D&D 5E Can Objects Be Hidden?

[Ilbranteloth]

This.

Even in the case of the pillowcase, I'd probably go for a roll to see just how well it worked. My 4 year old nephew might stuff it in there on top of the pillow with a nice, gem-shaped outline showing. I know enough to stuff it under the actual pillow. An accomplished Rogue might know a trick or two I don't -- including something like it being just as easy but more effective to jam it between the mattress and box spring.

So, other than the example of the 4-year old putting it in a place where it is not, well, hidden, can you explain the differences among a DC15, DC20 and DC25 hiding place in the pillowcase? Because to me, if it's hidden under the pillow in the pillowcase, a trivial search by feeling the pillow, picking it up, and such will find it. Whether it was hidden by a 20th level rogue, or a 4 year old that understands the difference between "hidden" and not.

Or to put it a different way, the DC of the pillowcase can't really be more than 10 or 15.

That's what I'm getting at.

I heard something on a podcast, the other day, that I think applies here (paraphrasing): "Most disconnects people have with skill systems is because they're trying to narrate the outcome before they roll the dice."

In this context, that means that the player should say "I hide the gem in the bedroom," roll the dice, then (maybe) declare exactly where in the bedroom they hid it. The player might be awesome at hiding things. If the character sucks, though, it doesn't matter how good the player's idea was. The character may not have thought of that location. They may have thought of it and executed it poorly. They may have thought of it but decided (wrongly) decided that something else was a good idea.

So, four PCs say, "I hide the gem in the bed."
- The Rogue with deft hands and a light touch rolls a 25, total. He runs his hand along the edge of the mattress and finds a seam loose enough to fit the gem through and tuck it into the bedding.
- The Sorcerer with a criminal background, but whose hands aren't quite as deft, rolls a 15, shoving the gem into the pocket created by tucking in the sheet at the foot of the bed and hidden by the comforter. Should be good until someone rubs against the bed or the maid comes.
- The agile, but honorable Monk rolls a 10, and slips the gem into the pillowcase. It's hidden from casual inspection, but any real search is going to find it quickly.
- The War Cleric is smart enough to know the Rogue has a good idea, but rolls a 2. His gauntlet gets stuck in the bedding and he's just pulling it out as the enemy shows up (or, leaves an obvious disturbance for the later search).

And what I had said before, is that the hiding place determines the DC to find it. So the pillowcase is a DC 10, no matter who hides it there.

I get what you're going for, which is that the die roll determines how successfully you hide it, but I would only really consider that if you were trying to hurriedly hide something before the guard got to the room. Then I might consider it a sleight of hand consideration (as you seem to imply here), but why would deft hands be required to find a good hiding place. Particularly if you had time to do so? Wouldn't intelligence, and taking a longer period of time to search for a better hiding place be more important?

If anything I'd probably say it would be an opposed Intelligence check - I can think of a place to hide it that you won't think to look. Or perhaps a Deception check with Intelligence as the modifier?

If you have all of the time in the world to hide it, I would suggest a maximum score (20 + your modifier) to identify a location, although the maximum DC is set by the best hiding place in the room. In other words, if it's an empty room other than a file cabinet, then you have only a few potential hiding places.

However, one thing to consider is that if the PCs are hiding something from an NPC, it probably makes sense to use something as a base rather than just the DM. Having said that, I'd probably go with 20 + Intelligence modifier + proficiency if you have the Deception skill. If the players can describe a particular hiding spot that I would have a basic DC for it, or other skills that apply, I'd be fine with that too.

Is it mandatory that you roll to hide something? Not at all. I remember the fun in AD&D of searching for traps by describing what the characters are doing, rather than just rolling. That's challenging the players and getting them involved. It's a totally valid style of play. Even today, I really hate the "I search the room" style of play where the fact that the vase is covered in contact poison doesn't matter (3E RAW). I'd prefer to have enough information about the scenario that it matters whether the players are paranoid about touching things, potentially exposing themselves to glyphs, etc.

