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.

[MarkB]

You are correct. You pointed what I consider one more problem. In this case what I do is not letting players use these abilities, because they could be used for metagaming to know success/failure when they couldn't figure it out by themselves.
Besides 5e rulling, technically you never fail a stealth test, because it is not binary, it is just a measurement of how good you were in your attempt to hide. Even if you take it as a binary, you should consider that in a stealth check you may succed regarding to the guard in the corner but fail regarding to the orc right beside you.

And under the current rules, if you fail against one of them you fail against both, because being found by any enemy causes you to lose the Invisibility condition.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You are correct. You pointed what I consider one more problem. In this case what I do is not letting players use these abilities, because they could be used for metagaming to know success/failure when they couldn't figure it out by themselves.
Besides 5e rulling, technically you never fail a stealth test, because it is not binary, it is just a measurement of how good you were in your attempt to hide. Even if you take it as a binary, you should consider that in a stealth check you may succed regarding to the guard in the corner but fail regarding to the orc right beside you.

Couldn't care less about "metagaming" in this instance, and I don't think the designers would be terribly incentivized to make some of the most important checks not work with the abilities that are specifically supposed to work with skill checks. Not letting it work for certain checks because that would reveal they failed goes completely against the purpose of abilities that are meant to assist in preventing you from failing.

 

[Maxperson]

With the caveat that I may change my mind after I get both the PHB and DMG in my hands, my sense now is that the rules for Hiding and the Invisible condition work quite well without errata or house rules, thanks in large part to the thoughts in this thread of @Kinematics @Maxperson and @Soulknife_Infiltrator.

The only question I have in my own mind is how I would rule on someone coming out of cover in Bright Light as to whether they would automatically be found (ie no uncertainty) or if I would instead give all enemies (or PCs if the circumstances were reversed) advantage (and thus a +5 to their passive perception) to find someone coming out of cover or a heavily obscured area.

I'm leaning towards the latter, as I think it's fine that a rouge who got a 21 Stealth check could slip by a typical guard (15 passive upped to 20 due to advantage) in bright light (waiting for them to turn their head before sneaking by) or sneak up behind an enemy in battle to melee attack them. In Dim Light coming out of cover would be against the regular passive perception roll, and I'd probably give disadvantage to the enemy if they were in Darkness (making it consistant with the advantage for Bright Light).

My issue isn't with a rogue trying to time it so that the guard can't see him due to a turned head. If a PC tried that in my game, he'd get a roll, though it might be very difficult. My issue is that as written the rogue can just stand there and wait for the guard to look back and still not be seen.

You mention above automatically finding the rogue due to the outcome not being in doubt, but that rule is for rolls. The DM calls for a roll when the outcome is uncertain. The rule here is that it's either an active search, which could be automatically successful, since the DM could decide the outcome is certain, or passive perception being successful which involves no roll or decision of certainty by the DM. Either the passive score is enough or it isn't.

The DM can certainly treat passive perception as a roll and declare it automatically successful, but that is a modification to the rules to fix what I see as broken stealth/hiding rules.

 

[OB1]

My issue isn't with a rogue trying to time it so that the guard can't see him due to a turned head. If a PC tried that in my game, he'd get a roll, though it might be very difficult. My issue is that as written the rogue can just stand there and wait for the guard to look back and still not be seen.

You mention above automatically finding the rogue due to the outcome not being in doubt, but that rule is for rolls.

Rolls are only called for if the outcome is in doubt. If I hide behind cover and then stroll right up to a guards face, there is no doubt about the outcome, they see you. Same as if I walk up to an unlocked door and open it. If I as a player, instead say that I'm trying to time my sprint past the guard for when they're not looking, that's where passive perception (with advantage in bright light) would come into play.

And that's exactly how I would discuss the situation with a player who believed that the original Hide gave them invisibility, and then they described trying to walk past 6 guards at a gate in broad daylight. I'd say, okay they guards see you and tell you to stop, drawing their weapons. If the player said, but I was hiding, I'd confirm that they aren't just trying to waltz by them as if invisible, and then resolve the uncertainty. Because you're not actually invisible, you just have the invisible condition, which assumes a different scene and a different approach by the PCs.

 

[Plaguescarred]

If to conceal yourself, you must be out of any enemy's line of sight, i expect there will be ways to determine line of sight in grid play, like DMG 2014 and perhaps more guidance on how to handle the Hide action.

 

[Soulknife_Infiltrator]

If to conceal yourself, you must be out of any enemy's line of sight, i expect there will be ways to determine line of sight in grid play, like DMG 2014 and perhaps more guidance on how to handle the Hide action.

