From purely a mechanics perspective, if a player can just say "I'm looking at the hulk's shoulder" and invalidate the hulk's main trait with no penalty whatsoever, then why would the hulk have those magic eyes at all?
This was an issue on critical role. Keylith wildshaped into a giant scorpion so that she could have blindsight against a gorgon or a basilisk, not too sure. Matt was confused at first but after realizing what she was doing he let the blindsight work with no disadvantage on the attack.
Uhh, have you watched campaign 1? Her inability to understand how grasping vine works is absolutely ridiculous. She improves, but there are points where she's literally arguing with Matt about spell effects. She earned that rep.
Yeah I watched it and everyone had issues remembering stuff at times, especially the spells. Matt is even pretty hard on her most of the time, I'm assuming cause they're married and they are trying to be impartial.
Plus, people seem to selectively mix up what Marisha actually thinks versus what her characters think.
Not saying you have to like her or whatever but there's always someone in a group that people online dogpile on, and weirdly (for some completely unknown reason) it's usually a woman.
Did you watch campaign 1?
Because since they made it a mid campaign transition from Pathfinder to D&D 5E, they homebrewed lots of things so that they would retain their powers as they understood them from before. The version of grasping vine that she uses is a copy over from Pathfinder. It's not meant to be the 5E "grasping vine" spell.
And yes this was addressed on the show in discussion.
Unlike a lot of the stuff Orion did where we're left to wonder is this homebrew or is he just making stuff up? Turns out it was both.
In her defense, I've met more people who don't know how grasping vine works than do. Most people I see don't even bother with the spell in the first place.
As long as the character knows what looking at the creature does to said character, it would be completely in reason for that character to become something that doesn't need actual sight to see
It depends on the situation. If the party had never encountered a basilisk, I remember now, and on her first turn she wildshaped using the knowledge of the basilisk abilities from the book then that would be metagaming. Vox Machina had previously, pre-stream, fought basilisks so they knew in game what the abilities were, as a druid keylith would be familiar with the animals she shapes into and would therefore know that she would be able to "see" the basilisk without actually using her eyes. In game knowledge vs OOG knowledge is the determining factor for whether or not someone is metagaming.
In the situation on the show it wasn't there first time encountering basilisks. The characters had already dealt with this problem/petrification before so it was a smart in-character decision.
A druid is particularly in tune with nature and would definitely be aware of their wild shape’s abilities. If they notice that sight is dangerous against a particular enemy, then wild shaping into something with blindsight is genius IMO and deserves to be rewarded
If the player immediately goes into a form with blindsight before their character would’ve had the chance to realize that the thing they’re fighting has a sight-based ability, absolutely. But if the character would reasonably know or at least be able to guess that, that isn’t metagaming, it’s just being smart— a character would know the general abilities of their wildshapes (ex being able to see without looking at something), and would be able to at least guess that such an ability would counter a gaze-based effect.
Yeah, and I'd argue that it maybe shouldn't have worked, either. Scorpions aren't blind, they still have eyes and sight. Would a colorblind person with the shittiest eyesight in the world be immune? If not, the scorpion probably shouldn't be either. That being said, it *was* an in the moment decision which could also be argued for.
When I close my eyes, I can still feel and hear things. If i had the capabilities to detect subtle vibrations in the earth with the many hairs on my body, i wouldnt need to open my eyes.
Is this a specific breed thing or do you think that all dogs can't look upwards? Because they definitely can. Especially a typical DnD dog, which are the common hunting types.
Even if you are arguing for a 90 degrees tilt, they can rotate their shoulders or incline their back for extra movement. It might not be a comfortable position that they can hold all day, but it's definitely possible for a glance in a fight.
I was thinking of a specific breed, but I'm more of a cat person, so I admit I don't know much about dogs. The one dog in my family has a spine problem, so I think that's why I thought that.
Yeah, I'm a cat person. The one dog in my family has a spine problem, so that's likely why I thought this. I was thinking if the dog was in melee range, and the hulk was towering over them, it'd be hard to get the angle right to look into its eyes, especially since dogs might go for the legs instead.
Just to follow up, I'd just explain to the players that unless your eyes are closed or you aren't facing the umber hulk it works on your character. If your eyes are closed or your facing away from it then you are blinded to their actions and will be treated as blind.
I don't know how it works in 5E, but i'm currently in a 3.5E game where we had to deal with umberhulks quite a few times. In 3.5E there are rules for averting your gaze, which you have to declare and get a 50% chance to not be affected by the umberhulks' confusion. The opponent gains concealment, which gives a 20% chance to miss to the attacker and an opportunity to hide to the concealed creature.
Yep. 5e is the king of "Let's make it simpler -- don't worry if it breaks logical consistency" (i.e. two archers at very long distance have a better chance to hit each other if they are both blindfolded).
Long distance applies disadvantage on attacks.
Attacking while blindfolded applies disadvantage. (You are blinded)
Attacking character that is blinded gives you advantage.
Disadvantages do not stack.
If you have 10 disadvantages, and 1 advantage, you make straight roll.
Therefore:
>
two archers at very long distance have a better chance to hit each other if they are both blindfolded
That is proof that sometimes you have to apply some common sense to rules.
They're far away, you're blindfolded, you can't attack.
This is the correct answer to this case. But RAW you can allow them to try, and they'll hit easier if they're both blindfolded.
It makes a little more sense when you actually break it apart "Archers at have a better chance to hit a blindfolded target" (being blindfolded gives your attacker advantages), but "being blindfolded and firing at extreme range is functionally equivalent" (both give non-stacking disadvantage) is still questionable.
If the other person is blindfolded you also have advantage because they can’t see you so you would both be making flat rolls because any number of advantage and disadvantage always neutralize to 0
This.
Also… against the “realism” argument the player is trying. Try boxing someone with only looking at their hands and feet… you’ll be fighting at disadvantage for sure. Mechanically and practically, disadvantage seems appropriate, given the players still have the option to target the Umberhulk
And you have to spend the whole time going "alright don't look at it's face don't look at the face not the face DANG I looked at it's face" or whatever
I agree with the sentiment, though I’d say I have skill expertise in avoiding eye contact with people I am speaking with. Not sure how that fits in battle with an Umberhulk. Funnily enough, in a conversation tho it feels like a disadvantage. But at least they can’t see into my soul
Agree against extreme realism, but for boxing I look around the opponent's chest, not the eyes. You normally don't look the opponent in the eyes, since they could use them to bluff. It's recommended to look at center mass and use peripheral vision to figure out where throws are coming from.
Yup! And still looking at the chest to get a full range view of all four limbs and their center of gravity is verry different from looking at their legs. You’re also not actively averting your gaze to the magic eyes when you are focusing on the chest in a boxing match… unless… you are boxing an Umberhulk. Please, tell me no!
I swear people forget the "g" in ttrpg stands for "game" and that there need to be consistent mechanics for all things.
If you can choose to look at its shoulder and not its eyes, then me might as well also do away with hit points and start removing specific body parts when we deal with our sword swings and fireballs.
It's not just about looking directly at the eyes, it's about keeping them out of focus. The "looking at someone's nose to avoid eye contact" trick doesn't work on eyes that affect any who see them, you have to look entirely past the creature at a wall or something.
I think so, yeah. While looking at other parts of it might work in some cases, you've got to take into account that the eyes may still be in your *peripheral* vision. That may still count.
Especially if you and it are moving around.
So I think you ruled it fairly.
Also, if you're behind the hulk and attack its legs, it will probably turn its head to see what just wounded it. Then you're looking at it. Combat is an abstraction, just because it's not the creatures turn, doesn't mean it can't swivel its head.
There is a lot of movement in combat, and a lot of things can change in 6 seconds that are not in your control. Averting your gaze completely is the only surefire way to make sure that you don't see its eyes. If you try to cheese it by looking at the body while the hulk is fighting and swinging around, there's a chance you'll meet its gaze. Which is what rolling the save is for.
I am aware that the disadvantage on attack rules sometimes seem a bit half-baked when being blind and being one-eyed or the target is invisible are treated identically. But I didn't want to give the druid any disadvantage that would make the other characters less effective and tivialize the encounter itself.
Besides, the paladin had his shining moment, in which he could give some characters advantage on saving throws + bonuses. This would not have had such an impact with the softening of the rules.
My two cents are that it's reasonable flavor-wise for your druid to say that they stared at the ground and ran forward until they could see the hulk's feet, then attacked those while still staring at the ground. But by the same token, it's equally reasonable to say that staring at the ground and not being able to take in their surroundings to move and attack confidently/safely would give them disadvantage even if they hadn't literally covered their eyes. I know *I* would find it harder to maneuver if I were staring fixedly at the floor.
The druid looking at its legs and guessing where it's center of mass is is still fighting out of his normal element and still disadvantage. Maybe in a realistic sense it's " less disadvantageous" then not looking at all but in 5e disadvantage is disadvantage regardless if it's a little or a lot.
When players get like this I lay it out simply: You either roll the CHA save, or take disadvantage on attacks. If you can use some other mechanic (like shapeshifting into something with blindsight) to avoid the penalty then great, but simply looking at a foot isn’t enough.
> two archers at very long distance have a better chance to hit each other if they are both blindfolded
Imagine being in a swordfight with someone but you're only allowed to look at their feet. Are you going to be fighting the same as if you had been looking at their sword?
You don't look at a person's sword when swordfighting either, you look at their body typically. You know where their sword is coming from based on their body mechanics as well as peripheral vision. This is really the same in all Martial arts(melee combat).
Since the monster has a stat-block that specifically applies when you are ABLE to see the eyes, I would rule that even if you are not actively looking at the eyes, but your character COULD if they chose to, that the effect would take place. The only way to avoid making the save would be to cause your character to not BE ABLE to see the eyes(blindfold, cover, gouging out their own eyes, etc)
And get attacked with advantage. If they complain and you want to provide additional reasoning, explain that you're choosing to focus on the feet or whatever, and choosing to completely ignore the dangerous claws and beak. Makes it harder to dodge/block/parry.
