D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[Cergorach]

Apply common sense.

Where is that action listed?

If things were that simple, we wouldn't be having a 1200+ reaction discussion...

I have a LOT of issues with these rules, parts of it are scattered all over the PHB and it's up to us to assemble that in a working whole? And I have this sneaking suspicion that we're missing parts that might be in the DMG or MM...

Give us the rules flow for things that happen often, like Surprise. Sure the DM can handweave, these monsters are hidden you're surprised. But what about spotting the ambush before it happens, how does that work? Does the DM throw a stealth check for every creature? Do we use passive perception against that or roll for perception? Do we do that for each individual monster? This seems like a LOT of senseless dice rolling for very little payout!

Letting the DM decide these effects arbitrarily makes me wonder why I pay WotC/Hasbro for the rules when they don't actually make any rules that function as a cohesive whole? Or rules that are not wide open for interpretation... It's like getting a city maps on puzzle pieces, have fun assembling!, but I just want to go from A to B!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

See, this annoys me. Because the rule is only "broken" because you insist on breaking it by having a single, specific, narrow interpretation that you agree is unreasonable, and then refusing any other possible interpretation.

This isn't "the rules are broken but the DM can fix them" this is smashing the rules with a hammer over and over, while screaming that it was broken when you got here and that other people shouldn't have left this such a mess.

Your interpretation isn't RAI, it is unreasonable, and you admit it. It isn't a fallacy to tell you that you can have a different, reasonable interpretation.

There is no coherent interpretation that makes both hiding and invisibility spell to function sensibly, that does not involve inventing rules that are not there. It is far from clear what RAI here is. Your interpretation that invisibility provided by hide action ends when conditions required for taking the hide action end makes hiding practically useless. You must be out of line of sight of any enemies to hide, so they didn't see you in the first place.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think there's much implication going on here.

Flavour text says what goes on. Rules then back it up. Yes, not everything is in the spell description, but it's definitely there. "You can't be seen by normal forms of vision" is pretty clear.

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Fair.

Although here's the flip side, if you factor in the Invisible definition: PHB p 281 says that "A variety of powers and other effects can render you invisible, effectively giving you total concealment."

The amended Stealth rules (PHB2 p 222) say that "If you no longer have any cover or concealment against an enemy, you don’t remain hidden from that enemy. You don’t need superior cover, total concealment, or to stay outside line of sight, but you do need some degree of cover or concealment to remain hidden. You can’t use another creature as cover to remain hidden."

So when you become "invisible" by hiding, why does this not guarantee you the concealment that you need to remain "invisible"? This has to be worked out by extrapolation/inference.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Many of the things that you, others, and even myself have suggested are reasonable. None of those things are part of the PHB. As part of the target audience is newer players and newer DMs, so those solutions may not be as obvious to someone sitting down to a D&D table for the first time.

Broken is debatable. Either way, it could have been written better.

Yes, it could have been written better. However, I cannot possibly believe that someone new to DnD sitting down at the table for the first time, isn't going to think there is a difference between hiding behind a couch, then stepping out, and casting the Invisibility spell. Those two actions are clearly so fundamentally different in the fiction, that despite them giving the same condition, no one will ever reasonably come to the conclusion that is being expressed here. None of these questions of "what if..." that have been asked here, will be asked.

The sad truth is, newer players will approach this as the rules were intended, because they are not yet at the stage where they analyze rules to apply absurd RAW to the situation. They will follow RAI.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Give us the rules flow for things that happen often, like Surprise. Sure the DM can handweave, these monsters are hidden you're surprised. But what about spotting the ambush before it happens, how does that work?

You compare the monsters stealth to the player's passive perception. Or if you properly foreshadowed, the player will take the search action, and roll against the monster's stealth, spotting the ambush ahead of time and preventing the surprise.

Does the DM throw a stealth check for every creature?

You could, or you could use a passive stealth score. Not sure why you think the Player's Handbook should cover how the DM handles large groups of monsters making the same skill check.

