D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

They are pulling out a lot of information that players need to play the game and sticking it in the DMG. These are more instances that show the PHB to be an incomplete book. Players shouldn't have to go outside of the PHB to have basic knowledge of how things like stealth, social skills, searching, etc. work.

Those things will influence what kind of characters people will create.
They aren't going outside the book, they are breaking down the players portion and the DMs portion.

The player knows exactly what to do, make a DC 15 stealth check when out of sight. The DM knows a.) whether the conditions are right to do that and b.) what the rules are for being spotted. The exploration rules are vague, which implies to me they will be expanded upon in the DMG since exploration is more of a DM facing system than a player one.

I could be wrong. No one has seen the DMG. But I think they tried to move parts of the system that require more DM input into the DMG. We'll see in November...
 

log in or register to remove this ad

isn’t this just speculation at this point? Do we know that there will be further details in it? Let alone how relevant that information is for the player as opposed to the DM…
The exploration rules in the PHB are barely more than a page. Hiding (posted above somewhere) basically says "your DM decides" I imagine that the DMG will give advice (if not actual rules) for the DM to make that decision. But until we get the DMG, we don't know for sure.
 

The issue here is treating two pretending to be pedestrians engaging in a little PDA (for example) as invisible, as if they were physically hidden or had cast a spell making them invisible. Those are different things and should be adjudication differently (all three scenarios, actually). Just because it's not a big deal to you doesn't mean others have no right to feel differently.

Why should those things be adjudicated differently? In all three cases, if done successfully, the enemy is unaware of the target. The same condition applies. Having three different conditions is needlessly complex.
 


It's reasonable in the abstract that someone hiding stops being hidden if they leave cover or concealment. But I'm not sure it's a reasonable interpretation of the new rules, since it makes the Hide action practically useless.

Out-of-combat, a creature in 3/4 cover might (depending on how the requirements are interpreted) be able to become unseen by taking the Hide Action. But creatures in total cover or heavy obscurement gain literally nothing by taking the Hide action. It doesn't help them become unseen (because they already are); stay unseen (because under this interpretation one loses the Invisible condition if one leaves cover or concealment); or become or remain unheard (because the 2024 Hide action rules don't provide any such benefit). And the same is true in-combat if the 2024 rules still provide the "Attacks Affected" benefit of the Invisible condition to anyone who is unseen, the way the Unseen Attackers rule does in the 2014 rules.
We don't know the bolded part yet. It could very easily be that silence is part of becoming hidden by using stealth and is mentioned in the general stealth rules. If it is, then it would apply to the hide action as well and wouldn't need to be repeated there. The general stealth rules could also clarify other areas of debate we are seeing in this thread.
 

isn’t this just speculation at this point? Do we know that there will be further details in it? Let alone how relevant that information is for the player as opposed to the DM…
Yes, but we are seeing several holes in the rules already, so my statement about the PHB being even more incomplete is likely to be accurate. The hole in the cleric class is 100% accurate, so the PHB is already incomplete. The designers have said there are no gods for clerics to pick in the PHB.
 

They aren't going outside the book, they are breaking down the players portion and the DMs portion.

The player knows exactly what to do, make a DC 15 stealth check when out of sight. The DM knows a.) whether the conditions are right to do that and b.) what the rules are for being spotted. The exploration rules are vague, which implies to me they will be expanded upon in the DMG since exploration is more of a DM facing system than a player one.

I could be wrong. No one has seen the DMG. But I think they tried to move parts of the system that require more DM input into the DMG. We'll see in November...
It's critically important for me as a player to know those two things before I pick a rogue to make a stealthy character. Otherwise I could very easily find out to my detriment that stealth isn't as fun/good as I thought it was and I don't want to play this character. Now I've wasted my time, the DMs time and the time the other players over something that I should have been able to see in the PHB.
 

The exploration rules in the PHB are barely more than a page. Hiding (posted above somewhere) basically says "your DM decides"
it says a bit more than that… it says you use the Hide action and in it, it says that you can only successfully hide when no enemies can see you. To me that is something only the DM can decide, not sure whether there will be more clarification in the DMG.

I imagine that the DMG will give advice (if not actual rules) for the DM to make that decision. But until we get the DMG, we don't know for sure.
there will be some stuff, no doubt, whether concerning hiding or not. None of this should be relevant to the player though, as I said
 

It's critically important for me as a player to know those two things before I pick a rogue to make a stealthy character. Otherwise I could very easily find out to my detriment that stealth isn't as fun/good as I thought it was and I don't want to play this character. Now I've wasted my time, the DMs time and the time the other players over something that I should have been able to see in the PHB.
Right. The DMG may have extra situational detail, but reading the PHB rules should give the player roughly correct idea of their character's capabilities.
 

Yes, but we are seeing several holes in the rules already, so my statement about the PHB being even more incomplete is likely to be accurate. The hole in the cleric class is 100% accurate, so the PHB is already incomplete.
incomplete is in the eye of the beholder, the PHB should contain everything the player needs to know to play the game, anything beyond that point can be in the DMG. Not sure what hiding rules you think are in the DMG that would be relevant for the player.

As to the gods, they don’t really belong in the PHB as they are setting dependent, unlike basically anything else in it - and if anything else is, that is a case to not have it there either, like the planes
 

Remove ads

Top