D&D 5E Stealth & that big Rock!

[Noctem]

Ignoring Invisibility, Elf/Halfling abilities, Blindsight, Darkvision, being in or out of combat, etc., and assuming making ranged attacks on a foe without an adjacent ally, here is how I understand hiding works:
1. You cannot hide from a creature that can see you (PHB 177). Changed by errata to read as: Cannot hide from a creature that can see you clearly (what this means is left up to the DM
2. A creature cannot see you if you are in a heavily obscured area (i.e., full concealment), which blocks vision entirely (PHB 184), or if you have total cover, which complete conceals the creature (PHB 196). true
3. Therefore, you can hide with a successful stealth roll beating your foe's perception (PHB 177) if you are in a heavily obscured area or have total cover. true, but now this also includes being unclearly seen which could mean that simply having half or 3/4 cover can allow you to hide since by definition that could represent being unclearly seen.

I think there is no controversy with #1-3 above, but if so, please let me know what specifically is the issue.

4. You cannot attack a foe from behind total cover, so even though hidden, your cannot sneak attack. correct. You cannot attack a creature which has total cover from you.
5. If you are in a heavily obscured area and make an attack on a foe you cannot see, your attack roll would be at disadvantage (PHB 194), however when you are in a heavily obscured area then your foe cannot see you and you have advantage on attacks against it (PHB 195), but advantage and disadvantage cancel out each other (PHB 173), so you would not have advantage on your ranged attack and cannot sneak attack. correct.
6. If either total cover or heavy obscurement (concealment) is required to be hidden, given the above, then you basically cannot be hidden and make a ranged sneak attack (setting aside the odd case of being in heavy obscurement attacking blindly at a foe who happens to adjacent to an ally). This was changed by errata. If you are in heavy obscurement, attacking a creature which is not, you do not have any penalty for your attack. So you would get to sneak attack. Your target having total cover though still means you can't attack.
7. The rules intend for you to be able to be hidden and make a ranged sneak attack, therefore you must be able to remain hidden under circumstances that are something less than total cover or heavy obscurement. see above. The answer is yes.
8. Given #6-7 above, you can become hidden under total cover or heavy obscurement and remain hidden so long as you maintain partial cover or light obscurement from your foe and attack from that position, getting sneak attack. post errata this is correct but it is still subject to DM fiat. even though you never leave half cover or partial concealment, a DM can rule that you lose hidden because you become clearly seen. But again the only requirement now post errata to hide is to be unclearly seen.

Please let me know which of the foregoing points you agree or disagree with and why with specificity.

replies in bold.

 

[Kalshane]

Here's the way I look at it, from a simple action economy standpoint: the rogue is sacrificing his bonus action every round, plus whatever movement needed to get in and out of cover, to give himself a chance (because he could roll poorly on his Stealth check and/or his opponent could roll well on Perception) at getting Advantage on a single attack roll each round. (And that assumes the enemy doesn't have a special sense like Blindsense or Tremorsense that prevents the rogue from obscuring his location at all)

I don't see this is as over-powered.

So outside of circumstances where it doesn't make sense for him to be able to do so, I'm okay with the rogue attacking from hiding multiple times in combat. And I even allow the rogue to move to melee range and still have that advantage, if for no other reason than the game really doesn't give you a good reason not to just be a ranged rogue, so nerfing melee rogues even further is counter-productive.

 

[Noctem]

I'm not implying anything. I'm explicitly stating that you cannot attack while remaining hidden in combat, barring a very small number of exceptions. This is explicitly a restriction which is declared within the rules, as I have quoted a few pages back and I'll repeat here:

"You can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly, [...] In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you."

