D&D 5E [GUIDE] Stealth, Hiding and You!

Noctem

Explorer
Your attacks do get a bonus. Attacking someone who can't see you grants you advantage on your attack rolls against it, in the case of hiding that would be only for the first attack while hidden. Hiding also causes those who would want to attack you not to be able to know where you are, have disadvantage on attack rolls against you, amongst other stuff. The first few sections of the guide detail the benefits involved but basically if you're trying to hide only to then move out of hiding, move toward an enemy and then still gain the benefits of hiding I personally wouldn't let you constantly do so unless I deemed the target in question to be distracted. But again, this is all DM fiat. A great solution to this problem for melee rogues is to gain invisibility somehow since you don't lose it after attacking in some cases and can roll to hide whenever you want as long as you have the action left to do so (bonus via cunning action for rogues for example).
 

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Zene

First Post
The guide covers the event of a tie between an active search roll and a stealth check (stealth loses, search wins). What about in the case of a tie between passive perception and a stealth roll? Like say I rolled a stealth check of 15 and my opponent has a passive perception of 15?
My understanding is that this is not an opposed roll; rather, the stealth roll is using the passive perception score as a DC. So a tie would mean the active roll would win. But this is not explicitly stated on the book. Any thoughts?
 


Noctem

Explorer
The guide covers the event of a tie between an active search roll and a stealth check (stealth loses, search wins). What about in the case of a tie between passive perception and a stealth roll? Like say I rolled a stealth check of 15 and my opponent has a passive perception of 15?
My understanding is that this is not an opposed roll; rather, the stealth roll is using the passive perception score as a DC. So a tie would mean the active roll would win. But this is not explicitly stated on the book. Any thoughts?

From my understanding Stealth would lose even though it is the active roll. That is the way it worked in previous editions of the game and the way 5e seems to function.
 

Noctem

Explorer
I can't see the image. Can you tell me where to look. I'll delete this post if you do! Thanks

The image in question was a hallway with various sections of obscurement and light. think of it this way:

DLDLDLD

D= darkness and L= light.

In the rules before the errata, you wouldn't be able to see beyond the first Darkness patch. It would stop you from seeing any light beyond it, the rest of the hallway or even anything standing inside a light patch. Which made no sense of course. With the errata you can now see the light beyond the first patch of darkness and through further ones, all the way to the end of the hallway. Hope that answers your question :)
 


John11

First Post
I cast pyrotechnics (smoke effect, create heavily obscured area) and stand inside of it. Does it mean I can see what is around me and others are effectively blinded when trying look at/attack me?

Eddit: I cast minor illusion on the place where i stand. I create black 5-foot cube. What will happen when i attack somone or sommone try to attack me?
 
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Sir Brennen

Legend
I cast pyrotechnics (smoke effect, create heavily obscured area) and stand inside of it. Does it mean I can see what is around me and others are effectively blinded when trying look at/attack me?

Pyrotechnics isn't a 5E spell, but fog cloud (also creates heavily obscured area) would illustrate your point. No, you can't see out of heavy obscurement (unless you have a special sense to overcome it, i.e. darkvision for darkness, blindsense for heavy fog, x-ray vision for a stone wall) so both you and your enemies outside the fog are effectively blinded with regard to seeing each other.

But say you have a class feature, spell or item that is actively giving you blindsense at the moment. You cast fog cloud centered on yourself in a room full of guards. You're now heavily obscured. If they shoot crossbows at you, they have disadvantage, being effectively blinded when targeting you. If you also successfully hide, they don't even know what spot you're in within the fog, so may fire at an empty position. (Some DM's might rule this to be the case anyway, without needing the hide roll.)

Once they enter the fog, they are again effectively blinded by the fog, having disadvantage attacking you.

What you have is open to interpretation. Since you can see them with blindsense, you can "see" through the fog, and do not have disadvantage. Since they are only "effectively" blinded, and not actually, do you get advantage like you would against someone with the Blinded condition? Eh. Maybe. DM call. It might be better to interpret the situation as you're effectively invisible to them, and would have advantage in that case. Same would be true of a darkvision creature attacking a normal sighted creature in total darkness.

