D&D 5E Wounds, blood trail, and invisibility.

[The Crimson Binome]

There was a spellcaster who hit one of the PC's with a charm spell. Well the rogue comes up behind and lands a critical attack that sorely wounds the spellcaster. On her turn I have her go invisible.

Now just a little while ago I described the critical hit has landing a devastating wound and I described it as she was bleeding from a vicious wound. Now the ranger character asked if he could just follow the blood trail and see where the blood was hitting the floor which in turn would reveal where she is.

Did you forget to mention the entire action which the spellcaster spent, after turning invisible, to actually hide?

Remember, invisibility in 5E doesn't prevent anyone from knowing exactly where you are; it just gives you portable cover so you can hide, if you later spend an action to make a Stealth check (with no bonus or advantage from invisibility). Unless you actually spend that action and beat the Passive Perception (and later active attempts) of every opponent, invisibility is just disadvantage to attackers.

How badly did you describe the wound? Is it much worse than any of the other wounds created in this battle? If so - if she's spurting a geyser of blood, as happens sometimes in certain media - then it might warrant granting advantage on Perception checks to find her (or +5 to Passive Perception). If it's anything less dramatic than that, then it's unlikely to be noticeable amidst the chaos, unless you're fighting over fresh snow or something.

 

[Plaguescarred]

The ranger and his party didn't need any bloodtrail to follow him, you can still detect the location of an invisible creature if it's not hidden, or track it if its gone far enought away to be out of sight.


Invisible: The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.

 

[Shiroiken]

This came up in in of our little side games we are wrapping up.

There was a spellcaster who hit one of the PC's with a charm spell. Well the rogue comes up behind and lands a critical attack that sorely wounds the spellcaster. On her turn I have her go invisible.

Now just a little while ago I described the critical hit has landing a devastating wound and I described it as she was bleeding from a vicious wound. Now the ranger character asked if he could just follow the blood trail and see where the blood was hitting the floor which in turn would reveal where she is.

*spell snip*

I had to stop the game there because I wasn't really sure how to rule. Mind you I like to keep to the rules as much as possible. My player's pointed out the above that I highlighted. I could understand the spellcaster being tracked out of combat but not during combat and in a way that would negate invisibility. I wonder if this constitutes as leaving tracks?

Opinions?

I'm not really seeing an issue. Being invisible don't grant being Hidden. They know approximately where the spellcaster is due to the blood, but still have disadvantage on the attack. If the spellcaster takes the Hide action, it would be assumed that they would be moving silently and holding the wound tight to prevent bloodflow from revealing their position. At least, that's how I'd do it.

 

[jrowland]

The ranger and his party didn't need any bloodtrail to follow him, you can still detect the location of an invisible creature if it's not hidden, or track it if its gone far enought away to be out of sight.


Invisible: The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.

^This.

And more importantly, what is fun? Thats a loaded question, but if its "fun" for the spellcaster to get away, well perhaps there is so much blood from ALL the combat its hard to tell whats what and spellcaster gets away. If its "fun" to have clever players spot and kill spellcaster, track away...etc etc

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

On the actual blood loss, depending on where the wound is, clothing/robes/etc could absorb or delay any blood hitting the ground initially, giving the enemy a round or two to attempt to stealthily and invisibly move out of the combat.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'd say the blood gives advantage on tracking checks to find out where the guy went, but it's not a fatal wound, so I don't see there being enough blood to instantly identify the caster's location.

I also typically disagree with the "if I can't see you, you're still not hidden until you take an action to hide" interpretation.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I wouldn't have the blood become visible instantly, for two reasons:

First, dripping blood appearing in mid-air would make it pretty obvious where the caster is, making it too easy to finish him off and spoiling some of the fun.

Second, the image of drops of blood fading into view, creating an ever-lengthening trail, is really kind of creepy and cool.

So, yeah, I'd rule that they find puddles of blood that appear out of nowhere, giving them a good clue to the caster's direction. Not because it's the only possible interpretation but because it sounds fun.

 

[Li Shenron]

Since you already described the wound as heavily bleeding, I think it's best to stick with it. That doesn't mean there will be a pint of a trail blood on the ground like in horror movies, but certainly something that would make tracking easier. It's up to you to decide if the blood reaches the floor and becomes visible fast enough to give away the position in the same round of combat. Personally I would rather make it useful for tracking but not pinpoint the position in real time.

In addition, I don't think advantage is a good idea, as it wouldn't stack with other advantages. I think a trail of blood strongly facilitates tracking, so I'd rather lower the DC to the next difficulty level (i.e. 5 points lower) or even more.

 

[delericho]

For the tracking, using the blood trail is good. Of course, you don't actually need a blood trail to track someone.

For targeting her in combat, I agree with this:

I'd probably rule that since I made the descriptive call that she was bleeding profusely from the wound, and that the players picked up on that and wisely used the blood trail as their method for trailing her (probably asking them to make a WIS (Perception) or WIS (Survival) check just to make sure they could follow the blood trail)... I'd say they could determine her "square" and thus know where she was for an attack. They'd still be attacking with Disadvantage because she was invisible... but I wouldn't make them guess her square.