Settle a lame argument: dropping invisibility when you attack

[Smaje]

Okay as a DM I'm usually good at picking battles and not getting caught in lame arguments while playing. This time however they got me and it's pretty sad. Having your input will help me put it to rest.

The PC was invisible and pulled a sword from a prone NPC's hands. The players wanted to argue that it's not "by the rules" an attack action, therefore, the sword would just disappear with the PC. I ruled that disarming an enemy is clearly an attack by the "nature of the action".

I think it's ridiculous that if you were to gently scratch another person your invisibility would drop, but wrenching a sword from their hands is not. What I'm hoping for is a paragraph or something that I missed reading the rules but just having a lot of you agree with me (or not I suppose) will be enough.

Thanks for your input in advance

[JeenLeen]

What, mechanically, was done to attempt the disarm?

From what I've read of 5e (which is mostly just the PHB), there is no generic Disarm action any person can take, as there was in 3.5. Thus, I don't think it's necessarily possible to try to wrestle a sword out of someone's grasp... well, without a DM ruling on how to do it (opposed Strength check?). Though it's completely possible I just overlooked that section of the rules.


If the PC used the Fighter Battlemaster maneuver to disarm, or some similar thing held by another class, I think it's pretty clearly an attack as those are (mostly) special ways of attacking.
If the NPC were unconscious or otherwise unable to resist, I think it would definitely be 'not an attack' and the sword vanishes, much like pickpocketing. Likewise, I would think stealthily pulling a sword out of its sheath would maintain invisibility (but that seems clearly not to be the case here.)
Since I hearken from 3.5, where disarm was an option for attacking, I lean towards disarming being a way of attacking, and would count wrestling a sword out of a foe's hand as disarming-type attack... but I think the 5e rules are actually ambiguous at best.


But, all in all, I'm leaning towards a RAW ruling of 'nope, stays invisible, and, yep, does not really make sense'. Though this seems an appropriate place for a houserule.

[Unoriginal]

Okay as a DM I'm usually good at picking battles and not getting caught in lame arguments while playing. This time however they got me and it's pretty sad. Having your input will help me put it to rest.

The PC was invisible and pulled a sword from a prone NPC's hands. The players wanted to argue that it's not "by the rules" an attack action, therefore, the sword would just disappear with the PC. I ruled that disarming an enemy is clearly an attack by the "nature of the action".

I think it's ridiculous that if you were to gently scratch another person your invisibility would drop, but wrenching a sword from their hands is not. What I'm hoping for is a paragraph or something that I missed reading the rules but just having a lot of you agree with me (or not I suppose) will be enough.

Thanks for your input in advance

How did you rule the "pull a sword from a prone NPC's hands" action? A normal grapple contest? A STR check vs set DC? Auto-win?


What, mechanically, was done to attempt the disarm?

From what I've read of 5e (which is mostly just the PHB), there is no generic Disarm action any person can take,


DISARM
A creature can use a weapon attack to knock a weapon or another item from a target's grasp. The attacker makes an attack roll contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the attacker wins the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item. The attacker has disadvantage on its attack roll if the target is holding the item with two or more hands. The target has advantage on its ability check if it is larger than the attacking creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller.

DMG p. 271

[Kibry]

The act of wrenching a sword from someones hands is aggressive and therefore the invisibility would likely drop. If they were stealthily trying to steal the sword, that would be a different story altogether.

[Smaje]

Agreed if the sword was in the scabbard or if the NPC was unconscious it would be stealing the sword and fine.

The whole point of the mission was to steal the sword (sword of sharpness). What happened is the NPC fell over due to an earth tremor spell. Since the sword was what they wanted I rolled to see if the NPC would drop it as she fell but she didn't (Nat 20). Next the (invisible) PC tried to grab the sword. Based on the previous roll I assumed the NPC was holding on tight so I did a contest of strength and the NPC lost.

[Thrudd]

Since it requires the invisible person making some sort of contested action against the target to disarm them (unless they were unconscious), invisibility should dispell. I mean, there's no way the target of the disarm wouldn't notice what was happening.

[JeenLeen]

DISARM
A creature can use a weapon attack to knock a weapon or another item from a target's grasp. The attacker makes an attack roll contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the attacker wins the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item. The attacker has disadvantage on its attack roll if the target is holding the item with two or more hands. The target has advantage on its ability check if it is larger than the attacking creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller.

