Invisibility doesn’t stop a creature from knowing the position The invisible condition gives heavily obscured for the purposes of taking the hide action but creatures can detect their location through sound this wouldn’t require a perception roll unless the enemy took the hide action and succeeded on the hide Of course attacks against them would be at disadvantage since they are invisible and they couldn’t use spells that require line of sight
That’s fair, I try to keep these fights RAW, just misunderstood the rule. I did a few follow up rolls to check how the outcome would have been with the Gnoll rolling in some extra attacks on disadvantage, and it had a rough time breaking the 19 AC while strikes with disadvantage, so there was no meaningful change to the combat. I’ll know for next time the Mind Master steps into combat though!
Instead of trying to perceive the Duergar Mind Master each turn, I think the Gnoll Pack Lord would have been better off using the Ready action to try and make sure it got some hits in each turn. Overall though, pretty good encounter!
I did think about that, but the Incite ability uses a reaction too, so it could only go one way or the other. You’re right though, and it was an option that could have been taken for sure, maybe slightly forgotten about in the heat of combat, but still a fun fight to run nonetheless!
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG True, it wouldn’t be able to use Incite Rampage, but the ability to use most of its Multiattack with the Reaction could have been worth the sacrifice. Overall, I’m not sure it would have given the Gnoll Pack Lord the victory it was looking for. Duergar Mind Master is a beast!
No, you’re right, it would have been a slightly more optimal move. I went back and did some additional rolls to see how it would have affected the outcome, and with such a high AC, it was still tough for the Gnoll to break through, and didn’t affect the overall outcome. A point well worth remembering for future battles for sure though, appreciate the comments!
I was about to suggest that the Gnoll Pack Lord could have used Survival instead of Perception to find the Duergar (searching for its tracks) , but that idiot doesn't have proficiency in that either.
Awesome fight but just a couple notes The psychic damage is 4d6 when reduced not 3d6 I believe you misremembered because it does 1d4+3 + 3d6 psychic while not reduced And invisible condition doesn’t stop a creature from knowing their position unless the creature that is invisible or behind full cover takes the hide action and succeeds on the hide Can’t wait for the next fight Keep up the great work!!! For all my math I didn’t bother with invisibility because taking a action for one attack with advantage isn’t worth it because the Gnoll should’ve attacked it every round with disadvantage due to invisibility Duergar Mind Master: (Mind Poison Dagger +5 to hit vs 15 AC) 55% chance to hit Two attacks 1 piercing + 4d6 psychic (30x0.55)=16.5 Critical (28x0.05)=1.4 Total DPR=17.9 Three rounds to kill Gnoll Pack Lord: (Glaive +5 to hit vs 19 AC due to reduce) 35% chance to hit Will use incite rampage on round 1 and have 33% chance to use it every following turn Action (17x0.35)=5.95 Reaction round 1 (8.5x0.35)=2.97 Critical round 1 (16.5x0.05)=0.82 Reaction round 2+ (8.5x0.35x0.33)=0.98 Critical round 2+ (11.5x0.05)+(5.5x0.05x0.33)=0.66 Round 1 DPR=9.74 Round 2 DPR=7.59 DPR over 5 rounds=8.02 Five rounds to kill
Another great breakdown, a very close fought battle between these two! I think I’ve found the disconnect on the damage. I always use the most up to date version of any given monster, and the Mind Master from MToF deals 4d6 while reduced, with the most recent iteration from MP:MotM dealing 3d6 while reduced! (Seems the Mind Master was even more dangerous before!) I did a few rolls off the back off the invisible ruling, and the Gnoll didn’t manage to beat the 19 AC while rolling at disadvantage. I’ll know this for next time though, and will use those rules for future invisible battles. I do hope they change the rules on invisibility though, I really don’t think the current ones make sense, especially with the terrible call that creatures with blindsight / truesight still roll again invisible foes at disadvantage!
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG Oh wow didn’t know they reprinted them And yeah both the hiding rules and invisibility rules are a mess in the 2014 rules Thankfully both have been revised Hiding is similar but has been cleaned up and invisible condition has been worded to actually not continue working if someone can see through the invisibility It was probably the 3rd thing I looked up after getting the new PHB
So much change in the rules mixed with some ambiguous wording is a recipe for errors 😂 I think I’m going to make a video on the invisibility rule, explaining where I went wrong with it, and how it actually works!
