Cloak of Displacement & blindsight

[Dalebert]

I've always seen it played that blindsight gets around a Cloak of Displacement. Last night the player and DM both seemed skeptical. I've always assumed the Cloak creates a visual illusion but it doesn't actually specify. Without specifying certain senses, what's to say the illusion doesn't for the sense of blindsight?

This is bugging me. My view is blindsight can tell which is real but I was at a loss last night to prove my point with the RAW. Can anyone point me at something or is it truly that vague?

[Corpsecandle717]

I used to think the same, but then I started seeing a lot of this pop up in illusion spells:

"It seems completely real, including sounds, smells, and temperature appropriate to the thing depicted."

Based on this I believe the intent is that blindsight is no longer meant to be the illusion busting ability it used to be.

This is from the blur spell: "Your body becomes blurred, shifting and wavering to all who can see you. For the duration, any creature has disadvantage on attack rolls against you. 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."

Notice that it calls out that blindsight gets through the spell? The description for the cloak of displacement does not include a similar description and given that specific overrules general, I believe the intent is that the cloak of displacement is intended to work against creatures with blindsight and is actually a more powerful version of blur that fools all senses. ( The displacer beast ability doesn't mention anything about blindsight either )

[Keravath]

"CLOAK OF DISPLACEMENT
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)
While you wear this cloak, it projects an illusion that makes you appear to be standing in a place near your actual location, causing any creature to have disadvantage on attack rolls against you. If you take damage, the property ceases to function until the start of your next turn. This property is suppressed while you are incapacitated, restrained, or otherwise unable to move."

"BLINDSIGHT
A creature with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius. Creatures without eyes, such as oozes, and creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons, have this sense."

"Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, to miss things that are there, to hear phantom noises, or to remember things that never happened. Some illusions create phantom images that any creature can see, but the most insidious illusions plant an image directly in the mind of a creature." PHB 203

Based on available rules, I could actually see the DM ruling either way. (I looked this up with the opinion that Blindsight would see through an illusion).

Blind sight allows a creature to see its surroundings without relying on sight. As a result, a creature with blindsight would be unaffected by visual illusions since they have other ways to perceive that bypass sight.

Some spells and items project illusions that have visual, auditory or olfactory elements. They create something that can be perceived by everyone around. These spells would tend to not affect a creature with blind sight since they can perceive that the visual parts aren't real. However, some illusion spells affect the mind directly bypassing sight. Phantasmal force would be an example. A creature with blindsight and regular vision would be affected by an illusion that affects the mind directly since the illusion is inserted into the consciousness after the senses. It seems real.

All the cloak of displacement says is that it "projects an illusion". Is it projecting a visible image or is it projecting directly to the mind of anyone who is perceiving in the direction of the cloak? The text for the item doesn't say. It also doesn't say whether the illusion can be bypassed by other senses like blindsight.

Even Truesight says "automatically detect visual illusions" so it is only able to see through visual illusions not necessarily those that affect the mind directly.

Since cloak of displacement doesn't explicitly state what kind of illusion it projects, the DM will have to decide how they want it to work in their game. RAW, I would probably lean toward the cloak even affecting a creature with blindsight or truesight.

Edit: Someone necro'ed this thread and glancing through I find that I disagree with myself two years later. The cloak projects a visual illusion. I would tend to rule now that both blindsight and truesight would be able to see through the effects of a cloak of displacement because it is a visual illusion whether projected directly to the mind of the viewer or projected into the space around the character. Ultimately, the DM can rule it whichever way they prefer but these days I prefer the interpretation that it wouldn't work against blindsight or truesight.

[Dalebert]

RAW, I would probably lean toward the cloak even affecting a creature with blindsight or truesight.

I can see the case for blindsight on basis that it doesn't specify that it's a vision-only illusion but not true sight. For blindsight The question becomes "Does the illusion extend to senses other than sight and if so, which ones? Is the blindsight sense one of them? A snake's blindsight for instance, would be based on heat patterns and a major image includes such sensations, short of actually being able to burn you. A major image of a fire would actually feel warm and so it should fool a snake's blindsight.

Truesight tho, reveals visual illusions, so if there is ANY visual aspect to the illusion, you know it and can use that to tell it apart from the real thing even if the rest seems real to your other senses.