Ah; I was very wrong, then.
By the rules of this, it is an "attack roll" and thus, I would think, an attack to disarm. At least if done so by a weapon.

EDITING POST SINCE OP RESPONDED WHILE TYPING
This statement appears to imply that you cannot do an unarmed attack to disarm. Thus I agree with unoriginal that the question is what was done to "pull a sword".
Based on what happened, I'd say drop invis, but I think it is a valid argument to say that as no attack or attack roll was made, so invis is retained.

[Easy_Lee]

There isn't an action to do that so a DM must adjudicate. What happens to invisibility depends on how you adjudicate.

I'd personally ask for a grapple attempt (attack) if the target was holding the weapon and in combat, but otherwise the player would just draw the weapon as his free object interaction (not an attack). Either way, the sword remains visible as invisibility only applies to things that are on your person when the spell is cast. One way around that would be to place the sword in an invisible bag of holding.

[Unoriginal]

Ah; I was very wrong, then.
By the rules of this, it is an "attack roll" and thus, I would think, an attack to disarm. At least if done so by a weapon.

EDITING POST SINCE OP RESPONDED WHILE TYPING
This statement appears to imply that you cannot do an unarmed attack to disarm. Thus I agree with unoriginal that the question is what was done to "pull a sword".
Based on what happened, I'd say drop invis, but I think it is a valid argument to say that as no attack or attack roll was made, so invis is retained.

Note that it's an optional rule. Also, an unarmed attack still counts as a weapon attack, because the "weapon attack" category is to distinguish from the "spell attack" one.



Agreed if the sword was in the scabbard or if the NPC was unconscious it would be stealing the sword and fine.

The whole point of the mission was to steal the sword (sword of sharpness). What happened is the NPC fell over due to an earth tremor spell. Since the sword was what they wanted I rolled to see if the NPC would drop it as she fell but she didn't (Nat 20). Next the (invisible) PC tried to grab the sword. Based on the previous roll I assumed the NPC was holding on tight so I did a contest of strength and the NPC lost.

In this case I'm not sure I would consider it an attack. On the other hand, you are the DM, and it's pretty similar to a grapple check, so I'd say you're perfectly justified in your ruling. There WAS a struggle between the two, after all.

That being said, the enemy would defenitively be aware of the invisible PC's presence either way.

[Willie the Duck]

Overall, the list of things which cause invisibility to drop do not compromise a single identifiable action criteria. Heck, they don't even all require the same person to pick up the dice (when attacking someone with a sword, the attacker rolls, when dropping a fireball on someone, the defender rolls). The only constant is hostile intent. I would say taking an item from someone's hand is a hostile action, while picking their pocket (or scabbard) of a similar weapon-like object would not be. Why? No one concrete specific reason, other than one seems more 'attack-ish.'

Magic is, after all, magic. It doesn't make sense. And where it does, it follows a human logic. So it is perfectly possible for it to make those kind of distinctions ('this is an attack, while that is not').

[Arial Black]

Invisibility in 5e doesn't 'pop' for 'taking a hostile action'. In previous editions it did, but not 5e.

In 5e, it only pops for two reasons: 'attack', 'cast a spell'.

Both 'attack' and 'cast a spell' are rules terms. 'Cast a spell' means going through the spellcasting process, so things that are 'magic' and 'offensive' (like dragon breath) are not 'casting a spell' even if it resembles a fireball.

'Attack' is a rules term that means something involving an 'attack roll', or something that explicitly states that it counts as an attack despite it not having an attack roll (Shove and Grapple being the only ones I can think of). So dragon breath is not an 'attack' in 5e either.

So, if the game mechanic you used to resolve snatching the sword involved an attack roll, invisibility pops. If it didn't, it doesn't pop.

The only exception would be if you used the Grapple mechanic; if so then it pops because Grapples count as an 'attack' even without an attack roll, because the rules explicitly say they do!

It's not enough to pop invisibility to just do something which can be described as 'hostile' or 'something the target wouldn't like' or 'aggressive'.

[Unoriginal]

Invisibility in 5e doesn't 'pop' for 'taking a hostile action'. In previous editions it did, but not 5e.

In 5e, it only pops for two reasons: 'attack', 'cast a spell'.

Both 'attack' and 'cast a spell' are rules terms. 'Cast a spell' means going through the spellcasting process, so things that are 'magic' and 'offensive' (like dragon breath) are not 'casting a spell' even if it resembles a fireball.

