D&D 5E Do you know a creatures location if they are in heavy concealment but not actively hiding and other location questions

Prakriti · Sep 29, 2016

Saelorn said:
It's similar, but that's not the only factor. Everyone can hide in 5E, but only the ranger really has a pet. If you change the rule about having your pet attack, that only really affects the ranger. If you let anyone hide for free after dropping a smoke bomb, then you make the rogue and goblin abilities (that let you hide as a bonus action) significantly less impressive.

If everyone can use a smoke bomb and gain the major benefit of it, then rogues and goblins are relatively less cool since they could do that anyway.

Yes, this is a real concern. You don't want to hand out class abilities on a whim. Over the past year, for example, I've had a few players try to argue their way out of falling damage by asking for acrobatics checks. I've always said no, on the basis that doing so would diminish the usefulness of the monk's Slow Fall ability and the featherfall spell.

In the smoke-bomb case, however, rogues don't lose the benefit of their Cunning Action, because they can still Dash, allowing them to escape much faster than other characters.

Prakriti · Sep 29, 2016

Hriston said:
That's what the hiding rules are for. Why not use them?

Because they don't always agree with the way my players and I approach the game.

Ovinomancer · Sep 30, 2016

AaronOfBarbaria said:
Just because one extreme isn't the case does not mean that the opposite extreme is - and I'll thank you to not misrepresent my statements in the future.

Perhaps you can help me understand how asking you a question about your statements is somehow misrepresenting them?

Regardless, you said there wasn't a specific decibel threshold, which I took to mean that you didn't assign a threshold, but I wasn't certain that's what you meant, so I asked a question on that. Since it seems you're a mite nonplussed about that, should I assume there is a threshold, and, if so, what would you say it is? Because, if you say there's not one again, I'm back to being thoroughly confused.

Odd? No. Irrelevant? Almost entirely.

Examples will never cover every possibility - if they did, they'd be an exhaustive list, not examples.

Very much not irrelevant, and, yes, I'm quite aware that not every list is exhaustive and that this one is clearly inclusive. However, the things they choose to represent as noises being both very loud noises is indicative of intent. Now, they could just suck at examples, and have meant other things, like whispers, are the same as shouting for revealing your hiding place, but that's not a normal or natural reading of a list that only has loud examples on it.

I will concede that you are trivially correct -- they could suck at example lists -- but your trivially correct point is just semantics and unhelpful. If the designers meant something other than loud things, what did they mean, how can we tell, and why do they suck as examples?

It's worth noting that "I dash with both my action and as a bonus action" can be interpreted as synonymous with running, much like other phrases not strictly limited to "running" and its conjugates could be, such as (but not limited to) "beat feet" or "haul balls".

See, it's statements like this that are confusing. Do you mean that you consider triple dashing to be clearly running? If so, then why didn't you state that rather than the vague action declaration bit above? And does dashing alone qualify, also?

Or, are you maybe, possibly trying to weave a careful statement that could be interpreted to be trying to imply that someone could, maybe, determine that triple dashing is maybe, possibly, running, but that you aren't exactly staking out a position that could, maybe, be interpreted to actually mean that, or something?

Or is this just your version of 'I know it when I see it?'

I'm terribly uncertain of your intent here because your choice of phrasing is full of weasel words (e.g., could, maybe, might) and you haven't staked an actual position -- just illuminated a possibility. If that's your intent, thank you and good day -- I really have little interest in playing semantic games with someone unwilling to stake a position. If you just poorly presented yourself, okay, no problem, that happens. Please elucidate but maybe lay off getting snippy at others when your poor presentation leads to confusion and question asking.

transtemporal · Sep 30, 2016

Prakriti said:
This is correct, but I've never liked it, to be honest. I assume it was done as a concession to theater-of-the-mind players, because it's too difficult to telegraph an invisible opponent's general location and then determine if the player is swinging at the right spot without a grid. Whereas with a battle-map, you can very easily say, "You hear the wizard's footsteps move a few paces to your right," and the player can point at the exact square that they are attacking.

The only time I would handle it differently is in terrain where a person's footsteps leave very obvious impressions: snow, mud, etc.

I'm not crazy about it either. I can understand this if you knew there was an invisible creature in the vicinity but if you didn't know this, why would you jump to the conclusion there was definitely an invisible creature there and that they were in that exact space? As opposed to a natural phenomenon or the movements/noises of your fellow party members?

Shiroiken · Sep 30, 2016

Saelorn said:
It's similar, but that's not the only factor. Everyone can hide in 5E, but only the ranger really has a pet. If you change the rule about having your pet attack, that only really affects the ranger. If you let anyone hide for free after dropping a smoke bomb, then you make the rogue and goblin abilities (that let you hide as a bonus action) significantly less impressive.

If everyone can use a smoke bomb and gain the major benefit of it, then rogues and goblins are relatively less cool since they could do that anyway.

That was my point: you are changing the "balance" of the game. While admittedly the "imbalance" is different between the two, that's true for any houserule. Of course, I'm much less concerned with "balance" in my game (which is why I keep using quote marks).

