Robe of eyes V medusa

[Bladewing2013]

So I was flipping through the magic items, and I found the robe of eyes. My question about is is simple. Would a gaze attack still effect you through the cloak if you close your real eyes? Like a Medusa or Basilisk.

[Unoriginal]

So I was flipping through the magic items, and I found the robe of eyes. My question about is is simple. Would a gaze attack still effect you through the cloak if you close your real eyes? Like a Medusa or Basilisk.

Indeed it would.

[Bladewing2013]

So never bring it against a medusa?

[StoicLeaf]

The ol' banshee's wail through a telephone conundrum...

I'd say the robe won't protect you unless you wanted to make this a plot point.
5e doesn't seem to have any form of protection versus petrification (ok, the blindness spell but that isn't what I meant :P ), any sort of item that can entirely negate the effect would be reaaaaaally rare.

[baticeer]

Correct, this is an intentional drawback of the item.

The magic item description says: The eyes on the robe can't be closed or averted. Although you can close or avert your own eyes, you are never considered to be doing so while wearing this robe.

Averting your eyes only comes up as a thing you do to avoid gaze effects like medusa petrification (as far as I can recall). So they wouldn't have put that sentence there if they hadn't considered this.