Weird Rules in D&D 5e

[@Tefmon]

One of my favourite, albeit minor, weird rules oversights is in the vampire's Shapechanger ability. One line of the ability says "it can use its action to polymorph into a Tiny bat or a Medium cloud of mist, or back into its true form" and a later line says "[w]hile in mist form, the vampire can’t take any actions, speak, or manipulate objects"; putting those two lines together, once the vampire shapechanges into its mist form it cannot transform back into its regular form, because it needs to use an action to transform and it can't take actions.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

NICE. I'm adding that to my list for the next video

[@michaelgroce966]

This is awesome

[@michaelgroce966]

Good catch

[@OffhandEntertainment]

Haha, that is the real reason they call it a curse. BRB, reflavouring all fog spells in my game to stuck vampires. "Stuck-Vampire Cloud".

[@benevolentworldexploder5395]

Where vampiric mist actually comes from. This whole time I thought vampiric mist was just the result of a vampire not being able to return to the coffin to regenerate after death, but apparently I have been misled.

[@jthompson7024]

The ruling on invisibility really has me think of the Nick Fury quote "I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it."

[@crazyscotsman9327]

Exactly what I thought.

[@andrewgreeb916]

That's the logic I have for the goodberry ruling

[@platinumdragon3007]

@@andrewgreeb916 what's the Goodberry ruling?

[@ShinAk1raSama]

My table and I have been applying that quote to so many things in 5e that it's not even funny, anymore...

[@Tomeroche]

Honestly a lot of his advice seems like he knows he fucked up the design but doesn't want to admit it with an errata so is trying to create an excuse to justify it in that one instance even if he later backtracked and fixed it in others.

[@sunname6252]

Honestly, the JCraw invisibility segment felt way more like a rules lawyer putting their foot in their mouth than advice worth listening to.

[@carlanderson5068]

ESpecially since it also applies to Truesight (according to JC). When I read that (after it was mentioned by a friend), I was WTF??? I can't even reason about how Invisibility works with his rulings.

[@nilsjonsson4446]

All his segments do. He doesn't talk about RAI ever, he interprets the rules RAW. If the rule designers made a mistake (which they probably did here, as well as regarding the wonky rules about action/bonus-action/reaction spellcasting and about M/MS-spellcomponents with focuses) he doesn't talk about that, he just talks about RAW

[@agilemind6241]

Agreed, though honestly I kinda wish they got rid of Blindsight as a "thing" because it is far to vague because it tries to cover many different kinds of blindsight all with the same ability - a snake's blindsight is different from an animated broom's blindsight and different from a bat's blindsight.

[@utkarshgaur1942]

Strongly disagree. I can understand that the flavour may be difficult for some to grapple with (unless you have Heroes of the Storm) but mechanically the Invisibility condition is balanced quite neatly. Anyone who removes the Invisibility condition from affecting Truesight or Blindsight creature is nerfing Greater Invisibility (and the Ranger's Nature's Veil feature) to a significant degree. That said, from my understanding most people don't get into tier 3 and 4 of play with any significant frequency so to them the nerf isn't even clear.

[@rogerwilco2]

Yes, like a lot of his answers. He seems to be caught up in his own wordings.

[@liamfitzgerald1400]

I've discussed the Surge of Stupidity thing with friends before as a way of potentially making a Jar Jar Binks type build, someone who clumsily stumbles into sabotaging the enemy and accidental successes.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Meesa Artificer now!

[@SimonClarkstone]

In the backstory of _Portal 2_, this was Wheatley's original purpose: he was to be attached to GLaDOS to make her less intelligent.

[@robinthrush9672]

Or Fighter McWarrior from 8-bit Theater's comic retelling of Final Fantasy 1. He's so dumb that he drains the intelligence of those around him.

[@ajaafive1384]

For blindsight I used the Blind Fighting text in tashas Blind Fighting You have blindsight with a range of 10ft. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn't behind total cover, even if you're blinded or in total darkness. Moreover, you can see invisible creatures within range, unless that creature successfully hides from you.

[@sandrols7]

Nice! I'm gonna use that format myself!

[@ibspify]

I think my favorite/dumbest weird rules interaction involves ranged attacks. If you are shooting at long range you are attacking with disadvantage, but if you first have a fog cloud cast over you, effectively blinding you but also concealing you you gain advantage for attacking while concealed, and disadvantage twice for being blinded and at long range, but since disadvantage doesn't stack you make the attack roll without disadvantage or advantage

[@spongerobertosquarepantalo8157]

Two people standing at 600 feet apart have disadvantage at shooting at eachother. But if they both put on a blindfold they start hitting most of the time

[@RayPoreon]

This is why at my table if there's multiple sources of dis/advantage then they one that has the most modifiers wins out(eg if a pack tactics kobold is prone in a fog cloud attacking at long range against a target next to their teammate, they still have disadvantage)

[@SamFinklestein]

It annoys me to no end that people hand-wave away the rule that if you attack a target you cannot see, you have to guess at a location and attack that location. Sure, you cancel out the disadvantage by attacking at long range from a fog cloud, but you cannot just say "I attack them from inside the cloud." You have to guess their location, then attack that location.

[@andrewgreeb916]

Blindness is supposed to be debilitating, hence why on top of rolling with disadvantage you need to target a spot that you think an enemy is in, adding further miss chance

[@ibspify]

@@SamFinklestein that's not exactly how the rule works, those are the rules for attacking a hidden enemy, but if for example you can hear them then they are not hidden even if you can not see them

[@tarrickmerdev2324]

I think of Flying without Hover as akin to a hummingbird. Flying can imitate Hover, but it requires active engagement while Hover is a passive effect.

[@AnaseSkyrider]

Magical floating vs flapping your wings. Two different things.

[@tarrickmerdev2324]

@@AnaseSkyrider Not sure of your point. It was simply an example to showcase one way that the rules can be abstracted. Just because it's magical doesn't mean that it's completely free. Perhaps there's some sort of focus (not concentration) required or slight hand/leg movements similar to treading water needed to stay aloft. You're welcome to create your own abstraction but the rules aren't there to model life, instead our job is to mold the world to fit the rules. People don't have hit points either, after all.

[@Autonym]

One of the strangest situations involving hover I've encountered was when the genie warlock was knocked to 0 while floating above the ship we were sailing in, in the middle of combat. After a fair bit of back and forth and checking the feature to see that it doesn't end when the user is knocked unconscious, the DM ruled that she stayed suspended about 30 feet off the deck, out of reach of our healing potions. Luckily she stabilized and floated into the sails, which someone climbed to get her back down when things quieted down.

[@BeaDSM]

​@@Autonym it does say "during which you can hover" not "during which you hover"; I think a DM could rule that hovering is a choice and an unconscious character cannot make that choice and so falls.

[@epicazeroth]

The worst part about prone is that you still get disadvantage on ranged attacks, even against a Gargantuan creature who honestly is probably the same size lying down as it is standing up.

[@esgeir9499]

I love that interaction with flash of genius, I think it is fun to think of an artificer who is trying to be helpful internally thinks he is doing something super bright but ends of ruining the situation... ahahah

[@Ahglock]

Its one of those funny ruling where the boiler plate text has unintended consequences.

[@arvarion5151]

You actually cannot give out a negative penalty with flash of genius because you need at least 13 int to become an artificer. Maybe if you get your hands on a cursed item...

[@esgeir9499]

@@arvarion5151 I'm not too sure about that, I think the 13 is only a multiclassing requirement

[@platinumdragon3007]

@@arvarion5151 you need 13 INT if you want into multiclass into the Artificer class (having started as another class). If Artificer is your starting class, you can enter the class as dumb as your group's starting ability score rules allow you to be. Also, even if you've multiclassed into the Artificer class, you can get your Intelligence modifier zapped into the negatives by something like the Feeblemind spell (as the video pointed out) or by a monster that can reduce ability scores (rare but not nonexistent in 5E), and you won't lose your Artificer class features, you'll just be really bad at them. Of course, the Flash of Genius wording feels like an oversight, they probably forgot to add another "minimum of one" clause to its effect, which would prevent dumb Artificers from being able to ruin rolls with their sheer stupidity.

[@arvarion5151]

Thanks for explaining guys! Bth that feels like bad or non existing wording. You can play the class all the way with low Int but can't multiclass unless having 13 int. Seems non intentional to me..

[@kevinduke8928]

Confession: on the see invisibility point, I was literally like “I know things and you are wrong.” I was defin thinking, “come on Chris. That’s just an ‘oversight’ (pun intended). ‘Clearly’ they can see it. It’s in the name.” Alas I learned “you know things and I am wrong.” I mean I was kinda surprised by JCs answer. But it is what it is I guess. Of course it ain’t what it ain’t when I’m running it.

[@nicholascarter9158]

I think they made a purely gamist decision that if See Invisibility is effective the invisibility-detection arms race is just over, that using Invisibility in npc or pc plans stops making sense because it's so easy to invalidate without a save. The design philosophy here was that you shouldn't *ever* be able to defeat a level five spell slot with a single level 2 spell slot, diegetic logic be damned. Consider also Detect Traps.

[@kevinduke8928]

@@nicholascarter9158 the problem I see with that is: Most PCs and NPCs won’t waste a spell slot on SI because it’s too situational. When it comes up, sure it’s great. But you are now down a prepared spell most of the time. In some cases, an entire campaign can pass without it benefiting once. If you know ahead of time and that you may be facing something that SI could help with then that’s different. But that’s being a careful planner. Also, DMs typically don’t (or shouldn’t) give that to their monsters by default. Of course sometimes it makes sense or it’s just in a stat block for a monster (and that’s usually true seeing) If your DM metas SI all the time cuz he/she knows you use it all the time, then you may need a new DM and that’s a separate issue.

[@thereal_starboy]

I was equally surprised that this was not an oversight, the explanation of how to explain it narratively doesn’t make a lick of sense either. If they’re worried about greater invisibility being nullified by a lower level spell just add a clause in there that says something like “a creature who is under the effect of this spell cannot be perceived by anything other than a spell of 5th level or higher” instead of building in the adv/disadv language into the condition. Bad design imo

[@Ahglock]

@@thereal_starboy They shouldn't be worried about it though. Invis/greater invis are proactive and can be used to massively benefit you. See invisible is a very specific encounter for a very rare occurrence, it should do its job fully. See Invis is a incredibly weak spell by this ruling, invisibility/greater invis are incredibly good no matter how you rule on this.