Do we use passive perception against that or roll for perception?

That depends on if the player takes an action or not to search or look for danger.

Do we do that for each individual monster?

No, it would be a single check versus all of the stealth scores.

This seems like a LOT of senseless dice rolling for very little payout!

Letting the DM decide these effects arbitrarily makes me wonder why I pay WotC/Hasbro for the rules when they don't actually make any rules that function as a cohesive whole? Or rules that are not wide open for interpretation... It's like getting a city maps on puzzle pieces, have fun assembling!, but I just want to go from A to B!

Except all of this IS in the rules, except for the single bit about "how do I as the DM handle large groups of monsters making the same skill check". These rules are perfectly functional, if you allow them to function instead of bemoaning how they do not function, falling to your knees, and screaming at the clouds.

 

[Scott Christian]

I’ve read and re-read the rule for stealth and it seems very clear to me. I will have no problem adjudicating it in game. Do people actually play by carefully parsing every word and seeing how far they can stretch the interpretation to come up with absurd results? Do any DMs engage with them? It seems exhausting and the antithesis of why I play games.

If a player tried to claim that stealth now makes them into the Invisible Man I would just say, “No, obviously not,” and move on. Expecting everyone to be playing in good faith is the baseline for any group I’m interested in joining.

This. One thousand times - this!

The player that would keep insisting on invisibility is the player looking for a DM that doesn't know or understand the rules. Which is when they can pretend their smarter than everybody in the room. Instead, a DM who says no, and players that are mature and support the DM, simply shut this down. Even an open-minded DM and table that says, let's read this after the session, will come to the conclusion that it's nonsense.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is no coherent interpretation that makes both hiding and invisibility spell to function sensibly, that does not involve inventing rules that are not there. It is far from clear what RAI here is. Your interpretation that invisibility provided by hide action ends when conditions required for taking the hide action end makes hiding practically useless. You must be out of line of sight of any enemies to hide, so they didn't see you in the first place.

"inventing new rules that are not there" is the problem. You keep demanding that things are explicitly spelled out in exacting language that leaves no room for anything else. Sure, the invisibility spell could have said it renders you impossible to see with normal vision. But since everyone who has read even a paragraph of fantasy knows that is what an invisibility spell should do.... is it really needed? Is "inventing" that "rule" such a necessity that the entire thing falls apart without it?

... No, not really. All of the functions of the condition work if you are just really hard to see instead of perfectly transparent. And forcing someone who cast the invisibility spell to make stealth checks isn't bad. It in fact preserves the utility of the skill check if you can't have a better version of it by just casting a spell.

Does being out of sight mean that you are stealthy enough to get the advantages of the invisible condition? Considering I've dealt with dogs barking their heads off while in a separate room... no, being out of sight isn't enough to make it so that someone needs to take time searching for where you are.

Would the rules be better if they stated that breaking cover broke the condition granted by hiding? No, actually. Because other than people insisting that the Invisible condition must mean transparent and undetectable, not just unseen, there are actual good reasons to allow the condition to continue after breaking cover. We've had a good half dozen of them proposed in this thread. If the rules insisted that if you leave cover, the condition immediately ends, then you would have to re-roll stealth every time you moved, which statistically means you are eventually guaranteed to fail stealth and get caught. And you should be able to do things like hide in the rafters, which doesn't technically grant cover, but logically makes sense to hide there, or slipping into a dark room, which logically makes sense to hide from humans, but doesn't technically provide cover, or disappearing in a heavy fog, which again, not technically cover, but makes sense that you could hide and stealth through a heavy fog. They left the rules open for actual, good faith, attempts at hiding and stealth. Not for bad faith "well, actually, the rules technically say..." play.

If you stop insisting they are broken, and stop insisting on scenarios that clearly were not intended... this all works perfectly fine, even very well actually.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

"inventing new rules that are not there" is the problem. You keep demanding that things are explicitly spelled out in exacting language that leaves no room for anything else. Sure, the invisibility spell could have said it renders you impossible to see with normal vision. But since everyone who has read even a paragraph of fantasy knows that is what an invisibility spell should do.... is it really needed? Is "inventing" that "rule" such a necessity that the entire thing falls apart without it?

