Breaking the Blinded rules

[MThurston]

So if I am an archer at long range and my team mate casts darkness on himself near my my target.

I am at Disadvantage for the range but at advantage for the target being blinded. So I get a straight roll to hit.

If it is dark out and at long range two archers shooting at each other are also using straight rolls.

Just thought I would drop this here. Love the rules for blinded.

[LibraryOgre]

So if I am an archer at long range and my team mate casts darkness on himself near my my target.

I am at Disadvantage for the range but at advantage for the target being blinded. So I get a straight roll to hit.

If it is dark out and at long range two archers shooting at each other are also using straight rolls.

Just thought I would drop this here. Love the rules for blinded.

Clever, but I would personally rule that you're shooting without advantage or disadvantage at a square... you can't keep targeting a person if you don't know where they are. Now, if they move towards you, then you might wind up hitting them because they are providing cover to the square you're shooting at, but you won't hit them because you're actually targeting them.

[MThurston]

Clever, but I would personally rule that you're shooting without advantage or disadvantage at a square... you can't keep targeting a person if you don't know where they are. Now, if they move towards you, then you might wind up hitting them because they are providing cover to the square you're shooting at, but you won't hit them because you're actually targeting them.

Why wouldnt you use that same reasoning to melee attacks?

[Tanarii]

Sure. Provided they successfully pinpoint the target by whatever resolution method the DM determines is required.

Otherwise they have to guess the targets location first, and automatically miss if they don't.

Edit: that said, I absolutely think the rules for shooting at a target that can't see you giving advantage should have been written so the requirement is also that you can see the target.

[MThurston]

Sure. Provided they successfully pinpoint the target by whatever resolution method the DM determines is required.

Otherwise they have to guess the targets location first, and automatically miss if they don't.

Edit: that said, I absolutely think the rules for shooting at a target that can't see you giving advantage should have been written so the requirement is also that you can see the target.

That isnt in the rules and melee/ranged attacks do not require sight. Some spells do but not all.

As for the rule as written, they should say....

If blinded or can not see your target then you are at disadvantage on attack rolls.

If an attacker can see a blinded target then they are at advantage on attack rolls.

[LibraryOgre]

Why wouldnt you use that same reasoning to melee attacks?

Because, assuming they're actually within melee range, you still have an awareness of where they are... not blindsense, since you still have disadvantage, but unless they've Stealthed, you can still detect what square they're in.

At a range? You don't know where they are. You can say "I want to shoot where they were", but you can't see them.

[MThurston]

Because, assuming they're actually within melee range, you still have an awareness of where they are... not blindsense, since you still have disadvantage, but unless they've Stealthed, you can still detect what square they're in.

At a range? You don't know where they are. You can say "I want to shoot where they were", but you can't see them.

This is just guess work.

What about reach weapons? Are you going to make them guess a square?

[MThurston]

Let me continue on this craziness.

I am at max range. I fire an arrow at a tree. The tree doesn't move. Its one of the best target to shoot at. Yet I am at disadvantage.

But put a blind person there and now you are shooting as if within short range.

[NaughtyTiger]

When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you're guessing the target's location or you're targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the GM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.

If you are in melee, you have 1/8 chance to pick the right square. The DM may let you identify the target's location or narrow it down given a successful perception check.
At range, you have a 1/900 chance (anywhere in target's movement that is obscured). The DM may say you can't hear footsteps beyond a range of 30 feet.


When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.
This is the RAW that causes the cancelling of disadvantage...
Many folks have stated that they don't like it, and would rule it away.


If you are hidden–both unseen and unheard–when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.

[Tanarii]

That isnt in the rulesYes it is. See the rules on attacking targets you cannot see. You may have to guess the targets location.

As with most of the rules, it's the DMs discretion on determining how to resolve when you have to guess or not. Because the distance at which you can perceive a target by senses other than sight is going to be highly variable and situation specific contingent.

So they might set a distance limit, they might set a DC, or they might automatically allow automatic pinpointing at infinite range by hearing alone. DM choice.

(To be clear, I'm talking about a target that is not hiding, but you cannot see.)