[@thereal_starboy]

@@Ahglock agreed, also now that I think about it Crawford mentions faerie fire as a spell that works against any type of invisibility, sure it has a save but it also has additional effects with being AOE, giving visibility AND advantage to all party members for a lower level spell. In that context the worry makes even less sense.

[@brandonskoubo5176]

Okay, so I can almost buy the "see invisibility" rationale, if you buy into the idea that Invisibility works like a Predator cloak (is that RAI now?). But blindsight? If my fighter with blindsight is in a Darkness spell and there are two enemies, one has the invisible condition and the other just cloaked in the darkness, then they don't appear the same to him and the enemy with the invisible condition still has all it's advantages, even though my perception of either enemy is not based on sight? Absurd.

[@ParaisoFlower]

i've always played invisibility like the predator as default, rationalizing it as why invisos still need to hide to be untargetable. Thinking they only become like that once see invisibility is cast will bring me nightmares for many years to come. or it would... I'm not changing a damn thing after this video.

[@lokithecat7225]

You can always make up a rationale for silly rules... Invisibility doesn't MAKE you Invisible, it makes others THINK you're invisible. It is screwing with your perception Magically, and has X effects. If your "other senses" are sharp, that is irrelevant, your mind is still being screwed with.

[@alexigiusti9700]

See invisibility should carry the same condition negation as Fairy Fire. Blindsight is trickier though I think. one would have to ask if it is just sight that the magic befuddles or all forms of perception, noting that sight is perceiving light bouncing off an object and echolocation is sound bouncing off an object. In this case, one could argue sound made by the invisible creature could still be perceived.

[@crazyscotsman9327]

@@alexigiusti9700 It specifically says that sounds and tracks can still be perceived. So ya no Blindsight should still work completely fine against Invisibility period.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@alexigiusti9700 Blind Fighting Style is both Darkvision and Blind Sight without the weakness of either... At 10ft around you, only. Only an invisible creature must successfully hide. Otherwise, they're invisible effects do not take effect because the Blind Fighting Style perceives everything within 10ft... Unlike Blind Sight. However, if the invisible enemy does succeed in their roll behind half to full cover (stealth rules), then their invisible effects apply. Against enemies in the darkness?... There is no hiding against the Blind Fighting Style within 10ft.

[@scottballentine1846]

I agree about your various points. I think See Invisibility is important because as a caster you can now use spells that require sight of the target to cast.

[@Ahglock]

If that is all I'm gaining from it, its a waste of a spell slot and ink in my spell book. I'll just hit the area.

[@edwinburton2832]

@@Ahglock on the other hand, if you don't know where a creature is, you'd waste spell slots missing your spell aoe's. Some spells require seeing the creature.

[@Johnny_Shields]

@@Ahglock When you can't see your target, nuke everyone around the target. It's worked IRL for the last 40 years, so it should work in a game of make-believe elves.

[@spongerobertosquarepantalo8157]

@@edwinburton2832 Don't you know what square they are in anyway unless they successfully use the hide action?

[@YotamGalli]

@@spongerobertosquarepantalo8157 That's actually not entirely clear from the rules...

[@Trafoder]

Weirdest rule I can think of is the lack of limitations on Magic Mouth and Locate Object. For the former, there’s no rule for hiding from the spell. That means it will always spot hidden creatures. It could also potentially see the movement of air since maybe it can see dust, which could let it spot invisible creatures too. As for Locate Object, it gets even more egregious: You can find things you’d have no way of knowing, such as “the key that opens this lock” or “a trap” (sorry Find Traps). Since you can describe what you’re seeking, you could search for “a weapon of a creature that intends to harm me” and sense the nearest enemy within 1000’. Or you could search for “the necklace of a noblewoman that is currently lying to me” and always determine whether she’s telling the truth.

[@Tupadre97]

nah the weirdest rule is that misty step and some other teleporations spells don't mention that you can bring along objects with you meaning that you teleport naked while other spells like thunder step, dimension door, invisibility, disguise self, etc clearly do. so it kind of seems like a weird oversight to not include such descriptions in spells like misty step or teleport or it was just terrible game design by wotc.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Good one! It's going on the list.

[@zinogrevz7389]

@@Tupadre97 its the same with Strahds lair action to move through walls. guess he cant use that unless he gets naked

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@Tupadre97 The Eldritch Knight's Action Surge Teleport is a free Misty Step... But most of these things do not have a full list of what it actually does and doesn't... Which leads to messy rules by RAW when RAI is much more common sense.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@zinogrevz7389 You can say the same with every Elemental effects in 5e. Given elemental properties as seen with Fire Ball. Where in RAW... Not all elemental spells have its elements properties. But in RAI... It should, in order to avoid contradictions.

[@LuxTheSlav]

As far as using a halberd or glaive up close - yes, choking up on the grip is exactly what you do, and the damage isn't impacted significantly enough to be reflected in game stats. The pike should get disadvantage in close range like the lance does, though. 5e's weapon system is far too reductory.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Admittedly, I'm no expert

[@michaelondic5884]

I just recently realized that for the pole arm master feat that it is intentional that you can't do a bonus action attack with the blunt end of a pike. Which I understand from a historical accuracy and weapon size issue. But I'd think you could make a halberd sized pole arm that does piercing damage.

[@LuxTheSlav]

@@michaelondic5884 Well yes - a spear. The spear was utterly robbed by not getting Reach.

[@michaelondic5884]

@@LuxTheSlav Yes, absolutely. That's what I'm doing now. I'm being greedy though. I want it to be short and heavy, so I can use great weapon master too.

[@greyknight180]

you can always just grab a halberd closer the the end and/or poke enemy, yes it would be worse than attacking from max range, but it's not that bad

[@jacksonletts3724]

Throwing a flask of oil has far and away the most confusing rules in D&D I’ve encountered. Here are just a few of the open questions: - does it deal 1d4 bludgeoning as an improvised weapon? - does the oil deal five damage one time or start burning? - if it’s burning, for how long does it stay lit? - if it deals it instaneously, can it happen multiple times a turn? - what’s this about oil drying? Oil doesn’t dry like water does? - does burning oil cause it to dry? The total nonsense of these rules more or less caused me to give up on my genie pact warlock. Even though there’s a cool interaction with the efreet auto igniting the oil, there’s still no way to reliably rule how oil works.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Good questions!

[@agilemind6241]

The main problem with oil is that pouring it on the ground can deal more damage than dumping it on a person.

[@DistortedSemance]

My best answers: 1. No. Specific beats general, so if the oil dealt any bludgeoning damage on a hit this would be mentioned in the "on a hit..." clause of the rules text. The oil is "treated as" an improvised weapon for the purpose of determining attack bonus and such, but because it has specific rules for what it does on a hit this supercedes the general improvised weapon rules. 2. Whenever an oil-covered creature is dealt fire damage, they also take an additional five fire damage from the oil they are covered in. It says "burning oil", here, but I assume that this is just description and not mechanical, because the "oil on ground" case later in the text specifically outlines how an oil puddle can be lit and how long it burns for. If the "oil on creature" case were the the same, this language would be replicated here, and it isn't; therefore, we must assume it is handled as a one-shot damage on every trigger. 3. See above. 4. Unclear. The final sentence of the text states that "a creature can take this damage only once per turn" but you could ostensibly interpret the "this" to be referring to either source of damage - from burning oil puddles or from being burned while oily. It does seem however to probably refer to the latter - i.e., a creature can only be damaged by a burning oil puddle once per turn. It is unlikely in my mind that the author would use the pronoun "this" unless the referent were obvious due to proximity, which is seemingly the case. 5. Oil "drying" is a quirk of English. Oil does not usually vaporize like water, but rather polymerizes in air to form a film. However, once the oil has fully oxidized, it can no longer burn. So while the oil does remain stuck to the creature, they are no longer subjected to extra fire damage. 6. In the real world, maybe? In game, no.

[@Galastan]

Here's how I would rule all of these inconsistencies as an experienced DM, using either my intuition or actual rules that have come up in-game! 5. Flash of Genius: This one seems really funny to me, so I'd keep it in as written. No super intellectual rationale behind this. Just memes. 4. Flying: This one seems pretty obvious. Obviously, two giant, flying predators would try to use gravity to their advantage. We even see pieces of this in real life (birds of prey fighting in midair will try to knock their opponent out of the sky, and other birds actually fly particularly tough-shelled prey like turtles up into the sky before dropping them to the ground to easily dispatch them. In-game, it probably shouldn't be as easy as it is to do in the example you provided here (though, to be pedantic, Trip isn't an action, it's a subclause of the Shove action that allows you to knock a creature prone) but narratively this strategy is sound. I would probably allow legendary resistances to override a failed contested Shove check, and to narratively give a player a turn to respond before impact were it to play out at my table. 3. Blindsight: This one seems pretty obvious to me. Notice how Blindsight doesn't specifically use the word "see" to describe how it works. Thus, visual-based phenomena that specifically require it to be seen, like a Hypnotic Pattern, would be overcome by the "blind" part of Blindsight. You'd probably be able to tell your friends apart from enemies after spending considerable time with them and learning how they move, and you'd likely be able to distinguish creatures of greatly differing mass, but it might be hard to tell two different creatures of the exact same type apart (i.e. you'd be able to tell a bugbear from a goblin, but probably not two goblins you haven't met before). The only iffy part of this is the creature with blindsight trying to cast a spell that requires the target to be seen. It seems like, based on how the feature is intended to work, that the spell wouldn't work if it requires you to see your target, but I would probably allow it to work due to you knowing where your target is within your blindsight radius. Same for full cover - seems like it's intended to work that way, but I'd probably rule that it wouldn't, depending on the type of full cover. Insulating materials that prevent you from hearing or feeling vibrations on the floor opposite the wall would likely cause you to not notice the target, but thinner materials, such as a pane of glass or a cloth sheet, probably would be overcome by blindsight. 2. Prone: Regarding your halberd example, combatants in D&D aren't 5x5x5 cubic blocks of flesh. A standard combat tile is actually a pretty large space, so for a halberd-wielder to hit a target within 5 feet is actually pretty simple depending on where they're standing in their space narratively. I'd actually argue that the reach property of the weapon is you going out of your way to make sure that your polearm covers the distance between two tiles: you're at the very edge of the tile, and you're changing your grip to thrust in a longer line or swing in a wider arc. So, trying to hit a prone creature 10 feet away from you is still a complicated task. It's not the same level of difficulty as hitting someone with a shorter-bladed weapon from half the distance - you need to go out of your way to get that reach, and thus wouldn't be as pinpoint accurate on a prone target. However, you do have a point about how firing a crossbow from prone shouldn't be hindered, and using a sling from prone should be impossible. Maybe in 5.5e, they can have weapon properties that enumerate this within the rules (firearms and crossbows could have a Guerilla property, nullifying the disadvantage caused by being prone, and the sling could have an Inertia property, requiring you to be standing to use it. 1. Invisibility: This is the only one that I fully agree with you about. I was expecting you to talk about being able to know where an invisible creature is (shows like CR make it seem like Invisible creatures can automatically hide, though this isn't the case! you know where an invisible creature is at all times unless they actively succeed on an attempt to hide - thus, I rule invisibility in my games to be more like the Cloaking Device item from Smash Bros. - you can still see a warped outline where they are, but when you're moving around it's harder to keep track of them. And of course you can still hear their footsteps, vocalizations, and other sounds). However, I do think that things like See Invisibility, and especially True Seeing, should have the same enumerated property that Faerie Fire does to nullify all of the benefits of invisibility.