But.... I also like it when a naive player is able to play a cunning/deft character. Conversely, I don't what the clever player with a Barbarian be able to offset dumped skills with his own abilities. Skills represent what the character is capable of. Some are just better at hiding stuff than others.

Also, live by the sword, die by the sword. If you want to fiat the DC for searching, go for it. As a player, though, don't complain when your sadistic DM uses his own creativity to set a crazy high DC for finding the gem the troll you were chasing hid. If your first reaction is "Trolls are stupid, so it shouldn't be able to hide stuff well," I don't disagree. Some PCs are stupid, too.

Even if you do decide to use a skill check, it's not always narratively interesting. You don't have to roll for everything. If it would be boring/uninteresting/whatever to play out the results of the goblin finding (or missing) the hidden gem, don't do it. Just decide, as a GM. That's why we play a game with a GM.

I'm definitely in the describe what you're doing camp, at least well before you make a die roll. I'll modify the roll based on what the players tell me, assuming I don't decide they just find it. While that doesn't always represent the differentiation between the character's skill and the player's skill, for things like this I think it's a good compromise,

 

[Gradine]

Once again, they didn't even have rules for this 3.5, which had rules for everything.

The generic rules you're looking for to cover this situation are, by the way, located not in the example of play section, but in the section on Ability Checks. If there's a chance for the PC to fail to hide the object, you have them make an Ability Check (which Ability and which relevant Skill, if any*? Depends on the context; there's no hard and fast rule for it). If there's a chance for an NPC looking for the object to fail to find it, you have them make an Ability Check too (generally, unless the hiding spot used is smuggler-level professionally-built and/or the searcher is particularly un-clever, I'd use this roll instead to determine how long it takes them to find it, and even then only if that's something that matters in the context of the situation).

*I know a lot of players (and some DMs) might grumble at the thought, but it's entirely possible to call for an Ability Check that has no relevant skill or other proficiency, and thus no way to add the proficiency bonus. Shocking, I know! You can also, as a DM, still let the character add their proficiency bonus anyway, if it seems appropriate (there's no skill for Puzzles, but if the PC is an avid puzzler, you might decide to give them proficiency on their Intelligence check anyway). Or you can use advantage for that purpose. Or not. It's really up to the DM. Who is you!

It is trivial enough to do this without any rolling at all, seeing as it is monumentally difficult to fail to hide something, and unless time or motivation is an issue it is also monumentally difficult to fail to find that thing (especially since the conversation seems to center around "pillowcases" and not "a hidden panel whose mechanism only opens when a specific tone is played").

But seriously, 3.5 didn't feel the need to codify this sort of thing with a specific rule set; it seems a little absurd to expect that level of crunchiness out of 5e.

 

[Mercule]

So, other than the example of the 4-year old putting it in a place where it is not, well, hidden, can you explain the differences among a DC15, DC20 and DC25 hiding place in the pillowcase? Because to me, if it's hidden under the pillow in the pillowcase, a trivial search by feeling the pillow, picking it up, and such will find it. Whether it was hidden by a 20th level rogue, or a 4 year old that understands the difference between "hidden" and not.

Or to put it a different way, the DC of the pillowcase can't really be more than 10 or 15.

Agreed. I can't think of any way a pillow case gives more than a DC 15 for search. It's probably a 10, actually. The only thing I need to know, as GM, is whether the PCs are actually touching the bed and exposing themselves to any (theoretic) traps as well as giving an opportunity to find things not in any way visible (hidden vs. concealed, if you will).

And what I had said before, is that the hiding place determines the DC to find it. So the pillowcase is a DC 10, no matter who hides it there.

Agree, insofar as there's no impact from dexterity on things like ruffling the pillows, leaving something somewhat out of place, etc.