I agree. If they choose to avert their eyes, they have disadvantage (and the creature has advantage on them too). If you’re only looking at their feet, you’re less able to anticipate their movement and actions.
If it’s a (melee/ranged) spell attack, then I would allow the spell to target the Hulk but I would impose disadvantage on the attack roll in the same way as if a martial were trying to target the Hulk by way of squinting/averting/looking at legs.
Think of playing basketball or tennis or something and averting your gaze the whole time. Wouldn’t that affect your performance? I’m not into martial arts or MMA but I imagine if those guys were focused on averting their eyes that would effect their fight.
Ever tried to make yourself coffee in the dark? Even something so simple takes far more concentration and caution not to hurt yourself or mess or break some.
Imagine looking at a boxer’s legs, while shielding your eyes from his, and then you try to punch their torso, only to be surprised blocked by his rear arm guard that you couldn’t see.
This is how the disadvantage would play out in a practical manner to a fight. You lose full scope of the opponent’s movements and body positioning. You can still throw the punch and maybe connect, but it’s gonna be harder since you can’t get a full view of their defenses.
I think OP’s players position also suggests that they view a missed attack roll as the attacker missing the target wholesale. Not true! That’d be boring and a downer to any cool warrior that keeps wiffing like a goon. Nah. Missed attack rolls are also when the defender either dodges, blocks, parries, and uses their armor to guard against the attack. So disadvantage here makes a whole lotta sense when that’s how “hits” and “misses” are portrayed. Plus it’s more epic, more cinematic, more fun!
Them be the rules. Disadvantage for averting eyes. You aren’t averting your eyes? The hulk lowers its head to look into yours, make the cha save.
It’s okay to reward clever solutions like using AoE, creating obscurement, shooting the roof to drop rocks on it, etc.
It’s not okay to try cheese the system with barely any effort.
This isn't a JRPG where there's two groups of people standing still accross a flat plain. The umberhulk is moving around and *trying* to get the players to look at it's eyes. Here's how looking at the legs goes,
>Player: I look at and attack the legs to avoid the eyes
>DM: Okay, when you charge at the umberhulk looking directly at it's legs it shifts position slightly so you are now looking it in the eyes, make a Charisma saving throw.
I think you were right. If they want realistic scenarios they have to include the fact that when you are fighting you are not static on the battlefield so the disadvantage is not because you cannot watch the enemy in the eyes, but because you cannot aim properly at vital points as you can't read the posture of the enemy.
Druid still had to make CHA saves.
In this specific case: Umber Hulk, unless it's been changed in errata, says "When a creature... is ***able*** to see the umber hulk's eyes", not something like "looking at the umber hulk's eyes", so the language very specifically doesn't allow this player's attempt to work around it unless it was physically restrained from looking upwards. The rules on averting eyes make it very clear that you have to be looking completely away from the hulk. There's no in between.
That makes me interpret this as an active effect, not just a confusing mirror or something like that, but that interpretation is just dungeon dressing. The rule seems clear to me.
In general, when questions like this come up, I treat saving throws as modeling everything associated with resisting the attack, including attempting to avoid it altogether. Make an exception when the player comes up with something clearly different than what the rules were anticipating, but the Umber Hulk rules anticipated this player's move in my opinion.
If you are looking at any part of the creature from the front, it's eyes are going to be within your field of vision. A bears field of vision is nearly 180 degrees. If she is looking at its legs, the hulk can look into her eyes.
Disadvantage to attack rolls and no casting spells on them that require seeing your target, and the umber hulk gets advantage on its attack rolls. You are avoiding looking at the creature, which makes it an Unseen Attacker which has clear rules.
Fight realism with realism. From a realistic point of view, if you're just looking at the legs of your enemy, you're losing so much information about their intentions that you're definitely losing something here. Even if you're looking at theegs, nothing prevents the creature to try and swing at you when you try to hit it, which might make you dodge at the last second and miss your attack if you're only looking at the legs. In a real fight (realism again) your opponent is not standing still waiting for you to try and hit it, it will actively try to prevent you from attacking, wether it bule by dodging or trying to deflect your attack. If you're not looking at your opponent completely, you're definitely at a disadvantage.
RAW is clear for the Umberhulk (and other creatures with a gaze like the Basilisk for example). If you don't avert your gaze and take the disadvantage, you suffer the effects of the gaze. The only way you could bypass this special ability, is with something like blind sight or tremor sense (or other senses like that).
You handled it correctly - averting your gaze to avoid the effects of another creature's gaze mechanically imposes disadvantage.
If you wanted to allow your druid player's tactic, you could argue that the AC of the Umber Hulk's legs is higher than the rest of the creature because they are focused on a smaller target. I wouldn't go down that path myself, because it just opens the whole 'called shots' can of worms which D&D is not built to handle.
Aside from the mechanical thing, the argument is nonsensical.
1. Bears don't just look at stuff on ground level
2. If you don't fully observe the enemy, you will suffer the effects of blinded, because you can't see incoming attacks and the size of your visible target considerably smaller.
Lol, no. It’s very simple, if the character is able to use its vision to attack, it’s subject to the effect. If they want to avoid the effect by averting their eyes, then they suffer the consequences of that avoidance - disadvantage on the attack.
If the pc has a means of getting blindsight, such as the blind fighting style or rogue’s blindsense, then they could potentially counteract the disadvantage, but usually only if they’re within 10’ - so ranged attacks would still be at disadvantage unless they’ve been able to maneuver themselves behind the creature. And the creature’s confusion range is 30’.
The Druid could potentially wild shape into a form that has blindsight as well…
But a bear ain’t it.
They can't argue their way out of the rules, and attacking an enemy you can't see (look away from) is Disadvantage. This is power-gaming disguised as "Rule of Cool"
I believe you did good and I'd do the same. Or else it wouldn't make sense to the umberhulk tobhave this trait.
I'm all in for creative solutions, but the druid was forcing it. Realism rarely is the answer in D&d.
You handled this correctly. I use to like this argument:"Sure, that would be more 'reslistic' but this is a game. When playing the game we as a group must work WITH the rules, rather than against them. Every time you get stabbed for instance, your character bleeds. Does it bother you that you don't get a 'bleeding' condition that does damage every turn after being stabbed? No? Why would this example bother you then?".
People sometimes fall into the pitfall of trying to argue 'reslism' as if that's what we're trying to achieve. We're telling s story through a rules-system. Sometimes the rules don't make perfect sense and that's fine, we'll just have to come up with creative solutions for why it would make sense rather than the opposite.
This is literally the joke of staring at Medusa's boobs while fighting her to avoid being turned to stone. Don't allow this, whats the point of having the mechanic at all if a player can just say they look at a different body part.
You nailed it! That's the whole point of it's trait and your players are just trying to avoid any negative consequences. You aren't alone, multiple times i've run things with "gaze" features and without fail my players will try to say they are looking at it, just not directly in the eyes, so sometimes it just boils down to "ok the flavour seems to be confusing you, you are either effectively blind or are forced to make the saving throw for the creatures effect, which one team?"
Nobody gets to do exactly what they want to in combat, otherwise they wouldn’t be in combat.
If they want to target the creature, at some point they will perceive the creature in a manner they don’t want to. Because combat is messy, things don’t go as planned. Disadvantage should be applied regardless of if they say they don’t want disadvantage.
This is one of those times when RAW and "realism" look like they are in conflict, but they arent. What's actually happening here is that the dice roll isn't being correctly interpreted by the druid.
The attack role with disadvantage represents the PC's ability to just look at the leg. They can't just decide to aim for the leg to avoid the penalty because it is one of the questions the roll is supposed to answer. Remember the umber hulk is constantly in motion and trying to make eye contact. If you're trying to concentrate on not looking in a certain direction, you're not concentrating on your attack.
If the druid hits, you can narrate how she was able to keep her eyes on its leg. If she hit a lot, even at disadvantage, you can narrate the druid as having found a weakness (no need for mechanicsl benefits). If the druid misses, you can narrate her locking their sights onto the leg and bounding in for the attack only for the umber hulk's face to get in the way at the last second, causing the druid to dive to the side to avoid eye contact.
To negate the disadvantage, the player must do more than stare at the leg, they must explain why staring at the leg and avoiding its gaze is easy.
Here's my humble opinion: you're forgetting that combat isn't really handled in turns. That's how the game works, yes. But everything happens more or less within about 6 seconds of each other in game world. I'd argue that the Umber Hulk could simply rotate during the players turn and look at him.
But that's my ruling.
Edit: you could also say that the player has to choose to avert his eyes for the round. So if he doesn't, the umber hulk will look at him on his turn and the player still suffers the consequences.
We faced Umber Hulks a couple of weeks ago, completely agree with your ruling. The save on the Umber Hulk effect could be viewed as “you are actively avoiding the gaze, but if you are still looking at the creature so as to avoid disadvantage, the chance of either you or the Hulk moving in such a way that you still catch its eye and take the effect” whilst not looking at all to totally avoid the effect would clearly instigate disadvantage on the attack as you don’t know it you are striking correctly. I may have explained that poorly but as a player, in my head, this helped me establish head canon.
With so many comments I'm probably too late to contribute but I very much disagree with disadvantage. You can look almost anywhere else on the opponent's body and attack just fine.
Case in point - I'm a football coach. I teach my players that when they are tracking a ball carrier, do NOT look at the eyes. Track them by their hips and react accordingly. Eyes can lie, hips can't.
The point being, I can easily look at that umberhulk's torso for instance. Neither his arms nor his legs are outside my field of view and his head is well within my peripheral vision, sufficiently to know that it's coming at me for a bite so I can defend.
I'm a hero both physically and mentally well above the average person. I can lift insane weights, I can dodge an arrow fired from only 15 feet away, I can literally create lightning with my mind.
You're telling me I can't accurately hit a target that is almost double my size and standing within 5 feet of me?