[@kevingriffith6011]

I feel like the way blindsight is handled here is necessary as a blanket, catch-all blindsight that creatures that can see without sight can reference... the problem is Wizards of the Coast missed a step. Rather than making the base rules of blindsight more complicated with caveats and exceptions, it should be the source of blindsight that provides all the necessary caveats. Creatures get their blindsight from different sources, after all, so it absolutely makes sense to be a case-by-case thing.

[@AnaseSkyrider]

"Blindsight from sound can see around corners", for instance.

[@dragohammer6937]

yeah, treat it like flight with and without hover, with a parenthesis to clarify things. if creatures had "Blindsight(echolocation)", "Blindsight(tremor sense)" or "Blindsight(magical)" it would go a long way towards making the rules both more logical and make rulings easier.

[@platinumdragon3007]

@@dragohammer6937 100% agreed.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

The Fighter's Blind Fighting Style can see in enemies in darkness and invisible creatures who failed to hide (stealth rules / only for invisible creatures) with perfect clarity within a 10ft radius. Regardless if the character can literally see or not. Unlike Darkvision and Blind Sight which comes with its individual drawbacks.

[@theresnoracelikegnome]

I wish he wouldn’t do this. See Invisible was obviously meant to counter Invisibility and he’s clearly lying. He’s trying to retcon his oversights. He does this too often. We’ll likely see it fixed in 5.5, but I doubt he’ll even mention it.

[@NateFinch]

OMG yes, I hate this. It's clearly an oversight. Just say "yeah, that was a mistake... the second bullet is just supposed to explain how obscurement works".

[@andrecosta8680]

He who??

[@jacobleach7408]

@@andrecosta8680 Mr Crawford

[@theresnoracelikegnome]

@@andrecosta8680 Jeremy Crawford, lead rules designer for D&D. He’s generally a very smart guy, but sometimes not very good at admitting when he was wrong or missed something.

[@buxtehudemuzik]

100% he's lying and retconning. He goes out of his way to to explain how the convoluted rule works as written.

[@bahamutkaiser]

The invisibility rule just needs to be changed, the community doesn't need irrational complexity.

[@Tomeroche]

Invisible doesn't even need to be a condition, you can just say being invisible makes you completely obscured and have rules for that under obscurement.

[@herbertmoon1828]

Also this is just to clarify for anyone looking through the books, there is no such thing as tripping. Hes referring to knocking a target prone using the SHOVE action

[@josephdouglas5242]

This makes me rethink our ability to use Sage Advice for rulings now...

[@TedSroka]

flash of genius on saving throws from a narrative perspective has always felt clunky to me.

[@itspabbs]

They really should have included a line on when you decide to use it. The Portent ability really gets outshined by a lot of these more recently added abilities because most of them don't require you decide before you know the results and Portent does make you decide before you know.

[@fakjbf3129]

Let’s say a party member triggers a trap that shoots out a poison dart requiring a Dex saving throw. I would rule Flash of Genius to be something like the Artificer throwing a book at the players feet causing them to trip and dodge the projectile. Those kinds of quick actions are how I see Flash of Genius occurring, though obviously some saving throws are easier to justify than others.

[@peterwhitcomb8315]

I just like that Flash of Genius doesn't specify that it must be used on an ally. You gave me a -5 Int Modifier and I can basically only drool? What little "Genius" I have left I will provide for you in remaining in the direct path of the Lightning Bolt. The "Bumbling Idiot" saves the day once again (so many classic shows for inspiration). Wizard: I cast LB at the Evil Mage EM: Ha, with my lightning reflexes I will easily avoid that Artificer (whose been feebleminded): Drool coming from the corner of his mouth holds onto the Mage's robe thinking the quick movement of the EM was him stumbling. And he just wanted to prevent him from falling prone and injuring his knee.

[@TheHammertime51]

My group has always played it as prior to the DM declaring the result. An ally rolled somewhat low on a Dex save to keep their footing on an unstable ledge, so my artificer shot a crossbow bolt to stick their shirt to the ledge using my flash of genius.

[@TheHammertime51]

Poison dart trap? My genius spotted it before my dull companions, a shout "duck".

[@agilemind6241]

Ok I love Flash of Genius with a negative modifier. The Artificer suddenly comes up with a completely stupid idea and shouts it at the enemy to distract them like Cutting Words only pure stupidity rather than insulting.

[@spongerobertosquarepantalo8157]

You're districting them because you throw them half a bagel and yell "quick, use this!"

[@lokithecat7225]

The "Idiot" Artificer is too stupid to know that his "Genius" is no longer helpful. He would still try to use it to help his Friends (which he still recognizes according to Feeblemind) with it, he wouldn't try to help the person trying to kill his Friends.

[@NexusCrux]

From the way Prone and Fly are described, it seems like you can be knocked prone while hovering and basically make all ranged attacks against you have disadvantage while you continue casting spells. Sure, enemies gain advantage when attacking you at 5ft but that's less likely to happen if you're hovering in the air. You can even crawl or teleport and still stay prone to keep the disadvantage on ranged attacks again you.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

The Eldritch Knight: "Let me solo this bird fiend..." Because you could do alot of things with this subclass in relation to jump rules (normal jumping. Not Long or High jumps.) And the ability to fly, hover, or levitate as well, helps out. The only limit is... "Barbarian, throw me at them." (Ready Action first)

[@blakehudson478]

Tripping being the DnD equivalent of trying to knock a monster out of the sky is appropriate and would be a major tactic for other creatures to try to get them to plummet, but yeah I feel the fall should have some sort of save if the target can fly to 'right' themselves before landing, like regaining control of an airplane.

[@The_Gnome_Chomskee]

I like things that come at you from an unexpected corner… but weird for weird’s sake is just too… weird.

[@JonathanMandrake]

Have you seen Pack Tactics video on unpublished Stealth rules that finally make sense and are simple?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Yes. As he mentions in that video, they seem to have been lost somewhere between the playtest and the PHB

[@Ahglock]

I actually prefer what made it into the PH, as they allow some flexibility. The rules as is are silly those are even more silly, you can only hide when you are already totally hidden. With those rules they minds as well just go back to calling it move silent as that is all it is since you can only hide when people can not see you at all. Both are probably an artifact of the bounded accuracy system. Assuming conditions exist that let you hide anyone with training will probably be hidden after a handful of levels as almost nothing has a decent passive perception. The conditions to hide should have always been more liberal as you don't need 100% concealment or 50% cover to hide in reality, but training in perception should have been automatic or some other reason to bump the DC so it was not virtually automatic.

[@itspabbs]

Wow... My table has never done the invisibility and blind sight interaction correctly it would seem. Yeah... Not changing what we do.

[@itspabbs]

Also, this makes the blind fighting, fighting style worse.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

If it's not broken, don't fix it

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@itspabbs Not necessarily for Blind Fighting Style... Unlike Blind Sense and Darkvision... You can actually perceive the 10ft radius in clarity. This fighting style doesn't state more or less beyond that. And if invisible enemies failed to take the stealth action to hide within your 10ft radius, then they might as well not be invisible against you. Although, this doesn't apply to enemies in the dark. You perceive them instantaneously, no matter what... Within 10ft radius. The only down side is that 10ft radius. Of which, anyone can hide or cast invisibility freely beyond 10ft. But then again, if they entire your 10ft radius, then their presence is instantly known while invisible creatures must succeed in a stealth roll again.

[@Zhon66]

I've always run invisibility as only giving you advantage against creatures that can't actually see you. I'm aware of Crawford's ruling, but I think it's nonsensical. I ran Tyranny of Dragons from 1st level to 14th, and my players quickly learned that invisibility wasn't very useful against dragons, because they could see you anyway unless you stayed far away. The party sorcerer still took and cast Greater Invisibility on occasion, because it was still very powerful against the cultists who followed the dragons, and those fights were much more common.

[@roscoeivan8739]

FYI: at the rate of gravity over a six second period is roughly 500ft. so The "instant fall" is a rough estimation/rounding to the nearest amount of distance a character would fall in a turn. forward momentum would be a tight exponential curve based on speed. which functionally a straight drop isn't too far off of.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Wouldn't it make more sense then if you landed at the start of your next turn? (Because a full round is supposed to be about 6 seconds)

[@roscoeivan8739]

@@TreantmonksTemple I agree it's one way to make it logical. The problem is by default a turn and a round are both 6 seconds. Either way the justification is mechanics first and narrative explanation. second. The most accurate way would be every one moves in equal increments in a round but I am guessing it would take too long to play out and undermine the concept of turns all together.

[@michaelhenman8683]

@@TreantmonksTemple Unfortunately, every approach that would seem to make sense feels very clunky. My only solution is that you instantly fall a little bit, then fall the rest of the first 500 feet at the same point on the initiative next round.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@roscoeivan8739 You could do the Battletech method. Everyone moves first, THEN does whatever else they do, and effects from actions/bonus actions resolve at the end of the round. Initiative works backwards, though, the character or creature with the lowest initiative goes first, so everyone else can react.

