There's been a lot of arguements about Hiding recently, and I have a copy of PHB from Gen-Con (
actually it's my friend's book, he went to the Gen-Con and brought one back, very lucky of him).
After thoroughly reading it through, I've found that the "Sneaking Rule" actually breaks into
five parts. We need to see it all before we can understand how it works. I agree that the current sneak rules isn't the best we could have. It could be better worded, but it's still surely playable and much easier to use than 5e2014. Me and my friends have tested it during playtest in a similar way, and it turns out to be fine from our experiences.
After we got our PHB, I'm more convinced that many "unsolvable" problems were actually solvable by
RAW once we had the whole book, and players were interpreting the rules too radical which made it seemed absurd
. Though this is understandable and unavoidable, since we couldn't get the full picture of the whole rules back then. We only had half of the informations from Youtubers chatting.
So, I'll be copying and typing all the rules about "Sneaking", exactly as how they're worded in the book, and explain it how it works, and why some of the current rulings among players would be make Hide completely unusable.
What Are the Rules for Sneaking?
The "Sneak rule" breaks into five parts:
- Hide [Action] (from rules glossary)
- Invisible [Condition] (from rules glossary)
- Stealth (from skills)
- Hiding (from the exploration section)
- Passive Perception (from rules glossary)
The specific wording is:
and
This Invisible condition do make you "Invisible", it is the same condition when Invisibility is casted on someone. But instead of being "Transparent", this condition only means you are "Unseen", which "Unseen" is also a valid, commonly used definition of the word "Invisible" that I checked in the dictionaries. It's just
games nowadays often make
Invisible=Transparent (
though they could've just named it "Unseen" and everything would be fine).
But no worries about the sound, cuz Escaping Notice and move silently has always been the part of the description of
Stealth Check instead of the
Action, just same as 2014 (
Hide Action in 2014 also won't make you "unnoticed").
The description of 5e2024 version of
Stealth is:
Once you're hidden, the enemy has to find you with a Search action,
or directly finds you with
Passive Percepion. Yes,
Passive Perception is still in 5e2024.
If the player beat both of the DC and Passive Perception, then the character would be totally unnoticed.
Though if players are doing something that's easy to be found or heard, like sneaking up to a foe's back in a quiet place, DMs could give enemies Advantages in
Perception, thus make their Passive Perception much higher by ganting a +5, by
RAW. DMs also still can decide whether is the current situation appropriate for players to take the Hide, as stated in the
Exploration section:
Additionally, 5e2024 is just simply making "
line of sight" more abstract than 5e2014. There's no rules that tell players that creatures have a 360° of vision anymore.
Yes, they have deleted that. Though I can't type it out since it's just simply not there.
This makes when you try to Hide in 5e2024, basically means "
try to move silently and escaping notice, by being outside of sight,", and succeeding in the check means you've found your chance that they're not
directly looking at you. Maybe enemies were concentrating on a spell currently, so they didn't pay enough attention on you, and providing you a chance to sneak up on them or escape away. Or maybe they were too busy trying to live under your Fighter friend's sword, or just happened to be looking at elsewhere or having a yawn. Anyway, they do not have a 360° of vision for
all the time now.
Though, if DMs and players still find the circumstances are too absurd to Hide, then DMs could just declare "you can't Hide currrently", which is
RAW.
Or DMs also could just give monsters'
Passive Perception a
plus five, through granting adavantages to their
Perception checks, judging by the situation, which is also
RAW. When a player is doing things that "more likely to be found", let the monsters have advantages on their Perception check, even if they weren't specifically looking.
As a result, passing through both of the DC and beating every monster's Passive Perception with their PP potentially raise up 5, isn't an easy thing to do for a character (
and all above is based on it's not too absurd to Hide).
But if the character managed to pass it stably, then it does mean the character is a master of stealth who is good at sneaking, there's nothing wrong with them often finding the chance (
like a Rogue with RT or a Ranger with PWT).
But if a character at lower levels or lower Stealth somehow luckily passed it, then just narrate it luckily, as it actually happened in the reality. It could be the enemies were distracted by a bird or simply having a yawn.