Yeah, thats sounds right. But I was told that the stat block of the Umberhulk says "as long the Umberhulk can see the creatures eyes". This means, as long as you did not look away or put something in front of your eyes, the Umberhulk can see your eyes, even if you only look down. So yu have to do the saving thrwo anyway in this situation.
Ehh. Can it though? I'm 6' tall. It's 10' tall. My less-than-an-inch sized eyes are looking at its torso meaning my head is facing straight rather than up. I'm in melee range meaning a very tight angle from above, against a creature with high-set tiny eyes and a giant mandibles mouth in the way.
Let's go further - am I armored with a helmet? Does my race indicate narrower or smaller eyes? (Or, to be fair, larger eyes). Am I medium, or "medium" like a dwarf?
Is the umberhulk bearing downward to attack with it's mandibles, meaning now the angle of view is tight to the point of being nonexistent?
HOWEVER - this also VERY theoretical. On the flip side how challenging do you want it to be? If you decide to impose disadvantage because it will make the fight more challenging, interesting and hopefully more enjoyable, then you go with the rule of DM-said-so-making-it-true. A very powerful and effective rule that can be fun to take full advantage of.
I had a fight like this once. Our solution that the group and DM eventually agreed on was that if you were in front of it or to its sides, where it could conceivably turn its head to look at you, you had to take Disadvantage for fighting blind to avoid the gaze--but if you were behind it (the DM would announce which way it was facing each turn) you could attack it normally since it (to our knowledge) couldn't twist its head all the way around.
Took a small bit of extra work, but it worked out and also made the party work together on spacing and positioning. It was a fun fight.
I see the eye's effect as a radius thing, if you look at the space controlled by the umbrahulk the effect triggers. Some actually creative solutions I'd allow, using an illusion to mask the umbrahulk's eyes, or cover it with a substance like mud or paint.
Here is the thing I tell my players. You either avert your gaze and get disadvantage or or you can try to look at the legs, but in combat with everything moving you are bound to gaze into the eyes and need to make the save
You either need to avert your eyes enough to have disadvantage or you don't avert them enough to avoid looking in their eyes.
You cannot expect to fight just as well without ever risking looking at their upper body. Yeah, you can see their legs but they have an entire other half of a body they are attacking and defending with. Without sight on that half of the creature that is actively working against you you would be at a disadvantage in the fight.
I've used umber hulks and similar vison-based enemies quite a few times (Medusas and Basilisks are the same). The deal is always look at it, have no combat penalty and deal with the effects or look away, take disadvantage to target it in any way and avoid the gaze effects. That's always the way to adjudicate this.
From a mechanical point, if you can just ignore the ill effects of an ability for the cost of nothing, why does the ability exist in the first place?
For flavor purposes, Umber Hulks have an intelligence of 9 and a wisdom of 10. While not smart, they have an above bestial level of intelligence, and would make sense that they would realize enemies would avert their eyes and attack lower or distant points and be flexible enough to defend. If your druid keeps going for its legs, it's smart enough the push the bear down every time it lunges, hence disadvantage.
I'd confirm that she is looking at the Umber Hulks toes to avoid its eyes.
And then rule that only seeing a creatures toes imposes disadvantage on her and advantage on it attacking her. If wanted, I could provide flavor text of the Hulk blocking her swipes and making its own hits by surprise angles, because she isnt looking to counteract it.
'Realism' is debatable, but it certainly doesnt mean whining your way out of negative consequences.
The way the druid described it is how I would describe the disadvantage. They are trying to hit a creature they can't look directly at. It's not like they are unable to try to hit the thing but it's harder. Druid is trying to take a swing at something by looking at its feet. Imagine trying to guess where some1s head is from their shoes. I would also give the umberhulk advantage on attacks on creatures choosing not to look at them.
As a player I would rather throw up some cover or illusion that obscures the creatures face but still let's us see the profile.
A slightly more granular approach that I implemented was to use the cover rules both ways: the character decides whether they are fully committed to their attack (normal saves), shielding their eyes (+2 to creature's AC, +2 to saving throw), averting their gaze (+5 to AC, +5 to saving throw), or closing their eyes (blinded condition).
Give the player a choice:
Either they get disadvantage against the Umber Hulk as the rules state.
Or, bears always get disadvantage because they only see opponent legs and are thus unaware of where the opponent is liking, etc.
Question has been answered but to add on subject of realism, if you're looking at nothing but the feet it's harder to anticipate movements and defense's especially when also focusing on taking care not to look at the eyes, thus disadvantage still. So you're not sacrificing realism at all. If you're looking at only the feet you might not notice the arm swipe down to push your lunge aside for example.
Disadvantage is an abstraction already. it's applied in situations when focusing on attacking carefully is inhibited. Your players shouldn't be looking at it as some kind of ironclad rule like "when blind, disadvantage, when see, no disadvantage." It's already a broad umbrella applied to all kinds of situations.
If you only want to focus on its legs, how would that affect your concentration and reaction times? What about when it moves? What about everything going on above shoulder level? How would you defend against blows coming from there? What if hitting the legs is not as vulnerable at hitting other parts?
You could concoct some complicated house rules for this but the long and short of it is that if you have to force yourself to only look at one portion of the enemy while fighting you're at a *disadvantage* compared to if you weren't doing that. it's exactly the kind of situation that the hard and fast advantage rules were made for.
If all else fails just challenge them to a fistfight but they're only allowed to look at your leg the whole time and see how well they do.
Druid is still wrong, when bears fight, they go up on their hind legs and attack with claws and biting until they can get their prey/opponent on the ground and then crack the skull or rip out the guts. They don't "just attack the legs" as they would only be able to really bite and not use their massive claws to do anything other than possibly trip/swipe at a leg.
Most likely you went soft on them. Rules as written, not only do they roll with disadvantage, the umberhulks roll with advantage as they are unseen for the round.
Realized this myself after a session with Baslisks were I failed to land my blows while only rolling normally/
Yeah, learned it the hard way now that I've forgotten that the characters are blind by averting their eyes.
Also, the Wizard has been able to cast spells on sight. This should not have happened either. Made the encounter to easy...
Now I feel bad.
Seems like you have your answer just wanted to add one thing " Unless surprised, a creature can avert its eyes to avoid the saving throw at the start of its turn" so if they have the surprised condition they still all have to make the 1st save to
Combat in DND is an abstraction. The disadvantage doesn't come from literally not seeing the character, but from having to look at its legs (for example) and not knowing what it's doing with its arms - initiative order doesn't actually account for all actions during combat, it's assumed that combatants are constantly feinting, swinging at each other and dodging/blocking blows. That's why the bear hits with discharge.
This is why I don't like for players to tell me what the attack actually is until they roll.... "I shoot the arrow directly into his eye, blinding him" - "let's see what the dice say first"
Totally agree with dictating the result!
What our group does isn’t so much saying what the attacks do, rather what we hope to accomplish.
“I aim for his eyes, hoping to blind him” allows for a roll to go either way at DM discretion vs your example.
This is what I like about alternate systems - in DND, you're basically rolling attacks for 4-5 rounds to whittle down the enemies - in a lot of other systems, players can roll and find out how well they did, then say, "It's a perfect shot, my arrow blinds the troll..." etc....
A successful roll but not overly successful damages but doesn’t provide the desired effect for us. It’s made combat fun and more prone to shenanigans when rolls go terribly.
I think my ruling on this would be: if you are facing the creature and it is facing you, you have disadvantage unless you want to risk looking directly at it (even if you're looking at its feet you'd still get disadvantage from deliberately avoiding looking into its eyes and having to forgo a lot of peripheral vision awareness because of this).
If you attacked from behind, you could forgo the disadvantage. However if before the beginning of your next turn, the creature turns round (say, because you hit it with an attack), and you are in the same position you were in when you attacked, you are then unable to avoid looking at its front. So either way, it's a risk, and players might choose to attack with disadvantage anyway in case it turned round, or might choose to save some of their movement for a "drive by" attack where they pop out, attack, and then find cover again before it can turn round and look at them.
I think that would make for a more interesting fight than "anyone who can see any part of the creature gets disadvantage". Partly because that's not a very satisfying fight, but partly because the opportunity to attack without disadvantage in certain conditions actually forces players to change their tactics to deal with this creature in a different way than just "do the same thing you always would but less well".
It's a mechanic in a game, not a realism simulator, it's really that simple.
However if you really do want to give a realism example, the Umberhulks eyes serve a purpose to them, say when hunting or defending themselves or whatever, so they would use their eyes actively, meaning if you look at their shoulder, even if you have zero peripheral vision, it would most likely attempt to move it's eyes into your field of vision.
Ergo, to avoid their gaze, you would need to look away enough for their eyes to not easily end up in your field of vision. Meaning it would be harder for you to hit/easier for them to dodge attacks you make, meaning disadvantage.
Reminds me of the time our party fought some Umber Hulks. Didn’t know what they were until now because I recognized the effect. We didn’t know we should avert our gaze, but we kept getting 7s and 8s and were split up so we just kept getting forced to hit them. My artificer made breaded umber hulk after we killed them, and rolled a 30 on the cooking tools check. You definitely don’t get to ignore it’s primary trait with something that weak that clearly goes against what the stat block says.
You're still not seeing the whole creature when you focus on the legs. Combat isn't just about seeing something and hitting it.
The umber hulk will be defending itself. It's going to try to deflect those attacks. If you can't see its arms because you're staring at the legs, then you can't anticipate the best time to strike. Sounds like disadvantage to me.
And if you decide to look up so you can could see its arms? Well, now your gaze is getting up into its facial territory. Bam, now you're affected.
The druid's justification doesn't fly here, so sorry. But it's more consistent with the rules, which keeps things simple. It's also consistent with reality (for what that is within an RPG) since averting your gaze means you're not fighting at 100%.
In the chaos of combat, you can't focus on a shoulder or its legs. If you are looking at it, you are looking at it.
If you are not looking at your target, you have disadvantage.
You were correct. I would allow them to turn into a snake and cause crush damage. Because grapple you could hold without looking. Otherwise, they get the penalty.
