D&D 5E DM Help! My rogue always spams Hide as a bonus action, and i cant target him!

[Plaguescarred]

A character that is in the woods (light obscurement) can hide while out of sight of the observer (heavy obscurement) and then remain hidden when that observer gains LOS. Any character can do this. This matches my RL experience. Anyone that has ever played in the woods as a child would know this. A wood-elf doesn't have to break LOS. He can hide just be being lightly obscured even while being stared at. But other factors might prevent it...he's wearing jingle bells and is moving, he has brightly colored clothes that contrast with his surroundings. His light obscurement is a fern in the corner of the office....It is up to the DM to decide if it's appropriate. A normal character might be able to hide in the woods without breaking LOS...but it would require some mitigating factor...maybe a significant distraction on the part of the observer.

I agree except for the last part is confusing. The only rule reference about distraction is not to try to hide when seen, but to keep the benefit of being hidden for the attack when coming out in view. A DM deciding that someone can try to hide while seen because the observer is distracted i would rather say it can hide because he is instead not seen by the distracted observer.

The point of contention argued by others was that an halfling and elf can't hide when seen by an undistracted observer, that it needed to be distracted and not seen. These abilities specifically allow them to try to hide when others wouldn't be able to it's the whole point.

Anyone can lose someone following them in a city by ducking around a corner and then mixing into a crowded market. A halfling doesn't have to bother with the ducking around the corner part as long as some of the people in the market are a size larger than him. A normal character would require some other mitigating factor to attempt to hide in a crowd while the observer has LOS. Again...a distraction or something.

I agree but those mitigating factors are things that would allow anyone to hide under these circumstances. What's debated is when these mitigating factors aren't present. Then only the halflign can hide behind a creature. In the rules no one else can use the obscurement from a creature to do so.

So only a wood-elf can hide in the bushes?

No, a Skulker feat user can also specifically hide when lightly obscured.

Under what circumstances is a character seen but not seen clearly if not while lightly obscured? Doesn't your interpretation make the word "clearly" redundant at best and add to the confusion at worst?

Are you suggesting that in order to understand the general rules on hiding you must first understand the specific rules like MotW?

No the redundancy is allowing everyone to try to hide when lightly obscured when only certain feat or features actually allow it. The addition of the word ''clearly'' gives more leeway in DM to determine circumstances into which spmeone could try to hide. But it's clear both in the rules and Sage Advice that simply being lightly obscured is not something anyone can try to hide with, as its some core abitilies of feat or features.

As a DM i personally rule that a lightly obscured creature is seen clearly enought to not be able to try to hide, unless it has a special ability to do so. This lines up with rules, feat, features and Sage Advice and tweets from R&D. I can always bring up extraordinary circumstances where someone lightly obscured or even not obscured at all could potentially try to hide because the observers are heavily distracted, in trance, drugged or otherwise having influenced senses but these would be exceptions, not something i'd normally rule on.

 

[pemerton]

I am pretty sure that none of this extra functionality was ever intended for invisibility. It gave you immunity to being seen. It didn't make you immune to an attack which happened where you are.

Well, there is page 60 of the DMG:

Becoming invisible takes but a twinkling, but if the party is observed doing so, there is no reason why an opponent cannot attack with the standard penalty (-4) for inability to see the target. . . .

Once detected, the invisible creature will be kept track of thereafter . . . Any attacks incur the -4 penalty of attacking on invisible opponent, of course, and the invisible creature likewise is entitled to +4 on saving throws.​

This seems to imply that if the party was not observed then they can't be attacked, not even with the standard penalty. The bit about a saving throw bonus if attacked also seems to suggest that, if not detected, no attack is possible (not even one that allows for a saving throw bonus).

