D&D 5E Stealth
Because it is written in natural language, there are many places where someone's grammatical idiosycracies influence or change how the words are interpreted. Also, many people's understanding of what the hiding rules say is influenced by how they ran stealth in previous editions.
The hiding rules are very much a smorgasbord of different little things spread out over many different chapters and sections. You have to read all of them, and mush the rules together to come up with how you wish to run it. And every person seems to be mushing them differently. This is either good, in that the rules are more open-ended and thus some DMs will take them and mush them into the stealth rules that best works for them and how they run their game... or bad in that some DMs do not wish to have to do the mushing and just want it completely spelled out so there's no interpretation needed. Pretty much the standard issue of some DMs prefer Rulings, other DMs prefer Rules.
The hiding rules are very much a smorgasbord of different little things spread out over many different chapters and sections. You have to read all of them, and mush the rules together to come up with how you wish to run it. And every person seems to be mushing them differently. This is either good, in that the rules are more open-ended and thus some DMs will take them and mush them into the stealth rules that best works for them and how they run their game... or bad in that some DMs do not wish to have to do the mushing and just want it completely spelled out so there's no interpretation needed. Pretty much the standard issue of some DMs prefer Rulings, other DMs prefer Rules.
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Not much. Some people play in public games at gaming stores or conventions, and for those people the difference between one DM and another can be jarring and/or create uncertainty about what this DM allows (e.g. will I be able to Cunning Action hide every round behind different stalagmites? or will this DM require me to think of a new way to hide every round? or disallow hiding during combat completely?). But if you're running a game at home for the same players every week, none of that drama needs to bother you.
Bacon Bits
Hero
The basic problem is that the stealth rules say, basically: "You can hide when it makes logical sense (according to the DM) that you can hide. Use a Dexterity (Stealth) check to determine how well you're hiding. You can see a hiding creature when it makes logical sense (according to the DM) that you can see a hiding creature. Use a Wisdom (Perception) check or Passive Perception compared to the Dexterity (Stealth) check to determine if someone sees someone who is hiding." Aside from a few rules about vision and lighting, that's it.
That's simple, straightforward, quick to play, super easy to resolve, easy to remember, very intuitive. All good things for rules.
The first crack is Lightfoot Halfling, which says: "Naturally Stealthy. You can attempt to hide even when you are obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you."
Naturally Stealthy contradicts the general rule, because a) it lets you do something you normally can't, and b) it's often not logical. [Crawford insists on several occasions that specific rules can override general rules, but it's hard to tell if a given rule is supposed to override a general rule or merely modify it, so it's hard to be sure exactly what Naturally Stealthy is supposed to override and what it's not.]
For example: a Lightfoot Halfling Rogue can fire a crossbow, move, and as a bonus action hide behind another PC in the same turn. He can do this turn after turn after turn. It's not like you're hiding someplace and nobody knows where you are. Well, unless the monster has the mind of a 1-year-old and cannot grasp object permanence. Mearls has said, IIRC, he'd give repeat hiders disadvantage. That's the primary issue. You can hide even when someone knows which square you're in. Which isn't really hiding, then, is it? I mean, in the context of the game hiding means other creatures don't know where you are. But the rules don't have a built-in consequence for hiding someplace stupidly obvious, which, eventually a barbarian's shadow becomes.
The second crack comes in when you consider that you're not hidden when you're standing behind total cover or when you're heavily obscured -- although you have some similar effects if you're heavily obscured. If you're behind total cover, you just can't be seen as there is no line of sight to you and no line of effect to you, but your location and presence aren't unknown. You could take an action to hide (or a bonus action as a Rogue) but you're not hidden -- creatures remain aware of your presence and you'll automatically be seen when you pop out from cover. That means you won't get advantage for popping out and shooting and jumping back behind total cover... unless you hide. If you hide, then your presence is unknown and remains so until after you attack. There's an understandable dichotomy there because creatures tend to make a lot of noise, but it's still weird.
So, for example, we could have a human Ranger in total cover behind a column who isn't hidden because his location is still known, and a Halfling Rogue hiding behind a Barbarian adjacent to the BBEG in the middle of the room who gets advantage because his location *is* unknown, even though he's spent the last three turns jumping behind the Barbarian to hide again, and basically everybody in the room knows exactly where the little so-and-so is.
Or, how about this. The barbarian is in the middle of a brightly lit 35' circular room with no features. At the north end of the room is one orc. At the east end of the room is another orc. Can a lightfoot halfling hide behind the barbarian? Can he only hide from one orc? From both? From neither? Can one orc tell the other where the halfling is? What if one orc is north and one orce is south?
Or how about just the fact that an archer at an arrow slit and a Rogue at an arrow slit work fundamentally differently because... the Rogue can hide? Again, we're straining credibility. I mean, it's not like the arrow slit moves.
I know how I would rule in all the above cases, but it's not even a little clear what the designers think should happen here. That's the problem. It's hard to tell what designer intent is.
