D&D 5E Crawford on Stealth

[Maxperson]

In one case it's a roll versus a score (attack roll versus AC) and in the other case it is also a roll versus a score (Stealth roll versus passive perception). There is no difference!

So when I go to a DM and tell him that I want to take my +10 to hit and automatically hit all ACs of 20 or lower with my passive aggressive, what do you think the answer will be?

You might as well complain about the 'perfection' of the guy's AC (he has 'perfect' defence of 20 and any attack roll less than that misses 1 million times out of a million!) or the 'perfection' of the DC to save against a particular caster's spells (he has a 'perfect' DC of 20 and any save less than 20 fails 1 million times out of a million!).

It's not the exact same situation. AC and a specific spell are both very tightly focused in both scope and area. Perception is not.

 

[Uller]

So when I go to a DM and tell him that I want to take my +10 to hit and automatically hit all ACs of 20 or lower with my passive aggressive, what do you think the answer will be?

I didn't take away from Jeremy's comments that passive perception is intended for use against static DCs. Maybe that's what he meant. For my part, there is always a roll. Hiding character rolls vs passive perception. Searching character rolls vs trap dc (which is 10 plus modifiers for trap setter).

 

[iserith]

I do wonder, how is Stealth even worth investing in, done the other way?

About as worth it as Perception.

I mean, I guess situations where you're just trying to get somewhere unseen, but it seems to me that a big part of stealth has always been the ambush, and that ruling, if I'm reading it right, makes the ambush nearly impossible? Once you declare an attack, you aren't hidden, and thus get no benefit from being hidden on the attack, right? Can you surprise someone? If so, how? AM I wildly misunderstanding you?

Surprise doesn't require being hidden, just that one side or the other (or both) is trying to be stealthy.

So, effectively, surprise remained as useful and possible as ever. My previous ruling simply made it harder to hide then attack in combat without particular circumstances being in play. It probably made melee rogues a little more attractive since under Crawford's ruling ranged rogue is the way to go in my opinion as it's easier to get the hide-and-attack-with-advantage sequence off.

 

[dco]

Yeah, if I don't do it, it's automatically absurd and laughable! What are these morons thinking, not playing the game the way I do?

It's doesn't follow the rules of the PHB, I find it absurd the ceiling to only one skill, it's also a bad mechanic because they could have changed all the rolls to 1d10+10 and , for all I care you could use passive perception to avoid rolling how far your players jump or how much damage they do.

 

[iserith]

Completely outside of RAW, for all I care you could use perception to roll how far your players jump.

It is a good idea to look before you leap after all.

 

[dco]

Luckily my ninja skills are good and that was a predictable answer.

 

[Irda Ranger]

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.

This is exactly how I've already run it. However my PCs have gotten past this by being Invisible while Flying and I have also once attacked them with an Invisible ghost, so they had to use Divine Sense and See Invisibility to know where it was.

But a bog standard invisible opponent still makes noise, kicks up dust, etc. It's right there in the spell description.

 

[Ristamar]

So when I go to a DM and tell him that I want to take my +10 to hit and automatically hit all ACs of 20 or lower with my passive aggressive, what do you think the answer will be?

He'd probably tell you that variant basically already exists ("Players Make All Rolls") but your number is off. An attacker would need a +19 attack bonus to avoid a chance of missing an AC 20 opponent.

ATTACKING AND DEFENDING

The players roll their characters’ attacks as normal, but you don’t roll for their opponents. Instead, when a character is targeted by an attack, the player makes a defense roll.

A defense roll has a bonus equal to the character’s AC - 10. The DC for the roll equals the attacker’s attack bonus + 11.

On a successful defense roll, the attack misses because it was dodged, absorbed by the character’s armor, and so on. If a character fails a defense roll, the attack hits.

If the attacker would normally have advantage on the attack roll, you instead apply disadvantage to the defense roll, and vice versa if the attacker would have disadvantage.

If the defense roll comes up as a 1 on the d20, then the attack is a critical hit. If the attacker would normally score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20, then the attack is a critical hit on a 1 or 2, and so forth for broader critical ranges.

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA5_VariantRules.pdf


Silliness aside, I echo the sentiment that Jeremy wasn't pushing for a system of static checks versus static checks.

Regardless, opposed static scores can still work if they're coupled to a choice (e.g. the player must specify they're searching in specific locations) or gated by a secondary skill check (i.e. information is limited without the appropriate knowledge or training). Granted, with the former option, you're prone to conditioning your players to pixelbitch every location.

Personally, I find the act of "looking around to notice stuff" one of the least engaging parts of the game. Unless time is a critical factor or the location is littered with traps, it's simply easier to tell the players what they see and move on.

 

[Cyrinishad]

Just listened to the Podcast piece about Stealth... I salute the designers! I am glad that I have been using the Stealth rules effectively and correctly. Excellent.

 

[Caliban]

It's doesn't follow the rules of the PHB, I find it absurd the ceiling to only one skill, it's also a bad mechanic because they could have changed all the rolls to 1d10+10 and , for all I care you could use passive perception to avoid rolling how far your players jump or how much damage they do.

Yet several people say they've already been running it the way he talks about, based on their reading of the rules. But you claim it doesn't follow the rules, despite one of the game designers (who worked on this specific portion of the rules) and several DM's saying that in fact it does.

So no one can read the rules properly except you? What hubris.