[Lunali]

Because, assuming they're actually within melee range, you still have an awareness of where they are... not blindsense, since you still have disadvantage, but unless they've Stealthed, you can still detect what square they're in.

At a range? You don't know where they are. You can say "I want to shoot where they were", but you can't see them.

This is exactly what blindsense does, it lets you know the location of hidden and invisible enemies. This is different from the monster ability blindsight, which would negate the disadvantage, but might not reveal hidden enemies. Giving everyone blindsense for free is a small nerf to rogues.

[Keltest]

This is exactly what blindsense does, it lets you know the location of hidden and invisible enemies. This is different from the monster ability blindsight, which would negate the disadvantage, but might not reveal hidden enemies. Giving everyone blindsense for free is a small nerf to rogues.

As far as im aware, its one of the default assumptions of the system. It is, i believe, explicitly called out in the stealth guidelines. Unless they are attempting to hide, you generally know where they are even if one of your senses is obstructed (ie theyre behind an obstacle). Blindsense works even if they are attempting to hide.

[Lunali]

As far as im aware, its one of the default assumptions of the system. It is, i believe, explicitly called out in the stealth guidelines. Unless they are attempting to hide, you generally know where they are even if one of your senses is obstructed (ie theyre behind an obstacle). Blindsense works even if they are attempting to hide.

Normally true, but we're talking about the case where someone has changed the rules so that someone unseen is effectively hidden.

[Tanarii]

As far as im aware, its one of the default assumptions of the system. It is, i believe, explicitly called out in the stealth guidelines. Unless they are attempting to hide, you generally know where they are even if one of your senses is obstructed (ie theyre behind an obstacle). Blindsense works even if they are attempting to hide.
The Hiding rule is that if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, the creature usually sees you. There is no default assumption that a not-hidden creature is always perceived/heard when it cannot be seen. And the unseen attackers rules explicitly calls out you may have to guess the location of a creature you can't see or hear.

DM judgement on if you can hear (or need some kind of resolution check to hear) a non-hiding creature you cannot see.

[Lunali]

The Hiding rule is that if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, the creature usually sees you. There is no default assumption that a not-hidden creature is always perceived/heard when it cannot be seen. And the unseen attackers rules explicitly calls out you may have to guess the location of a creature you can't see or hear.

DM judgement on if you can hear (or need some kind of resolution check to hear) a non-hiding creature you cannot see.

If you can't detect them automatically, you need to take an action to make a perception check to locate them. In which case, what do you roll against? If it's stealth, what's the point of taking the hide action? (which you have to be unseen to do)

[Tanarii]

If you can't detect them automatically, you need to take an action to make a perception check to locate them. In which case, what do you roll against? If it's stealth, what's the point of taking the hide action? (which you have to be unseen to do)
The action type (if any) and DC (if any) would be up to the DM. Some things they might want to consider would be distance, degree of visibility, and ambient noise.

The point of taking the hide action is to hide when you'd be detected otherwise. Or to make it harder to detect you.

For example if a DM ruled it a passive perception no action check with DC 10 at 30ft to pinpoint by hearing, +5 DC per doubling of distance ... then the point of a hiding would be to try to beat a passive DC that could succeed against that 'floor' value due to distance and ambient noise.

[Yakmala]

Adding the the craziness..

A target you are trying to shoot at long range has Mirror Image up. You stare at the target, wait for a party member or familiar within 5' of the target to provide a help action, then close your eyes.

Mirror Image states "A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can’t see". So now, with your eyes closed and unable to see, you take your long range shot as normal thanks to the help action, ignoring the mirror images if you hit.

[MThurston]

Adding the the craziness..

A target you are trying to shoot at long range has Mirror Image up. You stare at the target, wait for a party member or familiar within 5' of the target to provide a help action, then close your eyes.

Mirror Image states "A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can’t see". So now, with your eyes closed and unable to see, you take your long range shot as normal thanks to the help action, ignoring the mirror images if you hit.

I dont think it works that way.

[Telok]

I dont think it works that way.

