I didn't follow all of your post, and some of it is hard to read because it is black-on-black.
Can you explain? Is that a formatting issue?
But I don't agree that the way things work in the fiction is irrelevant. The rules for hiding use fictional positioning as a key element of their adjudication (eg references to a character being able to be seen, revealing his/her position, etc).
Never said that fiction is irrelevant. I said that fiction does not change how a rule is written. Fiction has to work with the rule. If you do not like the rule, you change the rule. If you do not like the fiction, you change the fiction. If you do not like both, you change both. Still, your changes do not matter for RAW. RAW is still the same.
And clearly a creature can't hide (ie be hidden) when it's location is known to observers. To be hidden is for one's presence at a place to be unknown, more-or-less by definition.
No. Definition of hiding that YOU gave, that is the english dictionary definition, requires being out of sight. Your location beign known or not has NOTHING to do with hiding or your ability to hide, sight is the deciding factor.
I still have to read in this thread something different from "because it makes sense to". @
Hriston @
Flamestrike and others base the whole interpretation on this "fact", but honestly there's nothing more that "it's just so" that has been given as an explanation on why it should be the case. The rules do not associate one thing with the other, dictionary definitions do not associate the two things. Reality? All the examples given either require the abstraction that one one thinks is objective reality or that, somehow, perception is absolute. This is not how reality works. In the sniper example i've provided i can see an example of someone remaining hidden even after "attacking", applying both game rules and simply common sense (both separatly and together) and thus i can say that there's at least ONE example where "position" does not "reveal" and can thing about a thousand where position was "known" until the succesful attempt at hiding takes place (Let's start from a person going behind a corner and then hiding...)
So... Can someone please provide SOMETHING? There's nothing i can think of that gives ANY credit to this "interpretation", so much that for me it's not even an interpretation to begin with!
The question is [...]
I don't think that confident assertions about what the rules do or don't tell us in answer to this question are very helpful. The rules aren't especially well-drafted, and are manifestly capable of multiple constructions.
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I dunno how one can read "attempt to" as only "attempt to remain" exclusively. It's that simple of an answer. "Attempting to" has to be limited to a very specific reading to not be also referring to "attempt to start". It is clear at PHB level for me, apparently not for everyone. More about it later, since i still have to address the DEX and the "observed" part, but i've quoted others...
That's why I'm more interested in thinking through these interesting cases and working out what the best view is from the point of view of the fiction, playability, balance, broader considerations like "let it ride", etc.
I base (most) of my adjudications and decisions as "what is most fun" (for the table). I personally think that this is the best approach for one to keep since it includes everything else as everything else becomes function of the scope of the game.
I partly agree its quasi magical. Its the ability to remain hidden, even when in plain sight and directly observed (such as standing behind a ficus or in rain and being directly stared at).
And yes the emphasis on 'remain' was intentional. Im aware you interpret the rules to enable hiding while being looked at. I interpret them as allowing a hidden creature to remain hidden while being looked at. Its a subtle but important distinction in our differing interpretation of the same passage of text.
And how this factors in all the meanings of "attempt to"? How does a specific rule gets to get overwritten by a general one?
Being obscured is by definition not being seen clearly, all it remains to select is if you are "not clearly seen" enough to actually hide. If you can remain hidden, how can you not hide there? Just forget the whole "we know you are there" here for a moment, because that is another whole problem that i have a lot of issues with but i would like to have some questions answered before repeating all the argument all over again.
My comment is from a PHB level only at this point, i still have another quote to go before i can go in deeper in my thoughts.
[...]
The Sage was asked "Can a wood elf hide while observed" and the answer is "S/he can hide while observers are nearby, and even if eyes are staring directly at the elf." As I said upthread, if by this the Sage intended s/he can hide while observed and even while stared at, he chose an extremely obtuse form of words.
That is not the whole answer. The whole answer includes a "Normally you can't hide from someone if you are in full view. A LH, though, can [...] and a WE can [...]". What they "can" is "try to vanish" and "try to hide". Natural language and phrase construction point to the fact that LH and WE can try to hide when in full view. There is no ambiguity just as there is no ambiguity with the cookie. And trying to hide is NOT equal to trying to remain hidden, since if you said "try to hide" to a person in full view it would clearly ... try to hide. He would look for a place where to hide. A person that thinks it's already hiding would probably tell you "i'm already hiding!". The fact that the VERBS are different should have been an indicator already, as it should have been by the fact that one does allow one to actually perform the second, while the second does not allow to perform the first.
