D&D 5E "when circumstances are appropriate for hiding"

The hiding sidebar from PBR, p. 60, begins, "The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding." What does this mean to you?

Many will reply that it means it's the DM's job to determine if you can hide under a given set of circumstances, making hiding a matter of "DM, may I?"

I read it slightly differently. The way I read it, it means it's the DM's job to determine whether or not, and where, to place said appropriate circumstances in an encounter area or an area of exploration, just as it's the DM's job to determine the existence and placement of monsters, traps, treasures, and other elements of the game's fictional world.

But what are the appropriate circumstances for hiding? I think the rule-book tells us pretty clearly what they are.

Here's my list of appropriate circumstances under which you can try to hide:

• You are in an area that is heavily obscured by such things as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage.
• You are completely concealed by an object that blocks vision entirely.
• You are obscured by a creature that is at least two sizes larger than you.
• You are invisible.

I would add to the top two above circumstances the requirement that the area or object must be of sufficient size to create uncertainty as to your precise location, or you must not be observed entering the area or getting behind the object by the creature from which you are hiding, whereas invisibility creates its own uncertainty as long as the invisible creature is free to move.

For some characters, there are additional circumstances under which they can try to hide, i.e.:

• You are a wood elf and in an area that is lightly obscured by natural phenomena such as moderate foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist/patchy fog, twilight, dawn, or a particularly brilliant full moon.
• You are a lightfoot halfling and obscured by a creature that is at least one size larger than you.
• You are a ranger, 10th level or above, camouflaged as per the Hide in Plain Sight feature, and pressed against a solid surface at least as tall and wide as you are.
• You are a character with the Skulker feat and in an area that is lightly obscured from the point of view of the creature from which you are hiding.

Because these characters can hide under conditions which would otherwise allow them to be seen, I would stipulate the additional requirement that they are not being directly observed by the creature from which they are trying to hide while becoming so hidden.

Of course the DM is also free to determine what colorful details attend such circumstances. For example, while many seem to consider darkness absolute, because it blocks vision entirely, clearly there are many moonlit nights that are not so dark but which would still be considered to impose the condition of darkness.

Hiding is also possible while travelling at a slow pace under any of the above circumstances that apply, which for most characters would be travelling through heavily obscured areas such as a dense forest, thick fog, or under cover of darkness.

What circumstances do you consider appropriate for hiding?

Hidden is a pretty loaded term in D&D.

It should be a condition, but it isn't.

It usually means that you can't be sensed visually or audially. There's no guarantee that you're protected from blindsense/tremorsense/scent, but the concept of hidden doesn't make exceptions for them either.

In my game, "hiding" is the process of making your location unknown to others.
You cannnot hide from an creature that is observing you directly.
You cannot hide instantly. It takes some kind of action.

Unless your opponents are completely stupid, you cannot quickly hide in a location which gives you no exit options.

A character is in a exitless room with a halfling and a Medium-size rock. The halfling puts the rock between itself and the character and tries to hide. In my game, the halfling will fail, EVEN if the character is out of direct line of sight, because the character can see where the halfling went, and it has no exit. The halfling can still be targeted with a readied or location- (as opposed to a person-) based attack.

It takes a full round for the character to drop their focus by either losing attention or beginning to doubt that the halfling is still there. Once that doubt kicks in, the halfling is officially hidden.

I hate that I had to do that, but the absurdity of flitting about in combat situations and hiding behind Medium size characters between snipe shots with full sneak attack damage EVERY round against engaged enemies became unsustainable very quickly.

The rogue still out damages every other character in the game I play in. I love rogues, but it was just getting dumb.

No intent to derail. The bold copy is the only real addition to hiding guidance I add in my game.

The big one to me is "what direction are the opponents are facing?" and the related "what are the opponents looking at?"

It's easy to forget that in 3e and 4e, hiding was very much more limited. You had to remain under cover and concealment, and were automatically detected if you ended your turn in cover.
So you had situations where you were hidden and undetected when you ran out in front of guards but dashed between pillars. But you couldn't slowly sneak up behind someone.

Because there's some rules flexibility, you have situations where you can quietly stealth up behind the guard and knock them out. Or shadow someone for a distance, ducking to the side whenever they start to turn around.

I agree with most of what you said.

I also agree with



Something I do in my campaign is allow stealth in combat if someone is sufficiently occupied. So if the half-orc barbarian is trying to smash in some poor guard's face with a maul, the guard may not notice the thief sneaking up behind him until it's too late.

However, hiding also has to be reasonable. If that thief tries the same trick on the same guard the next round, the guard is watching for him.

In addition, if the enemy sees you walk behind a lone tree they know approximately where you are and it doesn't matter what your stealth check is.

Distance and other environmental factors can also be an overlooked feature. In general the farther away you are the harder you are to see. Sound can also make a difference - you're less likely to notice someone if relying on sight alone.