There is some wiggle room for DM interpretation when it comes to distractions, but the fact that you are trying to hide does not qualify as some distraction going off somewhere else, unless your DM is being ridiculously generous well-beyond the intent of the rules. It certainly doesn't mean that the generic goings-on of combat are enough of a distraction to make a creature stop paying attention when it is explicitly alert for signs of danger all around.

but the rule you quoted speaks about coming out of hiding and approaching a creature. If you're making ranged attacks while hidden this doesn't apply to you at all. It also states that the creature would then "usually" see you if you come out and approach. You're changing this to read as an absolute "explicitely stating you can't" and ignoring the part about approaching an enemy and the wiggle room explicitly stated "usually sees you". I don't get why you would do this and quote the rule proving you wrong in the same post but maybe you didn't see it?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Incorrect... You remain hidden until you are seen clearly by an observer. What constitutes being "unclearly seen" seems to be mainly left up to the DM to decide. If you're seen clearly, you lose hidden. Total obscurement (which isn't actually something in 5e, it's either total cover or complete darkness) is not a requirement to become and remain hidden in 5e post errata. Just because you can't see something does not mean you can't attack it as well, you simply have disadvantage. Being hidden however does mean that a creature does not know where you are and must guess your location on top of attacking with disadvantage.

The errata was a clarification; it didn't change the intent of anything. This edition uses "lightly obscured" and "heavily obscured" in place of concealment. Cover is still cover.

You can attack someone (with advantage from being hidden) if you're in a heavily obscured area if the target isn't also heavily obscured (otherwise you would have disadvantage from that). This is why it's good to stand outside of the range of a campfire, but bad to stand in a fog cloud; the fog blocks your vision, where the non-magical darkness does not. When we're talking about rocks, though, cover and obscurement are the same issue - if you're heavily obscured by the rock, enough to stay hidden behind it from a target who is alert for threats from all directions, then your target also has total cover from you and you cannot attack it. If it was an illusionary rock, and you could see right through it, then you'd be fine because you're heavily obscured and your target doesn't have any cover.

 

[slaughterj]

replies in bold.

Thanks, I'll check back over the errata. But the basic point is you can do ranged sneak attack from something less than total cover / heavy obscurement.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

but the rule you quoted speaks about coming out of hiding and approaching a creature. If you're making ranged attacks while hidden this doesn't apply to you at all. It also states that the creature would then "usually" see you if you come out and approach. You're changing this to read as an absolute "explicitely stating you can't" and ignoring the part about approaching an enemy and the wiggle room explicitly stated "usually sees you". I don't get why you would do this and quote the rule proving you wrong in the same post but maybe you didn't see it?

The "usually" is there as a qualifier, in case you are actually invisible or hidden by falling snow or whatever. It basically means "unless there's something stopping it". And popping up from behind the rock is approaching the creature, even if you're still twenty feet away - you're closer than you were when you were behind the rock.

I mean, you could make a case to the contrary, but you'd really have to press it and hope that your DM was inclined to also choose that interpretation. It really seems like a stretch. Both the letter and the intent of the rule seems pretty clear in this case.

 

[slaughterj]

So outside of circumstances where it doesn't make sense for him to be able to do so, I'm okay with the rogue attacking from hiding multiple times in combat. And I even allow the rogue to move to melee range and still have that advantage, if for no other reason than the game really doesn't give you a good reason not to just be a ranged rogue, so nerfing melee rogues even further is counter-productive.

I agree with doing that as well. Some rules-lawyering in our group is such that tribal natives hiding in the brush can't dash out and get advantage on you because they would be clearly seen, but I think that gets away from the reality of being startled by that happening, and leaving the natives needing to dash into light cover brush adjacent to PCs and not 5' further into the open path.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

The hiding rules in 5E could have used a larger sidebar with examples or a greater discussion on implementing stealth in different situations. However, the core rules are explicit (if lacking in clarity). The key points are these:

1. You make a Dex (Stealth) check when you hide, which sets the DC for Wis (Perception) rolls of those that actively search for signs of your presence. You basically engage your cloaking device and enter stealth mode. Like any roll, advantage and disadvantage may apply for whatever reasons the DM deems appropriate.