Crazy fight! For a moment there I thought the Pack Lord had it with the clutch crit. I actually had to go back in the video to see if the Mind Master's Enlarge/Reduce ability truly isn't subject to concentration checks. It's wild to me that it just stays up for a full 10 rounds no matter what, but I guess he isn't called a Mind Master for nothing. Keep up the great work!
If I were to recall correctly an invisible creature is still detected if it doesn't take the hide action, like you can see the warped space around it or something, only that you can't target it with spells as you don't *see* it, but still you can attack it no need for other checks, it can also take the hide action while in plain sight as enemies cannot *see* him. I know, rules are bullshit. Got to find this the hard way. Suction of it all: BY old RAW if a creature goes invisible you still know the space it is and where it moves.
It’s such a muddy rule, I swear every table does invisible slightly differently! I always thought that going invisible meant a creature could not be seen at all, but a creature looking for an invisible foe could look for its target by looking around for footprints, noises etc… With that in mind though, I would have had the Mind Master stand slightly out of range, which would see the Gnoll swing and miss regardless, so I don’t think that ruling would have affected the way things went. That said, I do like to run these fights RAW, so maybe I need to look into the exacts a bit better before the Mind Master fights again! Thanks for the comment, always appreciate a good rules discussion, although I must say, the blindsight / true sight rules around targeting invisible creatures absolutely suck in RAW 😂
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG the rules for invisibility by itself need to be looked at a for hours before comprehending the RAW, that's how messy it is. True sight you just see through every sort of illusion, the ethereal plane and it does not specify whether cover works or not. Blindsight is a bit muddy, you don't perceive visible illusions through blindsight, like they're not there, thus invisibility would not work, and if you imagine it as a sort of bat echolocation then not even hiding works behind cover works as sound or magic waves etc move around everything, though if you are completely covered, like inside a barrel, you could not be seen. The 2024 phb fixed a part of these rules thankfully
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG From the rules: "An invisible creature can’t be seen, so it can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, however, and it still has to stay quiet." Emphasis on "try to hide." Also: "An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of hiding, the creature is heavily obscured. The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves." So from this I conclude that invisibility does not equal undetectedness. The Mind Master still leaves footprints, makes sounds, has a scent. By default, the Pack Lord can still approximate where it is and attack it, just with disadvantage. To become undetected, the Mind Master has to Hide, which it can do as a bonus action while Tiny, but this has a chance of failure since it's contested by a Perception check made by the Pack Lord. Also, it can't Hide and Reduce on the same turn since both are bonus actions. And if it's invisible but not Hidden, getting hit by an attack could break its invisibility and potentially allow the Pack Lord to make further attacks on that turn without disadvantage.
A misunderstanding of the rule on part for the invisibility here. We learn and carry on, I’ll be sure to apply it properly for the next encounter. In the case of a slightly amended combat to balance for this ruling, I would have had the Mind Master stand out of range of the Gnoll, and then have the Pack Lord use its perception to see if it could detect the location of the Mind Master, allowing it to get in range to make the attacks with disadvantage. As it failed those roll, I don’t think a different outcome would have happened. This is because perception checks are usually used to detect things that are otherwise difficult to track, which would make sense here as the Mind Master ‘is impossible to see’. Either way, definitely something to take on board for next time, I appreciate the pointer! That being said, I don’t agree with the rule as it is. If it was up to me I’d definitely change it to make invisibility feel more thematically useful. Totally understand the being able to see footprints / hear sounds etc… but I think that should be tied to a perception check vs stealth check, or something similar.
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG that's what the hide action is for, a creature that goes invisible and doesn't take the hide action means that it is not moving carefully and it's making apparent noises, plus from what I see in the arena it's somewhat sandy terrain, thus footprints would be easier to notice. An example would be if you're facing... I don't know, and invisible Ogre, what can't you hear his stench or his quaking stomps when he charges you? You still wouldn't precisely know when he will strike and how thus gaining advantage on his attack, but you can comprehend that it is there, in front of you. That's why the duergar mind master can take the hide action as a bonus action, to get advantage from his invisibility feature as it is considered in cover for the purposes of hiding while invisible, but it didn't and you essentially gave the benefits of a hidden creature.
Someone needs to animate this. That fight was great.
If anyone wants to they certainly can! I’m no artist unfortunately 😂
Invisibility doesn’t stop a creature from knowing the position
The invisible condition gives heavily obscured for the purposes of taking the hide action but creatures can detect their location through sound this wouldn’t require a perception roll unless the enemy took the hide action and succeeded on the hide
Of course attacks against them would be at disadvantage since they are invisible and they couldn’t use spells that require line of sight
That’s fair, I try to keep these fights RAW, just misunderstood the rule.