If you want a third crack in the stealth/hiding/vision/lighting system, you can consider the poorly phrased wording of heavily obscured: "A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition." So, a human standing 100 feet from the entrance to a cave which opens to broad daylight cannot see any creature standing outside the cave because he's blind. And our Ranger above moves into an unlit adjacent room suddenly can't fire his bow into the adjacent room because he's now blind. That makes total sense, right? That one is thankfully easy to ignore because I think most reasonable people know what it's trying to say. But, you add in less realistic stuff like darkvision, blindsight, and truesight which modify how obscurement and light works in general, and there's a lot that is either unclear or makes no sense.
A fourth crack -- although it's not much of one -- is trying to decide when you should use Perception and Passive Perception. Again, it's a DM's call and that works well enough, but it's not clear when the designers think you should switch between the two.
So the errata comes out and says: "Hiding (p. 177). The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. Also, the question isn’t whether a creature can see you when you’re hiding. The question is whether it can see you clearly."
This clarification is roughly as clear as the text it's attempting to clarify, because the first sentence can contradict the second and third. See, it doesn't really say much of anything. It slightly informs what the criteria are for trying to hide, but since "clearly see" is an unclear term in most senses, it's still pretty ambiguous.
That's simple, straightforward, quick to play, super easy to resolve, easy to remember, very intuitive. All good things for rules.
The first crack is Lightfoot Halfling, which says: "Naturally Stealthy. You can attempt to hide even when you are obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you."
Naturally Stealthy contradicts the general rule, because a) it lets you do something you normally can't, and b) it's often not logical. [Crawford insists on several occasions that specific rules can override general rules, but it's hard to tell if a given rule is supposed to override a general rule or merely modify it, so it's hard to be sure exactly what Naturally Stealthy is supposed to override and what it's not.]
For example: a Lightfoot Halfling Rogue can fire a crossbow, move, and as a bonus action hide behind another PC in the same turn. He can do this turn after turn after turn. It's not like you're hiding someplace and nobody knows where you are. Well, unless the monster has the mind of a 1-year-old and cannot grasp object permanence. Mearls has said, IIRC, he'd give repeat hiders disadvantage. That's the primary issue. You can hide even when someone knows which square you're in. Which isn't really hiding, then, is it? I mean, in the context of the game hiding means other creatures don't know where you are. But the rules don't have a built-in consequence for hiding someplace stupidly obvious, which, eventually a barbarian's shadow becomes.
The second crack comes in when you consider that you're not hidden when you're standing behind total cover or when you're heavily obscured -- although you have some similar effects if you're heavily obscured. If you're behind total cover, you just can't be seen as there is no line of sight to you and no line of effect to you, but your location and presence aren't unknown. You could take an action to hide (or a bonus action as a Rogue) but you're not hidden -- creatures remain aware of your presence and you'll automatically be seen when you pop out from cover. That means you won't get advantage for popping out and shooting and jumping back behind total cover... unless you hide. If you hide, then your presence is unknown and remains so until after you attack. There's an understandable dichotomy there because creatures tend to make a lot of noise, but it's still weird.
So, for example, we could have a human Ranger in total cover behind a column who isn't hidden because his location is still known, and a Halfling Rogue hiding behind a Barbarian adjacent to the BBEG in the middle of the room who gets advantage because his location *is* unknown, even though he's spent the last three turns jumping behind the Barbarian to hide again, and basically everybody in the room knows exactly where the little so-and-so is.
Or, how about this. The barbarian is in the middle of a brightly lit 35' circular room with no features. At the north end of the room is one orc. At the east end of the room is another orc. Can a lightfoot halfling hide behind the barbarian? Can he only hide from one orc? From both? From neither? Can one orc tell the other where the halfling is? What if one orc is north and one orce is south?
Or how about just the fact that an archer at an arrow slit and a Rogue at an arrow slit work fundamentally differently because... the Rogue can hide? Again, we're straining credibility. I mean, it's not like the arrow slit moves.
I know how I would rule in all the above cases, but it's not even a little clear what the designers think should happen here. That's the problem. It's hard to tell what designer intent is.
If you want a third crack in the stealth/hiding/vision/lighting system, you can consider the poorly phrased wording of heavily obscured: "A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition." So, a human standing 100 feet from the entrance to a cave which opens to broad daylight cannot see any creature standing outside the cave because he's blind. And our Ranger above moves into an unlit adjacent room suddenly can't fire his bow into the adjacent room because he's now blind. That makes total sense, right? That one is thankfully easy to ignore because I think most reasonable people know what it's trying to say. But, you add in less realistic stuff like darkvision, blindsight, and truesight which modify how obscurement and light works in general, and there's a lot that is either unclear or makes no sense.
A fourth crack -- although it's not much of one -- is trying to decide when you should use Perception and Passive Perception. Again, it's a DM's call and that works well enough, but it's not clear when the designers think you should switch between the two.
So the errata comes out and says: "Hiding (p. 177). The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. Also, the question isn’t whether a creature can see you when you’re hiding. The question is whether it can see you clearly."