[@agilemind6241]

The main problem with falling is that creatures with wings don't get an option to use their reaction to halt their fall. Basically: Reaction: As long as the dragon's fly speed is greater than 0 it can use its reaction to halt its fall after plummeting 40 ft (this would be set to 1/2 of the monster's base flying speed).

[@TheMuddbudd]

See invisibly should directly counter invisibility on all bases, the fact that it doesn't and similar cases like darkness and light do completely negate each other are absurd, especially considering it's the same level. I don't know if I want to allow his rulings at my table if this is how nonsensical they feel.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I agree.

[@backonlazer791]

On the same note I think that the Slow and Haste spells should counter each other.

[@zacharylona]

*See Invisibility* does just that - you can see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible. To have permanent disadvantage to hit them, they'd be a bit blurry, fuzzy, obfuscated, or another synonym. This, to me, tracks with his Predator reference. The invisible creature is no longer heavily obscured, but targeting them isn't going to be easy; that said, you *can* now target them through the normal rule of unseen and heavily obscured targets... you just have disadvantage on attack rolls. This still disproportionately affects martials, as casters can just use saving throw spells (see also: the Frightened condition), but the game will always be balanced towards casters.

[@iang0th]

​@@zacharylona See Invisibility says, "you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible," not, "you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were instead a bit blurry, fuzzy or obfuscated." And worse, blindsight doesn't remove the disadvantage, even though invisibility should have zero effect on a creature which doesn't need to see you to begin with. The mechanics here are completely unintuitive, and no one would ever guess it works the way it does without very carefully reading rules from multiple places.

[@RayPoreon]

This is a massive tangent but I think JCraw's worst take is "you cannot smite with unarmed attacks" which is just blatantly false by RAW(smite doesn't need a weapon, just a weapon attack)

[@Josh-99]

-If you can see an invisible creature, it doesn't benefit from the advantage on attack and disadvantage to attackers. -A flying creature can "hover" in place without hover by beating its wings hard, but if for some reason it can't beat its wings (its grappled, paralyzed, restrained, etc.), it falls out of the sky if it doesn't have hover. You can try to knock something out of the sky with a shove attack, but you need to be as large or larger than it to even try. You can try to grapple it, though, but if you don't keep it aloft, you fall with it. If you let go your grapple so you don't fall, it gets its movement speed back. Anything with hover, such as a Beholder, just ignores all this mess. -Blindsight gives you the ability to perceive anything physical within your blindsight radius AS IF you could see it, but you don't actually see it. This means you can cast spells DIRECTLY AT what you can perceive with Blindsight, but not near it unless you can also actually see that location. Something behind total cover cannot be perceived by Blindsight because it blocks the creature's noise, ultrasound burst, pheromones, etc. Hypnotic Pattern doesn't work against Blindsight because Blindsight isn't ACTUALLY vision; it's a replacement for it. -You can't use Flash of Brilliance if you are feebleminded. The act of Flash of Brilliance requires verbal communication using intelligible speech, which you are not capable of if under the effects of a Feeblemind spell; you are telling the target of Flash of Brilliance what to do and otherwise offering quick advice. You CAN imply a penalty if you have a negative intelligence score, though -- you are so stupid that your attempt to "help" makes things worse. If you want to do this to a hostile creature, you need to beat them on a Persuasion or Deception check vs. their Insight. -If you attack someone with a Reach weapon while prone, you have advantage as long as you make a melee attack with it (i.e. you don't throw it at them). That includes an attack from 10' away. You don't lose damage or have disadvantage on attacks when using a Reach weapon when within 5' because you occupy a 5' area, which is actually a pretty sizable patch of ground, as does your opponent. As a proficient combatant, you know to time your strike for the best effect (even if the strike doesn't land) within the bounds of that 10' of fighting distance that's possible between the two opponents. This is how I PERSONALLY rules these things. I've actually had someone try to Invisibility thing on me (the enemy cast See Invisibility and they argued that they should still have advantage on their Sneak Attacks against the enemy) and EVERYONE at the table gave them "the look". It's important to remember that every rules system has something that isn't covered. I had someone in a Cyberpunk game put the rear wheel of their motorcycle on the body of a prone enemy and gun the throttle hard; how do I calculate damage for that? It's not covered anywhere in the book! I do what I can to interpret the rules in a way that makes sense. Also, I would have had a lot of respect for Mr. Crawford if he simply said that the Invisibility thing is an oversight, and that Invisibility doesn't work against a creature that can see through the invisibility or benefits from an effect that lets it perceive the invisible creature as if it could see it, such as Blindsight or Tremorsense.

[@NeoShark89]

Talking about weapons being able to do more than one type of damage I think a neat idea would be for many weapons to be able to do a different type of damage but for one die lower damage. For example a longsword is made to slash so it does 1d8 one handed, but you could instead chose to pierce with it for 1d6, this would make the "intended" damage type still the most common to use but in edge cases you could change it.

[@antillious]

Wouldn’t the “predator” style invisibility be more akin to invisible but not hidden.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I would think so

[@horbi3683]

Thanks, Chris. How will you be running the Invisibility condition in your one-shots going forward?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Probably as written and apparently intended.

[@zacharybrown3010]

but why? 😅

[@utkarshgaur1942]

@@zacharybrown3010 Because it's mechanically balanced. Flavour might be weird, but Invisibility (that continues after an attack or spell) is really expensive.

[@rogerwilco2]

@@TreantmonksTemple As someone else said, he never seems to explain the intention of the rules, but only the RAW. He sounds like some weird rules lawyer. I would not follow him, and I'm putting less and less faith in his answers, most don't make sense.

[@dang5736]

@@utkarshgaur1942 it’s honestly not expensive though, it’s a 4th-level spell. Obviously at 7th-8th level it’s expensive, but blindsight/truesight are rare at that CR. It becomes not expensive at high level as you gain spell slots, but by then lots of enemies will have those special senses anyway.

[@SirSartome]

Thank you Chris! Genuinely! I always thought I was crazy for thinking the invisibility condition's second point still applies even when seen. Now you have shown me that it is not only RAW, but also RAI. As someone interested in game design I found that eye opening. That said, when I run games, I'm just removing that second point as a house rule. But thanks to you I can do so as a conscious decision.

[@lokithecat7225]

Given the Blur Mechanics: "An attacker is immune to this effect if it doesn’t rely on sight, as with blindsight, or can see through illusions, as with truesight." it seems like the second point is intentional. Given that the spells are the same level, one is (Basically) stronger but breaks, and the other lasts a full minute, they kind of feel balanced... although the "Logic" behind them is a bit fuzzy. (Invis screws with your MIND to make you have issues?)

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@lokithecat7225 Blind Fighting Style also shuts down invisible enemies within 10ft who failed to make a stealth roll behind full to half Cover.

[@lokithecat7225]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Blindfight, even with the Tasha's update "you can effectively see anything that isn't behind total cover" and "you can see an invisible creature" doesn't negate the disadvantage from attacks v. Invis, for the same (terrible) reasoning as See Invis doesn't.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@lokithecat7225 Does it work in reverse?... If you're invisible but the dragon can "see" you or a creature can "see" you without eye balls... Tremor Sense etc... Then does the Invisibility Effect still apply? Does Invisibility only affect literal sight and not all types of perceptions??? What about throwing flour on invisible creatures? Or lighting them up with fire, if they can be burned?

[@lokithecat7225]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Did you not watch the Video? Rules as Written, the "Disadvantage" on Attacks from Invisibility is a feature of Invisibility, which is unrelated to the (Normal Rules) "Disadvantage" from not being able to "See" your target when attacking. All of your examples allow you to "See" your target, but do not negate the Invisibility "Disadvantage" which needs something like Faerie Fire (which provides advantage). RAW "True Seeing" a level 6 Spell, doesn't counter the Invis (level 2) Disadvantage. You "See" them, "Automatically detect" that they have an Illusion up, Would auto Succeed on Saves vs. it (But there Is NO save allowed). This is due to a "Bad Call" by the Writers... if they just said "the Disadvantage from Invisibility is just then normal Disadvantage from being unable to see your Target" as if it was just referencing another Rule, it would be different (because all of these effect, see invis etc... allow you to "See" them). But they specified that "We meant it as a separate thing" which needs a Specific... Counter? to deal with, and there are virtually none.

[@louiscann9905]

I’ve always been confused about pairing prone with spiderclimb. If I’m standing sideways on a wall and then decide to go prone, does that not put me in a standing position? Likewise if I’m “standing” upside down on the ceiling, can I go prone? am I now just laying on the ceiling?.. And does that not now make a larger target for ranged enemies below me to attack?and how does that physically work? Particularly paired with slippers of spider climbing? Weird

[@owensechrist1315]

First off, let me say I think this is an awesome video. Secondly, your section on Invisible was mind blowing, thank you so much for collecting the relevant info and presenting it so clearly. Hot Take: JC's mechanical explanation of the Invisible condition was really helpful to me (NOT THE NARRATIVE EXPLANATION, just the mechanical one). It has never made any sense to me why Invisibility was ever made a condition in the first place. I know realize that it does make sense, I was just misunderstanding how it worked. If one interprets the rules this way: 'If the first bullet point is invalidated, the second bullet is invalidated', then it doesn't even make sense for this to be a condition because whether or not it has any effect is entirely dictated by the senses/abilities/magical effects of/on OTHER creatures on a case by case basis. Additionally, we already have rules to adjudicate those cases: Unseen Attackers and Targets. This conundrum always left me scratching my head about why they even made Invisibility a condition in the first place. The answer is now clear to me: because I was misinterpreting the rules. So I actually do very much believe JC when he says that it was the design intent that the Invisibility condition operates as described in his interview clip. The stupidity gets shifted to how the rules are worded, and whether or not a somewhat singular (albeit iconic) magic-based effect should have been included as a Condition. I can't think of any other condition that is multi-part where only a part of the condition, where that part is not itself another condition, can be nullified by the intrinsic characteristics of other creatures (this is a fledgling thought, not sure about it). Idea for a future video (or video series): Do a deep dive into each and every condition to uncover all the oddities of the condition that aren't readily apparent.