I did a few follow up rolls to check how the outcome would have been with the Gnoll rolling in some extra attacks on disadvantage, and it had a rough time breaking the 19 AC while strikes with disadvantage, so there was no meaningful change to the combat.
I’ll know for next time the Mind Master steps into combat though!
Instead of trying to perceive the Duergar Mind Master each turn, I think the Gnoll Pack Lord would have been better off using the Ready action to try and make sure it got some hits in each turn. Overall though, pretty good encounter!
I did think about that, but the Incite ability uses a reaction too, so it could only go one way or the other.
You’re right though, and it was an option that could have been taken for sure, maybe slightly forgotten about in the heat of combat, but still a fun fight to run nonetheless!
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG True, it wouldn’t be able to use Incite Rampage, but the ability to use most of its Multiattack with the Reaction could have been worth the sacrifice. Overall, I’m not sure it would have given the Gnoll Pack Lord the victory it was looking for. Duergar Mind Master is a beast!
No, you’re right, it would have been a slightly more optimal move.
I went back and did some additional rolls to see how it would have affected the outcome, and with such a high AC, it was still tough for the Gnoll to break through, and didn’t affect the overall outcome.
A point well worth remembering for future battles for sure though, appreciate the comments!
No problem! I assumed it wouldn’t change the outcome just because of the Duergar’s high AC. The poor Gnoll didn’t know who it was messing with.
I was about to suggest that the Gnoll Pack Lord could have used Survival instead of Perception to find the Duergar (searching for its tracks) , but that idiot doesn't have proficiency in that either.
Yeah, it’s only proficiency is trying to kill things 😂
Awesome fight but just a couple notes
The psychic damage is 4d6 when reduced not 3d6
I believe you misremembered because it does 1d4+3 + 3d6 psychic while not reduced
And invisible condition doesn’t stop a creature from knowing their position unless the creature that is invisible or behind full cover takes the hide action and succeeds on the hide
Can’t wait for the next fight
Keep up the great work!!!
For all my math I didn’t bother with invisibility because taking a action for one attack with advantage isn’t worth it because the Gnoll should’ve attacked it every round with disadvantage due to invisibility
Duergar Mind Master:
(Mind Poison Dagger +5 to hit vs 15 AC)
55% chance to hit
Two attacks 1 piercing + 4d6 psychic
(30x0.55)=16.5
Critical (28x0.05)=1.4
Total DPR=17.9
Three rounds to kill
Gnoll Pack Lord:
(Glaive +5 to hit vs 19 AC due to reduce)
35% chance to hit
Will use incite rampage on round 1 and have 33% chance to use it every following turn
Action (17x0.35)=5.95
Reaction round 1 (8.5x0.35)=2.97
Critical round 1 (16.5x0.05)=0.82
Reaction round 2+ (8.5x0.35x0.33)=0.98
Critical round 2+ (11.5x0.05)+(5.5x0.05x0.33)=0.66
Round 1 DPR=9.74
Round 2 DPR=7.59
DPR over 5 rounds=8.02
Five rounds to kill
Another great breakdown, a very close fought battle between these two!
I think I’ve found the disconnect on the damage. I always use the most up to date version of any given monster, and the Mind Master from MToF deals 4d6 while reduced, with the most recent iteration from MP:MotM dealing 3d6 while reduced! (Seems the Mind Master was even more dangerous before!)
I did a few rolls off the back off the invisible ruling, and the Gnoll didn’t manage to beat the 19 AC while rolling at disadvantage.
I’ll know this for next time though, and will use those rules for future invisible battles.
I do hope they change the rules on invisibility though, I really don’t think the current ones make sense, especially with the terrible call that creatures with blindsight / truesight still roll again invisible foes at disadvantage!
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG
Oh wow didn’t know they reprinted them
And yeah both the hiding rules and invisibility rules are a mess in the 2014 rules
Thankfully both have been revised
Hiding is similar but has been cleaned up and invisible condition has been worded to actually not continue working if someone can see through the invisibility
It was probably the 3rd thing I looked up after getting the new PHB
So much change in the rules mixed with some ambiguous wording is a recipe for errors 😂
I think I’m going to make a video on the invisibility rule, explaining where I went wrong with it, and how it actually works!
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG Good news, they did fix that issue with the 2024 rules for the Invisible condition.
Good to hear. Haven’t had a chance to check out the new rules yet, so I’ll get on that for sure.