I'll reward smart play, but I never let my player's think that just because they got to do something awesome once means it will work that way every time. To use the smoke bomb example, if it were deployed intelligently (not just in the middle of the street), I'd probably reward the player by having the bad guys split up to look for the PC, with about half finding him. The PC didn't get to Hide (since half the bad guys find him), but he did get a benefit (less enemies). If the PC tried the exact same trick again, even with different NPCs, I would probably be less benevolent, since that's not intelligent and innovative. It's just spamming the same trick again and again.

AaronOfBarbaria · Sep 30, 2016

Ovinomancer said:
Perhaps you can help me understand how asking you a question about your statements is somehow misrepresenting them?

Compare the following:

A) "Then is it impossible to hide unless you make no noise at all?"

and

B) "Then it's impossible to hide unless you make no noise at all? Interesting."

A is a question that doesn't seem like it has anything behind it but desire for an answer. B is phrased as a statement despite punctuation choice, because "is it" and "it is" are very different, and further supports a reading of the answer being assumed by not just asking a question, but also seeming to regard that assumed answer with the second statement.

Hopefully that helps.

Ovinomancer said:
Regardless, you said there wasn't a specific decibel threshold, which I took to mean that you didn't assign a threshold, but I wasn't certain that's what you meant, so I asked a question on that. Since it seems you're a mite nonplussed about that, should I assume there is a threshold, and, if so, what would you say it is? Because, if you say there's not one again, I'm back to being thoroughly confused.

The game rules do not assign a decibel threshold. That doesn't mean the game rules don't assume that the DM is going to decide what is or isn't too loud to hide while doing, or that there is anything wrong with two DMs having different opinions of what is or isn't too loud.

But it does mean that DMs discussing the issue have to be careful about stating their own decision as if it were the one and only possible according to the game rules.

Ovinomancer said:
However, the things they choose to represent as noises being both very loud noises is indicative of intent.

I'm not entirely sure that knocking over a vase is meant to be an example of a very loud noise though. There are many kinds of vases, and many kinds of surface that a vase could be knocked over onto, and even many definitions of what constitutes a vase having been knocked over.

It could be intended as an example of a moderate, or even a quiet, noise.

Ovinomancer said:
...your trivially correct point is just semantics and unhelpful. If the designers meant something other than loud things, what did they mean, how can we tell, and why do they suck as examples?

I'm not going to engage in what would be a semantic argument to point out that my prior argument is not semantic. If the designers meant something other than loud things, they meant not-so-loud things. We can tell because they said "make noise" rather than "make loud noise". The likely answer to why they suck at examples is this: almost everyone sucks at examples because we forget that everyone reading the examples doesn't necessarily have the same idea in their mind that you have in yours while picking examples.

Ovinomancer said:
See, it's statements like this that are confusing. Do you mean that you consider triple dashing to be clearly running?

Yes, I mean that I consider moving as fast as you can on foot to be running.

Ovinomancer said:
If so, then why didn't you state that rather than the vague action declaration bit above?

My prior comment was not vague.

Ovinomancer said:
And does dashing alone qualify, also?

Yes - because I don't think it makes sense to need a class feature to run, and it takes a class feature to dash more than once.

Ovinomancer said:
Or is this just your version of 'I know it when I see it?'

It's my version of a reminder that I am not speaking for literally everyone's DM everywhere.

Ovinomancer said:
I'm terribly uncertain of your intent here because your choice of phrasing is full of weasel words (e.g., could, maybe, might) and you haven't staked an actual position -- just illuminated a possibility. If that's your intent, thank you and good day -- I really have little interest in playing semantic games with someone unwilling to stake a position. If you just poorly presented yourself, okay, no problem, that happens. Please elucidate but maybe lay off getting snippy at others when your poor presentation leads to confusion and question asking.

I don't have to declare how I would rule at my table in order to say that there are more ways to rule on a matter than just the one you've presented and be correct.

And what you call "weasel words" I call accounting for that a DM could do something, but isn't required to in any way - you know, exactly what I said, and nothing more, which is conveniently what I am always meaning by the words I choose.

I'm A Banana · Sep 30, 2016

Ovinomancer said:
So, then, to be clear, you're saying that you know what space the goblin is in at all times, wven around a corner in an area you haven't yet seen?

Followup. The explored area around the corner also has 2 trolls in it who aren't hiding. Do you also know what space they're in, or that they are there?

2nd followup. There's another few unexplored corridors past the trolls with a few more corners leading to a large chamber. There is an ogre in the chamber, who is not hiding. Do you know own what space the ogre is in? Are you aware of the ogre?

I'm just trying to figure out where the turtles stop.

It's reasonable to ask that, and the rules leave it up to the DM.

I've adopted a rough benchmark of "you can hear anything that's not actively trying to be quiet if you're within 60 feet of it (possibly modified if it's behind sound-muffling things like closed doors)." I think I based this off of googling around for "how far away can you hear someone talking?", so it's a rough judgement. Works pretty well.

Prakriti said:
Maybe that's where I got the idea from, but I was pretty sure that stealth required slow movement. At least in overland travel, this is the case.