Weirdly enough it does. Anything giving you advantage nixes all the disadvantages, as usual. Your ally, or familiar, goes up next to the target and uses the help action which negates all disadvantage. They should also be yelling or hooting too so that you know where they are while you're blind and you can shoot the square next to them. Because mirror image only works if you can see the images you want to blind yourself. So close your eyes and you can't see anything, blind. It all comes out that you attack the target as normal, ignoring blindness (because help) and mirror images (because blind).

What you really don't want to do is be shooting at someone in dim lighting. Then you have disadvantage on perception and attacks. Much better to shoot at invisible people who just need straight perception checks to find.

[Keltest]

If were going to be that level of pedantic, you absolutely can see, youre simply choosing not to, so youre affected by the spell as usual and are totally wasting the help action.

[Xetheral]

What you really don't want to do is be shooting at someone in dim lighting. Then you have disadvantage on perception and attacks. Much better to shoot at invisible people who just need straight perception checks to find.

Dim light doesn't give disadvantage on attack rolls. While it's true that any visual perception check is at disadvantage in dim light, any visual perception check is an auto-fail against invisible creatures. Whatever method the DM chooses to resolve auditory perception checks (auto-success, choose a DC, auto-fail) the difficulty to hear someone in dim light and should be the same as the difficulty to hear someone invisible. So dim light should never be harder to deal with than invisibility.

[MThurston]

Weirdly enough it does. Anything giving you advantage nixes all the disadvantages, as usual. Your ally, or familiar, goes up next to the target and uses the help action which negates all disadvantage. They should also be yelling or hooting too so that you know where they are while you're blind and you can shoot the square next to them. Because mirror image only works if you can see the images you want to blind yourself. So close your eyes and you can't see anything, blind. It all comes out that you attack the target as normal, ignoring blindness (because help) and mirror images (because blind).

What you really don't want to do is be shooting at someone in dim lighting. Then you have disadvantage on perception and attacks. Much better to shoot at invisible people who just need straight perception checks to find.

No that is not how it works. Mirror Image is very specific on how it works. If you roll to hit then you will have to roll again to see which image or person is hit.

[Lunali]

No that is not how it works. Mirror Image is very specific on how it works. If you roll to hit then you will have to roll again to see which image or person is hit.

Except for the little bit at the very end that states:

"A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can't see, if it relies on senses other than sight, such as blindsight, or if it can perceive illusions as false, as with truesight."

[MaxWilson]

Sure. Provided they successfully pinpoint the target by whatever resolution method the DM determines is required.

Otherwise they have to guess the targets location first, and automatically miss if they don't.

Nothing prevents the archer from exiting the Darkness long why to locate the target, before re-entering to shoot.

Conclusion: RAW on unseen attackers is not a b very good rule.

I only grant advantage to unseen _melee_ attackers (because the target cannot parry unseen attacks). Ranged attacks by unseen attackers enable sneak attack damage but no advantage (because target can still move erratically even if they can't physically see the shooter/caster).

[Tanarii]

A target you are trying to shoot at long range has Mirror Image up. You stare at the target, wait for a party member or familiar within 5' of the target to provide a help action, then close your eyes.
I always thought it was weird that folks assume you won't peek in a life or death situation. Unfortunately some creature s actually have hard coded rules for closing your eyes.

IMO if you're going to allow it a solid ruling is your character has to blindfold themself.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Clever, but I would personally rule that you're shooting without advantage or disadvantage at a square... you can't keep targeting a person if you don't know where they are. Now, if they move towards you, then you might wind up hitting them because they are providing cover to the square you're shooting at, but you won't hit them because you're actually targeting them.

I will not allow it unless the archer used the hide action.
No one get a free action for no reason. Unless you used it your location is known.

[MThurston]

Except for the little bit at the very end that states:

"A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can't see, if it relies on senses other than sight, such as blindsight, or if it can perceive illusions as false, as with truesight."

I think a little bet of word smithing is at hand with this one and taking advantage of the crappy i
Blinded rule.

However, I as the DM would not allow the help action if you are blind. I wouldnt allow flanking either.

[sithlordnergal]

Technically, that is correct. The Advantage/Disadvantage cancel out, allowing you to make a straight attack roll. Its why Fog Cloud is such a useful spell for Archers, just not in the way most players seem to think. Fog Cloud is terrible for cover, but great at removing Disadvantage because you can cast it centered on yourself, poke your head out to see where an enemy is, go back into the cloud, and then fire without disadvantage. And since Fog Cloud is an opaque cloud, it blocks things like Darkvision and Truesight.