[@faselfasel2864]

You yourself dont need to close your eyes for hypnotic pattern, because the incapacitations stems from the charmed condition and you can't charm yourself. If allies are in the area i would let them choose to roll a dexterity save instead of the wisdom save to close their eyes, so they could potentially use a better save, but not more.

[@zinogrevz7389]

what says u cant charm urself?

[@supremeplatypus7192]

@@zinogrevz7389 Well you might technically be able to but what would it do

[@KommandoCraftLP]

Great video and I'm absolutely looking forward for the next part, since you've not even touched wall of force and reverse gravity, two spells and readings that made me realize that RAW and RAI can often be the same mess that should be absolutely ignored by a sensible DM/party, even if Jerry says otherwise.

[@nicholasarosemena3829]

OOH I have a weird rules interaction that I discovered not too long ago, if you cast a spell as a bonus action (let’s say misty step or maybe you are a Sorcerer) and you are counter-spelled then you cannot counterspell their counter, and if you were using that misty step to get away from a creature and you are subsequently attacked you can also not use your reaction to cast shield or absorb elements because the rules say that the only other spell you can cast on this turn is a cantrip with the casting time of one action which strangely eliminates reaction spell casting on your turn.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

That also affects Leveled Spell Casting Magic Items...

[@bwhit7919]

Here’s a weird/unclear rule. The perception rule states: “Your Wisdom (Perception) check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something.” What does “otherwise detect the presence of something” mean? Can you smell your enemies? Can you feel your enemies? Or does this only apply to special senses, like blindsight? Potentially, you could cast greater invisibility and silence on a party, meaning that you can only be perceived by these “other means.” Do you need to roll stealth in this situation, or do you automatically succeed all checks? Or can opponents make a perception (smell) check to find you? Pass without trace complicates things further. Suppose your enemy tries to notice you by looking for your footprints or the marks you leave on your environment. Once you cast pass without trace, your party doesn’t leave any footprints and cannot be tracked. Does this cover the “other means” through which you might be perceived? I’m curious if you have to roll stealth in this situation or just automatically succeed.

[@garion046]

I can't answer all those questions but I can say smell is definitely an intended option because loxodon have advantage on perception checks involving smell.

[@JoeKeyes]

Look out-Jeremy Crawford might cast See Invisiblity to see your translucent visage!!!

[@platinumdragon3007]

Perception applies to all senses. For example, you'd roll Perception to determine if you hear someone sneaking around in another room, just like you'd roll Perception to determine if you spot a hidden door. How "sharp" your various senses are is only vaguely defined by the rules and left to players' common sense. One example where it's very solidly defined is that you generally have disadvantage attacking an enemy that you can't see, and advantage attacking an enemy that can't see you - because most creatures use sight as their primary sense. So you can't hear your enemy so well that you can reliably hit them, no matter how high your Perception is - unless you've got hearing-based blindsight, of course. However, hearing an enemy that is hiding does let you know that the enemy is there - you've detected their presence (which also prevents them from surprising you). The Greater Invisibility / Silence combination is interesting, since it takes out the two most well-developed human (and by extension, fantasy humanoid) senses. By the RAW, it does seem like you'd still have to roll Stealth. However, I'd say this is a situation where the DM should step in, and either give the check advantage, or, depending on the situation, maybe even waive it entirely. There are still some things that could realistically give you away, though: you might leave tracks if the surface you're walking on is malleable or dusty; you might displace things as you move around; and, yes, you might have a distinct smell that alerts somebody. The unnatural silence created by the Silence spell would also be suspicious, but no Stealth roll will conceal that. So you can use Silence on top of yourself to hide, but if you plan to fight within Silence and cast it on top of your enemies, a DM might rule that the enemies go on alert because of the unnatural silence and thus can't be surprised (although you could still hide from them). Add Pass Without Trace into the mix, and as a DM I'd just say you automatically pass the Stealth check. The spell seems to be more about preventing tracking, but if you don't "leave" those signs then you've never produced them, so you can't be noticed in the moment either, in my opinion. And considering that scent is one way by which people can be tracked (mainly by animals), and in older editions the spell even explicitly removed scent, smell might not work either. I can't think of anything that might give you away at that point, unless a creature has a special sense like truesight, tremorsense, or blindsight. Being able to hide automatically is very powerful, but this is also a combination of three spells, one of which is 4th-level, so it's fine in my opinion. Enemies can still hurt you by guessing your location and then attacking with disadvantage, or using AoEs, and Dispel Magic can be used to shut off the combo. By the way, if enemies already can't see you, the only benefits hiding provides is the possibility of a surprise, and the enemies not knowing your location (which makes it a lot harder for them to hurt you, naturally).

[@philosopherhobbs]

Great video! I'd love to see more. The importance of these videos for me, and hopefully for D&D and other RPGs, is learning how to better design such rules. It's hard to get such rules to act reasonably in all situations but if we keep improving we will get closer and closer to the ideal while hopefully holding on to simplicity.

[@patricks2645]

Nets: ranged attack with a range of 5/15. So disadvantage at 10-15ft away, but its a ranged attack, which is always at disadvantage within 5 feet, so you always have disadvantage with the net

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Ranged Attacks or Ranged Weapon Attacks??? Tridents and Bows are not the same ranged attacks.

[@paigemackie8942]

Some of y'all may have seen pack tactic's video on this. There is no RAW definition of "first aid", thus meaning that all you need to do to stabilise someone is to do the following: Have a healer's kit, and use an action to expend one of its uses (whatever that means thematically) Specify a creature that is within the unspecified range... So any creature, regardless of if you can even see them. Thus, stabilisation has infinite range. These gaps have encouraged me to DM a game wherein I encourage the players to exploit the very kind of gaps you highlighted in this video. So thanks for doing my work for me lmao

[@SageSaga25]

There's a few things I like about flying rules in dnd, and thats the abuse of the falling mechanic. I once had a dragon flying over the party- it was 400 feet up, and they knew it could only fly around 100-200 feet in a round- so they felt safe- until i told them it suddenly dives- free falling 350 feet before it catches itself in mid air above you, as it releases it's breath attack. Much like how I allow feather fall to be used at any point in the round while falling. I allow them to fall up to 500 ft and use feather fall at any point in that fall so they can do cool drop ins rather than going from sky diving to- "jogging" towards the ground.

[@Jp138233]

Re: Invisibility, this doesn’t really make it less complicated and confusing, but I think it’s important to note that conditions aren’t necessarily just on or off. Both invisible and surprised actually both work best imo if you let the condition be active for some creatures and not for others. And while the rules don’t provide a specific framework for this, there also isn’t a rule saying that conditions can’t work that way. (The rules for the surprise condition *sort of* make it a single binary, but the rules for the surprised condition don’t factor in a lot of possible scenarios, so you’re already forced to extrapolate those rules, might as well throw this in)

[@bitspersecond2006]

Except that surprise isn't *literally* a condition so this isn't an example of a condition that is there for some but not for others per se. It does mechanically work best as a condition, I would agree, because it's easier to adjudicate that way.

[@fenzelian]

I don’t have a problem with a dragon using a contested strength check to slam another dragon out of the sky - nor with that being a very effective move in aerial combat. A fall of 300 feet would take less than two seconds, and for a creature that size it’s totally reasonable it wouldn’t be able to recover. I’d think of it as a shove action not a trip attack. Also for those two dragons it’s only a 45% chance the shove/slam works, and if it doesn’t it does nothing, and then they get to try to slam you down big style instead. Whereas each dragon has another +1 worth on the other in the saving throw DC for their breath weapon, and if it fails you still do damage. So it seems like a reasonable strategic choice. It also makes sense that trying to bite an armored monster in midair is not as good as either of those options. If you wanted to go super high up and have there be room to recover that sounds cool but I can also see that ad not part of the base rules since that’s a pretty rare situation.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Wizard casts levitation on the Eldritch Knight... The Eldritch Knight: "I will shove to prone the flying Dragon 4 times as my first attempt..."

[@FlameUser64]

There are also plenty of good reasons to take actions other than trip. Since, once it has been tripped once, it seems quite likely that a dragon would simply elect to retaliate from a lower elevation, using their breath weapon or spells (which iirc dragons still get in 5e?)

[@zpeedish]

What about ranged attacks from above a prone target? Isn't the target suddenly normal size again? Should the ranged attack still be at a disadvantage?

[@goatmeal5241]

Maybe I'm unversed in the "true" stealth rules, but how often are creatures updating their "in plain sight" status? That is, when does the Hidden condition break? If you're hidden behind a box or a tree and you stand up/step out to shoot a bow, do you not have advantage because you necessarily left cover (and therefore immediately lost Hidden) right before shooting? Is it basically impossible to use Stealth to get advantage in melee (like a Halfling rogue stepping from behind larger creatures to stab something) for that reason? In my houserule I say you have 5 ft of "grace period" before Hidden breaks, but that moving 10 ft out of cover means anything after that counts as seen. That was the best I could come up with after looking into the rules, but maybe I missed something.

[@platinumdragon3007]

These two quotes should answer your questions: "If you are hidden-both unseen and unheard-when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses." "In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the GM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen."

[@goatmeal5241]

@@platinumdragon3007 I know those sections, and I think my question still stands... the second one is just "DMs should decide on a case-by-case basis" (total cop-out as far as rules are concerned IMO), and the first doesn't specify how you can retain your hidden condition while attacking, only that AFTER your attack they definitely know your location. If you were hidden and just briefly stand up/step from behind your cover to loose an arrow, it seems like at that moment you're in plain sight and wouldn't be "unseen" when you make the attack, depending on how quickly the enemies update their perception status "of danger all around". Putting it all on DM interpretation is lazy and basically a non-rule since that's always rule 0, and makes the value of hiding for anyone with attack rolls into an entirely DM-dependent playstyle.

[@platinumdragon3007]

@@goatmeal5241 given that the Hide action's rules state "If you succeed (at Hiding), you gain certain benefits, as described in the “Unseen Attackers and Targets” section.", I think attacking from hiding has advantage by the RAW, which makes sense to me. Sure, realistically you may need to slightly pop out of whatever you're hiding in or behind, but you'll be exposing yourself so slightly and suddenly that it'll be hard to spot you before your arrow lands in someone's neck. Also, it's possible that you don't need to expose yourself at all to make a ranged attack. The rules for Cover state that you get get 1/2 and 3/4 cover if that much of your body is covered by an obstacle, but due to sight lines you can be right behind 3/4 cover and still be able to fully see your enemies. I would also argue that bushes are porous enough to shoot from while hiding in. In such a case, your location can be inferred by people seeing where the attack came from, but they still can't see you so they can't attack you very well, and nor can they adequately defend from your attacks. It's slightly abstracted, as most TTRPG rules have to be, but I think at least this aspect of it makes sense and is adequately covered by the rules, even if those rules require some piecing together.