The way I've ruled it, stealth effectively slows your travel: you move your speed and use the Hide action, so you're not moving your speed and using the Dash action, resulting in you moving 1/2 speed if all you're doing for your turn is moving.

And, if, while moving, you ever cross a creature's line of sight, you are seen while you do so. So if you want to sneak past guards or something, you'll need a distraction, in addition to a good Stealth check.

Hriston · Sep 30, 2016

Prakriti said:
Because they don't always agree with the way my players and I approach the game.

Can you give me some examples of how the hiding rules disagree with your approach? I'm all for changing the system to suit the table's creative agenda, btw.

Prakriti · Sep 30, 2016

Hriston said:
Can you give me some examples of how the hiding rules disagree with your approach? I'm all for changing the system to suit the table's creative agenda, btw.

To give an example from a somewhat recent game, the party was fighting two mages who had cast greater invisibility on themselves. The fight took place in a cellar, and the mages didn't need to Hide every turn, allowing them to cast fireball and cone of cold instead. They were effectively hidden until they cast a spell, at which point the characters would see and hear the point of origin and surmise the mages' general location. Also, when the mages moved, they rolled Stealth checks, with a failure indicating that the player sensed their movement and knew their general whereabouts. This meant that melee players were blundering around the room, swinging at empty squares, desperately trying to hit something.

None of this is by the rules, of course, but it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, if you use the RAW for invisibility and Hiding, then invisibility just becomes a slightly better version of blur (attackers have disadvantage against you), which takes all the fun out.

Of course, this is only really possible on a virtual tabletop, because you can hide enemy tokens from the players' view. Trying to do it theater-of-the-mind would be almost impossible, because it requires the very precise tracking of every character involved in the encounter.

Ovinomancer · Sep 30, 2016

AaronOfBarbaria said:
Compare the following:

A) "Then is it impossible to hide unless you make no noise at all?"

and

B) "Then it's impossible to hide unless you make no noise at all? Interesting."

A is a question that doesn't seem like it has anything behind it but desire for an answer. B is phrased as a statement despite punctuation choice, because "is it" and "it is" are very different, and further supports a reading of the answer being assumed by not just asking a question, but also seeming to regard that assumed answer with the second statement.

Hopefully that helps.

It does. Apparently, you can construe my motives to be questioning your motives and demand that I stop. I'm very clear on how this works now.

The game rules do not assign a decibel threshold. That doesn't mean the game rules don't assume that the DM is going to decide what is or isn't too loud to hide while doing, or that there is anything wrong with two DMs having different opinions of what is or isn't too loud.

But it does mean that DMs discussing the issue have to be careful about stating their own decision as if it were the one and only possible according to the game rules.

I'm not entirely sure that knocking over a vase is meant to be an example of a very loud noise though. There are many kinds of vases, and many kinds of surface that a vase could be knocked over onto, and even many definitions of what constitutes a vase having been knocked over.

It could be intended as an example of a moderate, or even a quiet, noise.

This is meant to be serious? You're really making the argument that a vase being knocked over is meant to be an example of a quiet sound? That's pretty much insisting that the writers are morons incapable of finding reasonable examples, or an example of desperately trying to justify an argument with increasingly ludicrous interpretations.

I'm not going to engage in what would be a semantic argument to point out that my prior argument is not semantic.

Good grief, why stop now?! Also, please tell me you meant this to be intentionally ironic.

If the designers meant something other than loud things, they meant not-so-loud things. We can tell because they said "make noise" rather than "make loud noise". The likely answer to why they suck at examples is this: almost everyone sucks at examples because we forget that everyone reading the examples doesn't necessarily have the same idea in their mind that you have in yours while picking examples.

No, this is a fallacy. Not everyone sucks at examples. You can't base an argument on 'everyone sucks at examples' without begging the question.

Yes, I mean that I consider moving as fast as you can on foot to be running.

Hm. What if I take double dash and only move 15ft. Running still?

My prior comment was not vague.

Yeah, it was. You are clearly now saying that taking the dash action is running, whereas before you left it vague as to what constitutes an action declaration of running. Heck, I had to ask twice to get a clear "dashing is running" statement out of you, so there definitely was some vagueness.

Yes - because I don't think it makes sense to need a class feature to run, and it takes a class feature to dash more than once.

Well, since it requires a class feature to run while hiding, clearly you intend to punish only monks and rogues for using their class features and attempting to run while hiding.

It's my version of a reminder that I am not speaking for literally everyone's DM everywhere.

Do you know what a clearer reminder is? Saying this right here and not adding maybes, mights, and coulds. That just clouds your statements in wishywashyness and doesn't help clarity.

I don't have to declare how I would rule at my table in order to say that there are more ways to rule on a matter than just the one you've presented and be correct.

Sure, but, hopefully, you're really not into making obvious and trivially true statements instead of constructively engaging. You are, right?

And what you call "weasel words" I call accounting for that a DM could do something, but isn't required to in any way - you know, exactly what I said, and nothing more, which is conveniently what I am always meaning by the words I choose.

What you said was mush, though. And, generally, my experience is that people using weasel words are trying to avoid being pinned down to a position. Perhaps that's not your intent, but it reads that way.