And then there is p 70:

Invisible opponents are always at an advantage. They can only be attacked if they are attacking or otherwise detected somehow. These opponents always cause the attacker to attack at a -4 on “to hit” rolls because of the invisibility. They can never be attacked from flank or rear positions unless the attacker can see them (thus they are, in fact, visible!).​

This could be a targetting rule, but I don't think that's its most natural reading, given that the same page, umder the heading "Who Attacks Whom", says that

As with missile fire, it is generally not possible to select a specific opponent in a mass melee. If this is the case, simply use some random number generation to find out which attacks are upon which opponents . . .​

I think, taken as a whole, [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] is correct to see the Chainmail legacy in all this: invisibilility, in effect, takes a character or unit "off the board". The function of abilities like ESP, Detect Magic, Detect Invisibility, etc, then becomes one of locating these characters/units.

Whether this is good or bad play is another matter - obviously it depends a lot on broader asumptions about the campaign, how the GM and players are approaching it, etc.

thought experiment: Two high-level thieves are handcuffed together, and haven't got tools to pick the lock. They fall in a pit. One of them drinks a potion of invisibility for no particular reason, before they both fall asleep.

A wizard teleports in nearby, and for no particular reason, casts a fireball down the corridor the pit is in. The fireball expands to fill available space.

The thieves are both asleep, and can't hear or see anything. They're in the same location. The invisible thief can't just have wandered elsewhere temporarily. And then... What? Somehow one of them is completely immune, and the other gets hit? That's stupid.

Here's a variant scenario that doesn't involve invisibility: the two thieves are handcuffed together, in the pit you mention, and the fireball is cast as you describe. Do the thieves get saving throws?

One of the thieves is alseep, the other awake. Do they both get saving throws?

If fireballs expand to fill every bit of space, how does anyone get a saving throw who is standing dead in the centre of it? (This is similar to Gygax's fighter chained to a rock while the dragon breathes.)

AD&D is full of corner cases. It doesn't purport to be a "total" ruleset, in the sense of being able to cover every conceivable situation via the mechanics presented with no need for adjudication or extrapolation. (That's another respect in which the Chainmail legacy shows.)

I know of three main ways of extrapolating. One is to focus on the fiction, to emphasise GM adjudicaiton of the fiction, and to bend the rules to fit. I suspect this is the most common way of running 5e. On this approach the thieves in the pit are most likely fried by the fireball regardless of whether or not they are awake or asleep, and regardless of whether or not they drank any potions. After all, what respite is there from the flames?

Another approach is to rewrite the rules to be a total simulation (inspired by systems like RQ, RM, etc). 3E heads in this sort of direction, although with some legacy compromises (eg hit points) and some places where the veneer of simulation is thin (what exactly happens when a sleeping, handcuffed thief uses Evasion to take no damage from the fireball?).

A third way is to stick to the rules, and to use them to set the parameters of the fiction even when this requires departing from simulation and instead adopting a "fortune in the middle" approach. This is what [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] is advocating. And it's what I'm inclined to. (The most systematic generalisation of this approach in D&D design is 4e.)

On this approach, corner cases might get adjudicated with no more sophistication then "the invisible guy happened to get lucky". (That is, it's not the case that, in the fiction, the invisibility offered any sort of protection.) It probably won't come up more than once in a campaign, so it's not as if some sort of strange pattern of good fortune to the invisible is going to emerge.

 

[vostygg]

Good God! Only on this forum would a topic like this warrant 71 pages of discussion. Has the discussion moved onto a debate about the actual temperature of Hell yet?

 

[Hriston]

Errata are text changes. If a phrase meaning changes due to the changes of text, the rule has changed. That's the whole point of errata. A simple forgotten "not" can change a rule upside down. Adding clearly to the text of hiding has changed the text from "you must not have line of sight no matter what" to " you are not required to not have line of sight, you just need your dm to say "ok it's fine"". This is a drastic rule change with just a single word change.

The purpose of errata is to bring the RAW into better conformity with the RAI. I'll grant you that they change RAW, but they don't change RAI, at least that isn't what they are supposed to do. Line-of-sight was never part of the 5e hiding rules or the 5e rules in general. Clear path to the target (the 5e equivalent to LoS) only applies to spellcasting and doesn't require that you see your target, only that your target isn't behind total cover or an intervening obstruction. A heavily obscured area doesn't block a clear path to the target, but if you are within it you can't be seen (clearly).