'Attack' is a rules term that means something involving an 'attack roll', or something that explicitly states that it counts as an attack despite it not having an attack roll (Shove and Grapple being the only ones I can think of). So dragon breath is not an 'attack' in 5e either.

So, if the game mechanic you used to resolve snatching the sword involved an attack roll, invisibility pops. If it didn't, it doesn't pop.

The only exception would be if you used the Grapple mechanic; if so then it pops because Grapples count as an 'attack' even without an attack roll, because the rules explicitly say they do!

It's not enough to pop invisibility to just do something which can be described as 'hostile' or 'something the target wouldn't like' or 'aggressive'.

Fair enough, but what's the difference between "grapple" and "STR contest", in term of effect?

[Arial Black]

Fair enough, but what's the difference between "grapple" and "STR contest", in term of effect?

Since there is no generic disarm action in the basic rules, ANY disarm attempt is up to the DM to define in rules terms, and part of that judgement should be if this 'grappling for a weapon' counts as an 'attack' like any other grapple, or if it isn't a grapple at all.

Since the DM is making a ruling on the fly about how things work in his world then he should make the players aware of his ruling before they commit to risking popping their invisibility. They should know whether disarming would pop their invisibility so that they can make their choice.

It would be very poor form to use this as a 'gotcha' to pop the invisibility when they would not have done that if disarming pops invisibility.

[mephnick]

There is a disarm action and it uses the same resolution as a grapple or shove. Those count as attacks so Disarm counts as an attack and invisibility drops.

[Rebonack]

I would look to the disarming optional rules. You make an attack against a foe and they oppose it with an Athletics or Acrobatics check (IIRC) if you succeed, they are disarmed. They get advantage on the roll if they are holding the weapon two-handed. Since this is a special attack option (like grapple) it breaks invisibility.

[Smaje]

Woah I didn’t think it was such a grey area but I do see both sides.

I still have to side with the spirit of the actions. Again it’s silly that if you lightly scratch an enemy with your claw Invisibility pops but when essentially wrestling with them it doesn’t

I did offer the player to “take back” her action. In the end she got the sword and was happy.

[Willie the Duck]

Woah I didn’t think it was such a grey area but I do see both sides.

It was a little easier in 3e when grapple and disarm had 'make an attack roll' in the how-to. But even then (and every edition before), there were grey areas (if I drop a rock off this ledge, is it an attack if I don't know if there are people below the ledge? If I do? What if I instead pull a lever that will make rocks fall?).

[HidesHisEyes]

Okay as a DM I'm usually good at picking battles and not getting caught in lame arguments while playing. This time however they got me and it's pretty sad. Having your input will help me put it to rest.

The PC was invisible and pulled a sword from a prone NPC's hands. The players wanted to argue that it's not "by the rules" an attack action, therefore, the sword would just disappear with the PC. I ruled that disarming an enemy is clearly an attack by the "nature of the action".

I think it's ridiculous that if you were to gently scratch another person your invisibility would drop, but wrenching a sword from their hands is not. What I'm hoping for is a paragraph or something that I missed reading the rules but just having a lot of you agree with me (or not I suppose) will be enough.

Thanks for your input in advance

I agree and the paragraph I’d look for would be one that explains the “rulings not rules” philosophy of 5E. Some players genuinely see it as part of the fun to try and “get away with things” through an overly literal interpretation of the rules, but it’s well within a dm’s rights to say “that’s not a part of the game I’m running”.

[SirGraystone]

The way I would rules this, and it's just my humble opinion, if you take the weapon by force like take it from his hand you get visible again, if you use sleight of hands to remove the same weapon from his belt then it will not cancel invisibility.

[greenstone]

…therefore, the sword would just disappear with the PC.

The sword would not become invisible. Only items the character was carrying at the time invisibility was cast are invisible.
Sage advice (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/10/17/if-an-invisible-creature-picks-up-an-object-does-the-object-become-invisible/).

[Eric Diaz]

Even if you don't use the optional rule in the DMG:

Contests in Combat
Battle often involves pitting your prowess against that of your foe. Such a challenge is represented by a contest. This section includes the most common Contests that require an action in combat: grappling and shoving a creature. The GM can use these Contests as models for improvising others.

Since both grappling and shoving a creature are attacks, I'd say you're free to make a ruling, but the game implies other contests should be similar.

So, I'd say it definitely counts as an attack.