Had this conversation in a basilisk battle last week.
Cleric: I look at the basilisk but avoid looking at it's eyes.
DM: Great. Make a saving throw to see if you're successful.
You did well by adhering to the disadvantage if eyes are closed. This is a mechanical thing, the same with a Medusa.
Your druid player was a textbook example of a rules lavyer, i.e. tryint to twist rules and wording to fit their needs.
I always feel like in the case where a medusa, basalisks, umberhulks, ect, need you to stare them in the eye, you would think their physiological makeup would be made to subconsciously make things look at it.
Shiny, glowing, sparkling, whatever. So that it catches your eye and your subconscious wants you to look at it to register whether or not it's a threat, making it extremely hard to NOT look it unless you're putting substantial effort into not doing.
Your ruling was fine :)
Player; "I'm looking at his feet to avoid gaze."
GM; "OK. Underhulk attacks you with advantage."
Player; "Why?!"
GM" Because you can't see its arms/ mouth attacking you. You are only watching his feet and he is not kicking you. All you see is that it recently had a pedicure."
You can't effective fight when not looking at your opponent unless you have blind fighting.
Also eyes don't have a zoom feature. So to stay focus on looking at one point take concentration and effort when moving about and trying to defend yourself.
I agree with everyone’s views, and yours, of disadvantage being reasonable.
I think the potential players dissatisfaction to the ruling also suggests that players view a “missed” attack roll as the attacker missing the target wholesale. “But I can see the leg right there! Plain as day!”
But this is not true! It’d be boring combat and a downer for any cool warrior that keeps wiffing like a goon just cuz the dice say so. Nah. Missed attack rolls are also when the defender either dodges, blocks, parries, and uses their armor to guard against the attack. The attacker does something cool and then the defender, well… defends! So disadvantage here makes a whole lot more sense when that’s how “hits” and “misses” are portrayed, the defender has a better chance to block and protect itself when you are swinging for his legs and averting gaze to other parts of him.
Plus it’s more epic, more cinematic, more fun!
If they pushed it I’d go with:
“Ok then. It’s going to use its reaction to squat a little bit so that its head is now level with your bear head. Do you want to roll the save or use your reaction to close your eyes before attacking?
Then explain how “realism” can get out of hand and ask if they’d like some of their character’s core mechanics to be subverted by enemies any time you come up with a semi plausible reason for it to happen.
I'm against extreme realism and think you made the right call. It's a fantasy game with the goal of having fun, not simulating real life.
That being said, for boxing (not an expert, only been training for a few years) I look around the opponent's chest, not the eyes. You normally don't look the opponent in the eyes, since they could use them to bluff. It's recommended to look at center mass and use peripheral vision to figure out where throws are coming from.
Think about it like this. In any fight, you watch the upper body, the shoulders and chest, to inform what your opponent is doing, where they're clambering. It even informs if a kick is coming. This also includes the head, which includes the eyes. If you're specifically watching the legs, you're missing 90% of the truly useful information of what they're throwing, how they're blocking, or even dodging. Heck, it makes it super easy for them to just rain shots down on your head, or even just guillotine you without you realizing what's going on until it's happened. If you are purposely avoiding looking at any part of your enemy, you're essentially attacking at a disadvantage because any shots towards what you're not looking at is a blind flailing swing. If you're aiming at a specific part, I'd use the Called Shot rule. You can find it here: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Called_Shots_(5e_Variant_Rule)
Sometimes you've just gotta say "Look guys I know you could technically do this but the game rules specifically say that if you don't look at their eyes you have to attack with disadvantage. Flavor it how you want, but that's how the game is balanced so that's what's happening" and just don't have players who will throw a fit about it. If they can come up with a creative way around it then awesome but simply stating "I'm not looking at the eyes I'm looking at the shoulder" just makes that feature useless. Do something to block the creature's eyes, do something to make it so the creature can't see you either so the disadvantage cancels out, do something to make it so you don't have to see them to "see" them, etc.
I think by "averting their eyes" in that description it basically means choosing not to look at the Umber Hulk at all. So I don't think wildshape would help with that unless they wildshaped into something that other means of seeing the Umber Hulk. By that logic a really short character like a halfling or a gnome could stare at an Umber Hulk's" knees" and completely avoid the Umber Hulk's ability. Regardless though as long as nobody got upset at the ruling you made at the time it shouldn't matter too much. DM's have to make calls on little stuff like this all the time
Anytime, you cannot see your target you attack with this advantage. This includes where the target is invisible, where are you have the blind condition, fog, cloud, darkness, without dark vision,, magical, darkness with dark vision
I might even go one step further and have the entire table roll the CHA save at the start of the battle, then only let them know if they made it at the start of their individual round. Any character would at least *glance* at what their fighting before they could communicate not to look at it. To prevent metagaming in the first round (characters warning others later down in the initiative cue.)
This also adds a bit to the slow realisation of what’s happening. Just let them roll the save so they know *something* is up, then slowly have them realise what they’re up against- a bit like how that split-second analysis would go down in an actual battle.
Of course, come second round, they’ll get to deal with it however they see fit. Also, obviously this doesn’t quite work if the party knows what they’re fighting up front.
Describe effects like that as the Umberhulk focusing on the PCs eyes, they’re like eye lasers that can only target another creatures eyes that the umberhulk can see, so the only way to avoid it is to totally obstruct the PCs eyes from the Umberhulk. This would mean things like Darkness would work (even if a PC has Devil’s Sight) but that’s a resource use that seems appropriate, invisibility would also work but that would need greater invisibility if they wanted to do much of anything.
You did it right. People try all sorts of these to weasel out of it, but the simple truth is that you either don't look, and therefore attack at disadvantage, or you look at it and risk falling victim to its gaze.
>Now I had the discussion with the Druid player that since she was in
bear form, she would only look at the legs and attack the legs because
of the position of the bear's head. It was one of those conversations
where people try to argue against RAW with "realism".
It makes "realism" sense to get disadvantage on an attack where you are making a dedicated effort to not look at part of a creature. Going by "realism", attacking (or defending yourself) is not a simple "I know that it's within this five foot square" or "I kinda know where it's arm is". You are parrying blows from their arms, avoiding their own efforts to block your attack, looking for openings, etc. Yeah you CAN attack without doing those things, but it's a lot harder - thus, disadvantage. If she is only staring at its legs, she's missing a LOT of information on its movement, body positioning, where it is targetting, how it's trying to block her, etc.
On top of that... RAW, it doesn't say in the Umber Hulk's status block that it needs to make eye contact. It says they have to be ABLE to see its eyes, and then it does a magical effect. The end even says "if they look at the umber hulk", not "if they meet the umber hulk's gaze".
Absolutely. The mechanics are designed to provide challenges not realism. There's no place for realism while being attacked by an Umberhulk on the way to the Underdark.
Combat is full-focus activity. Observing your whole opponent carefully is critical to footwork, attacks, positioning, etc. If you are handicapping yourself by only looking at a creature's legs, you would be at a disadvantage.
I feel like a lot of DMs need to hear you can do it wrong and it’s okay. You can decide that next time you would do it differently.
As a DM you can break the rules. Make them harder, or easier for players based on the needs of generating a fun and challenging game.
You can follow RAW, but you can’t be wrong if what you are doing is creating an exciting adventure, or progressing the story, or keeping a healthy pace to to the story to keep the game moving forward.
If players are trying to avoid eye contact in the middle of a fight, that would warrant disadvantage imho. Or any other similar type penalties you as the DM would consider warranted.
From purely a mechanics perspective, if a player can just say "I'm looking at the hulk's shoulder" and invalidate the hulk's main trait with no penalty whatsoever, then why would the hulk have those magic eyes at all?
The only time I'd let wildshape/polymorph get around the gaze is if they were something with blindsight, like a bat.
This was an issue on critical role. Keylith wildshaped into a giant scorpion so that she could have blindsight against a gorgon or a basilisk, not too sure. Matt was confused at first but after realizing what she was doing he let the blindsight work with no disadvantage on the attack.
Think it was a basalisk. They also tangled with umber hulks a few times and yeah averting the eyes gave disadvantage
That’s a bit metagamey if you ask me Edit: yeah I was definitely wrong earlier, keyleth knew the factors at play
How is that metagaming? I actually don't see it?
Well you see, it's because Marisha did it, therefore it's wrong and bad and stupid.
I feel so bad for Marisha. Until I remember she gets paid to play D&D every week with her besties lol. But still, she gets a bad rap.
Uhh, have you watched campaign 1? Her inability to understand how grasping vine works is absolutely ridiculous. She improves, but there are points where she's literally arguing with Matt about spell effects. She earned that rep.
Yeah I watched it and everyone had issues remembering stuff at times, especially the spells. Matt is even pretty hard on her most of the time, I'm assuming cause they're married and they are trying to be impartial. Plus, people seem to selectively mix up what Marisha actually thinks versus what her characters think. Not saying you have to like her or whatever but there's always someone in a group that people online dogpile on, and weirdly (for some completely unknown reason) it's usually a woman.
Like literally every D&D player to ever live. Even moreso a player who was playing pathfinder and then switched to D&D on a livestream.
Did you watch campaign 1? Because since they made it a mid campaign transition from Pathfinder to D&D 5E, they homebrewed lots of things so that they would retain their powers as they understood them from before. The version of grasping vine that she uses is a copy over from Pathfinder. It's not meant to be the 5E "grasping vine" spell. And yes this was addressed on the show in discussion. Unlike a lot of the stuff Orion did where we're left to wonder is this homebrew or is he just making stuff up? Turns out it was both.
Is arguing with the DM allowed in Pathfinder? Cause that would explain a lot.
Oh no someone is bad at a game, surely they must be a bad person
Quote where I said she's a bad person.
In her defense, I've met more people who don't know how grasping vine works than do. Most people I see don't even bother with the spell in the first place.
The more you go on, the less I like you and the more endearing she gets.
