D&D (2024) Hide, Hidden and Invisible

[MarkB]

I mostly like the Glossary's condensed rules for the Hide action and Hidden condition, but there are a couple of things that could use some improvement.

1.) You need to be out of sight, and "if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you." Wow, that's vague. If the player tries to discern who can see their character, does the DM just have to make a call arbitrarily?

2.) You cease to be hidden if "you make a sound louder than a whisper." I think that's in line with the current 5e rules, but it doesn't sit well with me. It should be something more along the lines of "you make a sound louder than the ambient background noise." Sure, a sound louder than a whisper is going to alert someone in a completely quiet room, but that's not always the case - I wouldn't even call it the default. You could be sneaking during a rainstorm, or near a waterfall, or even just around the borders of a crowded room with conversations going on, and you'd practically have to shout to get anyone's attention. You'd certainly have no trouble uttering a verbal spell component.

Also, I'm curious to see how - or indeed if - hiding interacts with the new Invisible condition. Invisible creatures are no longer heavily obscured, and there's no longer a clause in the Hide action that allows them to always take the Hide action. On the other hand, the Hidden condition no longer confers any benefits not also conferred by the Invisible condition. The only difference would be in how easily the position of hidden or invisible creatures can be determined, and the glossary doesn't appear to cover that, except via the Search action, which only covers 'concealed' creatures and objects, and thus doesn't differentiate between the two.

 

[Charlaquin]

I mostly like the Glossary's condensed rules for the Hide action and Hidden condition, but there are a couple of things that could use some improvement.

1.) You need to be out of sight, and "if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you." Wow, that's vague. If the player tries to discern who can see their character, does the DM just have to make a call arbitrarily?

I think this is just “You can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly; The DM determines when conditions are appropriate to hide” re-framed to emphasize the information that’s most relevant to the player.

2.) You cease to be hidden if "you make a sound louder than a whisper." I think that's in line with the current 5e rules, but it doesn't sit well with me. It should be something more along the lines of "you make a sound louder than the ambient background noise." Sure, a sound louder than a whisper is going to alert someone in a completely quiet room, but that's not always the case - I wouldn't even call it the default. You could be sneaking during a rainstorm, or near a waterfall, or even just around the borders of a crowded room with conversations going on, and you'd practically have to shout to get anyone's attention. You'd certainly have no trouble uttering a verbal spell component.

Yeah, this is just… the problems that come from trying to make a set of hard rules about when you can hide and when you stop being hidden, instead of leaving it up to the DM. There’s always an exception where following the letter of the rules produces an unintuitive result.

Also, I'm curious to see how - or indeed if - hiding interacts with the new Invisible condition. Invisible creatures are no longer heavily obscured, and there's no longer a clause in the Hide action that allows them to always take the Hide action. On the other hand, the Hidden condition no longer confers any benefits not also conferred by the Invisible condition. The only difference would be in how easily the position of hidden or invisible creatures can be determined, and the glossary doesn't appear to cover that, except via the Search action, which only covers 'concealed' creatures and objects, and thus doesn't differentiate between the two.

I suspect the intent is for it to keep working as it dies in vanilla 5e, but yeah. This is clunky.