[Maelynn]

I can see the case for blindsight on basis that it doesn't specify that it's a vision-only illusion but not true sight.

I wouldn't agree with this, tbh. The text mentions 'projecting an image', which is a visual act. I realise that in present-day speech it's used figuratively as well, but I'd disregard that in this case - the rules are as literal as possible and wouldn't use figurative speech.

Blindsight, like you said, means that you don't rely on vision to locate something/someone. Heat sense, echolocation, tremorsense, scent are used, so if an illusion is purely visual then blindsight would be affected because of all these other senses.

The cloak's text says nothing about other senses being fooled, so blindsight would see right through the cloak's illusion.


Truesight tho, reveals visual illusions, so if there is ANY visual aspect to the illusion, you know it and can use that to tell it apart from the real thing even if the rest seems real to your other senses.

This I partly agree with. Yes, truesight can see through any visual illusion. However, if other senses are fooled too, then it would be confusing if you get conflicting information from various senses. And then I can imagine a DM would rule that a creature with truesight suffers disadvantage as well, because this confusion is distracting.

[TheUser]

My knee jerk reaction was Blindsight should see through Cloak of Displacement but upon closer inspection the illusion accompanies things like auditory effects (casting a spell doesn't suddenly allow enemies to know where you really are for instance).

Additionally, a spell like Blur contains a very clear ruling about how it is exclusively a visual effect (sort of like how silent image explicitly says it is only visual).

This would lead me to believe that clauses like this are imperative in these cases. The cloak is already shut down by damage...why shut it down further.

[Ecthelion]

I've always seen it played that blindsight gets around a Cloak of Displacement. Last night the player and DM both seemed skeptical. I've always assumed the Cloak creates a visual illusion but it doesn't actually specify. Without specifying certain senses, what's to say the illusion doesn't for the sense of blindsight?

This is bugging me. My view is blindsight can tell which is real but I was at a loss last night to prove my point with the RAW. Can anyone point me at something or is it truly that vague?

Your answer is implied by the the language of the description, the key point being the 'cause and effect' that it describes. The item description says that the disadvantage is CAUSED by the illusion. So, if the illusion does not work, neither does the effect caused by the illusion. If "A ==> B", and their is no A, then there need be no B.



There are numerous reasons why the illusion might not function as expected:



A) Perhaps the process is taking place in an antimagic field that prevents illusions from bring projected - in that case, no illusion causes no effect of the illusion.

B) Perhaps an attacker has a sense (blindsight, truesight, tremorsense, etc) that allows them the effects of 'seeing' the target w/o relying on visual sight. Again, then the illusion does not function for them, and since it is the illusion that causes the disadvantage, no disadvantage.

I read in an earlier post that someone was speculating perhaps the illusion functioned by directly affecting the mind of the viewer. Were that the case here, there would be a saving throw (Wis, probably), and possibly charm immunity would foil it. Since nothing like that happens, the effect must be external to the mind of the viewer, and hence is a mere visual projection.

[Spiritchaser]

Blindsight is often an issue because, with very few exceptions (yay, bats!) there is nowhere that the actual mechanics of blindsight are defined for creatures.

Determining if an illusion foils blindsight relies largely on defining what blindsight is (also on the determination if the illusion is a type of projection or in a creature’s mind).

For my part I’ve defined blindsight as either echolocation or thermal imaging unless there’s a very clear reason to do otherwise.

In general, mammals or things with big ears get echolocation, in general, reptiles or things with many/big eyes get thermal imaging. I will confess that I haven’t been totally consistent with this over time.

I shouldn’t have to be. There’s no reason that the rules couldn’t do much better with blindsight and indeed vision interactions overall.

Cloak of displacement just happens to be particularly bad because it doesn’t say much about what the illusion is or isn’t, but I think it’s just one issue amongst many.

[Phhase]

Generally I rule blindsight as sonar, with a potential olfactory element depending on the creature. Because the vast majority of illusions (except perhaps Phantasmal Force) do not create solid objects, blindsight will easily identify most of them. However, I also characterize blindsight as hazy and generally low-resolution, so if someone was using an illusion to mask their identity, or an illusion was layered on another likewise solid object, blindsight would be useless for spotting it.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Cloaks of Necromancy get shut down.