D&D 5E Observations and opinions after 8 levels and a dragon fight

[Mephistopheles]

Beware being over-reliant on particular word use. This isn't an edition for that. Think spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. You should worry more about whether the interpretation *makes sense* than obeys the letter of the wording, IMHO.

I think I'd play it somewhere between the two sides being argued, a bit like Bilbo and Smaug.

From the outset the dragon knows there is a creature nearby because of blindsight; if stealth is attempted and beats the dragon's perception, the dragon still knows there is something nearby but not exactly where it is; if it does not beat the dragon's perception the dragon detects exactly where the creature is.

 

[Authweight]

There is no vague meaning. Perceive means detect. Blindsight does not say "detect location", but perceive surroundings as in everything. Stealth doesn't work against them within the range. It's not a vague rule. Not sure why anyone is trying to make it one. There is no Blindsense and Blindsight now.

You can stealth on someone with truesight. But not Blindsight. Nowhere does it say perceives with hearing. So moving silently is irrelevant.

At this point in time barring any clarification from the developers, if you are within a dragons Blindsight range it knows you're there whether Stealthing, invisible, or what not. It's not even something open for discussion unless you're somehow arguing the meaning of the word perceive.

Here are the relevant passages:

"Blindsight: A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius."

"You can’t hide from a creature that can see you, and if you make noise (such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase), you give away your position."

First off, there's a pretty clear difference IMO between see and perceive. Blindsight is by definition a way to perceive without seeing. So when it says, "you can't hide from a creature that sees you," I don't think it automatically extends to blindsight.

I think that what blindsight actually does is vague. There are certain reasonable interpretations that occur to me:

1) Blindsight works exactly like regular sight, except you can do it with your eyes closed and/or in the dark. Line of sight rules are unchanged. In this case, blindsight's main utility for dragons is that they can fight in the dark at no cost, even if it's totally pitch black. The support for this interpretation would be to argue that since it just says you perceive without relying on sight, all perception rules are the same as before, all that changes is the mode of perception.

2) Blindsight is a special sense that works differently from vision. In this case, each particular instance of blindsight is actually different, and blindsight is more of a category than a clear term. It is left to the DM to decide how each instance of blindsight works. The DM can and should adjudicate based on his/her own sensibilities how one goes about hiding from a creature that can "see" with hearing or smell.

3) Blindsight is an automatic "detect everything" ability. The creature automatically perceives everything within the radius, regardless of circumstance.

I simply don't think there's enough in the text to clarify these from each other. I wish there was more clarity (I'm not a "vagueness is good" fan), but I just don't see it in the text.

Personally, given what we have, I think option 2 is the most interesting, and it's how I plan on running creatures with blindsight. It makes me do a bit more work, but the play at the table will be a lot more fun for it. I also don't like the idea that a single ability completely shuts down a major rogue specialization. I would rather use blindsight to engage the rogue than tell them they don't get to do fun things this fight. I wouldn't say option 3 is a terrible choice either though. I just don't think there's enough to be able to argue RAW is clear one way or the other.

 

[Iosue]

If those interpreting Blindsight to mean some other than it says want to run it as possible to Stealth against a creature with Blindsight, have at it. I know what the word perceive means. Absent additional explanation such as saying "if you move quietly" or "if you mask your smell" you can stealth, then Stealth is ineffective within range of Blindsight. Perceive without seeing has a clear meaning indicating that their senses are good as sight within their range. Stealth doesn't work if you are seen. Invisibility only works against sight. Thus stealth doesn't work, same as if you were in sight of the creature with Blindsight. Unless The Sage indicates otherwise, I'll go with how the ability reads.

The rogue ability Blindsense is different. All it pinpoints is location. That indicates that stealth and invisibility are still effective.

The one thing about this edition is plain language is how an ability usually works. That's what I've learned from The Sage. Adding your own ideas is encouraged, but there is an official ruling for how things work and an always present "Ultimately the DM decides." Blindsight kills stealth, invisibility, and other such things within range.

Uh, wow. Add me to the list of people who see this as being completely opposite of how the rules look to me, in both letter and intent. Knowing location (Blindsense) means that Stealth and Invisibility are ineffective. The thief knows their location. The hiding or invisible persons have, in the words of the Hiding sidebar, "given away their position." OTOH, Perception without sight (Blindsight) doesn't necessarily negate stealth. A thief trying to melt into the shadows to hide from a dragon? Yeah. He's toast. A thief creeping silently behind cover? He's good.