2. You cannot hide from a creature that can see you. It is expected that the creature can keep track of you and the hiding attempt automatically fails. Some powers (such as the halfling racial feature) allow you to make hiding checks in circumstances when you otherwise would be visible. The implication is that you can break line of sight if your observers fail their rolls.

3. In combat, creatures are ON ALERT and thus will spot you if you leave hiding. The text specifically mentions leaving hiding to approach an enemy, but we can also apply this general to entering the line of sight of an enemy, either fully or partially (such as to snipe). The DM is given the power to alter this outcome and allow you to remain hidden, even if you would otherwise be seen. The DM is not given advice on how to adjudicate this scenario, but the standard resolution options apply, such as a perception roll (with possible advantage or disadvantage) or an automatic success.

4. From point #3 we can determine that your 'stealth mode' has five categories of DC, based on circumstances: Auto-Fail, Roll w/ Disadvantage, Roll (Standard), Roll w/ Advantage, Auto-Success. If, your opponents aren't actively searching at all, they suffer the further drawback of using their Passive Perception instead of the above rolls. You probably can't remain hidden if you walk up in front of the orc and pick his nose. You'll probably have an easy time stealthing in a vast, dark chamber filled with columns vs. a deaf and drunk ogre.

5. There is no elaboration on out of combat stealthing, so you fall back on the core stealth vs. perception mechanic of point #1 and the categories of point #4. However, out of combat stealthing will likely entail hiding your presence and not so much your position. Can you sneak up on the bandit camp and listen in on their conversation? Once again the DM determines how easy this is based on how close you get and the alertness of your enemies. And, once again, you might remain hidden, even though you are otherwise visible, based on what the DM determines.

 

[Noctem]

The errata was a clarification; it didn't change the intent of anything. This edition uses "lightly obscured" and "heavily obscured" in place of concealment. Cover is still cover.

You can attack someone (with advantage from being hidden) if you're in a heavily obscured area if the target isn't also heavily obscured (otherwise you would have disadvantage from that). This is why it's good to stand outside of the range of a campfire, but bad to stand in a fog cloud; the fog blocks your vision, where the non-magical darkness does not. When we're talking about rocks, though, cover and obscurement are the same issue - if you're heavily obscured by the rock, enough to stay hidden behind it from a target who is alert for threats from all directions, then your target also has total cover from you and you cannot attack it. If it was an illusionary rock, and you could see right through it, then you'd be fine because you're heavily obscured and your target doesn't have any cover.

The errata fundamentally changed how hiding works in terms of requirements and changed how the core rules functioned in terms of being considered blinded when standing in complete darkness. This is beyond simple clarifications....

No one is saying you would get to deal sneak attack while having both advantage and disadvantage. Not sure why you're bringing this up in general.

Fog is not darkness. You're shifting the goal posts. Though both might give the same mechanical effect, concealment, they are fundamentally different things and would probably be defined differently in game. As in the fog would prevent or cause difficulties for people to both see into and out of it. This is a bad comparison to bring up.

When it comes to cover, when determining modifiers for attacks you would look at the target's cover and concealment if any and not your own. Your cover or concealment status does not impact the target of the attack unless that cover and/or concealment can also be applied to the target. 2 people standing in complete darkness have advantage because they can't see each other but also have disadvantage because they can't see each other. 2 people standing on either side of a wall both have total cover from each other.

However, the guy ducking behind a rock to make himself "unclearly seen" by someone else standing in the open should not have to worry about his target having cover or concealment against his attacks. The target has no cover or concealment. It is standing out in the open. The same for standing in complete darkness and attacking someone in the open. You can't be seen so you have advantage. They can't see you, so they have disadvantage on their attack.

I get the feeling that you're not applying cover and concealment properly and are under the impression that the moment these things come along they must be applied both ways. This isn't the case at all.

 

[Noctem]

Thanks, I'll check back over the errata. But the basic point is you can do ranged sneak attack from something less than total cover / heavy obscurement.

In general yes, and melee attacks as well.