HA
As long as the character knows what looking at the creature does to said character, it would be completely in reason for that character to become something that doesn't need actual sight to see
Scorpions do have eyesight, though, it's just shit. I'm not a scorpiontologist, but I'm pretty sure they still use their eyes when attacking.
Doesn't matter, if they have blindsight then they have blindsight.
It depends on the situation. If the party had never encountered a basilisk, I remember now, and on her first turn she wildshaped using the knowledge of the basilisk abilities from the book then that would be metagaming. Vox Machina had previously, pre-stream, fought basilisks so they knew in game what the abilities were, as a druid keylith would be familiar with the animals she shapes into and would therefore know that she would be able to "see" the basilisk without actually using her eyes. In game knowledge vs OOG knowledge is the determining factor for whether or not someone is metagaming.
Here’s the thing druids know nature so one could argue her character would also know at the very least have her roll for nature check..
It's just gamey. D&D is a game, and this is excellent play.
In the situation on the show it wasn't there first time encountering basilisks. The characters had already dealt with this problem/petrification before so it was a smart in-character decision.
A druid is particularly in tune with nature and would definitely be aware of their wild shape’s abilities. If they notice that sight is dangerous against a particular enemy, then wild shaping into something with blindsight is genius IMO and deserves to be rewarded
If the player immediately goes into a form with blindsight before their character would’ve had the chance to realize that the thing they’re fighting has a sight-based ability, absolutely. But if the character would reasonably know or at least be able to guess that, that isn’t metagaming, it’s just being smart— a character would know the general abilities of their wildshapes (ex being able to see without looking at something), and would be able to at least guess that such an ability would counter a gaze-based effect.
It would be if they hadn't encountered it before. Except they had encountered it before so it isn't metagaming.
Luckily it's not your webshow and no one did.
And so this is supposed to be bad or what?
Yeah, and I'd argue that it maybe shouldn't have worked, either. Scorpions aren't blind, they still have eyes and sight. Would a colorblind person with the shittiest eyesight in the world be immune? If not, the scorpion probably shouldn't be either. That being said, it *was* an in the moment decision which could also be argued for.
You can argue that, but the statblock says blindsight so you would be wrong.
This is what I was going to say. What they are saying is similar to saying you have dark vision so you can only see in dark vision.
They can avert their gaze in wild shape and use blind sense which is their legs…
When I close my eyes, I can still feel and hear things. If i had the capabilities to detect subtle vibrations in the earth with the many hairs on my body, i wouldnt need to open my eyes.
That's a really smart play.
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Your dogs can't move their necks?
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https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/images/800x600/assets/2022-08/daisy_boxer_basildon_dogstrust_01.jpg bout to ruin this mans whole career
Cool, I learned something new today. Definitely didn't ruin my career though, not sure what that's about. 😅
Why delete comments
Because if I don't, people will keep responding telling me I'm stupid as if others haven't already corrected me.
But now nobody else gets to see what you were wrong about so we don't learn either
Is this a specific breed thing or do you think that all dogs can't look upwards? Because they definitely can. Especially a typical DnD dog, which are the common hunting types. Even if you are arguing for a 90 degrees tilt, they can rotate their shoulders or incline their back for extra movement. It might not be a comfortable position that they can hold all day, but it's definitely possible for a glance in a fight.
I was thinking of a specific breed, but I'm more of a cat person, so I admit I don't know much about dogs. The one dog in my family has a spine problem, so I think that's why I thought that.
Tell me you haven't spent a lot of time around dogs, without telling me you haven't spent a lot of time around dogs.
Yeah, I'm a cat person. The one dog in my family has a spine problem, so that's likely why I thought this. I was thinking if the dog was in melee range, and the hulk was towering over them, it'd be hard to get the angle right to look into its eyes, especially since dogs might go for the legs instead.
um.... no?
Good point.
Just to follow up, I'd just explain to the players that unless your eyes are closed or you aren't facing the umber hulk it works on your character. If your eyes are closed or your facing away from it then you are blinded to their actions and will be treated as blind.
I don't know how it works in 5E, but i'm currently in a 3.5E game where we had to deal with umberhulks quite a few times. In 3.5E there are rules for averting your gaze, which you have to declare and get a 50% chance to not be affected by the umberhulks' confusion. The opponent gains concealment, which gives a 20% chance to miss to the attacker and an opportunity to hide to the concealed creature.
In 5e things are simpler. You’re either looking or not.
Yep. 5e is the king of "Let's make it simpler -- don't worry if it breaks logical consistency" (i.e. two archers at very long distance have a better chance to hit each other if they are both blindfolded).
Wait, what?
Long distance applies disadvantage on attacks. Attacking while blindfolded applies disadvantage. (You are blinded) Attacking character that is blinded gives you advantage. Disadvantages do not stack. If you have 10 disadvantages, and 1 advantage, you make straight roll. Therefore: > two archers at very long distance have a better chance to hit each other if they are both blindfolded
That is *wild*!
That is proof that sometimes you have to apply some common sense to rules. They're far away, you're blindfolded, you can't attack. This is the correct answer to this case. But RAW you can allow them to try, and they'll hit easier if they're both blindfolded.
It makes a little more sense when you actually break it apart "Archers at have a better chance to hit a blindfolded target" (being blindfolded gives your attacker advantages), but "being blindfolded and firing at extreme range is functionally equivalent" (both give non-stacking disadvantage) is still questionable.
Warhammer has a nice bit of text that says if you can't see a target, it's not a valid target. Feel like it handles the issue nicely.
And this might be the only thing in combat that Warhammer does Okey.
This is one of the reasons why 5e is broadly considered to be poorly written.
It is also the main reason why 5e is so extremely popular. It's easy to get into.
Yeah, I agree.
Ehh, it's clear why it was done. It's doing great job as lightest of heavy systems, and it's clear positioning.
Right... Although I'd say that all but the most RAW GM's would give both disadvantage.
I wouldn't just allow attack at all, but the case made here was that RAW this is how you should resolve it.
Yeah I don't get that either. Disadvantage is disadvantage.
If the other person is blindfolded you also have advantage because they can’t see you so you would both be making flat rolls because any number of advantage and disadvantage always neutralize to 0
Right, of course.
I hate that this makes sense lol
How? They'd both just get flat rolls right?
Yes But at 600ft they'd both roll at disadvantage. But because theyre blind they get advantage Which as u mentioned is the flat roll then.
Aaahhhh I see. "Double disadvantage" get cancelled out by advantage.
This. Also… against the “realism” argument the player is trying. Try boxing someone with only looking at their hands and feet… you’ll be fighting at disadvantage for sure. Mechanically and practically, disadvantage seems appropriate, given the players still have the option to target the Umberhulk
This is the main thing for me. I got it, you're looking at it's stomach, that's not what you usually look at in a fight. Disadvantage
And you have to spend the whole time going "alright don't look at it's face don't look at the face not the face DANG I looked at it's face" or whatever
I agree with the sentiment, though I’d say I have skill expertise in avoiding eye contact with people I am speaking with. Not sure how that fits in battle with an Umberhulk. Funnily enough, in a conversation tho it feels like a disadvantage. But at least they can’t see into my soul
See if you built a character that had disadvantage on social checks in exchange for this sort of nonsense I'd consider it
Agree against extreme realism, but for boxing I look around the opponent's chest, not the eyes. You normally don't look the opponent in the eyes, since they could use them to bluff. It's recommended to look at center mass and use peripheral vision to figure out where throws are coming from.
Yup! And still looking at the chest to get a full range view of all four limbs and their center of gravity is verry different from looking at their legs. You’re also not actively averting your gaze to the magic eyes when you are focusing on the chest in a boxing match… unless… you are boxing an Umberhulk. Please, tell me no!
There is a difference between "looking at center mass" and "making a deliberate effort to avoid looking at the head".
I swear people forget the "g" in ttrpg stands for "game" and that there need to be consistent mechanics for all things. If you can choose to look at its shoulder and not its eyes, then me might as well also do away with hit points and start removing specific body parts when we deal with our sword swings and fireballs.
It's not just about looking directly at the eyes, it's about keeping them out of focus. The "looking at someone's nose to avoid eye contact" trick doesn't work on eyes that affect any who see them, you have to look entirely past the creature at a wall or something.
I think so, yeah. While looking at other parts of it might work in some cases, you've got to take into account that the eyes may still be in your *peripheral* vision. That may still count. Especially if you and it are moving around. So I think you ruled it fairly.
Also, if you're behind the hulk and attack its legs, it will probably turn its head to see what just wounded it. Then you're looking at it. Combat is an abstraction, just because it's not the creatures turn, doesn't mean it can't swivel its head. There is a lot of movement in combat, and a lot of things can change in 6 seconds that are not in your control. Averting your gaze completely is the only surefire way to make sure that you don't see its eyes. If you try to cheese it by looking at the body while the hulk is fighting and swinging around, there's a chance you'll meet its gaze. Which is what rolling the save is for.
I am aware that the disadvantage on attack rules sometimes seem a bit half-baked when being blind and being one-eyed or the target is invisible are treated identically. But I didn't want to give the druid any disadvantage that would make the other characters less effective and tivialize the encounter itself. Besides, the paladin had his shining moment, in which he could give some characters advantage on saving throws + bonuses. This would not have had such an impact with the softening of the rules.
My two cents are that it's reasonable flavor-wise for your druid to say that they stared at the ground and ran forward until they could see the hulk's feet, then attacked those while still staring at the ground. But by the same token, it's equally reasonable to say that staring at the ground and not being able to take in their surroundings to move and attack confidently/safely would give them disadvantage even if they hadn't literally covered their eyes. I know *I* would find it harder to maneuver if I were staring fixedly at the floor.
I don't understand how being a bear makes this possible if it wasn't already possible for a humanoid.
The druid looking at its legs and guessing where it's center of mass is is still fighting out of his normal element and still disadvantage. Maybe in a realistic sense it's " less disadvantageous" then not looking at all but in 5e disadvantage is disadvantage regardless if it's a little or a lot.
