D&D 5E Stealth in 5E

[Dausuul]

So, I gather a lot of people are confused by the 5E stealth rules. I have to admit, they're kind of odd and nonintuitive. Here's how I read them; I'm wondering if other people read them the same way.

1. You are either seen or unseen. Normally, you need heavy obscurement to be unseen. Some abilities may modify this (e.g., wood elves can be unseen in rain or light mist, and an invisible creature is unseen always).
2. You must be unseen to even attempt stealth.
3. If you are unseen, but could possibly be detected (e.g., by hearing your footsteps, or if your heavy obscurement is not quite as heavy as you might like), you can make a Stealth check to avoid detection. This is opposed by the passive Perception of any creature that could detect you, and the Perception check of a creature that devotes an action to trying to detect you.
4. Whether you could possibly be detected is up to the DM and common sense to determine.

Does that sound right?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, I think there's a few counter-intuitive things.

#1: Being unseen doesn't make you stealthy. If someone can't see you, they can usually tell where you are by other means (your footsteps or your sniffling or whatever), so just being unseen doesn't mean an enemy doesn't know where you are.

#2: Being stealthy, then, doesn't just mean hiding, it means making others unaware of your location in the world. An orc staring straight at you when you're invisible knows where you are (though he might have trouble hitting you). An orc staring straight at you when you're hidden doesn't know you're there.

#3: You don't make a stealth check to become unseen, you make a stealth check to become hidden. Being unseen is a prerequisite, because of course someone who can see where you are knows where you are.

Debatably, this means stealth is relative: if Orc A can see you, but Orc B can't, you could hide from Orc B even though you couldn't hide from Orc A.

#4: Being unseen is largely up to the DM, though certain circumstances (invisibility, complete concealment, cover) might grant that intuitively.

 

[fjw70]

So, I gather a lot of people are confused by the 5E stealth rules. I have to admit, they're kind of odd and nonintuitive. Here's how I read them; I'm wondering if other people read them the same way.

1. You are either seen or unseen. Normally, you need heavy obscurement to be unseen. Some abilities may modify this (e.g., wood elves can be unseen in rain or light mist, and an invisible creature is unseen always).
2. You must be unseen to even attempt stealth.
3. If you are unseen, but could possibly be detected (e.g., by hearing your footsteps, or if your heavy obscurement is not quite as heavy as you might like), you can make a Stealth check to avoid detection. This is opposed by the passive Perception of any creature that could detect you, and the Perception check of a creature that devotes an action to trying to detect you.
4. Whether you could possibly be detected is up to the DM and common sense to determine.

Does that sound right?

Sounds right to me. Pretty easy.

 

[Dausuul]

#3: You don't make a stealth check to become unseen, you make a stealth check to become hidden. Being unseen is a prerequisite, because of course someone who can see where you are knows where you are.

I have to say that the use of "hidden" as the official rules term for "successfully stealthed" is bang-head-on-wall stupid. That's probably a large part of the confusion right there (hence why I deliberately avoided using "hidden" in my summary above). The fact that you can be invisible but not hidden is just... aaaagh. Why not just call it "stealthy?"

Debatably, this means stealth is relative: if Orc A can see you, but Orc B can't, you could hide from Orc B even though you couldn't hide from Orc A.

I agree, this is how I'd read it as well. It certainly makes sense to do it that way.

 

[GX.Sigma]

So, I gather a lot of people are confused by the 5E stealth rules. I have to admit, they're kind of odd and nonintuitive. Here's how I read them; I'm wondering if other people read them the same way.

1. You are either seen or unseen. Normally, you need heavy obscurement to be unseen. Some abilities may modify this (e.g., wood elves can be unseen in rain or light mist, and an invisible creature is unseen always).
2. You must be unseen to even attempt stealth.
3. If you are unseen, but could possibly be detected (e.g., by hearing your footsteps, or if your heavy obscurement is not quite as heavy as you might like), you can make a Stealth check to avoid detection. This is opposed by the passive Perception of any creature that could detect you, and the Perception check of a creature that devotes an action to trying to detect you.
4. Whether you could possibly be detected is up to the DM and common sense to determine.

Does that sound right?

Sounds right to me. I'll add a few more:

5. "Hidden," in layman's terms, means "they don't know you're there."
6. If you fail your Stealth check, they know you're there. They can't necessarily pinpoint you (like if you're invisible), but you're not hidden.
7. If you do something dumb like hide behind a tapestry, pop out and shoot someone, then hide behind the tapestry again, they know you're there. You are unseen while you're behind it, but you're not hidden because they clearly saw you run behind the tapestry.

These rules make it pretty easy to adjudicate surprise.

• If the characters are trying to surprise the monsters, they roll a group stealth check. If it beats the best PP among the monsters (or the ones in the front rank or whatever), the characters get surprise.
• If the monsters are trying to surprise the characters, they roll a stealth check (usually just 1d20 to make it easy). If it beats the best PP among the characters (or the ones in the back rank or whatever), the monsters get surprise.

 

[fjw70]

7. If you do something dumb like hide behind a tapestry, pop out and shoot someone, then hide behind the tapestry again, they know you're there. You are unseen while you're behind it, but you're not hidden because they clearly saw you run behind the tapestry.

But if the tapestry is big enough to cover multiple spaces then the enemy won't know which space you are hiding in. They will have to guess which space to attack.

 

[Fion]

See this is one of the reasons I liked 4e, the rules were codified extremely well. Ever since the first couple play-tests it was obvious a lot of rules in 5e come down to 'we leave it up to the GM'.

 

[GX.Sigma]

But if the tapestry is big enough to cover multiple spaces then the enemy won't know which space you are hiding in. They will have to guess which space to attack.

Indeed. I think I'd allow a stealth check. If you fail, they can pinpoint your position. Even if you succeed, they still know you're there. In game terms, you are heavily obscured, but you are not hidden.

 

[Sir Brennen]

But if the tapestry is big enough to cover multiple spaces then the enemy won't know which space you are hiding in. They will have to guess which space to attack.

"Dude, I totally see your boots sticking out behind that rug."

Seriously, though... they're probably going to attack the space they last saw you or saw you duck behind, which, if you didn't actually move when you used the Hide action, then they're going to guess right.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For me... I just remember it like this. Being 'Hidden' means you can't be seen *and* you can't be heard. To reach that state, you have to get out of sight and out of earshot... which means story-wise getting completely behind something (or in darkness or invisible or heavily obscured), and then not talking (or moving around loudly or doing anything that makes noise). Once you've done both those things, you can make a Dexterity (Stealth) check to see how well you did on both those things.

This number is compared to the passive Wisdom (Perception) check of each person who could possibly detect you. If your Stealth check beats it, then you gain Surprise on the first round of combat, and during combat you can attack with Advantage from that position (at which time you lose the Hidden status). And if you are Hidden while on another character's turn... they can use their action to roll an active Wisdom (Perception) check in hopes of rolling higher than a 10 on the die (and thus higher than their passive number) in order to figure out where you are.

I think the hard part for people to conceptualize is that they think making a Dexterity (Stealth) check is denoting an action-- they're moving from out in the open to go unseen. And thus, if they already are invisible, then why would they need to make a Stealth check? They're already unseen. But the truth is... Stealth is really not an action to go into hiding... but rather a measurement of the hiding (both visually and audibly) they have already have done.

Get yourself unseen and quiet. You are now "Hiding". And that Dexterity (Stealth) check is your rating for how well you did on it.