You already have advantage, why would you use the Hide action in this scenario? Once you attack, your position is given away. Even though it's with disadvantage, the opponent can still attack you back. Using Hide, you could quietly move around so they lose track of you, and again, might be swinging their sword at an empty space.

Edit: I cast minor illusion on the place where i stand. I create black 5-foot cube. What will happen when i attack someone or someone try to attack me?

If you've successfully hid in the area of the illusion without anyone observing you first, you'd gain advantage on the attack. But as soon as it's determined whether your attack hits or misses, your position is given away to the opponent. Because you've thrown an illusion into the mix, it gets a little more complicated.

So some lucky guard got a hit in and disrupts your concentration on your fog cloud. You run up a stair case, guards in pursuit. Entering a bed chamber, you cast an illusion of a dresser over yourself and hide within the illusion. You know it's an illusion, so you can see through it just fine.

A servant comes in to replace some pillows. Your Stealth check only needs to beat their Passive Perception, because they aren't looking at you. It's close, so they look at the dresser because they know this room and it looks out of place. But they think nothing further of it and leave.

Now a guard bursts in the room. He's looking for you, so he makes an active Perception roll against your Stealth. He doesn't notice your boot toe sticking beyond the illusion edge or hear your heavy breathing from crouching awkwardly within the illusion. The guard moves toward the closet past you, and you attack with advantage, because you were still hidden. Now, if you have enough rogue levels, you can try and hide again in the illusion because you're still heavily obscured, but the guard knows where the attack came from. He may take an action to see through the illusion, in which case he sees you, you are no longer hidden, and he can attack normally. Or, he just attacks the dresser normally, which he can see, and will probably hit you when his sword passes through it. And then once again, he can see through the illusion.

If the illusion was just simply a solid black cube, well, that's a really obvious illusion; I'd rule opponents would be suspicious and alert around it anyway, ruining any advantage of an attack from hiding.

Some of that is still getting a little into DM call area. If you cast a black 5-foot cube illusion over yourself during combat in the middle of an empty room, you're heavily obscured, out of the line of sight of enemies, but as a DM, I'm not going to rule that you're in the game sense. The enemy knows exactly where you are; you aren't going to get advantage on an attack if they walk up to the cube, nor will they have disadvantage shooting at it. Same with hiding behind a lone tree in a field. They may have disadvantage because you have cover, but not because you're hidden. But if you're a wood elf (hide in light obscurement) and move behind a 20' long row of hedges and hide, I'd allow it, because your exact position is in question. Shooting an arrow through the hedges or stabbing someone approaching them who has not beaten your stealth check is going to be an attack with advantage.

The situation that causes the most debate is if it were a 20' low stone wall, and the character hiding pops up to make a ranged attack. Do they still get advantage for hiding, or are they now out of hiding to make the attack? For me personally, it's a "it depends" situation. Hidden behind the wall before combat started? Advantage. Hide after combat started, shooting opponent with clear view of wall? No. Shooting opponent on far side of combat area focusing on something else? Probably.
 

schnee

First Post
In the rules before the errata, you wouldn't be able to see beyond the first Darkness patch. It would stop you from seeing any light beyond it, the rest of the hallway or even anything standing inside a light patch. Which made no sense of course. With the errata you can now see the light beyond the first patch of darkness and through further ones, all the way to the end of the hallway. Hope that answers your question :)

That... makes less sense to me. If you're in a brightly lit open room, and cast darkness on the floor of the middle, then you are effectively lit from behind by the areas of light on the other side you can see.

Then, people inside it are effectively blinded and can't see out, but outside people - based on what's around them - should be able to see in to some degree.

Which means in some situations you should be able to attack them from outside without disadvantage. Right?

--

Also, it means Fog Cloud has some fundamental differences - it's opaque, which will hide things on the other side completely (unlike darkness), which means it can help you escape due to others not being able to see you at all. Whereas Darkness only allows you to escape from people also inside it, assuming they don't just hear your footsteps and follow you out immediately.
 

Yunru

Banned
Banned
Darkness is magical. Nothing sees through Darkness, in or out, without a very special sense (regular Darkvision won't cut it).
 

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