... No, not really. All of the functions of the condition work if you are just really hard to see instead of perfectly transparent. And forcing someone who cast the invisibility spell to make stealth checks isn't bad. It in fact preserves the utility of the skill check if you can't have a better version of it by just casting a spell.

Does being out of sight mean that you are stealthy enough to get the advantages of the invisible condition? Considering I've dealt with dogs barking their heads off while in a separate room... no, being out of sight isn't enough to make it so that someone needs to take time searching for where you are.

Would the rules be better if they stated that breaking cover broke the condition granted by hiding? No, actually. Because other than people insisting that the Invisible condition must mean transparent and undetectable, not just unseen, there are actual good reasons to allow the condition to continue after breaking cover. We've had a good half dozen of them proposed in this thread. If the rules insisted that if you leave cover, the condition immediately ends, then you would have to re-roll stealth every time you moved, which statistically means you are eventually guaranteed to fail stealth and get caught. And you should be able to do things like hide in the rafters, which doesn't technically grant cover, but logically makes sense to hide there, or slipping into a dark room, which logically makes sense to hide from humans, but doesn't technically provide cover, or disappearing in a heavy fog, which again, not technically cover, but makes sense that you could hide and stealth through a heavy fog. They left the rules open for actual, good faith, attempts at hiding and stealth. Not for bad faith "well, actually, the rules technically say..." play.

If you stop insisting they are broken, and stop insisting on scenarios that clearly were not intended... this all works perfectly fine, even very well actually.

So you don't think the hide invisibility ends when the conditions for hiding no longer apply?

I have hard time gauging from your posts what you think this RAI that is so obvious even is, beyond, just ignore the rules and rule what seems sensible, which is not a ringing endorsement for the quality of the rules. I can do that without any rules, so there is no need to pay WotC for it.

 

[Eric V]

This. One thousand times - this!

The player that would keep insisting on invisibility is the player looking for a DM that doesn't know or understand the rules. Which is when they can pretend their smarter than everybody in the room. Instead, a DM who says no, and players that are mature and support the DM, simply shut this down. Even an open-minded DM and table that says, let's read this after the session, will come to the conclusion that it's nonsense.

Agreed. I would rule "no" as well.

Then, when the player argues that the rules as they are printed allows for it, is there anything other than "I'm the DM, and I say no" to point to for my reasonable ruling?

If yes, what is it?

If no, why aren't the printed rules supporting a reasonable take on hiding/invisibility?

 

[Cergorach]

... Except all of this IS in the rules...

If it is, could you instead of giving your interpretation, quote each step from the new PHB (with page number)? I've strung the separate rules together and that leaves a LOT of interpretation and making pretty big leaps between each rule.
For example the Hide Action talks about 'finding', that isn't a game term. Why talk about a Hide Action and then not about a Find/Detect/Search Action?

Also a DC 15 base for hiding means that an average human with no stealth skill has only a 30% chance of hiding, and that would mean that an average human would never detect a hidden person with a passive perception... You either need to be super human or have a very high level and have the perception skill... Or actively searching for something.

Let's just accept that the 'invisible' condition is just a status name and not the actual effect. But you get the same condition when you cast the Invisible spell... You only use different conditions for it to end...

Sure, I understand that DM rules for running monsters should be in the DMG OR the MM. Except that WotC decided to not release the DMG til 2 months later or the MM 5 months later. How the heck are you supposed to run a smooth game like that? Especially when the 2014 PHB was quite clear in how that worked for the DM:

A band of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from the trees to attack them. A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. In these situations, one side of the battle gains surprise over the other.

The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the GM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.

That is crystal clear! Where can I find that one paragraph in the 2024 PHB that explains the surprise mechanics this concise and this clear?