Regarding the DEX and not others... does being able to hide somehow prevent you from leaving traces? Bumping into things? Speaking? Making noise? Prevent you from being seen when not otherwise unseen? The answer is: It's not listed. It's an ability that specifically allows you to do something specific over what the normality is. Nothing in the rule allows you to do anything of the rest or make anything else easier. The roll is still a very normal DEX stealth check because the ability is the same level of complexity for those races as it is to speak a language. You do not roll for them, they do not give advantages on checks. They levy restrictions. Be it for training, constitution, magical affinity what happens is absolutely passive. Mechanically they can (try to) hide in a broader range of occasions. Fluffycally (when words do not come to mind...) it's about snow not melting as fast and sticking more leaving less traces, breath not being as steamy, prehaps even becoming snowy. It's about currents favoring an heavier concentration of water between the WE and his enemies, creating more reflections. It's about making the elf less seen, enough to make him "not clearly seen" enough to hide. Wrap around his mantle and use the stickier snow to blend. A WE knows better than mosts how to keep a low profile and make the most out of light reflections on the drops. He knows how to move in sparse foliage and where to touch bushes to propagate a "fake" movement, prehaps while grabbing a couple of dead braches to put on for better camuflaging.
LH are used to be around big people. They know where the big people sight usually falls on. They have to avoid bumping a whole lot more than what you expect to. They capitalize on their experience to trick others, for that moment of "wait he had to go there!".
Hopefully this also clears up the "fluff - mechanics" part.
As I said upthread, this is taking the action economy too literally for my taste.
I don't envisage the action economy as a model of a stop-motion world. I envisage it as a device for resolving actions that, in the world of the fiction, are unfolding as fluidly as things do in real life.
In real life a person can step out of his/her front door stealthily. There need be no moment where the person is (i) outside the door, yet (ii) not hidden. I don't see why an elf in D&D can't perform this same feat. Especially in 5e, which permits breaking up the movement on either side of the declaration and resolution of the DEX check.
I guess Plaguestrike is talking about a combat situation here, where it's not about action economy (the amount of things one can do) but more about sequentiality - that is equally important. I understand that things in a round happen more or less "at the same time" yet we do not apply retroactively a "blind condition" to someone and tell them to reroll his attacks because just afterwards someone successfully cast blindess on him. It's part of the abstraction of combat that is way more "ruly" than reality is - and must be to keep it simple.
Outside of combat there's no action economy to be tracked unless said tracking is meaningful and important, making your example feasible.
Declaration might be broken up but mechanically if you can't hide, you can't hide - as much as you can't melee strike before getting close to a target. Fluffywise (again words pls) you can tell the story however you want (i'd like to add "as long as the important informations are clear to all those playing").
My point is that vision and sound don't work the same way. I can choose (within limits) to be silent. I can't choose to be invisble.
I am assuming that the elf can't choose to be (literally) invisible either, even in falling snow. So saying that the elf "blinks off the radar" in the same way a human does who hides in darkness is not helpful. In the case of the human in the darkness, what makes him/her unable to be seen is the absence of light. What makes the elf unable to be seen (assuming s/he is not invisible)? I assume that it is some sort of "blending in" with the natural phenomena - camouflage in the broad sense that you used it upthread.
Can this be done while actually under observation from a person watching you? My feeling is that it can't.
But you do not need to be invisible, you just need to not be seen clearly. If that is achieved is up to the DM. That's why Hriston and Flamestrike are able to apply their "interpretation", not because there's something in the rules that supports them directly. It's just not a reasonable interpretation given the material or the wording.
Regarding the human: Rulewise he could be in a strip of darkness with behind a big roaring fire and his siluette being clearly seen. How would you rule? RAW, he can hide. But he can be "seen". This does not change the fact that he can duck to reduce the "footprint" and thus not stick that much out.
Rules are not ... "i do not remember the term you used" without a reason: they give the DM and table full power on what happens while having on print some guidelines in form of rules that explain what are the most common occurrences. They work GREAT as long as this is kept in mind. And that is the final objective of a rule.
Just something to add: I would let a person, no matter the race and if equipped in the right way, to try to pass as a rock while in a dark cave and hide from a passing band of darkvision-able monsters. Obviously not after they already spotted him - unless specific exceptions could apply - but before that happens and then while in view. The point is that i would rule that, even in full view, the "deception" could work.
@
Caliban I dunno if it helps, but i already tried the "you are not sure of what happens next" approach.