Fog Cloud and Darkness rules are also a great way to deny a Rogue their Sneak Attack.

Since you're getting Advantage and Disadvantage at the same time to cancel them out, you run afoul of this bit with the Rogue's Sneak Attack: You don't need advantage on the Attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't Incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the Attack roll.

Because the Rogue technically has Disadvantage, they can't gain Sneak Attack, even if another creature is within 5 feet of their target. At least not until level 14 when they gain a 10ft Blindsense, but even then if they're attacking at range, they lose their Sneak Attack.

[Martin Greywolf]

I have a rather unique perspective on this - while I'm not an expert on the rules, I did fight a bunch of people in the forest at night with a shield and a warhammer, and did some shooting at guards on top of a wall at night - albeit that one had some illumination from torches and moon.

So, melee at night. Not fun. At least when it's to the death, I had quite a bit of fun with it. The question here seems to be if you can tell where your opponent is, and the answer is kind of. Mind you, what I had was a forest at night, so there was still some light, even if very little, I was just about able to see a blob of slight white where my ally stood in a white surcoat, but that's about it. What you are using most in this case is sound.

That can be rather difficult, though, because while you are trying to hear where the opponents are, you are also hearing everything and everyone else. If a fight starts, sounds of that will have to be tuned out, and that's pretty hard, and maybe even impossible. The range you can do this at is pretty decent as well, maybe around 5-10 meters, but again, this was a forset, results on different floowr will differ.

That all means that for melee attacks, you can determine the square.

Now, for ranged, situation is very different. While a melee blow travels in a line and you may well clip someone with it - that will not harm them, but it will tell you where they are for a followup - arrows go straight. That means you have a very, very small margin of error for hitting someone. Realistically speaking, even if you know their square you will still randomly have to guess where exactly to shoot. What you could do in total darkness is listen and shoot at sounds, if you are doing traditional archery or crossbow shooting, it's not a problem, at least not for aiming at a torso-sized target.

What I did when shooting at those guards was change position or stay in cover behind pavaises and wait until someone poked their head out in a way that I could see - maybe torchlight glinted off of a helmet, maybe they got silhouetted against the moonlit sky. While this is almost as effective as daylight shooting, it has very low rate of fire.

[MThurston]

Technically, that is correct. The Advantage/Disadvantage cancel out, allowing you to make a straight attack roll. Its why Fog Cloud is such a useful spell for Archers, just not in the way most players seem to think. Fog Cloud is terrible for cover, but great at removing Disadvantage because you can cast it centered on yourself, poke your head out to see where an enemy is, go back into the cloud, and then fire without disadvantage. And since Fog Cloud is an opaque cloud, it blocks things like Darkvision and Truesight.

Fog Cloud and Darkness rules are also a great way to deny a Rogue their Sneak Attack.

Since you're getting Advantage and Disadvantage at the same time to cancel them out, you run afoul of this bit with the Rogue's Sneak Attack: You don't need advantage on the Attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't Incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the Attack roll.

Because the Rogue technically has Disadvantage, they can't gain Sneak Attack, even if another creature is within 5 feet of their target. At least not until level 14 when they gain a 10ft Blindsense, but even then if they're attacking at range, they lose their Sneak Attack.
There is the Swashbuckler that will still get it. Only requirement is that he only touches one enemy.


"You don’t need advantage on the Attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t Incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attac⁠k roll."

In this situation your archer is blind and so is the rogue. He would attack straight up.


"A heavily obscured area doesn’t blind you, but you are effectively Blinded when you try to see something obscured by it. A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition when trying to see something in that area."

[da newt]

I am at max range. I fire an arrow at a tree. The tree doesn't move. Its one of the best target to shoot at. Yet I am at disadvantage.
But put a blind person there and now you are shooting as if within short range.


The tree can't see you, so you'd have ADV on that shot too ...

[Democratus]

The tree can't see you, so you'd have ADV on that shot too ...

It's also Immobilized / Restrained.