D&D (2024) Am I crazy, or did they just turn Stealth into full Ninja mode?

[UngainlyTitan]

The last paragraph in the Hide Action

"The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurrences: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a verbal component."

Should be moved to the Invisible condition, at least in part, since making an attack roll, casting a spell or other action traditionally broke invisibility.
This is one of several things in this playtest packet where the editing is not up to their usual standards. I also believe that for the purpose of being hidden as distinct to spell invisibility a line indicating that is one passes into a line of sight of an enemy looking in that direction also break the condition.
Honestly I though that the last version of Hidden was good enough if it added something about crossing sight lines when some one was looking.

 

[Shiroiken]

Yeah, just call the condition "unseen". You can be unseen because of concealment. Invisible gives you the unseen condition even if you have no physical concealment. All the other rules regarding making noise above a whisper, etc., apply.

They had the Hidden condition in the last packet that worked just fine. Not sure why the change here, but hopefully negative feedback fixes it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The last paragraph in the Hide Action

Should be moved to the Invisible condition, at least in part, since making an attack roll, casting a spell or other action traditionally broke invisibility.

I know attacking/casting a spell broke it for the Invisibility spell... but I want to say that there were creatures that had invisibility that did not have it break when they attacked. So I don't believe it was a universal truth that all invisibility broke on attacks/spells (with Greater Invisibility the only outlier.)

As a result, I would say that indeed the Invisible [condition] should not itself have the rule of it breaking, but rather the different events for which it could break should include the statement. So the Invisibility spell would say that the Invisible [condition] breaks on attack/casting... but Greater Invisibility would not. And monsters who have natural invisibility would not have to have a statement saying that it doesn't break when they attack/cast either.

I guess it really depends on what WotC would consider the standard rule-- is the standard meant to be that invisibility always breaks except for special circumstances that call out that it doesn't... or does invisibility not break except for special circumstances that call out that it does?

 

[DEFCON 1]

That being said... I do agree that for clarity's sake it would be better for the condition to have a completely different name/word than either of the two things that produce the effect. It can cause a little confusion calling the condition Hidden when there's a Hide action (that invisibility effects reference back to), or the condition Invisible when there's Invisibility effects (that the Hide action references back to.)

I agree with the poster above that the condition should probably be called 'Unseen [condition]. So a successful Hide action makes you Unseen, and going invisible (via spell or effect) makes you Unseen. Because saying that a person who took the Hide action is now Invisible [condition] just like someone who is truly Invisible (from spell or effect) makes people naturally think that they are supposed to be one and the same. But we know they're not, because of all the effects that Hide has that renders someone NOT "invisible".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I know attacking/casting a spell broke it for the Invisibility spell... but I want to say that there were creatures that had invisibility that did not have it break when they attacked. So I don't believe it was a universal truth that all invisibility broke on attacks/spells (with Greater Invisibility the only outlier.)

As a result, I would say that indeed the Invisible [condition] should not itself have the rule of it breaking, but rather the different events for which it could break should include the statement. So the Invisibility spell would say that the Invisible [condition] breaks on attack/casting... but Greater Invisibility would not. And monsters who have natural invisibility would not have to have a statement saying that it doesn't break when they attack/cast either.

I guess it really depends on what WotC would consider the standard rule-- is the standard meant to be that invisibility always breaks except for special circumstances that call out that it doesn't... or does invisibility not break except for special circumstances that call out that it does?

To be completely honest I am not to keen on the current stab at the stealth rules. I thought the last iteration was pretty good with the only real remaining oddity being that the Hidden condition broke on crossing open ground which struck me as narratively implausible. After all I have done that in real life. Or it never broke on an open line of sight )i.e. when some one was looking) which was more implausible.
All that I felt that it needed was an additional line that one could keep the Hidden condition crossing open ground as long as no hostile actor was looking that way.
I take you comments but I think that they are unreasonably overloading the Invisible condition to make it include the Hidden condition though I can see what they are trying to do. My feedback will cover this.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I've been going back and forth on this whole "Invisibility condition" thing.

One thought I had was to just name it the "Unseen" condition.

But the real problem with it is that being hidden from view is not a condition solely of the creature who has it; it's a condition that exists between two creatures. As a formal condition it suggests that it applies to all. As written, if a rogue and a caster are both taking shelter behind a wall, and the rogue succeeds at Hide, that means the caster can't target the rogue with a spell that specifies a target "you can see within range".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

On the Greater Invisibility Spell and creatures that have similar invisible natures, I think that with D&D style exception based design it is sufficient to mention in the specific stat blocks (spell rules) to call out the things that do not break the Invisible condition in those cases.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I've been going back and forth on this whole "Invisibility condition" thing.

One thought I had was to just name it the "Unseen" condition.

But the real problem with it is that being hidden from view is not a condition solely of the creature who has it; it's a condition that exists between two creatures. As a formal condition it suggests that it applies to all. As written, if a rogue and a caster are both taking shelter behind a wall, and the rogue succeeds at Hide, that means the caster can't target the rogue with a spell that specifies a target "you can see within range".

Totally agree, Hidden is a condition of the one seeking out hidden things not the thing that is hiding.
It is quite plausible for the rogue to be hidden from the enemy sentries on the wall but not hidden from the scout in the woods or from his allies.
Hidden is a condition that only applies when someone checks to be able to see someone.

The enemy sentry may not know Fred the rogue's current location but having seen him move can guess he is somewhere in the vicinity of the wagon but Gabby the ranger, now in the long grass was never spotted during movement and the sentry has no clue even as to her existence.
Fred does not know where Gabby is either but Bob the wizard can see her viewing through his familiar (but not directly).

 

[Olrox17]

We could call it the Sneaking condition.
While Sneaking, your speed is halved, and any creature whose Passive Perception is lower or equal to your Dex (Stealth) check cannot perceive you, as long as you have any sort of cover or concealment impairing their senses.
Yes, bring back Passive Perception, for the love of god. Lower it to 8+Perception modifier, so active checks become clearly better than passive.

 

[Stalker0]

We could call it the Sneaking condition.
While Sneaking, your speed is halved, and any creature whose Passive Perception is lower or equal to your Dex (Stealth) check cannot perceive you, as long as you have any sort of cover or concealment impairing their senses.
Yes, bring back Passive Perception, for the love of god. Lower it to 8+Perception modifier, so active checks become clearly better than passive.

Getting there but not quite. This definition means I could scream at the top of my lungs and you still couldn’t perceive me