[@platinumdragon3007]

The problematic area is melee attacks from hiding, where you need to first walk out of wherever you were hidden. It would be nice if we had better rules for this, such as "if all of your movement is through an obscured area you can stay hidden until you make the attack" or whatever. Personally, I wouldn't allow it in most scenarios, but would perhaps allow it if the setup was cool or if the movement could be done in a way that's a bit less noticeable than just strolling out of your hiding place (such as moving through shadow, or teleporting, or dropping down from a high place...). But even if your DM is strict about ruling against this type of thing in general, ranged attacks from hiding should still have advantage by the RAW.

[@coldfusion230]

I think thematically flash of genius is that you're so smart you figured out the enemy was casting a fireball and you yell out for your party member to duck thus avoiding some of the damage. Flash of idiocy would be you're so stupid you try to help your enemy but you're also so stupid you tell them to duck when they should have jumped and they get hit by whatever was heading their way.

[@hunterthorne4671]

The blidsight to me has always been through hearing, the creature can create an "image" of their surroundings in their head by the sounds without needing to see. So the bat isnt using the echolocation to see through the wall, but it can hear that someone is moving on the other side of the wall. Toph from The last Airbender, anyone?

[@dragohammer6937]

toph has tremor sense, which is similar to echolocation(both are "vision" through sound), but instead of having the air as a medium tremor sense uses the ground. so a bat couldn't see someone through a wall(the have echolocation but not tremor sense), a mole can't see flying creatures unless they're grounded(tremor sense but no echolocation) and a dragon can probably sense both and invisible creatures as well cause true sight. mixing echolocation and tremor sense into blindsight has caused much confusion, it seems.

[@hunterthorne4671]

@@dragohammer6937 did you read my comment at all, or are you just talking..?

[@dragohammer6937]

​@@hunterthorne4671 both. you said "So the bat isnt using the echolocation to see through the wall, but it can hear that someone is moving on the other side of the wall." which is wrong, since bats have echolocation not tremor sense. like i said in a response to another comment: the game should clarify blindsight in the same way as flight and hover, by having in parenthesis what kind of blindsight it is. so bats would have blindsight(echolocation), moles blindsight(tremor sense), and dragons blindsight(magical), thus leading to "so a bat couldn't see someone through a wall(they have echolocation but not tremor sense), a mole can't see flying creatures unless they're grounded(tremor sense but no echolocation) and a dragon can probably sense both and invisible creatures as well cause true sight." like i said before

[@Tupadre97]

nowhere in the description of blindsight does it says blindsight is on through hearing. you could have blindsight via sense of smell or by some sort of magical anime ki sense. there's plenty of ways blindsight can work treant just doesn't know what he's talking about here.

[@BobGrimminger]

Visibility and vision are relational, not conditional, so using conditions to describe them doesn't make a lot of sense in the first place. But beyond that, Jeremy's answer forgets that "A condition lasts either until it is countered... or... " and seeing something is very clearly the counter to not being able to see it.

[@luizfelipe1911]

Like always, a great video, thanks chris! I like the rules about prone and invisibility, yes, you really need to make some kind of explanation to "how it work", but makes cool scenes in my table, its funny see my players screaming "that's make no sense!" and me saying "RPG has rules, no logic bro" but I also desagree with blindsight, flying and others.

[@zhangbill1194]

I love this topic, here's two rules I think you should mention in future videos 1. there is no such thing as a "one-handed weapon" and there are no rules indicating that you need to wield a "one-handed weapon" in one hand. For two handed and versatile weapons, they specify that you need to wield them in two hands, but no such rules exist for one handed weapons. There for yu can do some crazy stuff, like wielding 23 dagger, or more practically, use a shield and hand crossbow. You can do the latter by using one handed to wield the shield, using one hand to fulfill the ammunition condition, and using no hands to wield to crossbow. 2. A zealot barbarians Rage Beyond Death can bypassed with a non lethal attack. Normal unconsciousness: When you reach 0hp, you fall unconscious. Rage beyond death: Falling to 0hp doesn't knock you unconscious. Any other feature that causes unconsciousness still can. (Sleep spell, for example) Non-lethal attack: When you knock a creature to 0hp, instead of letting them fall unconscious (from going to 0hp) and start dying, you can make a special attack that actively knocks them unconscious itself, and then stabilises them. I made a post on reddit about this if you want more details www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/ueg78b/rage_beyond_death_can_bypassed_with_a_non_lethal/

[@pyromanv6156]

Correct me if I'm wrong- do nets get flat disadvantage? If your target is within 5 feet, you get disadvantage for making a ranged attack against an enemy within 5 feet; if your target is within 15 feet, you get disadvantage for attacking beyond the weapons' normal range- sans feats like sharpshooter. Something similar happens with the Cyclops from the MM- it has the 'poor depth perception' feature which gives it disadvantage on attacks beyond 30 feet- but it's only ranged attack has a normal range of 30 feet, and disadvantage doesn't stack, making it a moot point!

[@MrABK108]

The justification provided by JC is lackluster. The Predator is just an invisible creature who did not hide.

[@zacharylona]

I sat through the ads so you get a small kickback for making one singular video that I can send to my rules squeamish friends and fellow DMs. Can't wait for the next one!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Hero. That is all.

[@zyxophoj]

One really strange thing in 5e is that conditions tend to overlook ability checks. For example, an unconscious creature automatically fails strength and dexterity saving throws, but its ability checks are not affected. There was an errata which said that an incapacitated creature auto-fails ability checks made to avoid being shoved or grappled, but that's it - no other ability checks are affected. This means an unconscious creature's abiity to do things that normally require non-action ability checks, like "not fall off a tightrope" would seem to be unaffected. Also, an unconscious creature can probably still defeat a conscious creature in an arm-wrestling contest, because that's usually handled as a bunch of opposed strength checks. Threre are some things you can do to have a better chance of winning the arm-wrestling - for example, you can give the unconscious creature disadvantage on its ability checks by making it frightened. Another oddity: The Octopus Lockdown. A giant octopus can grappple something 15 feet away and cause it to be restrained. If it can't escape form the grapple, then the unfortunate victim can't move. And if it has a range of less than 15 feet, it can't attack the octopus. There does not seem to be any provision for "attacking the part of the creature that's grappling you".

[@tahmistandish9338]

An ability check is “when a character or monster attempts an action that has a chance of failure” If you’re unconscious then how are you attempting an action? If you don’t have the ability to do anything then there shouldn’t be a reason for an ability check. At least that’s how my brain interprets it.

[@zyxophoj]

​@@tahmistandish9338 It would have made more sense if saving throws were consistently used for "passively resisting something bad that's about to happen to you", and ability checks were limited to "trying to do something". I think the actual problem here is that they are not. Sometimes you get passive ability checks. For example, shoving a monster around with the Telekinesis spell gives it a STR-based ability check to resist. So that Hold-Monstered creature might - somehow - grab onto something to avoid getting shoved around, despite being paralyzed. An unconscious bard would even get to add half their proficiency bonus to the check, thanks to their training!!

[@Sylasha]

Flash of Genius, into Surge of Stupidity is hilarious.

[@LordDany]

Its actualy prety dope name ,🤣

[@jettblade]

I had a question about a specific interaction. So in Multiverse of Monsters that updated some on the abilities on the races. I was looking at the Shifter-Wildhunt. It has an effect that while shifted no attack within 30 ft of you can be made with advantage. What I'm not sure is if an attack gains then loses the advantage or doesn't gain advantage at all. It mostly got really confusing for me because I was looking at making a Shifter Barbarian and wasn't sure how it worked with Reckless Attack. I also threw in fighting in heavy obscured areas like a Fog Cloud with that setup and it made my head hurt. I came to the conclusion that while shifted, using Reckless Attack, and in a fog cloud I would attack at advantage while they have disadvantage. I know advantage and disadvantage cancels out but really not sure how it works if you have advantage, advantage, and disadvantage. (I assumed the pairs would cancel out and what's left would stay)

[@jacobleach7408]

Nice video, these definitely need a rework, too much simplification leading to unrealistic scenarios especially with prone and blindsight. Maybe give certain weapons benefits when prone in 5.5e i.e. crossbows like you said. See Invisibility should just make invisible creatures unable to benefit from the invisible condition against you same with blindsight, truesight yada yada. Looking at Jeremys explanation of see invisibility only being able to see the outline of a creature, then by that logic creatures with only blindsight would have to treat enemies as invisible as they can only feel their outline. The invisible condition needs to be reworked. Fortunately haven't had any DM's that run see invisibility RAW and instead use it "as creatures with the invisible condition do not benefit from it when fighting you."

[@kevingriffith6011]

I personally don't even understand why the second bullet point needs to exist. You already have heavy obscurement thanks to the first bullet point, and that provides advantage and disadvantage in places where *it makes sense for invisibility*... maybe remove the "for the purposes of hiding" part, as it really shouldn't matter if you're trying to hide or not, they have to guess your location based on the clues your give them and I say that's enough.

[@agilemind6241]

Prone is just fine IMO. The problem is the explanation for reach weapons particularly those with slashing damage, because if you've ever seen HEMA fighters using reach weapons you can see that to use the reach aspect of a reach weapon you're always doing a thrusting motion, which really ought to be piercing damage with the top spike of the weapon, the only time you can do slashing damage with them is when you're not using the reach aspect and instead using it like a slightly oversized quarterstaff in close-quarters. Honestly all the sight mechanics need reworking. Darkness & Illumination rules drive me crazy as well : e.g. standing inside a tunnel you're in total darkness (heavily obscured) thus are blinded and cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel until you step out of it... Blindsight is one term covering all kinds of different blindsights : a bat's blindsight is not the same as an ooze's blindsight or a snakes blindsight. Truesight not being able to see through objects / clothing leads to bizarre things like if you use True Polymorph to permanently transform yourself into someone else then Truesight can see through to your original self, but if you wear an ordinary mask then Truesight cannot see your true identity. Another I recently ran across is the complete lack of description of whether monsters can hear or not (and how far they can hear). E.g. there's a ton of constructs & oozes that have 60ft blindsight but are blind beyond that 60ft, but are immune to being deafened, and somewhere there is rules that creatures can use other senses such as hearing to locate creatures they cannot see. So presumably, the oozes and what not can hear someone 120 ft away and go hunting them regardless of the limited range of their blindsight.