 

[Pickles JG]

Some of the problem is that the steakth rules are written from a very human centric position. A bat or dog or Shark whose primary sesne is not sight would be able to se through some purely visual block eg darkness but would, presumably
y be foiled by other environmental conditions - noise or smells or electromagnetic fields maybe
Whether it is intended that rogues can spoof these other senses or not is not clear to me. I am inclined to say that they are and that blindsightis a catchall for most none visual senses. How you avoid them exactly is not at all clear and has massive scope for GM intervention. I think Celtavian's interprertation is one extreme but just ab
.t within the bounds. It certainly fits for people meeting new monsters for the first time and having no idea how their senses work and so how to defeat them.

Presumably someone in the FR knows how dragon's senses work and could find out all of the specific precautions to defeat each of them. However it may be that a dragon has such
A suite od senses (scent, air pressure sensitivity, "tremorsense", electromagnetic field detection to say nothing of super keenhearing and sight that works into the infra red and xray spectrums) that it is not possible to hide from all of these.
On the other hand it may be that even with all these sensors a dragon cannnot attend to them all at knce so may miss something (as with people missing something in front of them - wheres waldo). That would be covered by his perception skill.

This all seems to highlight a corollary of the rulings appproach. Any DM can come to a semsible consitent approach but discussing it is not going to be productive due to the massive divergence of interpretation

 

[occam]

It does says all that I wrote quite clearly. There is no other way to interpret it. If you feel like allowing Stealth rolls within range of Blindsight, have at it. If you believe your viewpoint is the way the rule works, I'd love to bet you money you're wrong. I'll allow The Sage to settle the bet.

...

You choose to add exceptions that do not exist. And with that I'm done with this particular discussion as there appears to be no amount of logical discussion that will cause you concede that you are wrong. I imagine only an official ruling will do that. I doubt such a ruling will be made as it is unnecessary for 99% of the community that clearly understands how it works.

Do you have a source for that statistic, perhaps from a broad survey of DMs?

 

[the Jester]

Do you have a source for that statistic, perhaps from a broad survey of DMs?

Apparently I'm part of the 1% on this, too. In fact, it seems like just about everyone who has posted about it except for Celtavian is part of that 1%.

Or maybe there isn't such a broad consensus after all?

 

[KarinsDad]

A D&D session is completely at the whim of the writers ie the GM and players.

If the writer of a movie script wants to roll a die to find out what happens next, rather than making it up him-/herself, s/he is free to do so. If the players and GM want to make a choice rather than roll the dice, they are free to also.

Leaving things to be determined by randomness is a choice. Knowing when to make decisions by random determination, and when not to, and how those decisions are related to the particlar style of game you are trying to run, is one of the most important GM skills.

This is really a stretch.

I have never encountered anyone who plays D&D without the randomness of dice.

I have never encountered anyone who, shy of very unusual circumstances like a TPK, goes back and changes the plot, story, who lives, who dies, etc. of an RPG. Authors of books change things that they have written down all of the time.


J. K. Rowlings had multiple different endings envisioned for Harry Potter.

My gaming group only has the end that happens in D&D. Some minor adjustments can be made midstream, but for the most part, what happens happens and no one person makes that occur.

Authors of books totally 100% (shy of editors) control the outcomes of their stories.

Authors of D&D (i.e. players and DMs) do not. The fun of the game is that the events are not scripted like a book or movie, but rather flow from multiple different sources and can result in totally unexpected things that the authors never envisioned.

Apples and Oranges. Both fruit, but significantly different types.

 

[Cyberen]

Apparently I'm part of the 1% on this, too. In fact, it seems like just about everyone who has posted about it except for Celtavian is part of that 1%.

Or maybe there isn't such a broad consensus after all?

Not true.
I would rule like [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] in this case, not because the rule is crystal clear, but because,as [MENTION=6693417]Authweight[/MENTION] told better than me, the situation is muddled, the most interesting option is his #2 : rulings in a case by case basis, and I firmly believe, in the case of a lvl 8 rogue encountering a CR 13 legendary dragon, his #3 (no easy way to stealth) has the merit of both balance and tradition.
Note that I would certainly rule differently in the case of a lvl 18 rogue trying to stealth the same dragon (ok, you've already been there... roll the dice).

 

[the Jester]

Not true.
I would rule like [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] in this case, not because the rule is crystal clear, but because,as [MENTION=6693417]Authweight[/MENTION] told better than me, the situation is muddled, the most interesting option is his #2 : rulings in a case by case basis, and I firmly believe, in the case of a lvl 8 rogue encountering a CR 13 legendary dragon, his #3 (no easy way to stealth) has the merit of both balance and tradition.

I'd argue that this is a significantly different interpretation than Celtavian's "no stealth in blindsight, period" approach, but I will concede that "practically everyone" may be too strong of a way of stating it.

Either way, I'm comfortable with either interpretation, given a good DM to adjudicate it and a consistent approach (even if that approach is "blindsight includes many different mechanisms and I'll rule on each one individually").

 

[Hussar]

Here's a question. Can blindsight see through walls? So long as the range is far enough I mean.