Examples from Our Playtests
We used this ruling multiple times in the playtests since PP was there (
and still there). The best one was the Rogue the in my team dueling a corrupted evil Knight in a quiet sanctuary, but messy enough for Hiding (
we had a battle map), and it works well both mechanically and narratively.
The Knight had advantages in Perception checks and +5 to Passive Perception, since it's quiet. But our Elf Trickster picked up Skulker (
granting adv in Hide) and Expertised in Stealth.
She was found twice but she lived. Then she began tricking the evil knight with spells, backstabbing, then disappearing, until she followed him behind his back and made an OA while he's looking for her. The Knight was terrified and thought he was fighting with a ghost, and instantly surrendered in scares (
he's nearly dead but also an important NPC, which we're glad he didn'd do something stupid).
The whole scene was cool, exciting and movie-like, which we've never experienced in 5e, since the rules simply forbidden us back then. There weren't many "absurd" situation happening that make us couldn't accept. Our DM would just say no if we tried to do something absurd, things like trying to Hide behind a busket in an empty room then walk out of the only exit that two guards are watching (
of course we didn't try that!).
Why Enemies Immediately "Finds You" After Moving Out of Covers Makes Hide Completely Unusable, If We Rule Like That?
Then, I'll be explaining why the RAW definitely not works like the subtitle writes.
Some players thought that the "enemy finds you" does not require enemies to take the Search action or the Passive Perception, but they can just "see" you and find you as you walk out of the Cover or the Heavily Obscured Areas. Even though Invisibility is using the same condition.
Here, I'd like to quote another comment I've seen before:
"
The problem with this is that by being outside of an enemy's field of view or in a heavily obscured area, you can't be seen/the enemy is blind to you anyway. So why ever take the hide action? Why would the hide action give you invisibility that only works when nobody's looking at you?"
Though some still argues the Invisible condition will gets you Advantages to Initiative and to hit others, and enemies get disadvantage to hit you--which is almost
impossible. Hide would be literally useless if we rule like that, except Advantage in Initiative.
Simple reasons:
- Disadvantages in Attacks: Enemies already had disadvantages when attacking you if you were in Heavily Obscured. Escaping notice won't be useful either in most cases. If everything didn't happen in pitch black, players would have no where to go but that small area.
- Behind a Cover: Even you if Hided behind a Total Cover, the Invisible condition still breaks immediately when the enemies move around the Total Cover in order to attack you. And the enemy would definitely know where to "find" you since you can't walk out of the cover and move your place. This basically means enemies never attack you in disadvantage from your "hiding".
- Three-Quaters Cover: Three-Quaters Cover can't block your enemies' sight completely, hiding behind a Three-Quaters Cover immediately breaks your condition as the second you succeed in Hide.
- Advantages with Ranged Attacks: A player can't attack enemies with advantages in Heavily Obscured areas or behind a Total Cover, without moving to a place where the player can see and aim the enemy? If you had Blindsense, then staying in Heavily Obscured has already granted you Advantages. Blindsense also can't fix the Total Cover problem.
- Advantages with Melee Attacks: Players can NEVER attack an enemy with advantage in Melee after hiding in 5e2024 if we rule it like this. Since you have to walk out of the cover or the obscured areas to reach the enemy.
Actually, ruling like that negates almost every benefit of hiding, and completely blocks Melee Attacks from the benefit of Hide. The enemies also won't be having Disadvantage attacking you in almost every situation. And this is literally making Hiding more useless and even much worse than 5e, which I consider it impossible since designers are clearly trying to make everything more useful than it was in 5e.
To pvove this point, there's an interesting thing during the playtest:
5e2024 Playtest had a version of Stealth rule works
exactly like it in the UA (
Check UA2). One step out of the Cover and you're spotted, then designers
deleted it. They figured it out that Hide would be completely useless if rules are like that, so they deleted it afterwards. As for current version, try to comprehend the word "Invisible" another way. It's more like "Unseen", which is also a valid definition of Invisible in dictionaries. Invisible is not "Transparent". It hasn't to be magical.
Edit: Nijay reminded me that there's also a proof to prove moving out of Cover wouldn't make you spotted instantly. Chaosmancer posted this thief rogue ability, Supreme Sneak. If being in line of sight (without a high enough passive perception) was sufficient to reveal you, this ability wouldn't work.