[@fnzer0]

@@agilemind6241 Regarding darkness, read it again. While the wording can be interpreted as "the creature being heavily obscured suffers from the Blinded condition", it can also be read as a creature "suffering from the Blinded condition if what they are trying to see is in a heavily obscured area."

[@agilemind6241]

@@fnzer0 The issue then is with the interaction with Fog Cloud. The rules don't distinguish an area of darkness from an area of fog, when IRL these two things act very differently with fog blocking sight through the area, whereas darkness only blocks sight into the area.

[@Dave004]

This was an awesome video! The invisibility portion blew my mind, clearly my campaign and I bet most others have been playing this wrong. I wonder if this type of logic works with Shadow of Moil and Truesight, Blindsight or Termorsense? Shadow of Moil essentially creates the "Blinded" condition which also has a separate bullet point for advantage and disadvantage. Jeremy Crawford spoke twice about Shadow of Moil and confuses me with his back and forth. First 2017 "Truesight sees through darkness, including the darkness created by shadow of Moil. In contrast, truesight doesn't penetrate physical concealment, such as what would be created by a dense sandstorm or a blanket." Then in 2019 "Shadow of Moil heavily obscures you, full stop. The spell also dims the light around you. The fact that you're heavily obscured is a result of the flame-like shadows surrounding you, not the result of being in darkness. This means you're heavily obscured even to darkvision" So according to him you're obscured because of the flames NOT because of the darkness they create....but Truesight sees through the darkness Shadow of Moil creates....ugh. I assume Truesight would negate the advantage and disadvantage of Shadow of Moil but would be great to know for certain.

[@TheHaven923]

re: Jeremy Crawford's Blindsight statement. If a creature is behind total cover it is not within your blindsight radius. This was an instance of JC being sussinct and letting other rules work as they should, but his sussinctness resulted in more confusion by those who didn't make that connection. Also, another fun falling quirk: If you stop falling by telepoting, casting fly on yourself, levitate, etc. or any other feature other than stiff like featherfall that says you take no damage... then you have thus stopped falling and take the falling damage even if you didn't collide with anything. For invisibility, think of it like active camo from Halo or like the Predator's camo that JC mentioned. You know where they are, but their form is obscurred enough where their actions are harder to react to or predict. Having that narrative explanation makes it make much more sense.

[@Fynzmirs]

The predator explanation is basically how I run invisible creatures that are not hidden (because being invisible does not automatically make you hidden). I don't get why it should apply in the case of blindsight as creatures in blindsight can fight perfectly while blind so a visible magical shimmer should not impair them.

[@agilemind6241]

"then you have thus stopped falling and take the falling damage even if you didn't collide with anything." This actually makes a ton of sense! It always seemed weird to me that you could fall 1000 feet then teleport right at the end even just a tiny distance and suddenly be ok. You're still changing velocity from a very high speed to 0 in an instant so would experience whiplash etc... even if you don't physically collide with something.

[@SPACKlick]

On the falling one, in a 6 second round something falling under gravity would fall up to 580feet (depending on air resistance). Falling instantly is just an abstraction for that.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

How far can you fall in one turn without the optional rules? Or do you just drop to the floor at the cap of fall damage?

[@SPACKlick]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 500 ft is the optional rule in xanathars.

[@SPACKlick]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Without the optional rule you fall infinite feet instantly.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@SPACKlick That's kind of funny... How is that 6 seconds per turn? Unless you or the NPC have a Reaction to counter falling infinitely. It seems like an oversight on both sides of the game. Even the optional 500ft instant drop is kind of beyond 6 seconds because inertia doesn't kick in to its max fall distance based on gravity. Even Zero Gravity has uncapped inertia at the speed of light. Since it's fall damage every 10ft up to a cap of damage. And not fall damage when you land for every 10ft traveled, excluding Jumping... I can see why the Raging Barbarian can survive from orbit.

[@Glaswalker1001]

If you are in a field of reversed gravity you go prone on the ceiling. So you are harder to hit going spread eagle in plaine sight.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

hah, that's a good one

[@motionoutoftime]

Related to the weapon damage type issue - for Polearm Master, I have a house rule that states that characters can use more than just the blunt end of their polearm for the bonus action attack, if it has another part that can inflict it. For example - halberds typically have an axe head and a spiked tip on a long pole. So for the Polearm Master bonus action attack, you could use either the blunt end for bludgeoning damage, or the spiked tip for piercing damage. Similarly, glaives often have a hook opposite the blade on the head of the weapon. What's odd about using the blunt end of the weapon for Polearm Master is that if you watch any movies or war reenactments of people wielding halberds, they never swing it around and hit someone with the blunt shaft, but they definitely do attempt to impale or skewer people with the spike.

[@masterfreeman117]

Personally, I am alright with weapons only being able to deal one type of damage despite logic dictating otherwise. If you allow a Poleaxe for example to deal, slashing, piercing and bludgeoning damage, then the various damage types become even more meaningless than they already are.

[@zinogrevz7389]

to be fair apart from skeltons, oozes, raskashas and some tree monster(forgot the name) the damage type doesnt matter

[@Dennis-vh8tz]

@@zinogrevz7389 Or cutting a net, which requires slashing damage, which neither a dagger nor a short sword can do. While a few historic daggers were just pointed spikes, the vast majority of daggers, and everything that might be called a short sword, had a usable cutting edge.

[@lordspaz88]

The invisibility/blindsight issue becomes even more muddied with the 18th level Ranger Ability Feral Senses. "You are aware of the location of any *invisible* creature provided they aren't HIDDEN from you" so now there are different layers of conditions of invisible vs hidden that you have to keep track of.

[@AnaseSkyrider]

This also raises the question of whether casting invisibility actually conceals your presence or if you still need to spend your action next round trying to hide.

[@wolfchanel2879]

Honestly, a feebleminded artificer penalizing the BBEG once in the final battle is hilarious and I would ABSOLUTELY allow it.

[@techwizsmith7963]

Here's my favorite. We all know that, within the rules, you can make a long jump by moving at least 10ft first. The, uh, rules don't mention a direction. You can run backwards and immediately long jump forwards like a rubberband snapping forward

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Yeah, I mentioned that in my jumping video

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

But also in RAW... You can't jump with a negative STR modifier. lol

[@comradezero]

Great video Chris. Thanks for addressing the weapon damage issue in particular. As a HEMA practitioner, D&D's understanding of how weapons and combat actually work is sometimes hilarious, sometimes exasperating, and seldom correct. I hope they consult with experts for 6th edition and onward.

[@cloud13Wizard]

In regard to flying combat and "tripping", yes, that's right, and real flying animals do this! Birds will attack the wings of other birds.

[@syndeth]

LOL, that Invisibility talk on Sage Advice... the number of times I've listened to or read the sage advice and gone... "Well that's dumb, I'm not using that at my table." is staggering.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

How Mounted Combat works in the mind of literally every single person who plays the game, even people who have never played a tabletop rpg in their life: I ride up, then do my attacks to anything my mount could target with the weapon I'm using, this is literally the easiest thing in the world. How Mounted Combat Works in 5e: It doesn't/So I act before my mount, but want to attack after I move, I can't delay my initiative because my mount acts after me, not on it's own initiative count, so on my turn I need to decide which of the 4 spaces my mount occupies I'm going to crawl over to, otherwise I might not be able to reach the enemy, then I need to do nothing on my turn but prepare a reaction so that when my mount moves into range I can attack. Only once, though, and I can't do any of my more complicated features, spells, or abilities, because this is a prepared reaction. Bonus actions are right out. Honestly, the mounted combat rules deserve to be ripped out and shot until they are dead, PURELY on the grounds that people who have never played a tabletop rpg in their lives can consistently come up with a more simple, less cumbersome and clunky, and less surreal set of rules in like 2 minutes.

[@agilemind6241]

"I ride up, then do my attacks to anything my mount could target with the weapon I'm using, this is literally the easiest thing in the world." This is 100% how it works if your mount is controlled in 5e. The only issue is if you want your mount to attack as well as you in which case you have to do the second one.

[@jameshicks1114]

Concentration self spells while on a found steed. Can the steed concentrate? For example, can I cast Spirit Guardians whilst on a found steed then dismount and move away to have two auras for the price of one. Or even worse, drop concentration for just the character and with the mounted combatant feat just have my untargetable steed concentrate on the spell for me and then cast another concentration spell myself getting around the whole point of the concentration mechanic.

[@SakraIgor0qNomoko]

Here's one: Levitate vs. flying creatures. A flying creature could still move by crawling on a ceiling, but it can't fly.

[@chiepah2]

So instead of casting See invisibility you would cast fog cloud to counter invisibility, since advantage and disadvantage cancel out?

[@utkarshgaur1942]

Hehe, yes. But if you wanted to target the invisible creature with a spell or effect that requires sight (like Hold Person or even Healing Word), See Invisibility would still be your best option.

[@ascapedgoat8462]

For the flash of genius part, I choose to interpret it as your character cleverly working around a detriment by just “helping” the enemy and everyone gets confused, thus imposing the penalty.

[@shotgunridersweden]

As someone who trains halberd based on historical sources, there is several techniques where you are less than 5 feet from your opponent, and very likely the reach of a qeapon doesnt always correlate well with the damage dealt in real life either

[@minorbflat4358]

I love these short videos, Chris. They’re fun.

[@Micna9596]

I also have mixed feelings with Echo knight and hiding. Since it says when you attack the attack may originate from either your position or the echo's. So RAW if you're hidden and make an attack originating from the echo it would both have advantage and reveal your position.

[@agilemind6241]

Echo knight is just horribly worded all around. They really should have just said "ask your DM how your echo works".

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@agilemind6241 Just treat the Echo like a mini portal with arms and legs... And 1 hp. However, in RAW, the Echo is a Magical Effect like Mage Hand... Just cast Dispell Magic on the Echo, but Counter Spell will not work since the Echo is not a Spell. In RAI... The Echo is an Object. It's more of a magical Ditto Pokemon than it is anything else.