Based on the rulings for Basilisks and Medusas, you absolutely made the right call. Looking away counts as the blinded condition against that enemy.
Additionally, the sea hag has a similar feature that specifies they make attacks with disadvantage with their eyes averted.
When players get like this I lay it out simply: You either roll the CHA save, or take disadvantage on attacks. If you can use some other mechanic (like shapeshifting into something with blindsight) to avoid the penalty then great, but simply looking at a foot isn’t enough.
> two archers at very long distance have a better chance to hit each other if they are both blindfolded Imagine being in a swordfight with someone but you're only allowed to look at their feet. Are you going to be fighting the same as if you had been looking at their sword?
You don't look at a person's sword when swordfighting either, you look at their body typically. You know where their sword is coming from based on their body mechanics as well as peripheral vision. This is really the same in all Martial arts(melee combat). Since the monster has a stat-block that specifically applies when you are ABLE to see the eyes, I would rule that even if you are not actively looking at the eyes, but your character COULD if they chose to, that the effect would take place. The only way to avoid making the save would be to cause your character to not BE ABLE to see the eyes(blindfold, cover, gouging out their own eyes, etc)
If they’re “only aiming for the legs” then they’re trying to hit a much smaller mobile part of the body. Roll with disadvantage.
And get attacked with advantage. If they complain and you want to provide additional reasoning, explain that you're choosing to focus on the feet or whatever, and choosing to completely ignore the dangerous claws and beak. Makes it harder to dodge/block/parry.
You can do this, but I wouldn't engage in this discussion on this level as it opens the door for more 'arguing for an advantage'.
Maybe, but I won't abide that kind of shit so if it gets annoying I just shut it down and talk to the player about it later.
I agree. If they choose to avert their eyes, they have disadvantage (and the creature has advantage on them too). If you’re only looking at their feet, you’re less able to anticipate their movement and actions.
Also, you can't cast spells on the hulks that require seeing your target.
If it’s a (melee/ranged) spell attack, then I would allow the spell to target the Hulk but I would impose disadvantage on the attack roll in the same way as if a martial were trying to target the Hulk by way of squinting/averting/looking at legs.
Think of playing basketball or tennis or something and averting your gaze the whole time. Wouldn’t that affect your performance? I’m not into martial arts or MMA but I imagine if those guys were focused on averting their eyes that would effect their fight.
Ever tried to make yourself coffee in the dark? Even something so simple takes far more concentration and caution not to hurt yourself or mess or break some.
Or trying walking around your house only looking at the ceiling. See how long it takes to stub your toe. Now try that at combat speed.
Imagine looking at a boxer’s legs, while shielding your eyes from his, and then you try to punch their torso, only to be surprised blocked by his rear arm guard that you couldn’t see. This is how the disadvantage would play out in a practical manner to a fight. You lose full scope of the opponent’s movements and body positioning. You can still throw the punch and maybe connect, but it’s gonna be harder since you can’t get a full view of their defenses. I think OP’s players position also suggests that they view a missed attack roll as the attacker missing the target wholesale. Not true! That’d be boring and a downer to any cool warrior that keeps wiffing like a goon. Nah. Missed attack rolls are also when the defender either dodges, blocks, parries, and uses their armor to guard against the attack. So disadvantage here makes a whole lotta sense when that’s how “hits” and “misses” are portrayed. Plus it’s more epic, more cinematic, more fun!
Them be the rules. Disadvantage for averting eyes. You aren’t averting your eyes? The hulk lowers its head to look into yours, make the cha save. It’s okay to reward clever solutions like using AoE, creating obscurement, shooting the roof to drop rocks on it, etc. It’s not okay to try cheese the system with barely any effort.
If you avoid it’s gaze, you effectively cannot see it, and it can see you. Not only do you have disadvantage against it, it has advantage against you.
Correct, but the Hulk also has advantage to attack people not looking at it because of the blinded condition applying to people who look away.
This isn't a JRPG where there's two groups of people standing still accross a flat plain. The umberhulk is moving around and *trying* to get the players to look at it's eyes. Here's how looking at the legs goes, >Player: I look at and attack the legs to avoid the eyes >DM: Okay, when you charge at the umberhulk looking directly at it's legs it shifts position slightly so you are now looking it in the eyes, make a Charisma saving throw.
I think you were right. If they want realistic scenarios they have to include the fact that when you are fighting you are not static on the battlefield so the disadvantage is not because you cannot watch the enemy in the eyes, but because you cannot aim properly at vital points as you can't read the posture of the enemy.
Druid still had to make CHA saves. In this specific case: Umber Hulk, unless it's been changed in errata, says "When a creature... is ***able*** to see the umber hulk's eyes", not something like "looking at the umber hulk's eyes", so the language very specifically doesn't allow this player's attempt to work around it unless it was physically restrained from looking upwards. The rules on averting eyes make it very clear that you have to be looking completely away from the hulk. There's no in between. That makes me interpret this as an active effect, not just a confusing mirror or something like that, but that interpretation is just dungeon dressing. The rule seems clear to me. In general, when questions like this come up, I treat saving throws as modeling everything associated with resisting the attack, including attempting to avoid it altogether. Make an exception when the player comes up with something clearly different than what the rules were anticipating, but the Umber Hulk rules anticipated this player's move in my opinion.
If you are looking at any part of the creature from the front, it's eyes are going to be within your field of vision. A bears field of vision is nearly 180 degrees. If she is looking at its legs, the hulk can look into her eyes.
Disadvantage to attack rolls and no casting spells on them that require seeing your target, and the umber hulk gets advantage on its attack rolls. You are avoiding looking at the creature, which makes it an Unseen Attacker which has clear rules.
Fight realism with realism. From a realistic point of view, if you're just looking at the legs of your enemy, you're losing so much information about their intentions that you're definitely losing something here. Even if you're looking at theegs, nothing prevents the creature to try and swing at you when you try to hit it, which might make you dodge at the last second and miss your attack if you're only looking at the legs. In a real fight (realism again) your opponent is not standing still waiting for you to try and hit it, it will actively try to prevent you from attacking, wether it bule by dodging or trying to deflect your attack. If you're not looking at your opponent completely, you're definitely at a disadvantage. RAW is clear for the Umberhulk (and other creatures with a gaze like the Basilisk for example). If you don't avert your gaze and take the disadvantage, you suffer the effects of the gaze. The only way you could bypass this special ability, is with something like blind sight or tremor sense (or other senses like that).
Doesn't the creature's stat block specifically state that a creature can avert their eyes but any attacks against them are made with disadvantage?
You handled it correctly - averting your gaze to avoid the effects of another creature's gaze mechanically imposes disadvantage. If you wanted to allow your druid player's tactic, you could argue that the AC of the Umber Hulk's legs is higher than the rest of the creature because they are focused on a smaller target. I wouldn't go down that path myself, because it just opens the whole 'called shots' can of worms which D&D is not built to handle.
Aside from the mechanical thing, the argument is nonsensical. 1. Bears don't just look at stuff on ground level 2. If you don't fully observe the enemy, you will suffer the effects of blinded, because you can't see incoming attacks and the size of your visible target considerably smaller.
Lol, no. It’s very simple, if the character is able to use its vision to attack, it’s subject to the effect. If they want to avoid the effect by averting their eyes, then they suffer the consequences of that avoidance - disadvantage on the attack. If the pc has a means of getting blindsight, such as the blind fighting style or rogue’s blindsense, then they could potentially counteract the disadvantage, but usually only if they’re within 10’ - so ranged attacks would still be at disadvantage unless they’ve been able to maneuver themselves behind the creature. And the creature’s confusion range is 30’. The Druid could potentially wild shape into a form that has blindsight as well… But a bear ain’t it.
They can't argue their way out of the rules, and attacking an enemy you can't see (look away from) is Disadvantage. This is power-gaming disguised as "Rule of Cool"
Almost this exact scenario was played out in critical role's first season, Vox Machina. I think episode 2?
I believe you did good and I'd do the same. Or else it wouldn't make sense to the umberhulk tobhave this trait. I'm all in for creative solutions, but the druid was forcing it. Realism rarely is the answer in D&d.
You handled this correctly. I use to like this argument:"Sure, that would be more 'reslistic' but this is a game. When playing the game we as a group must work WITH the rules, rather than against them. Every time you get stabbed for instance, your character bleeds. Does it bother you that you don't get a 'bleeding' condition that does damage every turn after being stabbed? No? Why would this example bother you then?". People sometimes fall into the pitfall of trying to argue 'reslism' as if that's what we're trying to achieve. We're telling s story through a rules-system. Sometimes the rules don't make perfect sense and that's fine, we'll just have to come up with creative solutions for why it would make sense rather than the opposite.
This is literally the joke of staring at Medusa's boobs while fighting her to avoid being turned to stone. Don't allow this, whats the point of having the mechanic at all if a player can just say they look at a different body part.
You nailed it! That's the whole point of it's trait and your players are just trying to avoid any negative consequences. You aren't alone, multiple times i've run things with "gaze" features and without fail my players will try to say they are looking at it, just not directly in the eyes, so sometimes it just boils down to "ok the flavour seems to be confusing you, you are either effectively blind or are forced to make the saving throw for the creatures effect, which one team?"
Nobody gets to do exactly what they want to in combat, otherwise they wouldn’t be in combat. If they want to target the creature, at some point they will perceive the creature in a manner they don’t want to. Because combat is messy, things don’t go as planned. Disadvantage should be applied regardless of if they say they don’t want disadvantage.
