What might 'hidden from view' mean?

[clearstream]

DM: Your check beats the monster. You avoid notice, unheard, and hidden from view.
Player: Great! What does that mean again? Am I invisible?
DM: Let me explain. Imagine you are the monster...

If you can see*, you know what square to attack
There's no guess-work here. Your target isn't totally concealed or invisible. Either you saw where he ducked down or you see a blur in the shadows, or whatever.

If you can't see, you don't know where to attack
If you were blinded, you wouldn't know where your target was. Maybe they're still where they were last time you knew?

If you do not feel threatened, you pay attention to something else
By guile or misdirection, that target just doesn't seem so important any more.

If you do feel threatened, you can pay attention to them
They're not invisible and you know where they are. You're allowed to attack them with a -2 penalty, or use minors to get a better fix on them. Your friends can, too. You can call on help from any of your friends who don't feel threatened by this guy yet.

They have combat advantage against you
You're confused by their guile and misdirection. Is that blade coming from the left, or the right, or...

*or use your primary sense unhindered.

-vk

 

[James McMurray]

Hidden from view literally means concealed from sight, where from is used to indicate selection of a subset of things you could be hidden from. Also known as "cannot be seen."

 

[clearstream]

Peach

Hidden from view literally means concealed from sight, where from is used to indicate selection of a subset of things you could be hidden from. Also known as "cannot be seen."

It's reasonable to feel intuitively that the English language definition is the right one. If you do, go ahead and play that way.

Could other posters please note that this isn't a discussion about what the words mean, but about what they mean within the strictly confining space of all that has been written by official sources on the subject.

I don't want to engage in further debate on that score. I'd love to hear if you feel the above would work for you in play?

Thanks

-vk

 

[bardolph]

I'm planning to run Stealth like "Heavy Concealment," which means -2 if they are adjacent, -5 otherwise.

 

[James McMurray]

Sorry. The topic title was a question, so I assumed you were looking for an answer. That definition has worked fine for us in two campaigns so far.

Your definition by example seems too redundant and fidgety for me.

If you can see*, you know what square to attack
There's no guess-work here. Your target isn't totally concealed or invisible. Either you saw where he ducked down or you see a blur in the shadows, or whatever.

Then what's the point in hiding? If they just have normal concealment there's no reason to use concealment to hide.

If you can't see, you don't know where to attack
If you were blinded, you wouldn't know where your target was. Maybe they're still where they were last time you knew?

If they're already blind, "hidden from view" is a meaningless phrase, and hiding is probably unnecessary.

If you do not feel threatened, you pay attention to something else
By guile or misdirection, that target just doesn't seem so important any more.

Making someone believe you are not a threat is bluff, not stealth.

If you do feel threatened, you can pay attention to them
They're not invisible and you know where they are. You're allowed to attack them with a -2 penalty, or use minors to get a better fix on them. Your friends can, too. You can call on help from any of your friends who don't feel threatened by this guy yet.

Is that a -2 penalty from concealment / cover? If so, why bother hiding? If not, what's it from?

 

[clearstream]

Sorry. The topic title was a question, so I assumed you were looking for an answer.

Entirely my mistake.

Your definition by example seems too redundant and fidgety for me.

It tries to marry a number of offical comments on the subject. None of those comments contradict each other, and none contradict RAW. I don't want to re-engage in arguing them.

Then what's the point in hiding? If they just have normal concealment there's no reason to use concealment to hide.

Fine question. The simple answer is 'to get CA.' The complicated answer is based on clarifications that avoid notice, unheard, and hidden from view does not mean upgrade the quality of your cover or concealment with the improved defensive benefits that would entail.

If they're already blind, "hidden from view" is a meaningless phrase, and hiding is probably unnecessary.

We need to consider hearing and seeing, which are conflated in 4th. So for example, an invisible person makes a check to see if they can be heard, not seen. I've just hit a Rogue situation in play where the Rogue blinded a Displacer Beast and then shifted position. I ruled the Beast lost the Rogues location.

If Making someone believe you are not a threat is bluff, not stealth.

Fair point, but then what else might 'avoid notice' mean in terms of practical play? I've been running it that the monsters move the Rogue down their list of threats and that has been working well.

Is that a -2 penalty from concealment / cover? If so, why bother hiding? If not, what's it from?

You're right. It is from cover/concealment, but you still might like to get CA

-vk

 

[James McMurray]

Couldn't 'avoid notice' could simply mean that you avoid being noticed because they don't notice you?

 

[kouk]

I am also unclear what this thread's goal is, but I will argue just because it is the internet.


I think the circumstances are important.

