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The bard in my group cast the light spell on an amulet he was wearing. Then after triggering a trap, he cast invisibility on himself.
What happens in this situation? The amulet is now invisible but does it stop emitting light because of this? Or is the amulet invisible but the light it emits still visible?
Has anyone got a decent ruling on what should happen in this situation?
The light spell says:
Completely covering the object with something opaque blocks the light.
The amulet may not be visible, but it is not covered. Therefore, the light will still emit in a 20'radius around the amulet/bard.
Light, however, never becomes invisible, although a source of light can become so (thus, the effect is that of a light with no visible source)
This is in the online description for 3.5e version of the spell. And I think this makes sense.
I thought it was worded along this description in the 5e PHB, but light is not mentioned there.
The light vanishes under invisibility.
Invisibility makes everything the subject is holding invisible. Invisible means you can't see it and can't tell it's there visually. Invisible things don't cause any visible effect - they don't block, reflect, or emit any light: you can see through them, they don't cast shadows, and don't shine light.
Someone commented asking for evidence. Invisibility spell description says, "Anything the target is wearing or carrying is invisible as long as it is on the target's person." Light spell description says the item "sheds bright light". The rest follows from definitions of the words invisible, what light is and how vision works. You'd hardly be invisible if we could see your shadow or light coming from you, whether it's reflected light or from some other source.
This has been answered by Jeremy Crawford, Lead rules designer of Dungeons & Dragons 5e (and the only person empowered by Wizards of the Coast to make official rulings on unclear rules).
Hans Engavil: If someone has light cast on a portion of their clothing, and then they go invisible, would the light still be visible, potentially negating the disadvantage on attack rolls?
Jeremy Crawford: The invisibility spell doesn't prevent you or your gear from emitting light, yet that light makes you no less invisible. The light appears to be coming from the air. Spooky!
Invisibility is in the eyes of the beholder (pun not intended).
If you look closely, the spell clearly says "Illusion". That means anything in regard to the person becoming invisible is affected by the spell and thus rendered invisible. That is, people looking may or may not believe the illusion, but anything carried by the person is affected by the spell and thus the light is also invisible.
So... the invisible person, what the person carries, and whatever it emits are all there, only people looking at it do not see it unless they can Detect Magic, have True Sight, or are immune to illusions (quite a few monsters are.)
To my point of view, this ruling makes it easier to deal with such a problem and that's how I've played for years without asking myself the question. However, what would be most unfortunate is if the bard was carrying the only light and now his friends are in the dark...
The spells for Invisibility and Light are right next to each in the PHB (254, 255) and they have nothing to say about each other :)
The only really useful line here comes from the Light spell:
Completely covering the object with something opaque blocks the light.
It's also useful to know that the Light spell does not appear to be much more powerful than a simple torch. It has the same range and any casting of Darkness (2nd level) will simply wipe it out.
What happens when I'm invisible and something I'm wearing has Light cast on it?
I don't think the answer is really specific to the Light spell. I mean, what if you have a glowing magic weapon or a you're holding a torch? These all seem like the same question.
As to what ultimately happens? That will likely be the DM's call.
If I were the DM, I would let the target of Invisibility pick one or the other at the time of casting assuming that they also "owned" the light source. Otherwise you have this weird hole where a PC can't become invisible because they are wearing armor that casts its own light.
This really is (or can be) a case where it is up to the GM to make a ruling, and then live with the consequences. Several different effects can be achieved by assuming different features of the invisibility effect.
For demonstration consider particular case: the bard carrying the light emitting item gets turned invisible; the "victim" is in the same room with them. There are no other sources of light in that room, so the room would be dark but for the invisible light source.
I can see cases where it would be cool/sensible to say: the light remains visible, and thus there would be disembodied lights running around (I'm thinking of a setting where there are fairies or other fanciful magic). I also agree with Rouby that referring to earlier versions of the rules is a reasonable basis for making this call in 5e. In the test case, the victim would be able to easily locate the bard, even if he/she couldn't make out his body. The analogy I have in mind is being in a dark room with someone holding a flashlight -- you can see the light, even if you can't see that person's body.
Maybe there are light sources that would only provide a more general sense of where the bard is, but I can't think of anything that wouldn't allow the victim to precisely locate the bard. Combat bonuses would apply if an engagement occurred, but the bard wouldn't be able to just hide, unless he/she extinguished the light source.
If you interpret the invisiblity effect as one of transmutation or as a physical illusion — i.e. you've changed the characteristics of the stuff or manipulated light itself, then I'd agree with Dronz's answer: the light goes away. In the test case, both the invisible person and the victim would be thrown into complete darkness, and (obviously) not be able to locate each other at all via sight.
If you interpret the invisibility as a mind-control illusion, i.e phantasm, then I think that you could have the situation where: the light does not go away, so the victim (and the bard) could still see around the room, but have no idea where the light is coming from, and not be able to locate the invisible bard at all by sight. This would provide the victim with the means to know that something is afoot, but the mind control would prevent him/her from having any way of visually locating the source of the light. This interpretation could also apply if you though the underlying effect was an enchantment of the victim.
So, there are ways to rationalize several different effects depending on how magic is assumed to work in the setting. Picking one, and then sticking to it, seems useful in terms of game play, but in a setting where you wanted to emphasize that different schools (or flavors) of magic are really different, you could have different casters have different effects in these regards.
If the invisible character was scattering pebbles around her/him, the pebbles would become visible as soon as they left the character's hand, other creatures would see the pebbles bouncing off walls, &c. However, they wouldn't be able to see the source of the pebbles. So to with the light that is being "scattered" out of an invisible object.
The actual source of the light, the amulet, would be invisible but the amulet would still light up the room. It's just that creatures wouldn't be able to detect the source of the light.
Here's a way to look at it. The invisibility spell doesn't actually make it so light passes through your body. If it did, you wouldn't be able to see. Rather the spell creates a mental block in the minds of other creatures such that they can't see that you are there, nor can they see anything that would make it obvious that you were there (like your clothes or floating bags &c.)