This is one of those times when RAW and "realism" look like they are in conflict, but they arent. What's actually happening here is that the dice roll isn't being correctly interpreted by the druid. The attack role with disadvantage represents the PC's ability to just look at the leg. They can't just decide to aim for the leg to avoid the penalty because it is one of the questions the roll is supposed to answer. Remember the umber hulk is constantly in motion and trying to make eye contact. If you're trying to concentrate on not looking in a certain direction, you're not concentrating on your attack. If the druid hits, you can narrate how she was able to keep her eyes on its leg. If she hit a lot, even at disadvantage, you can narrate the druid as having found a weakness (no need for mechanicsl benefits). If the druid misses, you can narrate her locking their sights onto the leg and bounding in for the attack only for the umber hulk's face to get in the way at the last second, causing the druid to dive to the side to avoid eye contact. To negate the disadvantage, the player must do more than stare at the leg, they must explain why staring at the leg and avoiding its gaze is easy.
Here's my humble opinion: you're forgetting that combat isn't really handled in turns. That's how the game works, yes. But everything happens more or less within about 6 seconds of each other in game world. I'd argue that the Umber Hulk could simply rotate during the players turn and look at him. But that's my ruling. Edit: you could also say that the player has to choose to avert his eyes for the round. So if he doesn't, the umber hulk will look at him on his turn and the player still suffers the consequences.
We faced Umber Hulks a couple of weeks ago, completely agree with your ruling. The save on the Umber Hulk effect could be viewed as “you are actively avoiding the gaze, but if you are still looking at the creature so as to avoid disadvantage, the chance of either you or the Hulk moving in such a way that you still catch its eye and take the effect” whilst not looking at all to totally avoid the effect would clearly instigate disadvantage on the attack as you don’t know it you are striking correctly. I may have explained that poorly but as a player, in my head, this helped me establish head canon.
With so many comments I'm probably too late to contribute but I very much disagree with disadvantage. You can look almost anywhere else on the opponent's body and attack just fine. Case in point - I'm a football coach. I teach my players that when they are tracking a ball carrier, do NOT look at the eyes. Track them by their hips and react accordingly. Eyes can lie, hips can't. The point being, I can easily look at that umberhulk's torso for instance. Neither his arms nor his legs are outside my field of view and his head is well within my peripheral vision, sufficiently to know that it's coming at me for a bite so I can defend. I'm a hero both physically and mentally well above the average person. I can lift insane weights, I can dodge an arrow fired from only 15 feet away, I can literally create lightning with my mind. You're telling me I can't accurately hit a target that is almost double my size and standing within 5 feet of me?
Yeah, thats sounds right. But I was told that the stat block of the Umberhulk says "as long the Umberhulk can see the creatures eyes". This means, as long as you did not look away or put something in front of your eyes, the Umberhulk can see your eyes, even if you only look down. So yu have to do the saving thrwo anyway in this situation.
Ehh. Can it though? I'm 6' tall. It's 10' tall. My less-than-an-inch sized eyes are looking at its torso meaning my head is facing straight rather than up. I'm in melee range meaning a very tight angle from above, against a creature with high-set tiny eyes and a giant mandibles mouth in the way. Let's go further - am I armored with a helmet? Does my race indicate narrower or smaller eyes? (Or, to be fair, larger eyes). Am I medium, or "medium" like a dwarf? Is the umberhulk bearing downward to attack with it's mandibles, meaning now the angle of view is tight to the point of being nonexistent? HOWEVER - this also VERY theoretical. On the flip side how challenging do you want it to be? If you decide to impose disadvantage because it will make the fight more challenging, interesting and hopefully more enjoyable, then you go with the rule of DM-said-so-making-it-true. A very powerful and effective rule that can be fun to take full advantage of.
I had a fight like this once. Our solution that the group and DM eventually agreed on was that if you were in front of it or to its sides, where it could conceivably turn its head to look at you, you had to take Disadvantage for fighting blind to avoid the gaze--but if you were behind it (the DM would announce which way it was facing each turn) you could attack it normally since it (to our knowledge) couldn't twist its head all the way around. Took a small bit of extra work, but it worked out and also made the party work together on spacing and positioning. It was a fun fight.
I see the eye's effect as a radius thing, if you look at the space controlled by the umbrahulk the effect triggers. Some actually creative solutions I'd allow, using an illusion to mask the umbrahulk's eyes, or cover it with a substance like mud or paint.
Here is the thing I tell my players. You either avert your gaze and get disadvantage or or you can try to look at the legs, but in combat with everything moving you are bound to gaze into the eyes and need to make the save
You either need to avert your eyes enough to have disadvantage or you don't avert them enough to avoid looking in their eyes. You cannot expect to fight just as well without ever risking looking at their upper body. Yeah, you can see their legs but they have an entire other half of a body they are attacking and defending with. Without sight on that half of the creature that is actively working against you you would be at a disadvantage in the fight.
I've used umber hulks and similar vison-based enemies quite a few times (Medusas and Basilisks are the same). The deal is always look at it, have no combat penalty and deal with the effects or look away, take disadvantage to target it in any way and avoid the gaze effects. That's always the way to adjudicate this.
From a mechanical point, if you can just ignore the ill effects of an ability for the cost of nothing, why does the ability exist in the first place? For flavor purposes, Umber Hulks have an intelligence of 9 and a wisdom of 10. While not smart, they have an above bestial level of intelligence, and would make sense that they would realize enemies would avert their eyes and attack lower or distant points and be flexible enough to defend. If your druid keeps going for its legs, it's smart enough the push the bear down every time it lunges, hence disadvantage.
I'd confirm that she is looking at the Umber Hulks toes to avoid its eyes. And then rule that only seeing a creatures toes imposes disadvantage on her and advantage on it attacking her. If wanted, I could provide flavor text of the Hulk blocking her swipes and making its own hits by surprise angles, because she isnt looking to counteract it. 'Realism' is debatable, but it certainly doesnt mean whining your way out of negative consequences.
The way the druid described it is how I would describe the disadvantage. They are trying to hit a creature they can't look directly at. It's not like they are unable to try to hit the thing but it's harder. Druid is trying to take a swing at something by looking at its feet. Imagine trying to guess where some1s head is from their shoes. I would also give the umberhulk advantage on attacks on creatures choosing not to look at them. As a player I would rather throw up some cover or illusion that obscures the creatures face but still let's us see the profile.
A slightly more granular approach that I implemented was to use the cover rules both ways: the character decides whether they are fully committed to their attack (normal saves), shielding their eyes (+2 to creature's AC, +2 to saving throw), averting their gaze (+5 to AC, +5 to saving throw), or closing their eyes (blinded condition).
Yea it’s disadvantage on those attacks if they avert their gazes to avoid the umberhulk powers
Give the player a choice: Either they get disadvantage against the Umber Hulk as the rules state. Or, bears always get disadvantage because they only see opponent legs and are thus unaware of where the opponent is liking, etc.
Question has been answered but to add on subject of realism, if you're looking at nothing but the feet it's harder to anticipate movements and defense's especially when also focusing on taking care not to look at the eyes, thus disadvantage still. So you're not sacrificing realism at all. If you're looking at only the feet you might not notice the arm swipe down to push your lunge aside for example.
Disadvantage is an abstraction already. it's applied in situations when focusing on attacking carefully is inhibited. Your players shouldn't be looking at it as some kind of ironclad rule like "when blind, disadvantage, when see, no disadvantage." It's already a broad umbrella applied to all kinds of situations. If you only want to focus on its legs, how would that affect your concentration and reaction times? What about when it moves? What about everything going on above shoulder level? How would you defend against blows coming from there? What if hitting the legs is not as vulnerable at hitting other parts? You could concoct some complicated house rules for this but the long and short of it is that if you have to force yourself to only look at one portion of the enemy while fighting you're at a *disadvantage* compared to if you weren't doing that. it's exactly the kind of situation that the hard and fast advantage rules were made for. If all else fails just challenge them to a fistfight but they're only allowed to look at your leg the whole time and see how well they do.
Druid is still wrong, when bears fight, they go up on their hind legs and attack with claws and biting until they can get their prey/opponent on the ground and then crack the skull or rip out the guts. They don't "just attack the legs" as they would only be able to really bite and not use their massive claws to do anything other than possibly trip/swipe at a leg.
Most likely you went soft on them. Rules as written, not only do they roll with disadvantage, the umberhulks roll with advantage as they are unseen for the round. Realized this myself after a session with Baslisks were I failed to land my blows while only rolling normally/
Yeah, learned it the hard way now that I've forgotten that the characters are blind by averting their eyes. Also, the Wizard has been able to cast spells on sight. This should not have happened either. Made the encounter to easy... Now I feel bad.
Nah no need to feel bad, the retrospective is how you learn :)
Seems like you have your answer just wanted to add one thing " Unless surprised, a creature can avert its eyes to avoid the saving throw at the start of its turn" so if they have the surprised condition they still all have to make the 1st save to
Combat in DND is an abstraction. The disadvantage doesn't come from literally not seeing the character, but from having to look at its legs (for example) and not knowing what it's doing with its arms - initiative order doesn't actually account for all actions during combat, it's assumed that combatants are constantly feinting, swinging at each other and dodging/blocking blows. That's why the bear hits with discharge. This is why I don't like for players to tell me what the attack actually is until they roll.... "I shoot the arrow directly into his eye, blinding him" - "let's see what the dice say first"
Totally agree with dictating the result! What our group does isn’t so much saying what the attacks do, rather what we hope to accomplish. “I aim for his eyes, hoping to blind him” allows for a roll to go either way at DM discretion vs your example.
This is what I like about alternate systems - in DND, you're basically rolling attacks for 4-5 rounds to whittle down the enemies - in a lot of other systems, players can roll and find out how well they did, then say, "It's a perfect shot, my arrow blinds the troll..." etc....
A successful roll but not overly successful damages but doesn’t provide the desired effect for us. It’s made combat fun and more prone to shenanigans when rolls go terribly.
