7

I was reading the Channel Divinity abilities of the Oath of Vengeance paladin on my character sheet on D&D Beyond. Under Vow of Enmity, it says:

As a bonus action, you can use your Channel Divinity to choose a creature within 10 ft. and gain advantage on attack rolls against it for 1 minute or until it drops to 0 HP or falls unconscious.

Here is where I'm seeing this text in D&D Beyond, on my character sheet:

Screenshot of "Bonus Actions" section of my character sheet on D&D Beyond, including the Vow of Enmity text quoted above.

Can Vow of Enmity be used on an invisible creature, since it is not written that I need to see it?

For contrast, Channel Divinity: Abjure Enemy says the following:

As an action, you can choose one creature within 60 ft. of you that you can see to make a WIS saving throw (14). Fiends and undead have disadvantage on this saving throw. On failure, the creature is frightened and its speed is reduced to 0 (and it can't benefit from bonuses to speed) for 1 minute or until it takes any damage. On success, the creature’s speed is halved for 1 minute or until the creature takes any damage.

However, it doesn't look like Vow of Enmity specifies this.

V2Blast
  • 49,864
  • 10
  • 220
  • 304
RegularNormalDayGuy
  • 927
  • 1
  • 8
  • 18

1 Answers1

20

Vow of Enmity requires you to see the target.

The actual description of the Oath of Vengeance paladin's Vow of Enmity Channel Divinity option says (PHB, p. 87; emphasis mine):

As a bonus action, you can utter a vow of enmity against a creature you can see within 10 feet of you, using your Channel Divinity. [...]

Here is a photo of this feature as it appears in my physical copy of the PHB:

Photo of the Vow of Enmity feature description from my physical PHB.

However, if you read this ability from the character sheet on D&D Beyond, the phrase “you can see” is notably absent from the description:

Screenshot of the Channel Divinity subclass feature section on a Vengeance paladin's character sheet on D&D Beyond, which includes snippets for Abjure Enemy and Vow of Enmity (but not an accurate full description).

This is a mistake in D&D Beyond's character sheet; ability descriptions shown in character sheets (snippets) don’t always match exactly the full descriptions found in the books. If you click on the feature description within the character sheet, it will bring up the full feature description in the sidebar.

As I've quoted above, the full official description of this feature includes the phrase "you can see" – so you must be able to see the target.

V2Blast
  • 49,864
  • 10
  • 220
  • 304
Thomas Markov
  • 148,772
  • 29
  • 842
  • 1,137
  • 1
    The correct text is also in the "books" on DnDBeyond, just apparently not the character sheet. https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/paladin#OathofVengeance – Adeptus Oct 22 '20 at 03:59
  • 4
    @RegularNormalDayGuy: The "snippets" on the character sheet often don't include every single bit of information from the full feature description. (Though such requirements should probably be included...) – V2Blast Oct 22 '20 at 04:59