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Does a small creature hidden under your clothes also become invisible when the Invisibility spell is cast on you?

I.e.: Our druid wildshapes into a mouse that crawls into the pocket of the jacket of my character. My character then casts the spell Invisibility at second level on myself (so one target creature becomes invisible). Will the mouse also become invisible?

The wording of the spell does seem to suggest this:

Anything the target is wearing or carrying is invisible as long as it is on the target's person

Unless 'Anything' cannot be a creature...

Ps: If this is the case, then I would also rule that if the mouse crawls into my character's pocket afterwards, it would also become invisible. At least, if you combine this with the unofficial ruling of Jeremy Crawford regarding a similar question:

Only items worn/carried when invisibility is cast are invisible, but I'd let you conceal something under them.

Jack
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qsd
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2 Answers2

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No, the Invisibility spell cast with a 2nd level slot makes invisible one creature.

The text says (emphasis mine):

A creature you touch becomes invisible until the spell ends.

[...]

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each slot level above 2nd.

For making invisible more than one creature, the caster must spend an higher slot.

Moreover, anything refers to items and objects, not living entities, see also this clarification.

If a DM rules otherwise, as per the situation depicted in the question, the provided Q&A contains the discussion about items picked up while under the Invisibility spell.

Eddymage
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    In other words, Minsc and Boo require 2 charges. – Trish Feb 28 '24 at 09:37
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    @Trish I think magic works in a mysterious way for miniaturized giant space hamster... – Eddymage Feb 28 '24 at 09:42
  • OP has two issues here - is the mouse 'anything worn or carried' that thus becomes invisible, and can you conceal something visible 'under invisible clothes'. You have addressed the first question but not the second. – Kirt Feb 28 '24 at 15:29
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    @Kirt in these cases I am puzzled to flag it as "two questions on one" or not. Anyway, the link provided by the OP already answers their question. I will remark it on my answer. – Eddymage Feb 28 '24 at 16:22
  • I shouldn't be surprised anymore, but in this case the downvote is... Surprising – Eddymage Feb 28 '24 at 19:00
  • Anyone/anybody specifically refer to human entities. If you were asking about animals in a cave, for example, you would ask "Is anything living in there?", not "Is anyone living in there?" – smbailey Mar 01 '24 at 16:10
  • @smbailey I failed to find any reference for the usage of "anything" referring to living entities in any dictionary, could it be a colloquial way? Beside, the rules clarifies between items/objects and living entities, calling the latter "creatures". – Eddymage Mar 01 '24 at 16:17
  • Yes, the rules-text does have distinctions between items/objects and creatures, but we are talking about the usage of the word "anything" which is not a rules-defined term. – smbailey Mar 01 '24 at 17:38
  • As far as dictionaries, I just searched "Online Dictionary" on Google and the first three that came up were Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, and Britannica (results probably vary based on location, I am in the US). All three have a definition of anything as some variation of "any kind of thing", and all three have definitions of thing that include entities or living things of some kind. – smbailey Mar 01 '24 at 17:42
  • @smbailey Every dictionary I consulted (Oxfrod, Cambridge... etc etc) refer to anything, something and similar words as connected to "thing", that indeed as a last entry says that can be used for referring to an animal or a person: but the Cambridge dictionary tells us that "This is used to refer to a person or animal affectionately or sympathetically." – Eddymage Mar 04 '24 at 08:45
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TL;DR: The mouse is not visible but not invisible.

Firstly, as argued by @Eddymage, the mouse itself does not gain the Invisible condition:

  1. The Invisibility spell, at 2nd level, only grants the Invisible condition to 1 target creature -- in this case, your character.
  2. Only the items a character is wearing or carrying also become Invisible, not the creatures.

This does mean that your coat turns Invisible, however, and remains so as long as you are, even if you would remove it from your person.

On the other hand, as argued in the answer linked by @Eddymage, an object is not visible while in the pocket of the Invisible coat, or otherwise inside the Invisible coat.

While this does not provide a definite ruling on whether a creature would be subject to the same rule, any interpretation which differ here would run into weird situations: should the mouse enter the pocket, it would be visible, but any hair it sheds would be concealed and should it die... it'd disappear as well! Not only does it stretch the suspension of disbelief, it seems likely to impede gameplay and to open the door to shenanigans. I would suggest treating creatures the same as objects in this case.

Or in summary:

  • The mouse itself is not Invisible.
  • The mouse while in the pocket of the coat is not visible, thus Hidden.