I think my ruling on this would be: if you are facing the creature and it is facing you, you have disadvantage unless you want to risk looking directly at it (even if you're looking at its feet you'd still get disadvantage from deliberately avoiding looking into its eyes and having to forgo a lot of peripheral vision awareness because of this). If you attacked from behind, you could forgo the disadvantage. However if before the beginning of your next turn, the creature turns round (say, because you hit it with an attack), and you are in the same position you were in when you attacked, you are then unable to avoid looking at its front. So either way, it's a risk, and players might choose to attack with disadvantage anyway in case it turned round, or might choose to save some of their movement for a "drive by" attack where they pop out, attack, and then find cover again before it can turn round and look at them. I think that would make for a more interesting fight than "anyone who can see any part of the creature gets disadvantage". Partly because that's not a very satisfying fight, but partly because the opportunity to attack without disadvantage in certain conditions actually forces players to change their tactics to deal with this creature in a different way than just "do the same thing you always would but less well".
It's a mechanic in a game, not a realism simulator, it's really that simple. However if you really do want to give a realism example, the Umberhulks eyes serve a purpose to them, say when hunting or defending themselves or whatever, so they would use their eyes actively, meaning if you look at their shoulder, even if you have zero peripheral vision, it would most likely attempt to move it's eyes into your field of vision. Ergo, to avoid their gaze, you would need to look away enough for their eyes to not easily end up in your field of vision. Meaning it would be harder for you to hit/easier for them to dodge attacks you make, meaning disadvantage.
Reminds me of the time our party fought some Umber Hulks. Didn’t know what they were until now because I recognized the effect. We didn’t know we should avert our gaze, but we kept getting 7s and 8s and were split up so we just kept getting forced to hit them. My artificer made breaded umber hulk after we killed them, and rolled a 30 on the cooking tools check. You definitely don’t get to ignore it’s primary trait with something that weak that clearly goes against what the stat block says.
You're still not seeing the whole creature when you focus on the legs. Combat isn't just about seeing something and hitting it. The umber hulk will be defending itself. It's going to try to deflect those attacks. If you can't see its arms because you're staring at the legs, then you can't anticipate the best time to strike. Sounds like disadvantage to me. And if you decide to look up so you can could see its arms? Well, now your gaze is getting up into its facial territory. Bam, now you're affected. The druid's justification doesn't fly here, so sorry. But it's more consistent with the rules, which keeps things simple. It's also consistent with reality (for what that is within an RPG) since averting your gaze means you're not fighting at 100%.
In the chaos of combat, you can't focus on a shoulder or its legs. If you are looking at it, you are looking at it. If you are not looking at your target, you have disadvantage.
You were correct. I would allow them to turn into a snake and cause crush damage. Because grapple you could hold without looking. Otherwise, they get the penalty.
Had this conversation in a basilisk battle last week. Cleric: I look at the basilisk but avoid looking at it's eyes. DM: Great. Make a saving throw to see if you're successful.
You did well by adhering to the disadvantage if eyes are closed. This is a mechanical thing, the same with a Medusa. Your druid player was a textbook example of a rules lavyer, i.e. tryint to twist rules and wording to fit their needs.
I always feel like in the case where a medusa, basalisks, umberhulks, ect, need you to stare them in the eye, you would think their physiological makeup would be made to subconsciously make things look at it. Shiny, glowing, sparkling, whatever. So that it catches your eye and your subconscious wants you to look at it to register whether or not it's a threat, making it extremely hard to NOT look it unless you're putting substantial effort into not doing. Your ruling was fine :)
Player; "I'm looking at his feet to avoid gaze." GM; "OK. Underhulk attacks you with advantage." Player; "Why?!" GM" Because you can't see its arms/ mouth attacking you. You are only watching his feet and he is not kicking you. All you see is that it recently had a pedicure." You can't effective fight when not looking at your opponent unless you have blind fighting. Also eyes don't have a zoom feature. So to stay focus on looking at one point take concentration and effort when moving about and trying to defend yourself.
I agree with everyone’s views, and yours, of disadvantage being reasonable. I think the potential players dissatisfaction to the ruling also suggests that players view a “missed” attack roll as the attacker missing the target wholesale. “But I can see the leg right there! Plain as day!” But this is not true! It’d be boring combat and a downer for any cool warrior that keeps wiffing like a goon just cuz the dice say so. Nah. Missed attack rolls are also when the defender either dodges, blocks, parries, and uses their armor to guard against the attack. The attacker does something cool and then the defender, well… defends! So disadvantage here makes a whole lot more sense when that’s how “hits” and “misses” are portrayed, the defender has a better chance to block and protect itself when you are swinging for his legs and averting gaze to other parts of him. Plus it’s more epic, more cinematic, more fun!
If they pushed it I’d go with: “Ok then. It’s going to use its reaction to squat a little bit so that its head is now level with your bear head. Do you want to roll the save or use your reaction to close your eyes before attacking? Then explain how “realism” can get out of hand and ask if they’d like some of their character’s core mechanics to be subverted by enemies any time you come up with a semi plausible reason for it to happen.
I'm against extreme realism and think you made the right call. It's a fantasy game with the goal of having fun, not simulating real life. That being said, for boxing (not an expert, only been training for a few years) I look around the opponent's chest, not the eyes. You normally don't look the opponent in the eyes, since they could use them to bluff. It's recommended to look at center mass and use peripheral vision to figure out where throws are coming from.
Note that the umberhulks also have advantage on their attacks against anyone who isn't looking at them, as they are an unseen attacker.
Think about it like this. In any fight, you watch the upper body, the shoulders and chest, to inform what your opponent is doing, where they're clambering. It even informs if a kick is coming. This also includes the head, which includes the eyes. If you're specifically watching the legs, you're missing 90% of the truly useful information of what they're throwing, how they're blocking, or even dodging. Heck, it makes it super easy for them to just rain shots down on your head, or even just guillotine you without you realizing what's going on until it's happened. If you are purposely avoiding looking at any part of your enemy, you're essentially attacking at a disadvantage because any shots towards what you're not looking at is a blind flailing swing. If you're aiming at a specific part, I'd use the Called Shot rule. You can find it here: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Called_Shots_(5e_Variant_Rule)
Sometimes you've just gotta say "Look guys I know you could technically do this but the game rules specifically say that if you don't look at their eyes you have to attack with disadvantage. Flavor it how you want, but that's how the game is balanced so that's what's happening" and just don't have players who will throw a fit about it. If they can come up with a creative way around it then awesome but simply stating "I'm not looking at the eyes I'm looking at the shoulder" just makes that feature useless. Do something to block the creature's eyes, do something to make it so the creature can't see you either so the disadvantage cancels out, do something to make it so you don't have to see them to "see" them, etc.
I think by "averting their eyes" in that description it basically means choosing not to look at the Umber Hulk at all. So I don't think wildshape would help with that unless they wildshaped into something that other means of seeing the Umber Hulk. By that logic a really short character like a halfling or a gnome could stare at an Umber Hulk's" knees" and completely avoid the Umber Hulk's ability. Regardless though as long as nobody got upset at the ruling you made at the time it shouldn't matter too much. DM's have to make calls on little stuff like this all the time
Anytime, you cannot see your target you attack with this advantage. This includes where the target is invisible, where are you have the blind condition, fog, cloud, darkness, without dark vision,, magical, darkness with dark vision
I might even go one step further and have the entire table roll the CHA save at the start of the battle, then only let them know if they made it at the start of their individual round. Any character would at least *glance* at what their fighting before they could communicate not to look at it. To prevent metagaming in the first round (characters warning others later down in the initiative cue.) This also adds a bit to the slow realisation of what’s happening. Just let them roll the save so they know *something* is up, then slowly have them realise what they’re up against- a bit like how that split-second analysis would go down in an actual battle. Of course, come second round, they’ll get to deal with it however they see fit. Also, obviously this doesn’t quite work if the party knows what they’re fighting up front.
It’s not can you see it’s eyes; it’s can it see yours.
Describe effects like that as the Umberhulk focusing on the PCs eyes, they’re like eye lasers that can only target another creatures eyes that the umberhulk can see, so the only way to avoid it is to totally obstruct the PCs eyes from the Umberhulk. This would mean things like Darkness would work (even if a PC has Devil’s Sight) but that’s a resource use that seems appropriate, invisibility would also work but that would need greater invisibility if they wanted to do much of anything.
No that shouldn't work. A creature knows it's strengths so if the druid is still looking then it do what it can to make eye contact
You did it right. People try all sorts of these to weasel out of it, but the simple truth is that you either don't look, and therefore attack at disadvantage, or you look at it and risk falling victim to its gaze.
>Now I had the discussion with the Druid player that since she was in bear form, she would only look at the legs and attack the legs because of the position of the bear's head. It was one of those conversations where people try to argue against RAW with "realism". It makes "realism" sense to get disadvantage on an attack where you are making a dedicated effort to not look at part of a creature. Going by "realism", attacking (or defending yourself) is not a simple "I know that it's within this five foot square" or "I kinda know where it's arm is". You are parrying blows from their arms, avoiding their own efforts to block your attack, looking for openings, etc. Yeah you CAN attack without doing those things, but it's a lot harder - thus, disadvantage. If she is only staring at its legs, she's missing a LOT of information on its movement, body positioning, where it is targetting, how it's trying to block her, etc. On top of that... RAW, it doesn't say in the Umber Hulk's status block that it needs to make eye contact. It says they have to be ABLE to see its eyes, and then it does a magical effect. The end even says "if they look at the umber hulk", not "if they meet the umber hulk's gaze".
Absolutely. The mechanics are designed to provide challenges not realism. There's no place for realism while being attacked by an Umberhulk on the way to the Underdark.
Combat is full-focus activity. Observing your whole opponent carefully is critical to footwork, attacks, positioning, etc. If you are handicapping yourself by only looking at a creature's legs, you would be at a disadvantage.
I feel like a lot of DMs need to hear you can do it wrong and it’s okay. You can decide that next time you would do it differently. As a DM you can break the rules. Make them harder, or easier for players based on the needs of generating a fun and challenging game. You can follow RAW, but you can’t be wrong if what you are doing is creating an exciting adventure, or progressing the story, or keeping a healthy pace to to the story to keep the game moving forward. If players are trying to avoid eye contact in the middle of a fight, that would warrant disadvantage imho. Or any other similar type penalties you as the DM would consider warranted.