This clarification is roughly as clear as the text it's attempting to clarify, because the first sentence can contradict the second and third. See, it doesn't really say much of anything. It slightly informs what the criteria are for trying to hide, but since "clearly see" is an unclear term in most senses, it's still pretty ambiguous.
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Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth
From the wording of the feature it's clear that Naturally Stealthy trumps the general rule that you cannot hide when obscured only by a creature one size larger than you. Maybe you could if the creature were two sizes larger than you, but as a DM I would tend to disallow this as well.
This is a situation in which the errata were actually helpful. If you accept that you can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, then it is only possible for the lightfoot to hide repeatedly as you describe if he and his barbarian friend are at least lightly obscured.
It's also incorrect. As an unseen attacker, you get advantage on attacks whether you are hidden or not.
If everyone knows where he is then he is not hidden from anyone. If he is hidden from someone then that creature could not possibly know where he is. Hidden should retain its natural meaning at all times. If it doesn't, that should be a sign there is something wrong with your interpretation.
You're not saying where the lightfoot is at the beginning of your thought experiment. Has the lightfoot been spotted by the orc already? If so, I would rule that he cannot possibly hide behind the barbarian because he can be seen clearly. If he is obscured by the barbarian from the point of view of either one or both of the orcs ab initio, however, then yes, he can try to hide from whichever is unable to see him.
I don't get this. Why can't the archer hide in this situation?
This has been corrected by the errata. The Basic Rules now state, "A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area."
Here's the revised text from the Basic Rules, p60:
I think, in context, the errata are somewhat more clear in their intent. There is no contradiction unless the DM simultaneously rules that you can be seen clearly and that circumstances are appropriate for hiding nevertheless, in which case the contradiction is not within the rules themselves, but between the rules and the DM's ruling. I agree, however, considering the time I spent puzzling over them until I reached my own conclusions, that they certainly could have been more clear.
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You just listed exactly why you leave it up to the DM. If the designers were to take into account all of the stuff you listed, Stealth rules would take up a chapter and probably ten pages by itself making it even more of a pain in the behind to adjudicate. It's much easier for a DM and player to look at the situation and determine if Stealth is usable. There's no other way without writing a huge chapter on Stealth that would lead to the need for more clarifications and more issues. No matter with general versus specific, the DM decides does not change in anyway. The Halfling has a new circumstance they can use hide in behind a creature one size larger and the wood elf in lightly obscured areas, but that does not change that the DM still decides if the circumstances permit it. It's the only way to do Stealth. Any other way is just leading to headaches. It's how I've done it in every game system. I've never seen a game system with Stealth rules that worked any other way because there are way too many environments and situations and game designers cannot cover them all without turning Stealth an entry taking up several pages or more to describe every possible instance of Stealth and how it might play out.
Maybe the game designers could release an article describing how they handle Stealth using the rules to give newer DMs and players some help. But DMs that have been doing this a long time generally only needed to know what advantages Stealth and Surprise provide, they handle the rest of it according to the circumstances in play. It's the only way to do Stealth. I've done it that way in Shadowrun, D&D, Top Secret, GURPS, Pathfinder, Tombstone, and probably a few other game systems I can't remember.
I think of it less as common sense and more as logic. Look at the situation in a logical manner, imagine the lighting, possible cover, visibility, sensory capabilities of creature, intelligence of creature, chaos of combat, and all the other factors that might lead to a situation where the PC or NPC can use Stealth. You can do this relatively quickly. Let the player have some input explaining how his character is hiding, moving, or what he is doing to take advantage of the circumstances. Make a quick, firm decision as DM and keep the game going forward.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
As simply put in Defcon 1's post stealth it relies on common sense, the problem is that there are two actors. The DM, adjudicating the events and the player acting within the events.
Player A says: I jump behind the big orc and hide!
-Well, reasonably the orc is big burly fellow, some 7 feet tall and half as wide. This seems to make sense to the 3' tall halfling.
DM says: No, you can't hide.
-Well, reasonably the orc is in the middle of combat, several of his foes surround him, the ground is barren.
Now, we have two people who are both making reasonable common sense conclusions. Problematically, only one of these people is coming to a reasonable conclusion based on the RAW. The DM is coming to a conclusion based on the situation at hand in the game. The rules say "yes" the DM says "no". Understandably the game has always worked like this. However, this situation puts the player in a situation where they lack authority over their actions. For players coming from a particular previous edition, this is a massive intrusion into their gameplay. The end result is a situation where the rules are irrelevant.
And therein lies the hitch. A rule that is by nature requires its every attempt at implementation to be adjudicated is a rule with a problem. And by this problem other rules are made irrelevant, leading to further problems.
Player agency is a big deal and this poorly written rule has severe impacts on it. Stealth works as written, if you're willing to give the DM full control over when you can or cannot hide.
But that's my take on why it's a problematic rule, as it restricts player agency and places a burden that should be able to be simply analyzed by the player on the shoulders of the DM. While there are times when this is necessary, the poor wording of stealth makes it mandatory in all situations.
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