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Suppose a PC is looking at an area of darkness that a foe has Hidden in. The PC would prefer not to guess the square the enemy is in and potentially waste their attack, so they decide to use their movement to physically traverse the area and see if they 'bump into' the enemy - if they succeed they could then attack the correct square.

This all seems to be possible within the rules - but are there any consequences to blindly bumbling into such an enemy (such as allowing the enemy a reaction attack)? Does the answer change if the enemy can see in the dark?

V2Blast
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Vigil
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1 Answers1

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The consequence is that your new position may be unfavorable

As far as I know, there are no direct consequences for walking right into a hidden enemy in this way, even if that enemy can see you. That is, the enemy doesn't get an automatic opportunity attack or something like that. The main consequence of walking into an enemy is that you are now in that enemy's melee range. This, of course, has all the usual consequences of getting into melee, such as giving you disadvantage on ranged attacks and putting you in danger of provoking an opportunity attack if you move back out of melee.

Obviously, if your original plan was to make a ranged attack against your enemy, then you probably don't want to put yourself in melee with them just to uncover their location, so using this strategy would be a bad idea. If you're wielding a melee weapon and you're just trying to make sure you don't swing at empty air, using your movement to discover an enemy's exact location seems like a reasonable plan.

If the enemy can see, you risk an opportunity attack

While running directly into an enemy doesn't provoke an opportunity attack, running past them without running into them does, as long as the enemy can see you:

You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach.

The problem is, the whole reason you're doing this maneuver is because you don't know exactly where your enemy is. So you don't know if you're going to run into them or past them. This means that if your enemy can see, you are indeed risking an opportunity attack by blundering about in the dark searching for them. Looking on the bright side, you'll definitely know where the enemy is after they take a swipe at you (at advantage, since you can't see them).

This isn't guaranteed to find an intelligent enemy who wants to stay hidden

It's also worth noting that if the enemy has already taken the Hide action and their goal is simply to remain hidden rather than attack you, they can do so by readying a move to walk out of your way as you walk past them. If they do this, then you could move through every space where they could possibly be hiding and still fail to run into them.

Ryan C. Thompson
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    I agree with this answer, and further think that it would work the same for trying to locate an invisible foe in an area in which you could see. – Kirt Jun 25 '21 at 23:17
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    @Kirt Yes, I intentionally worded my answer to cover any reason for being unable to see an enemy. – Ryan C. Thompson Jun 26 '21 at 00:53
  • There's a case to be made that a creature simply trying to stay hidden might not obstruct you at all, being non-hostile and not actively controlling its space – Pingcode Jun 26 '21 at 06:57
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    @Pingcode I would generally say that if you want to let another creature pass through your space without even noticing the space is occupied, you'd need to take some kind of action to make that happen, not simply doing nothing. Edit: In fact this is RAW, because occupied spaces are difficult terrain, even those occupied by allies. – Ryan C. Thompson Jun 26 '21 at 11:26
  • Good answer - I hadn't considered your second point and that does seem like a bad disadvantage that is within the rules already. – Vigil Jun 27 '21 at 09:45
  • This is a good answer. I think it could be improved by also commenting more explicitly on whether granting an opportunity attack would be imbalanced. A DM could always rule like that, and the questions also seems to ask (implicitly) if this would be a good idea. – Mars Plastic Jun 28 '21 at 13:06