I get what you're going for, which is that the die roll determines how successfully you hide it, but I would only really consider that if you were trying to hurriedly hide something before the guard got to the room. Then I might consider it a sleight of hand consideration (as you seem to imply here), but why would deft hands be required to find a good hiding place. Particularly if you had time to do so? Wouldn't intelligence, and taking a longer period of time to search for a better hiding place be more important?

Almost certainly. I cut a long block of text about potentially using deceive or some other skill. I thought I'd left in enough to indicate "stealth or whatever skill is appropriate", but I must not have. Also, I tend to be open to suggestions from the players. Just because I default to Stealth for any attempt to hide doesn't mean that a PC couldn't reasonably use Deception, Sleight of Hand, or Survival (if in the woods).

In truth, for a non-hurried attempt at hiding, I probably wouldn't worry about the roll. I'd just assume the most capable PC did it. If the players had a good idea, cool. Otherwise, I'd make a suggestion. Why? Because, IMO, it falls under that whole "not narratively interesting" bit. You've got all the time in the world, and it's probably under the "core competency" list for at least one of the PCs, if they're bothering to try it.

Then there's the middle ground. They aren't in their base of operations and don't have unlimited time, but do have significant time available. An example would be staying in an inn on an adventure (which never happens, right?). I'd want some sort of check, but it'd probably be Intelligence/Wisdom based -- unless it was in a common room, which I've been known to employ for small villages.

(I snipped a bunch of stuff that was pretty similar to what I just posted. I think we're pretty close, just communicating it differently.)

However, one thing to consider is that if the PCs are hiding something from an NPC, it probably makes sense to use something as a base rather than just the DM. Having said that, I'd probably go with 20 + Intelligence modifier + proficiency if you have the Deception skill. If the players can describe a particular hiding spot that I would have a basic DC for it, or other skills that apply, I'd be fine with that too.

Using the DM-as-baseline isn't a crime against humanity. The GM's role is that of referee. It's often still appropriate to call for a roll of some sort because the character build should matter. But, that falls back to "the GM's job is to decide when/how to apply the rules to best effect."

I'm definitely in the describe what you're doing camp, at least well before you make a die roll. I'll modify the roll based on what the players tell me, assuming I don't decide they just find it. While that doesn't always represent the differentiation between the character's skill and the player's skill, for things like this I think it's a good compromise,

I waffle. My gut reaction is definitely that I enjoyed AD&D model of thinking through the various puzzles around traps, searching, etc. and I miss it in later editions.

But.... I've had a couple of players who desperately want to play a face character, mastermind, or something similar, but are hopelessly naive or have bad foot-in-mouth disease. In a game of pretending to be someone you aren't, it seems weird that the nervous weakling can readily play the half-orc barbarian, but the timid milquetoast isn't afforded the same leeway to play the flashy bard. Maybe this is where the game mechanics break down because it's interesting to hear the weakling narrate well his character's crushing strength, but kinda boring and painful to watch the milquetoast stare at his dice will "seducing" the barmaid.

Also, as someone who did debate and competitive speech in school, I can totally steamroll most GMs, if they don't look at that 8 charisma on my sheet. That's totally not fair to the guy who actually paid points for a high charisma, chose the Bard class, and focused on the social skills. So, as a GM, there's a real balance around what's "fun" for the group, which includes setting a baseline so that the rules don't suddenly change if the naive player wants to take a turn as the con man.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I waffle. My gut reaction is definitely that I enjoyed AD&D model of thinking through the various puzzles around traps, searching, etc. and I miss it in later editions.

But.... I've had a couple of players who desperately want to play a face character, mastermind, or something similar, but are hopelessly naive or have bad foot-in-mouth disease. In a game of pretending to be someone you aren't, it seems weird that the nervous weakling can readily play the half-orc barbarian, but the timid milquetoast isn't afforded the same leeway to play the flashy bard. Maybe this is where the game mechanics break down because it's interesting to hear the weakling narrate well his character's crushing strength, but kinda boring and painful to watch the milquetoast stare at his dice will "seducing" the barmaid.

