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

[the Jester]

The weird part here is not so much your reading of the, but rather your insistence on the certainty of the text and your assumption of near unanimous agreement on this, when the text has no explicit mentions of your assertions and the majority of posters here and in other threads actually disagree with you.

[MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], I have to agree with this. The level of disagreement with you in this thread certainly puts the lie to the notion that there is a clear and unambiguous answer that any sensible person can see; and the fact that most of the people in this thread disagree with you makes me doubt very much whether most DMs agree with your interpretation. Continuing to insist that you are right, period end, is just shouting your opinion and hoping to drown out the sea of voices that don't think you are. You've made your argument clear, and many of us have made clear that we disagree with your reasoning. Can't you at least do us the courtesy of accepting that maybe everyone else isn't unambiguously wrong and that your interpretation of how blindsight works is just that- one interpretation?

By the way, any argument that requires looking at the rules from a previous edition for support is, IMHO, extremely flawed. How does such an approach help groups that are new to D&D? It doesn't, and it isn't supported anywhere in the 5e rules that I'm aware of.

 

[pemerton]

Explain how abilities that work against visibility work against a creature that perceives without sight? Don't give me the move silently unless you can show me written text in a creature's description that states quiet movement disrupts their blindsight.

This doesn't make sense to me. Stealth doesn't work solely against visibility - it also works against hearing (hence, the need to keep quiet in order to remain hidden: Basic PDF, p 60). The rules (p 60 again) state that "One of the main factors in determining whether you can find a hidden creature or object is how well you can see in an area", which clearly entails that other factors are also in play.

Hiding from a creature with blindsight requires exploiting those other factors.

It is quite clear save to those that don't want to accept what "perceives without sight" means. That's a very clear statement that is easy to understand.

That text doesn't appear in the rule, though. The rule states that the creature with blindsight "can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight." That doesn't entail that it doesn't rely on other senses - indeed, examples are given (such as a bat's echolocation) that indicate that other sense are in play.

There is also the question of what is meant by "surrounds", which I have not seen you address.

 

[pemerton]

I think the way a DM decides this (insignificant) conundrum has a lot to do with his agenda.
If you make a blanket statement about Stealth and Blindsight, either you make it public to the player, and you are in the realm of "WotC D&D tournament" which looks a lot like MtG, or you keep it on your side of the screen, and you are in the realm of "Gygaxian skilled play", where knowledge has to be earned through trial and error.
If you intend (as I am feeling inclined to at this particular time) to resolve the conundrum at the table, you are closer to Dungeon World agenda, where you play to know how the Dragon reacts to the thief crouching behind the boulder. The decision should involve dice rolling, the Stealth and Detection scores, blabla...

<snip>

I would take the comparison further : the Legendary framework enables the DM to mitigate successes and failures.

<snip>

Note that if you want to promote this gameplay without demoting the others, offering vague rules is a clever plan.

I feel that vague rules is a clever plan for promoting DW-style gameplay only under an assumption that you can't just be upfront, and set out (say) three different approaches to game play, and give advice on how to use the rules to achieve each of those.

Especially because, with the vague rules, it is easy to fall into an approach which is anathema to DW, namely, the GM manipulating or exploiting the vagueness of the rules to push towards pre-determined outcomes (AD&D in non-Gygaxian mode is notorious for this).

The assumption may nevertheless be true, but that would be a bit depressing in itself!

 

[Cyberen]

I feel that vague rules is a clever plan for promoting DW-style gameplay only under an assumption that you can't just be upfront, and set out (say) three different approaches to game play, and give advice on how to use the rules to achieve each of those.

Especially because, with the vague rules, it is easy to fall into an approach which is anathema to DW, namely, the GM manipulating or exploiting the vagueness of the rules to push towards pre-determined outcomes (AD&D in non-Gygaxian mode is notorious for this).

The assumption may nevertheless be true, but that would be a bit depressing in itself!

Agreed.
But I wouldn't blame WotC for this. The rollout of this new edition has earned them a lot of (well deserved imo) goodwill, and that means they have done things right according to the "fanbase silent majority". Being upfront about these different playstyles would have raised an uproar from those who can't conceive their way is not the one true way supported by the game. But I clearly remember the design team's objective of writing a game meant to be "Fiction first, roll high". And I think they hit the mark and gave us the edition of the game the best suited to this playstyle.
By the way, a thread 700+ posts long where we were involved recently should remind us Illusionism is a popular trend, and there's no badwrongfun on this side (even if I wouldn't like to play such a game anymore). Also, isn't heavy-handed DMing the required mode to run (and sell !) Adventure Paths ?
5e IS a big umbrella.

 

[pemerton]

I clearly remember the design team objective of writing a game meant to be "Fiction first, roll high". And I think they hit the mark and gave us the edition of the game the best suited to this playstyle.

I stand by my love of 4e, but will have to defer to your greater experience of 5e!

a thread 700+ posts long where we were involved recently should remind us Illusionism is a popular trend

Which thread? I believe you, but my memory is failing.

isn't heavy-handed DMing the required mode to run (and sell !) Adventure Paths ?

Definitely. I just prefer it upfront rather than under the guise of "rulings not rules".

Unrelated except that its an Adventure Path-question - why is the reception for HotDQ so poor?

 

[spectacle]

We
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[Joe Liker]

This is true. They lumped a bunch of different abilities under the same mechanic and gave no specific exceptions on a per creature basis. Thus the ability does exactly what it says it does: allows perception of anything within range without requiring sight.

You added the bit in bold, just like you've been misquoting and misinterpreting the text throughout this entire discussion.

 

[weldon]

It seems like a lot of the disagreement hinges on the interpretation of "can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight" as meaning that the creature's blindsight perception is inerrant. It seems reasonable to me that "perception" in game terms is never perfect, and in fact is something that needs to be explicitly resolved with an ability check.

What that means to me is that when there is some effect in play related to sight that would affect the creature's perception check (heavy fog, darkness, invisibility, etc.) that I can ignore that effect for creatures that have blindsight.

I'm not convinced that it means perception checks are not needed at all.

 

[Celtavian]

You added the bit in bold, just like you've been misquoting and misinterpreting the text throughout this entire discussion.

You have been adding exceptions throughout this discussion. There are none.

It's supposed to be like 3E Blindsight. You don't want to admit this until you are told by the designers what it is. Once they tell you, this all ends.

 

[Celtavian]

It seems like a lot of the disagreement hinges on the interpretation of "can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight" as meaning that the creature's blindsight perception is inerrant. It seems reasonable to me that "perception" in game terms is never perfect, and in fact is something that needs to be explicitly resolved with an ability check.

What that means to me is that when there is some effect in play related to sight that would affect the creature's perception check (heavy fog, darkness, invisibility, etc.) that I can ignore that effect for creatures that have blindsight.

I'm not convinced that it means perception checks are not needed at all.

Then explain why you would need a perception check and how? Give me a scenario where a creature with Blindsight would need to make a Perception check within its range?