Then what's the purpose of Hide action? It'll be unusable that way, which also basically means a Rogue could never make a melee attack with Hide.

 

[FrogReaver]

Rolls are only called for if the outcome is in doubt.

As an example. ‘I attempt to grapple the elephant.’ Any doubt about what happens there? Which dm is not going to give the pc a roll?

Or said a bit more cleanly. Some rules establish a situation is certain/uncertain without dm judgement. 2024 stealth is one of those rules.

If I hide behind cover and then stroll right up to a guards face, there is no doubt about the outcome, they see you.

By RAW there is no doubt that they don’t see you.

Same as if I walk up to an unlocked door and open it. If I as a player, instead say that I'm trying to time my sprint past the guard for when they're not looking, that's where passive perception (with advantage in bright light) would come into play.

the rules already specify what lighting conditions do. Guard would not have advantage for bright light, he would have a normal check for that. There might be some other reason to give him advantage but lighting isn’t it.

And that's exactly how I would discuss the situation with a player who believed that the original Hide gave them invisibility, and then they described trying to walk past 6 guards at a gate in broad daylight. I'd say, okay they guards see you and tell you to stop, drawing their weapons. If the player said, but I was hiding, I'd confirm that they aren't just trying to waltz by them as if invisible, and then resolve the uncertainty. Because you're not actually invisible, you just have the invisible condition, which assumes a different scene and a different approach by the PCs.

RAI I’m fine with that, but it’s not RAW. If you had told players stealth was being ran by RAW then you would be in the wrong.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Then what's the purpose of Hide action? It'll be unusable that way, which also basically means a Rogue could never make a melee attack with Hide.

The purpose of Hiding is to conceal yourself, not attack in melee. If you can do so in no one's line of sight, you may even have Advantage as explained in the Invisible condition: If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature.

 

[Soulknife_Infiltrator]

The purpose of Hiding is to conceal yourself, not attack in melee. If you can do so in no one's line of sight, you may even have Advantage as explained in the Invisible condition: If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature.

Yes but the problem is you can't even get an attack with advantage through Hide, if you rule like that. This is also stated in the post. You have to walk out of the cover in order to make the attack. Hiding behinde a 3/4 Cover will not be working at all, since 3/4 Cover won't be blocking your enemies sight completely, which makes you spotted instantly after you took the Hide.

I think this kind of ruling is just overinterpretation which makes the rule total useless. I don't think designers would want Melee Attack after Hiding impossible. This is much more absurd and counterintuitive designing that leads to scenarios even more unrealistic.

 

[Pauln6]

Yes but the problem is you can't even get an attack with advantage through Hide, if you rule like that. This is also stated in the post. You have to walk out of the cover in order to make the attack. Hiding behinde a 3/4 Cover will not be working at all, since 3/4 Cover won't be blocking your enemies sight completely, which makes you spotted instantly after you took the Hide.

I think this kind of ruling is just overinterpretation which makes the rule total useless. I don't think designers would want Melee Attack after Hiding impossible. This is much more absurd and counterintuitive designing that leads to scenarios even more unrealistic.

If they had kept the wording that if you do something to break the invisible condition, you nonetheless retain it until the end of your turn, that would fix one problem - breaking cover to attack - but would give advantage on all your attacks that turn.

Specific wording that if you end your turn without cover or concealment then you are no longer invisible doesn't cover the scenario of the distracted guard.

They just need a paragraph on adjudication of when it's possible to detect someone.

If someone has the invisible condition and stays put, perhaps waiting for nightfall. I see no reason not to let them stay invisible. So a PC with a high passive perception walks into a room with hidden goblin guards, the guards do not instantly lose the condition on that PC's turn if they rolled over 15. The PC has to actively search.

If they move from their position, crossing open ground, an alert guard gets to roll perception, a distracted guard you check against passive perception, and in some circumstances (alert guards looking in the correct direction when there is no cover or concealment) the condition breaks because it is certain that the guard 'can somehow see you'. The latter is where you use classic distraction techniques as your action/free interaction to remove the certainty (thrown rock, noisy familiar etc).

Under cover or concealment e.g in fog or at night, if the rogue was moving silently at half speed, I might not even give the lazy guard their passive perception check because nothing has happened to break the invisible condition but that's me considering a personal preference. At night, they would take -5 on the check anyway, I guess?

The DM decides when a new stealth roll is needed. Perhaps avoiding lots of dry twigs might require a check when moving across open ground but that could easily be deemed part of the passive perception check since the PC has broken cover?