Also, as someone who did debate and competitive speech in school, I can totally steamroll most GMs, if they don't look at that 8 charisma on my sheet. That's totally not fair to the guy who actually paid points for a high charisma, chose the Bard class, and focused on the social skills. So, as a GM, there's a real balance around what's "fun" for the group, which includes setting a baseline so that the rules don't suddenly change if the naive player wants to take a turn as the con man.

So there's a few frequent misconceptions with regards to what I would call player engagement vs rules engagement.

A player being able to win a debate doesn't go very far at my table for several reasons. First, I'm pretty good at it myself. More importantly, though, is I'm a lousy acting-style role-player. In particular, I can't do dialogue on the spot. So there won't be a debate between the character and the NPC at my table because I just can't do it.

Role-playing does not equal acting, and even being able to narrate vs describe (even in broad terms) what you're attempting is quite different.

As a player, your abilities and skills give you a framework for role-playing. So you have a player that's a born leader, but his character isn't. No problem, the player can still describe at length what they want to do, but the effectiveness is less than if they had a high charisma. Ideally, they will take those abilities into consideration when doing so, but I can also simply apply modifiers to the checks. It's not all that uncommon for a person to have a disconnect between how cool they think they are, and how cool they really are. There's no reason a character can't suffer from the same malady.

A character who has no natural ability to debate, coerce, or whatever, can still describe what they want to do. Even if it's described in movie terms - "I want to do it like this scene from that movie," etc. All the need to do is get the idea across to me as to what they are attempting to do.

In either case, I'll weigh their stated actions and their character's abilities and skills against those of the NPC, along with the NPC's personality, reaction to the PCs in general, mood, etc.

I would encourage player to play "against type." That's part of the fun of role-playing. It's not important for the player of the flashy bard to be flashy, just that he ensures that his character is the one out front, making the conversation, etc. He doesn't have to act the part, he doesn't have to speak in the dialect of the character, but he will need to tell me what he's doing and frequently how he's doing it.

The majority of the time, this will be measured (in my campaign) against their passive ability scores. If there's really a question whether the plan will work, then I'll ask for an ability check, modified as appropriate for the circumstances. I look at passive and potential ability scores in the situation (passive is 8 + modifiers in my campaign, potential is 20 + modifiers). Those two scores provide everything I need to know to make a ruling, and only when the ruling is really in question do I need to worry about an ability check.

 

[Mercule]

As a player, your abilities and skills give you a framework for role-playing. So you have a player that's a born leader, but his character isn't. No problem, the player can still describe at length what they want to do, but the effectiveness is less than if they had a high charisma. Ideally, they will take those abilities into consideration when doing so, but I can also simply apply modifiers to the checks. It's not all that uncommon for a person to have a disconnect between how cool they think they are, and how cool they really are. There's no reason a character can't suffer from the same malady.

A character who has no natural ability to debate, coerce, or whatever, can still describe what they want to do. Even if it's described in movie terms - "I want to do it like this scene from that movie," etc. All the need to do is get the idea across to me as to what they are attempting to do.

In either case, I'll weigh their stated actions and their character's abilities and skills against those of the NPC, along with the NPC's personality, reaction to the PCs in general, mood, etc.

I agree with all this. It comes down to the stats on the paper to determine success/failure (mostly). If someone really wows me, I'll probably give them advantage on the roll or some minor bonus. That's more around the player engagement, though. I'm much more inclined to hand out bonuses for a player who is trying, within their ability, vs. someone who throws out a more workable idea, but seems to be a bit bored by it all.

Anyway, bringing this back to the original question.... It's easy to see how the alpha player could dominate social scenarios unfairly. But, not every character is equally adept at doing other tasks -- like hiding something. This is an important consideration when deciding whether to roll the dice or not. Does it give an unfair advantage/disadvantage between players if you skip the roll?