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Conclusion
Designers, in my perspective, intend to make the Hide action more useful like any other Actions and fix the Action-Economy.
Players are very likely to gain benefits from other Actions simply just by taking it. But in 5e2014, players were using their Action to hide, and there'd still be a great chance for that benefit somehow vanishes immediately just by you or the enemies moving,
basically without a cost to be countered
, and the designers don't seem to want that anymore.
I think they just want players to have a greater chance benefiting from their Action when they take the Hide. They also want enemies to have a bigger chance to be forced into taking an Action as well for countering the players who spent their Action, thus making the Action-Economy more even.
Another point is, there's been a whole bunch of spells and other features that were written in a "not very making sense" way, but players always can find the way that make it sounds reasonable for their stories. This is DnD after all, a super fantasy world with super-natural forces and dragons, not a realistic Medieval simulator. Adventurers doing something that looks like a bit super-human isn't a big thing.
If DMs and players find the circumstances are too absurd to Hide, then just say "you can't Hide currrently". This is also RAW after all.
Or, DMs could just give monsters Adavantages to their Perception checks when a player is doing things that "more likely to be found", thus making their Passive Perception +5 and raise the DC, which is also RAW.
As for "walk right to their face", well, you're not walking to their faces
if you took and passed the Stealth check, since the
check itself literally means you try to "move unnoticed", and you
are unnoticed in a stealthy way when you succeed, as the Stealth's skill description explained. Unless somehow your player or your DM wanna piss you off, just don't roleplay like that (
except both the players and DM happily feel it a good time for some humor).
To my opinion, designers just try to let players use Hide action as something simple and easy that tells you "
Okay, if you're not forbidden to Hide, and succeed it, beat everyone's Passive Perception, then you must have found the moment when enemies got distracted or simply not looking at you", which I think it's not that hard for DMs and Players to work together make up a little cool, narratively reasonable sneaking scenario.
Especially at lower levels, players might not be able to find the moment that easily and walk out of the wall unnoticed, since
DC15+Passive Check+Potential Plus Five is still quite high. But at higher levels when a Rogue or a Ranger has become a Thief Master or a Elite Hunter? Why not?
Try to imagine how Batman disappears. Especially, technically speaking, everything in a round happens together in that 6 seconds. You are finding a place to Hide and sneak up to a foe's back while your Caster friends glittering and your Warrior friends roaring and charging to the enemies' face,
simultaneosly in that 6 seconds, even if you rolled a highest Initiative. I'm sure in most of the cases, there'd be enough chaos on the battlefield for a Adventurer to have the chance to go "disappear", and could be fixed narratively.
Ending
I'm writing a lot today, which I haven't for a long time. Cuz I really like the new edition and the new Hiding. It brought me and my friends lots of joys without causing too much troubles. I just feel the new rule has been overly criticized, due to many players haven't got the chance to see the whole picture of it yet before, which is understandable and unavoidable.
Though, sure it is definitely not the best. It still has issues like "does grappling break the Hide" or "can teammate see you" etc., but I think these are minor issues that could be easily fixed by DMs and future Sage Advice. I actually could tell these issues might be due to Hasbro firing lots of designers and other mess they have caused, which made them haven't got the time to fix every changes before publishing. Grappling was a Attack Roll during UA, but they changed it when the playtest was almost over. I guess they forget to change the Hide rule accordingly. It even could be the one who wrote it was fired. Though these are mere guessing.
Back to the topic, I just want to share all the rules, the "history" of the rules, and my understandings to other players who haven't seen the whole book yet, and it'd be nice if this post helped some people in trying the new edition. I certainly believe and support that players are encouraged to houserule things they don't like at their table. But interpreting the RAW in possible wrong ways is something different, though this is due to objective reasons for many of us only have the parts of the rules before.
I really hope this post could help people have a better understanding of the new rule. I'm also not 100% sure I'm right tho, but it'd be great if this leads to a new commonly supported understanding of the RAW. Especially we've finally have a (
almost?) playable RAW that allows us to do cool things here.
Thanks for reading!
