D&D 5E Crawford on Stealth

[iserith]

Time to go back to the eye doctor, and I was just there!

Stealth edit.

 

[Lanliss]

Passive acrobatics - Can you navigate a somewhat treacherous and lengthy climb without incident?
Passive animal handling - Do you have the skill necessary to manage animals without incident?
Passive arcana - When you overhear something magical, do you recognize it?
Passive athletics - Do you have the physical capability to perform a physical task repeatedly without incident?

The only skills I have trouble seeing how to use passively: Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Sleight of Hand and Stealth. All of these seem to require an active intent to act in order to utilize.

Passive stealth is more something I would only allow for Rogues, or shadow monks. Kind of a thing where they arre so used to staying quiet that it is their default state.

Passive intimidation is easy. Barbarian walks into the room, 9 feet tall with an Orc head stuck to his shoulder spike. Are people intimidated? Passive Intimidation. It would be a bit fiddly, but I would probably even go as far as having NPC tables. "Responds like X to Passive Intimidation 5 or lower." "Responds like Y to Passive intimidation 15 or lower."

 

[robus]

Stealth edit.

I knew it! It's not nice to trick an old man with poor eyes!

 

[Lanliss]

Because, historically, the barbarians were German and Germans have accents and speak a most gutteral language.

I prefer my Barbarians to be Celts, you can't go wrong with a good Scottish Rager.

 

[Uller]

Thorgud is a barbarian clearly.

Why is it barbarian names are always the most gutteral sounds you can make? Grog, Thokk, Throgug, Korg etc.

Also they always have accents. Always.

My understanding is the etymology of the word barbarian is from the greek word for babbling...

 

[Uller]

D&D 4e stealth rules are pretty simple in my view and work well in my experience. Rules Compendium, pages 152 to 154. If you have superior concealment or total cover, make a Stealth check against passive Perception, succeed and you're silent and invisible. To remain hidden, keep out of sight, keep quiet, stay put, and don't attack. You're hidden until the action that takes you out hiding is resolved.

Yeah, I like the 4e rules and maybe they inform my application of the 5e rules. But even they leave a lot of room or the DM in non-combat situations and leave it up to the DM to decide if a target is properly distracted. In combat they probably rely a bit too much on 4e's gridded combat rules to work for 5e. I do like the "remain hidden until the action that reveals you is resolved" bit. That makes it very clear that a hidden rogue can get the benefits of being hidden while he attacks but can't move and attack (because the move revealed you unless you can move while maintaining the criteria for hiding).

 

[iserith]

Yeah, I like the 4e rules and maybe they inform my application of the 5e rules. But even they leave a lot of room or the DM in non-combat situations and leave it up to the DM to decide if a target is properly distracted. In combat they probably rely a bit too much on 4e's gridded combat rules to work for 5e. I do like the "remain hidden until the action that reveals you is resolved" bit. That makes it very clear that a hidden rogue can get the benefits of being hidden while he attacks but can't move and attack (because the move revealed you unless you can move while maintaining the criteria for hiding).

And with Deft Strike as an at-will, so you can shift two before the attack - all the same action so you gain the combat advantage when you attack, even if you no longer have superior cover or total concealment.

 

[SkidAce]

Boy you must have quite the negative modifier on your perception checks, because the DC to spot it was pretty darn low and I don't think we're in dim light here!

I'm using the classic mode of the forums, its pretty dark.

 

[Maxperson]

JC says that being invisible and being hidden are not the same thing. Invisible creatures give themselves away by making noise and interacting with the environment. Invisible creatures need to use stealth or have some other cover to be hidden. A monster or PC might be distracted or lose track of an invisible creature, but if you know someone is likely to be invisible and are trying to find it, you have a general idea where it is. He says that the game mechanics make invisibility awesome enough on their own - advantage on attacks, disadvantage on attacks against you, can't be targeted by spells that target "a creature you can see" - so invisibility does not need any additional benefits. I wish the DM who hammered away at us last weekend with the unseen, completely silent, unfindable shield guardian hadn't made us swing randomly at thin air until we got lucky and found it because he said invisibility made it impossible for us to know where it was.

Well, what that DM did and what Crawford said are in agreement. Being completely silent would fall under the bolded category. It's an extra that enabled the Shield Guardian to be hidden.

 

[Flamestrike]

I prefer my Barbarians to be Celts, you can't go wrong with a good Scottish Rager.

The game doesn't really support the Mongolian barbarian concept either.