Personally, I don't care if your table rolls for social tasks or not. Either way is a perfectly valid style. If everyone is pretty good about either toning down their own abilities to match their sheet or (within polite bounds) helping others to come up with appropriate narratives when playing "above their pay grade", that's great. Everyone is having fun. It's a game. Knock yourself out. The same applies if no one bothers to "spend points" on social skills, knowing that Jim or Sally will be the party face/leader, regardless of stats. As long as everyone is having fun, it's golden.

The same logic applies to hiding stuff. If everyone is cool with narrating it, great. I don't buy that stuffing a gem in a pillow case actually qualifies as successfully hiding it, but if no one bats an eye, groovy. It might even be a DC 20. (My friends and I don't prank each other very often, anymore, but we're downright mean when we do. There were a couple of running competitions to see how long folks could hide a known item in someone else's house without them finding it -- the results ran in weeks. I might be biased in what I think of as a good hiding spot.)

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

And what I had said before, is that the hiding place determines the DC to find it. So the pillowcase is a DC 10, no matter who hides it there.

I would say the pillowcase is a red herring.

The player says, "My character hides the gem, I rolled a 15." The DC to find that object is now 15. Whether it is hidden in the pillowcase or the bed springs or the bedside table isn't really relevant.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I would say the pillowcase is a red herring.

The player says, "My character hides the gem, I rolled a 15." The DC to find that object is now 15. Whether it is hidden in the pillowcase or the bed springs or the bedside table isn't really relevant.

Overall, I think they are both reasonable options, depending on how you want to run the game really.

If you want the players to tell you where they are hiding something, then the DC is based on the hiding place. Under the pillow, is one. Under the mattress another, etc. Whatever is appropriate for the room.

If you want to use an ability check to determine how good of a hiding place the character can think of, then make a check. The problem I have with making a check, though, is that you can roll anything, like a 1. I don't like the skill system working like that (and it's not how it works in my campaign).

So if I were to make it a skill check, it would really be dependent upon there being enough time to hide it well. If that's the case, it would use 20 + their Wisdom or Intelligence modifier, with proficiency if they had proficiency in Deception or some other relevant circumstance (essentially taking 20).

But the final DC wouldn't be higher than the potential hiding places in the room, regardless of the roll. My personal preference is to stay within the narrative and let the PC decide a hiding place and go from there. This is not the sort of circumstance I'd be wanting to roll a die.

 

[Seramus]

"Whenever you attempt an act of legerdemain or manual trickery, such as planting something on someone else or concealing an object on your person, make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check."

There are no rules for simply hiding an object. Using sleight of hand to hide an object in a bed is a house rule.

The example also includes hiding an object on someone else. It's extremely clear these examples are not meant to be limited to only people, otherwise you get weirdness like never being able to practice your sleight of hand without someone else around.

 

[Maxperson]

The example also includes hiding an object on someone else. It's extremely clear these examples are not meant to be limited to only people, otherwise you get weirdness like never being able to practice your sleight of hand without someone else around.

There is no example of hiding an object on someone else, only sticking something in a pocket. That's not hiding it. Now, making a small pocket that's hard to find inside a normal pocket and sticking something inside of it would be hiding it in a pocket. Being out of sight =/= hidden.

You could practice some aspects of it without someone else around, but not sticking an object in a pocket without the person being aware. That would require another person to practice on.

In any case, the sleight of hand cannot be use to hide an object in a bed without a house rule. That's not what sleight of hand means, nor is it in the sleight of hand rules.

 

[Seramus]

There is no example of hiding an object on someone else, only sticking something in a pocket. That's not hiding it.

It specifically says planting an object on someone else. You need to hide the object when you're planting it, otherwise the other person would immediately notice the new object and your hand in their pocket. And once again, the example is obviously not intended to be limited to just people.