If a creature hides in the first place, and nobody was ever aware of him, he may as well be invisible. Hiding is actually using the Stealth skill, which combines actual hiding and just moving without making any noise. A successful Stealth check means you aren't seen OR heard, because the opposing Perception check could be either.

If a creature is invisible (to you) but not necessarily silent, you might still figure out his square with Perception. See the sidebar on page 281.

If you are aware of a creature (fighting or looking at, or pinpointing with sound) and the creature somehow uses Stealth to bypass your Perception, then I think he basically just "disappears" as far as you know. Regardless of how, you just don't know exactly where he is now.

However, depending on where he was when you last knew his location, you might start with a good idea of where to try attacking. You can attack squares near where you last saw him, but he probably counts as invisible and gets the total concealment bonus against melee and ranged attacks. If a creature vanishes from my sight but I just saw where he was a moment ago, I would consider lobbing a Fireball in the general area and hope to hit him.

 

[Tonester]

If you can see*, you know what square to attack. There's no guess-work here. Your target isn't totally concealed or invisible. Either you saw where he ducked down or you see a blur in the shadows, or whatever.

This is the one I disagree with. The rules are pretty straight forward. If the DM allows a stealth check to be made at all, and it succeeds, they don't know which square to attack. That is the whole point of stealth. The monster lost sight/tracking of you and now doesn't know where you are. The topography of the map may allow the monster to make an educated guess based upon a character's speed and the surrounding terrain.

I think a lot of the Stealth stuff involves the DM trying to play through the eyes and awareness of a monster and not through the eyes of an all-seeing God looking down on a Battlefield.

Did the player have cover or concealment? Did they succeed in their stealth check and move to somewhere else with cover or concealment the entire time? If so, the observer doesn't know where they are. They may have a general idea of where they COULD be (based upon surrounding terrain, cover, shadows, lighting, etc). The observer could do a minor perception check to maybe get more "clues" that the DM would use in making that "educated guess" as he tries to play the role of the observer.

As a DM, this is what I would do.

Let us assume that there is low light throughout the room where combat is taking place except for the 2 corners where there is total darkness which takes up the 3 squares in each corner. A rogue is standing in dim light between the 2 corners with monsters in the middle of the room fighting defenders. A rogue decides to try and move stealthily on their next turn to one of the corners. Since the rogue has concealment from the low light, this would be permissable in my opinion.

On a monster's next turn... assuming they care about what happened to the rogue at all, they could use a minor action to make an active perception check. If it fails, I would actually try and "mimic" what a monster would do or think. I knew someone was there and now they are gone. They couldn't be too far away. I would look at the places that are 3-5 squares away from where the player use to be... which happens to be the 2 dark corners. Since I have 2 possibilities, I would pick 1 of the 2 corners randomly (since I failed my active check). As DM, I obviously know where the player is, but you have to do things randomly to simulate someone who does not know.

Now, if I had succeeded in an active check good enough to get a general direction, then I would randomly pick one of the 3 squares in whichever corner that represents the general direction that my check provided me. Again, despite knowing where the player is, it isn't exact so you would need to randomly simulate it.

This is how I would run my stuff anyway.

 

[webrunner]

If you are aware of a creature (fighting or looking at, or pinpointing with sound) and the creature somehow uses Stealth to bypass your Perception, then I think he basically just "disappears" as far as you know. Regardless of how, you just don't know exactly where he is now.

This is the one I disagree with. The rules are pretty straight forward. If the DM allows a stealth check to be made at all, and it succeeds, they don't know which square to attack. That is the whole point of stealth. The monster lost sight/tracking of you and now doesn't know where you are. The topography of the map may allow the monster to make an educated guess based upon a character's speed and the surrounding terrain.

A caveat must be mentioned here: stealth lets you turn concealment, unawaredness, or cover into being unseen. Usually this will mean something like "ducking behind the upturned table" or "back up against the tree trunk" or some other method. If you aren't in a position where you can be partially unseen, then you aren't in a position where you can use stealth to become totally unseen.

Stealth does not nessisarily mean they don't know where you are. They know where you were, and that might immediately let them figure out exactly where you are: there's only one rock to hide behind, therefore you're behind the rock, QED.

If, however, you hide in a place of, say, continuous squares of cover, then there's no reason for them to beleive you didn't hide DEEPER into cover, or hide a bit to the left.

Additionally, you should probably get total concealment bonus to attacks against you even if they know what square you're in: they don't nessisarily know WHERE in the square you are, unless for some reason you take up the entire square. This isn't to say aiming at the middle of a 3x3 invisible creature will make it easier to hit: the concealment bonus would there refer to the fact that you could be glancing an arm that bounces off, or something, in the square closer to you