’t they have just had a Hidden condition?

sounds like they have, they just decided to call it 'invisible'

 

[mellored]

I think one of the main issues is there is no reason not to have eveyone in the party do this after every combat.

Even the 8 dex paladin. Just spend a few extra minutes till he rolls above a 16, and then talk in whispers to get advantage on Initiative saves and your first attack.

 

[TiQuinn]

Which prevents you from being affected by things that need to see you.
I.e. they can't see you.

But the condition above says you can be affected by effects (I.e. spells) and attacks if they can see you. So the Invisible condition is not true invisibility to my mind or rather the spell Invisibility says something that’s different than Hide.