Crazy fight! For a moment there I thought the Pack Lord had it with the clutch crit.
I actually had to go back in the video to see if the Mind Master's Enlarge/Reduce ability truly isn't subject to concentration checks.
It's wild to me that it just stays up for a full 10 rounds no matter what, but I guess he isn't called a Mind Master for nothing.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
It was tough battle, absolutely could have gone either way. Thought it might have done too on that Gnoll crit!
It's not looking good for that cult fanatic
With the way things have gone so far, you really never do know!
If I were to recall correctly an invisible creature is still detected if it doesn't take the hide action, like you can see the warped space around it or something, only that you can't target it with spells as you don't *see* it, but still you can attack it no need for other checks, it can also take the hide action while in plain sight as enemies cannot *see* him.
I know, rules are bullshit. Got to find this the hard way.
Suction of it all: BY old RAW if a creature goes invisible you still know the space it is and where it moves.
It’s such a muddy rule, I swear every table does invisible slightly differently!
I always thought that going invisible meant a creature could not be seen at all, but a creature looking for an invisible foe could look for its target by looking around for footprints, noises etc…
With that in mind though, I would have had the Mind Master stand slightly out of range, which would see the Gnoll swing and miss regardless, so I don’t think that ruling would have affected the way things went.
That said, I do like to run these fights RAW, so maybe I need to look into the exacts a bit better before the Mind Master fights again!
Thanks for the comment, always appreciate a good rules discussion, although I must say, the blindsight / true sight rules around targeting invisible creatures absolutely suck in RAW 😂
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG the rules for invisibility by itself need to be looked at a for hours before comprehending the RAW, that's how messy it is.
True sight you just see through every sort of illusion, the ethereal plane and it does not specify whether cover works or not.
Blindsight is a bit muddy, you don't perceive visible illusions through blindsight, like they're not there, thus invisibility would not work, and if you imagine it as a sort of bat echolocation then not even hiding works behind cover works as sound or magic waves etc move around everything, though if you are completely covered, like inside a barrel, you could not be seen.
The 2024 phb fixed a part of these rules thankfully
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG
From the rules: "An invisible creature can’t be seen, so it can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, however, and it still has to stay quiet."
Emphasis on "try to hide." Also:
"An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of hiding, the creature is heavily obscured. The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves."
So from this I conclude that invisibility does not equal undetectedness. The Mind Master still leaves footprints, makes sounds, has a scent. By default, the Pack Lord can still approximate where it is and attack it, just with disadvantage. To become undetected, the Mind Master has to Hide, which it can do as a bonus action while Tiny, but this has a chance of failure since it's contested by a Perception check made by the Pack Lord.
Also, it can't Hide and Reduce on the same turn since both are bonus actions. And if it's invisible but not Hidden, getting hit by an attack could break its invisibility and potentially allow the Pack Lord to make further attacks on that turn without disadvantage.
A misunderstanding of the rule on part for the invisibility here. We learn and carry on, I’ll be sure to apply it properly for the next encounter.
In the case of a slightly amended combat to balance for this ruling, I would have had the Mind Master stand out of range of the Gnoll, and then have the Pack Lord use its perception to see if it could detect the location of the Mind Master, allowing it to get in range to make the attacks with disadvantage. As it failed those roll, I don’t think a different outcome would have happened. This is because perception checks are usually used to detect things that are otherwise difficult to track, which would make sense here as the Mind Master ‘is impossible to see’.
Either way, definitely something to take on board for next time, I appreciate the pointer!
That being said, I don’t agree with the rule as it is.
If it was up to me I’d definitely change it to make invisibility feel more thematically useful. Totally understand the being able to see footprints / hear sounds etc… but I think that should be tied to a perception check vs stealth check, or something similar.
@@DungeonBoy-TTRPG that's what the hide action is for, a creature that goes invisible and doesn't take the hide action means that it is not moving carefully and it's making apparent noises, plus from what I see in the arena it's somewhat sandy terrain, thus footprints would be easier to notice.
An example would be if you're facing... I don't know, and invisible Ogre, what can't you hear his stench or his quaking stomps when he charges you? You still wouldn't precisely know when he will strike and how thus gaining advantage on his attack, but you can comprehend that it is there, in front of you.
That's why the duergar mind master can take the hide action as a bonus action, to get advantage from his invisibility feature as it is considered in cover for the purposes of hiding while invisible, but it didn't and you essentially gave the benefits of a hidden creature.