D&D (2024) Current Stealth Rule Actually Works As Is. If Moving Out of Cover After Hiding Makes Enemies Immediately "Finds You", Hide Would Be Totally UNUSABLE.

[Li Shenron]

Which is a useless score...

Then roll

 

[Guest 7037866]

While you make good points @UngeheuerLich at this point I am simply convinced passive as routine is fine, passive as "not active" should never be used.

 

[Horwath]

I agree. Passive perception should be 5 plus modifiers. I can think of almost no occasions when my PCS want to waste an action searching for someone when they have a 45% chance of getting lower than Passive perception.

Good solution is to give advantage on Perception if you are willing to use Action to try to find someone.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Then roll

Or use 10+bonus.
Often with disadvantage.

 

[Pauln6]

Good solution is to give advantage on Perception if you are willing to use Action to try to find someone.

Most monsters are not that hard to find. I do think there is design space for rebalancing the passive scores. I would say anyone performing any other task while exploring, such as moving stealthily, should be base 5. Not allowing expertise bonuses on passive scores would help, and allowing fighters to perform active checks by sacrificing one attack instead of their whole action, might give them an edge.

My experience of base 10 is that it's far too easy to spot traps and hiding villains. Maybe fun for people without tactical brains but it makes it less cat and mouse.

 

[ECMO3]

It might work mechanically sometimes but the wording is a hot mess.

Hiding makes you "invisible" and invisible means you can't been seen .... but to try to hide you need to be fully obnscured which means you can't be seen anyway ....

then breaking cover does not break invisibility .... So RAW I can hide in the bushes in front if the castle, then if I am successful I can just walk out of the bushes and right between the two guard at the font gate, go right through the Parlor and upstairs to the kings room, walking right past his bodyguards, then while the King is signing documents on his desk I can steal his crown off the very same desk and he can't see me do it because after all I am invisible.

The old 2014 stealth rules were not great either, but they were better than what we have.

 

[Li Shenron]

It might work mechanically sometimes but the wording is a hot mess.

Hiding makes you "invisible" and invisible means you can't been seen .... but to try to hide you need to be fully obnscured which means you can't be seen anyway ....

then breaking cover does not break invisibility .... So RAW I can hide in the bushes in front if the castle, then if I am successful I can just walk out of the bushes and right between the two guard at the font gate, go right through the Parlor and upstairs to the kings room, walking right past his bodyguards, then while the King is signing documents on his desk I can steal his crown off the very same desk and he can't see me do it because after all I am invisible.

The old 2014 stealth rules were not great either, but they were better than what we have.

Relying on "keywords" requires to be very careful of all the possible consequences. It's best done when designing a game from scratch, because probably the relationships between different rules of the game is still fresh in the designers' minds. In theory it would make sense that after 10 years of an edition, the designers know the rules a lot better, but in practice it might be that each designer has developed their own tunnel vision, and are not thinking enough of all the consequences. Choosing to link the keyword "invisible" to hiding, after the designers themselves have discussed for ages with the gaming community about how much "being hidden" is not the same as "being unseen", is a huge step backward.

 

[Pauln6]

It might work mechanically sometimes but the wording is a hot mess.

Hiding makes you "invisible" and invisible means you can't been seen .... but to try to hide you need to be fully obnscured which means you can't be seen anyway ....

then breaking cover does not break invisibility .... So RAW I can hide in the bushes in front if the castle, then if I am successful I can just walk out of the bushes and right between the two guard at the font gate, go right through the Parlor and upstairs to the kings room, walking right past his bodyguards, then while the King is signing documents on his desk I can steal his crown off the very same desk and he can't see me do it because after all I am invisible.

The old 2014 stealth rules were not great either, but they were better than what we have.

The change was clearly brought in to overcome the notion that you can be seen by everyone as soon as you break cover rather than allowing the obvious trope of being able to sneak up behind people or past distracted people.

They should have put in a small amount of clarification. You can potentially be seen if you you have no cover or concealment or heard if you move faster than half move when there is no other significant noise. Check your stealth score against the passive perception of the target. Someone alert, such as a guard on duty, may have +5 on their score. Someone distracted will have -5 to their score. You lose the invisible condition automatically in circumstances where the target cannot fail to see you, such as approaching openly, without cover or concealment, in direct line of sight, unless there is some other way to disguise your presence, such as mingling with a crowd.

Personally, if you succeed on your initial DC15 check, I would not want to give every monster a passive check automatically unless circumstances change.