This matters because:

  1. The mouse could crawl into the pocket of the coat after you cast Invisibility on yourself, and still be Hidden.
  2. Should the mouse crawl out of the pocket of the coat, it becomes visible, regardless of whether your Invisibility has worn off or not.
Matthieu M.
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    The counter-argument to this is that the mouse is only hidden while inside the coat pocket because the coat blocks sight of the mouse allowing it to hide. Once the coat (and character wearing the coat) become invisible then they do not block sight of the mouse and the mouse may not be able to hide if the opponent can see them clearly (and would appear to float in mid-air). – MT0 Feb 29 '24 at 14:27
  • @MT0: Your interpretation runs against Jeremy Crawford's, so that's a bad start ;) It also opens up a lot of hedge cases, like if dust or water falls into the pocket, then it would remain visible. If smoke ends up in the pocket, it would become visible, etc... It could be interesting game play, maybe, but it looks to me like it would make things more complicated and slower, for... not much gain. So I'm quite happy to follow Jeremy Crawford's intent, there. – Matthieu M. Feb 29 '24 at 15:21
  • @ikegami: Indeed. I've added a paragraph to motivate the idea of applying the same rules for creatures. – Matthieu M. Feb 29 '24 at 16:34
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    @MatthieuM. "Your interpretation runs against Jeremy Crawford's, so that's a bad start" usually, JC's tweets and rulings proved a lot of times to be contradicting and even against the rules and SAC rulings... There's a reason why they are not official anymore! – Eddymage Feb 29 '24 at 16:52
  • @Eddymage: Sure. They're still better placed to know the intent behind the rules than anyone else, though. Hence why I'd argue it's a bad start only. – Matthieu M. Feb 29 '24 at 18:45
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    Yep, but in this case is also a bad ruling: under this interpretation, why the mouse in the pocket becomes hidden? If I am in front of the invisible caster (without seeing them), under this reasoning I wouldn't be able to see also creatures and object behind them. – Eddymage Feb 29 '24 at 18:54
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    @Eddymage: The people behind them aren't wrapped in a visibility denying effect, and are in fact being made visible by said effect. This is basically the Harry Potter school of invisibility; a thing that is invisible bestows that invisibility on things it is wrapped around, it doesn't obscure things on the other side of it (which would defeat the whole purpose of invisibility). – ShadowRanger Mar 01 '24 at 01:53
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    @Eddymage Are you trying to bring real-world physics in a talk about an Invisibility Spell? :) I am less worried about plausibility and instead prefers to focus on consequences. An Invisible Thief pickpockets someone successfully... and now the thingy they lifted is floating around? They can't hide it? Well, that's lame. Thus, they need to be able to put it in their pocket or under their cloak and have it invisible... – Matthieu M. Mar 01 '24 at 08:14
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    @Eddymage (continued) Conversely, someone manages to drop a red ball in an Invisible Guy's pocket, and now that red ball is visible to anyone... except the Guy, who is not invisible to himself! WAT? It's good for a laugh, I guess. But it's quite bizarre that it'd be concealed from the carrier while being clearly visible from everyone else no? So, I'll disagree with you. Jeremy Crawford's ruling is the sensible stance. Otherwise things get weird. – Matthieu M. Mar 01 '24 at 08:16
  • @ShadowRanger By this, two invisible creature can hug another one and make it hidden. This interpretation leads to a large number of weird situations that need ruling, case by case. – Eddymage Mar 01 '24 at 08:29
  • @MatthieuM. You just want something that works easy for players but leads to illogical consequences, as the example I provided. I am not trying to adapt physics to magic, but I want to have something that works coherently. For example, for me the situation you depicted is just fine (an invisible thief pickpocketing something that floats around): another good ruling is that anything an invisible creature picks up becomes invisible, since it is worn or carried. But the concealing thing is a mess and for me is the less plausible thing. – Eddymage Mar 01 '24 at 08:34
  • Anyway, each table plays its own version of DnD 5ed, and I love the flexibility this game system allows. If you or your DM, like to play this version of the spell there are no problem, just beware of the unpredictable consequences and ad hoc ruling case by case. – Eddymage Mar 01 '24 at 08:39
  • Note that in my original question, I was also thinking along the lines of this awnser (of
    Matthieu M). If I put something in my invisible pocket, it becomes invisible. However, I'm not a native English speaker and assumed that 'anything' includes creatures . If it does not, then I would fall back on the anwser of EddyMage. There is also a risk of abuse. We allow out drude to wildshape into a Giant Eagle that can be ridden. We then frequently make it invisible. If we put some kind of giant jacket on it, maybe even a human side can become invisible while hiding under its jacket...     – qsd Mar 03 '24 at 14:10