Perceiving invisible creatures can be one of the tougher to adjudicate. Someone flying invisibly over a market square is going to be darn near undetectable while someone walking through freshly fallen snow may be easily noticed.

Many times I give free stealth checks with advantage/disadvantage if I think it's appropriate and may even in some cases apply disadvantage to the observer's passive perception. Not strictly by the book, but it makes for more fund and more tense moments.

Recently in a game the PCs were trying to pass by some giant guards while flying and invisible. It should be noted that the giants had fairly high passive perceptions. The party had came through a portal, so the giants had noticed some odd ripples in the portal, but didn't know exactly what had happened. I then had the party make stealth checks with advantage. They were actively trying to be stealthy, so the giants were at disadvantage.

The wizard rolled poorly so the giants were now fully alert. A second stealth roll with advantage by the wizard? Double ones. I ruled that the poor wizard was so worried about being seen he accidentally ran into and knocked over a brazier and was temporarily covered in soot. Time for initiative.

The point here is that I decided that since the guards were competent, there was a chance (a very small one I thought) to notice the group coming through the portal so I did a mini skill challenge.

Was it the right call by the book? Heck if I know. But it was fun for the group, so it was all good.

I'm pretty lenient about stealth, because I think it's more fun to allow it. Just like fireballs and dragons and magic swords are more fun, even if they're not entirely realistic. I view Stealth proficiency as somewhat akin to "magic", in the Penn & Teller sense: it's not always literally making oneself unseeable, but also a matter of timing, trickery, and psychology. If it's plausible that the subject might be fooled, then go ahead and roll. So if the subject sees you go behind the tree, and has nothing else to do but stare at the tree and wait for you to move, then...sure...he knows you're there. But if he's also trying to defend himself, or even if somebody just walks up and asks for directions to the nearest apothecary, then the master rogue is going to have a chance to slip away, or even to sneak up into the subject's blind spot.

When I read some folks' more rigid descriptions of when stealth is allowed I wonder, "Why even roll? FFS, even I could successfully hide under those conditions."

The special hiding rules are the biggest problems. Abilities like the halfings or wood elfs.

If we are just talking about a normal human rogue then you can attempt to hide from anything that is unaware of your presence or that the DM feels may be unaware of your presence. That ruling works fine in combat and out of combat alike. Where the waters get muddier is what establishes whether an enemy is aware of your presence or may be unaware of your presence. That is largely story and DM driven for out of combat. I would even argue that it should be story and DM driven event for in combat hiding. As many have mentioned, an enemy that is engaged with an ally could be ruled to be distracted without causing every enemy that is engaged with any ally ever to be distracted. It could just be those with their backs to you (which the DM determines or determines with the dice).

For the typical case, it's just a long-winded way of stating the obvious: you can sneak past someone if they aren't looking in your direction, but you can't sneak past them if they are. The basic game rules don't assume a grid to facilitate visualization, and even the optional grid rules don't necessarily include facing, so whether or not you can sneak past someone generally comes down to whether the DM knows that they're looking in your direction or not. Even then, you might be able to cause a distraction or hide behind a passing cow.

The DM is assumed to be reasonable, so they're given infinite latitude to adjudicate based on circumstances. If your DM is not reasonable, then the game is doomed in any case.

mervinci said:

Unless your opponents are completely stupid, you cannot quickly hide in a location which gives you no exit options.

A character is in a exitless room with a halfling and a Medium-size rock. The halfling puts the rock between itself and the character and tries to hide. In my game, the halfling will fail, EVEN if the character is out of direct line of sight, because the character can see where the halfling went, and it has no exit. The halfling can still be targeted with a readied or location- (as opposed to a person-) based attack.

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You don't actually have to "houserule" for this. Hidden means they don't know exactly where you are; it doesn't mean they forget you exist. In this example, the character knows the halfling went behind the rock. They don't know where exactly behind the rock the halfling is, or even if he's still there (there might be a trapdoor, he teleported, whatever), but they could move around the rock to see. Once the halfling is within line-of-sight, he is no longer hidden from the character.

Shiroiken said:

You don't actually have to "houserule" for this. Hidden means they don't know exactly where you are; it doesn't mean they forget you exist. In this example, the character knows the halfling went behind the rock. They don't know where exactly behind the rock the halfling is, or even if he's still there (there might be a trapdoor, he teleported, whatever), but they could move around the rock to see. Once the halfling is within line-of-sight, he is no longer hidden from the character.

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I would disagree. That creature is aware of your presence and knows precisely where you are. You are behind some object out of their vision. That the creature couldn't give GPS coordinates is irrelevant. If it knows you are there then you aren't really hiding from it IMO.

FrogReaver said:

I would disagree. That creature is aware of your presence and knows precisely where you are. You are behind some object out of their vision. That the creature couldn't give GPS coordinates is irrelevant. If it knows you are there then you aren't really hiding from it IMO.

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Okay, so, what if there was a trap door behind the rock, providing an exit? Would the Halfling get a check then, because there's an exit?