[@zakyuen2602]

On the topic of flying rules, one thing I learned recently is how if you have hover, u can choose to fall prone on your turn, giving ranged attacks disadvantage to hit. So are you like, lying flat? In the AIR???

[@iododendron3416]

Maybe it's like the way superman flies?

[@zakyuen2602]

@@iododendron3416 but you’re not moving… so you’re just staying like a plank in the middle of the air? What if there are people all around you?

[@iododendron3416]

@@zakyuen2602 hm, on second thought maybe superman crawls throug the air?

[@NoamFirestone]

While I agree with most of your points, I do think that the explanation for see invisibility works. Let me explain - picture you know one's exact location through an echolocation type ability - Can you tell where their weapon is relative to their other body parts? I can imagine that doing anything like blocking their weapon, avoiding a shield or armor, or grabbing a wrist would be extremely difficult, despite knowing the position and rough shape of the target. Just my thought.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Though see invisible says "you see invisible creatures AS IF THEY WERE VISIBLE"

[@NoamFirestone]

@@TreantmonksTemple Okay, well with the wording that way I guess its just weird then. Just as you were saying lol.

[@marshallwilver8831]

The moment you said the words feeble mind the look of realization on my face about putting a -5 penalty on somebody was wasted on the fact that I am completely alone right now

[@lukeholbrook204]

Lots of interesting stuff. I’ve been playing some PF2, and this gives me even more appreciation for their oft-maligned hyper-precision in rules. They also give quite a few weapons multiple damage types.

[@NaskaRudd]

This is also making me appreciate the specificity of Pathfinder 2 as well.

[@TedSroka]

We definitely should be able to choose our type of damage if a weapon can inflict multiple types of damage. - I don’t see why they haven’t made an errata about this.

[@blitheringape5321]

JC even said he's fine with it and he doesn't think it heavily impacts the game. nothing in dnd's magic really makes sense tho

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I don't disagree that it doesn't impact the game all that much.

[@theaspie3121]

Off the top of my head, the only creatures I can imagine this being an issue for is skeletons and oozes (or maybe just the gelatinous cube), otherwise, no creature has any resistance or vulnerability to only one or two of BSP, it’s either neutral to all or resistant to all

[@GreyTide]

@@TreantmonksTemple the triple negative is wracking my brain. You what?

[@lipeeefl]

@@GreyTide he agrees that it doesn't impact

[@pedrogarcia8706]

Speaking of the interaction between prone and flying, if you're flying, and you are held aloft by magic, and you're knocked prone, Crawford has said, I believe, that ranged attacks against you still have disadvantage because of the prone condition, even though I can't logic the idea that you're presenting a smaller target while hovering helpless in midair. Also the prone thing really seems like it should be a matter of the attacker's perspective. If you're on even ground with someone, and they go prone, then yeah, they're presenting a smaller target to you, so it makes sense that a ranged attack would have disadvantage. But if you have high enough ground, and they go prone, their whole body is like a perfect target for you.

[@benfawefwaeffwaefawfdekk2080]

I was talking about weapon damage types with my group. A longsword can do all 3. Slashing, piercing, and even bludgeoning (mordaeu grip). Its a common misconception that rapiers cant slash but they can just as much as longswords can stab, which is to say its not their primary purpose but they can do it.

[@platinumdragon3007]

I feel like whatever bludgeoning damage a longsword would do would definitely be less than the piercing and slashing damage it could do, so I can see why the rules would cut out complicated edge cases like that. But the piercing and slashing damages would be about equal, so we really should be able to choose.

[@TheFinagle]

#4 if you have a fly ability without a hover and choose not to move you are effectively using your movement to fight gravity - so without a move speed you cant move upward against gravity thus you fall. Second part is how do you trip a flying creature? Rules may not have specifics for that, but I would rule tripping would not work as written against a flying creature. #1 on invisibility. The reason you might have advantage / disadvantage is that attacks are not a one sided event. the invisible person still gets to dodge an incoming attack or obscure their attack vector to prevent the other person dodging/deflecting. And the person trying to hit or dodge an invisible person they can perceive but not directly see would have trouble discerning EXACTLY whats the invisible one is doing second to second. He is that much more likely to fall for a bluff move while the attack hits somewhere they didnt expect, or to miss the motions of his invisible target as they move away from the attack slightly.

[@xxTerraPrimexx]

Hey guys I was thinking about the being knocked prone whilst flying that Treantmonk brought up in one of his rules videos, I think this might be a fix; Knocked Prone when flying: If you are knocked prone when flying, you fall 60ft immediately (even if you have Hover). If you come into contact with a solid surface you take fall damage for the distance dropped. Ranged attacks do not have disadvantage against you whilst you are prone. All other effects of the prone condition are applied as normal. Each round you get the chance to right yourself, and you can either make a Strength or Dexterity saving throw to right yourself, dropping a further 60ft on a failure. You automatically succeed on this save if you have a hover speed. If you are restrained you drop the normal 500ft per round as normal. (Fall damage is capped at 150d6/1500ft)

[@kevingriffith6011]

Honestly I just houserule that creatures who are flying or swimming are immune to prone, as most of the features of the prone condition assume that you're on the ground anyway. Creatures can still be grappled to force the fall by reducing their movement to 0 if you want to do it, which we've seen all the time in film anyway as two big flying things clash in the air and tangle for a while as they both fall. I personally think that Surge of Stupidity is a hilarious ruling that I would absolutely allow... although flash of genius really should need you to be able to communicate with your target through some means: How do you flash of genius a grizzly bear who can't understand what you're saying?

[@agilemind6241]

To flash of genius a grizzly bear you jump up and down waving your arms excitedly then point at something with great enthusiasm.

[@kevingriffith6011]

@@agilemind6241 I mean, you know what they say. There is considerable overlap intelligence between the smartest bears and the dumbest adventurers.

[@KnicKnac]

Yes! Why did the change daggers to only piercing damage. They used to do piercing or slashing damage. That and the "heavy" weapon rule doesn't make sense to me.

[@jaredcarter1165]

I know you've already done a full video on it, but the flying thing reminded me of how weird jumping also is. Creatures with ength, such as cats, apparently can't jump at all, but elephants can jump over a hut. Also no clarity on momentum conserved, jumping in any direction other than straight forward or up, whether you consider falling damage, etc. This is the kind of thing I really think the rules should cover more, and look forward to in a newer edition, because sure you can try to rely on common sense, but when you're dealing with end the universe to their will, it'd be nice to know from the get-go if the 1st level spell Jump is gonna kill the wizard who casts it.

[@mileshammett8383]

From prone Misty srep and other teleports to place 9tf above the ground to land standing up? The prone condition isn't the clearest on when it's removed other than by standing up?

[@phoenix_viridis]

I love the Invisibility rules consideration. It actually motivated me to buff the way I handle it.

[@nessesaryschoolthing]

I know in Pathfinder (probably D&D 3.5 as well, but I'm not 100% on that), there's a deliberate difference between knowing where an invisible creature is and actually overcoming their concealment, so there's some precedent for that ruling. In practice, it does work. Invisible targets are concealed from being accurately aimed at, but if you have located them, you can cast something like a lightning bolt in their general direction and it works just as well as if they were totally visible.

[@studynot757]

Falling makes some sense actually IRL depending on drag/air resistance you’d fall something slightly less than 176.4m in 6 seconds So in one round you fall ~ 500 ft, they just simplify it over much to account for the turns vs simultaneousness of what combat should be

[@atomwyrm541]

I see the dev logic with invisibility and think maybe the spell See Invisibility just needs an errata? Blindsight could definitely use the same treatment but that’s been obvious for a long time.

[@segevstormlord3713]

Feebleminded Flash of Genius is best characterized as "halping," I think. That is, "I'm helping!" as you do something horribly disruptive. Cool catch on flying creature combat tactics. Blindsight expressly says "...without relying on sight," which wouldn't be necessary by the rest of the perception rules in D&D 5e if it didn't expressly substitute for sight. So, yes, by anything but a _choice_ to read the rules in a way that prevents it, the RAW support blindsight counting for anything where you need to "see" the creature. Where it is less clear and you have to waffle on whether it fully counts as "sight" or only as "sight for purposes of targeting" and the like is with things like reading text on a page, seeing colors, or dealing with medusae and the like. But all of that is _very deliberately_ left to DM adjudication, because DMs are better able to maintain verisimilitude for their own tables at that level of fidelity. This remains not an oddity of the rules, but rather the rules working exactly as intended. "Prone" probably should've said "melee" and "ranged" rather than "within 5 feet" and "further than 5 feet," but let's be honest: that also would've had weird edge cases that somebody would be griping about. This one's a bit weird, yeah, but that is the price of simplicity. I agree that they should've made weapons have choices on damage types. However... the improvised weapon rules actually do cover this, in a round-about way. Yes, blindsight lets you see the invisible. It is a "special sense" that lets you perceive things without needing to see them. Which, again, must mean that you count as "seeing" them for purposes that require it for it to make sense at all, and since it CAN make sense if read that way, you should read it that way rather than choosing to read it in a way that makes it make no sense. And who says it doesn't remove the condition? Conditions are sometimes interaction-dependent. You can be hidden from some creatures, and not hidden from others; you can be visible to some creatures, and not visible to others; you can be Invisible to some creatures, and lose its benefits to others who don't notice or care. Granted, the fact that Invisible-the-condition lists the effects of not being seen as part of itself is probably a shorthand they shouldn't have left in there without clarifying it, so I will grant that you can reasonably state this is a weird rule; it does require the DM rolling his eyes at you and overruling it based on clear intent rather than being able to flat-out say "no, you're not Invisible as far as the blindsighted creature is concerned." And, if you want to lean on Jeremy Crawford's ruling, go ahead; he does provide the explanation. Apparently, Jeremy Crawford sees the Invisibility condition as also being a Blur spell that affects even nonvisual cues. I, personally, disagree with him. I think he's trying to sound cleverer than the writing was, because if that was intentional, they'd have worded things like _faerie fire_ more than they did. _See invisibility,_ for instance, would explicitly cover that. As should Blindsight. So no, I don't think that it was as intentional as he says.