This is exactly the kind of thing that breaks if you don't have a system architect and if you don't have the time you need to finish the game.
D&D (2024) Thoughts on Stealth and D&D2024
- Thread starter MerricB
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At first glance I thought this was in the fishing thread...
You don't need to be hidden to get sneak attack in the 2014 or 2024 rules. If you don't have disadvantage you get it if you have advantage or if your enemy is adjacent to one of your allies. You can reliably get advantage by either being invisible because of magic or because you're hidden or if you use steady aim. So most of the time the rogue is getting sneak attack every round after 3rd level in games I've been in anyway.
I hadn't picked up on the wonkiness of the invisibility condition, but it's there. Here is the text for concealed:
Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed.
It needs to say this:
Concealed. You cannot be seen except by creatures that can specifically see invisible creatures. This benefit also applies to equipment you are wearing or carrying.
I think that trying to use invisible as a condition for hiding tripped them up. The condition's source in theory should specify this. For instance, you wouldn't want that rewritten clause to apply to hidden creatures.
The invisibility spell doesn't say anything about becoming invisible. It just says that you gain this condition. I suspect that someone decided to shift stealth to use the condition, with the understanding that the effect that made you invisible would carry a rider that gave more details. IIRC, they do that in other areas where the poisoned condition might also carry other effects (speed penalty, ongoing damage).
I'm not a fan of that approach. You either need wide conditions that can account for a lot of elements, or narrow ones that are meant to carry as little mechanical weight as possible. The 5.5 design seems to try both approaches, leading to incoherence like this.
Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed.
It needs to say this:
Concealed. You cannot be seen except by creatures that can specifically see invisible creatures. This benefit also applies to equipment you are wearing or carrying.
I think that trying to use invisible as a condition for hiding tripped them up. The condition's source in theory should specify this. For instance, you wouldn't want that rewritten clause to apply to hidden creatures.
The invisibility spell doesn't say anything about becoming invisible. It just says that you gain this condition. I suspect that someone decided to shift stealth to use the condition, with the understanding that the effect that made you invisible would carry a rider that gave more details. IIRC, they do that in other areas where the poisoned condition might also carry other effects (speed penalty, ongoing damage).
I'm not a fan of that approach. You either need wide conditions that can account for a lot of elements, or narrow ones that are meant to carry as little mechanical weight as possible. The 5.5 design seems to try both approaches, leading to incoherence like this.
Yup, I am very much of the mind to view invisibility as a "Nothing to see here" field with Greater Invisibility as a damn near transparent effect.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I’ve been saying this about the invisible condition since the PHB released, and people kept telling me “just because it’s called invisible doesn’t mean you’re necessarily see-through.” Yes. I know. The problem isn’t the name, it’s the wording. I guess it takes Mike Mearls chiming in about it for people to believe me that the wording is literally broken, as in non-functional.
Again, the condition is just the condition. It's application come from actions and spells that put the condition on people.
This is bad, IMO, but it is there.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Right, but you have to take the condition in context with its sources. The invisible condition doesn’t say it makes you impossible to see, but it might not need to, if the source of the condition makes you impossible to see (without a more specific rule like truesight allowing it). So we check the invisibility spell (and the greater invisibility spell). Nope, they don’t say you’re impossible to see. But obviously you should be, or else the spell is useless. So, we might assume that this is intended to be implied by the fact that the condition is literally called “invisible.” But then we find that the hide anction also grants this condition, and it does not say that you can be seen as a specific exception to how the condition works. Therefore, either hiding must make you impossible to see, or the invisibility spell must not. This would be true regardless of what the name of the condition, the spell(s), and the action were. The problem is with how the effects themselves are worded; none of them actually specify whether or not a creature with normal vision that is looking directly at you can see you, which inevitably creates an unintuitive result with either the spell or the action.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
I mean, I still don't believe it is broken or non-functional, irregardless to Mike Mearls take.
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