D&D 5E cloak of displacement and blindsight

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

In a recent session a fighter wearing a cloak of displacement which: " projects an illusion that makes you appear to be standing in a place near your actual location, causing any creature to have disadvantage on attack rolls against you".

The opponent was a construct with Blindsight. "A creature with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius."

Can a creature with Blindsight ignore the disadvantage effect of the illusion?

 

[Sir Brennen]

I'm inclined to say yes, just as a creature with blindsight would "see" characters hiding behind an illusionary wall.

 

[jaelis]

DM call, I would let the cloak work since it doesn't say that the illusion is visual only. Others might read "appear" as specific to vision, I wouldn't argue against it.

(The cloak would definitely not work against a creature with truesight though.)

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I'm inclined to say that blindsight would pierce the illusion.

 

[Oofta]

This is an age old debate. Does illusion create a holographic image (which blindsight would ignore) or does it affect the mind of the creatures perceiving the illusion in which case blindsight is still fooled?

My ruling? Illusions are projections, since at higher levels illusionists can create real objects.

However, simple illusions like silent image would be ignored by creatures with blindsight because they are only visual. Higher level illusion spells like major image have sound and smell so it would be "seen" by a creature with blindsight as real.


Unfortunately we don't know if this item creates sound or temperature like higher level illusions do. So after all of that, flip a coin. I would rule that it would work because it's a rare magic item. Truesight, of course, would see through it.

 

[James Gasik]

If the creature has both blindsense and normal sight, it might be fooled the first time it attacks the cloak wearer. Humans have five senses, but we tend to rely more on our sight (despite the fact it's our most unreliable sense!). I can't imagine it would be much different if we had more senses.

If the creature only has blindsight, like a Twigblight, it wouldn't even notice the cloak's effect (based on the assumption the illusion only affects sight).

On the other hand, it comes down to how fair you want to be to illusionists. If blindsight automatically foils illusions, it's not an uncommon sense. It renders a lot of spells moot when it comes up. Not that I've ever been in a game where people used a lot of illusions (other than invisibility and mirror image) to begin with, for the many, many issues those kinds of spells tend to have.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The verbiage says projecting an illusion, which makes me think of the visual illusion in the classic sense. So in that regard, I would probably rule that blindsight ignores it, and no disadvantage.

But just have a discussion with your group and go with whatever the consensus is.

 

[Caliban]

In a recent session a fighter wearing a cloak of displacement which: " projects an illusion that makes you appear to be standing in a place near your actual location, causing any creature to have disadvantage on attack rolls against you".

The opponent was a construct with Blindsight. "A creature with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius."

Can a creature with Blindsight ignore the disadvantage effect of the illusion?

Yup. Displacement (and illusions in general, unless specified otherwise in the spell) is a visual effect, Blindsight lets you "see" without using normal vision.

 

[jgsugden]

I disagree with Caliban and most others, here. I think you need to evaluate the rules of the particular illusion and the particular form of sensing and se how they interact. Here, we have an illusion that is specified as very powerful - it impacts all creatures (that can perceive the illusion).

The more specific rule wins. The text says: "projects an illusion that makes you appear to be standing in a place near your actual location, causing any creature to have disadvantage on attack rolls against you".

Illusions, by their descriptions, can have more than just visual elements. As such, assuming that a creature with blindsight is not impacted by all illusions is not a safe assumption. The blindsight, whether it is based upon echolocation, sonar, or another means, can be fooled by an illusion if the illusion says that creatures with blindisght are impacted, and this magic item specifies all creatures, which would include those with blindsight, are impacted.

If a creature were specifically immune to illusions, the specific immunity to illusions would override the cloak as the cloak explicitly works via illusion, but unless they added language to blindsight in some place that specifically provides immunity to illusions, blindsight is not immune to all illusions.

I would also rule that an illusion that is specifically limited to only visual elements, such as minor illusion (visual) that is specifically limited to only a visual image with no sound, light, smell, or any other sensory effect, would be something that blindsight looks past. As long as you have normal vision in addition to blindsight, you would see right through it without the examination. Why? Blindsight specifies that you can see without relying upon sight and the only thing that is there for a minor illusion is a visual effect - meaning you can inherently see with blindsight that it is not there.

We can argue about what "appear" means in the cloak description, but appear, by dictionary definition, is not strictly a visual term by all possible interpretations. It can refer to being noticeable by any means, or to seem (based upon any criteria).

 

[Caliban]

Eh, I think you are reading way to much into "any creature".

In my opinion that would be the "general" rule and creatures with blindsight would be one of the "specific rules" that override it.

Blindsight makes you effectively immune to visual illusions, since you are not using normal sight.

Blur, mirror image, displacement - they are all visual effects. If you aren't using your eyes, you can ignore them.

And aside from all that - the cloak of displacement is crazy powerful as it is. Interpreting it so that it works on even more creatures than it already does is completely unnecessary. It really doesn't need the help.