Seen was modified with the addition of clearly to facilitate hiding in TotM, where there are no corners of squares from which to draw lines of sight. The "correction" to the text tells us that the line-of-sight interpretation wasn't intended in the first place. What was intended, in my opinion, was for a creature to be unseen (because heavily obscured) yet maintain a clear path to its target.

That's why it's the DM's call, because the DM decides what areas are obscured and to what degree.

 

[Maxperson]

Some things really are just game jargon. Lightly and heavily obscured are bolded in the text and so are called out as terms of jargon that refer to areas in which certain mechanical considerations prevail. "Seen clearly" is not, thus it retains its natural language meaning. The end result is you can be seen clearly in a lightly obscured area.

Lightly obscured, while it has mechanics associated with it, is none the less ALSO has natural language meaning. That's why when you are behind light foliage, you are lightly obscured, which prevents the natural meaning of "seen clearly".

 

[Maxperson]

Good God! Only on this forum would a topic like this warrant 71 pages of discussion. Has the discussion moved onto a debate about the actual temperature of Hell yet?

I don't believe anyone has proposed going invisible in hell, yet. If you'd like to create such a scenario(be sure to make the elves unaware of the fireball), we an argue it.

 

[vostygg]

I don't believe anyone has proposed going invisible in hell, yet. If you'd like to create such a scenario(be sure to make the elves unaware of the fireball), we an argue it.

It's really going to vary depending on which layer and which region within that layer we're talking about, isn't it? (And so it begins...)

 

[Satyrn]

No. We aren't saying that if you are lightly obscured you can automatically hide. You have to have mitigating factors that make hiding appropriate. That's the point of the rules as they are written. They don't require making assumptions about special rules like MotW.

A character that is in the woods (light obscurement) can hide while out of sight of the observer (heavy obscurement) and then remain hidden when that observer gains LOS. Any character can do this. This matches my RL experience. Anyone that has ever played in the woods as a child would know this. A wood-elf doesn't have to break LOS. He can hide just be being lightly obscured even while being stared at. But other factors might prevent it...he's wearing jingle bells and is moving, he has brightly colored clothes that contrast with his surroundings. His light obscurement is a fern in the corner of the office....It is up to the DM to decide if it's appropriate. A normal character might be able to hide in the woods without breaking LOS...but it would require some mitigating factor...maybe a significant distraction on the part of the observer.

Anyone can lose someone following them in a city by ducking around a corner and then mixing into a crowded market. A halfling doesn't have to bother with the ducking around the corner part as long as some of the people in the market are a size larger than him. A normal character would require some other mitigating factor to attempt to hide in a crowd while the observer has LOS. Again...a distraction or something.

What others seem to be saying...maybe I'm missing it...is that you can only hide while heavily obscured because you can see someone clearly in light obscurement AND once you are only lightly obscured you are no longer hidden. That makes the word "clearly" redundant because under what circumstance can a character be seen but not seen clearly if not in light obscurement?

I'm giving XP to this post because I feel it clearly explains the conditions that ought to be met before someone can hide successfully, with excellent clear examples of how the elf's and halfling's exceptions work.

Lots of people are saying the same thing, but not so clearly and succintly. Nice job, Uller.

 

[Maxperson]

It's really going to vary depending on which layer and which region within that layer we're talking about, isn't it? (And so it begins...)

With all the layers that haven't been fleshed out and the chaotic nature of the Abyss, how about a layer where anyone who is invisible is incapable of detecting spellcasting in any way?

 

[ThePolarBear]

The purpose of errata is to bring the RAW into better conformity with the RAI. I'll grant you that they change RAW, but they don't change RAI, at least that isn't what they are supposed to do. Line-of-sight was never part of the 5e hiding rules or the 5e rules in general. Clear path to the target (the 5e equivalent to LoS) only applies to spellcasting and doesn't require that you see your target, only that your target isn't behind total cover or an intervening obstruction. A heavily obscured area doesn't block a clear path to the target, but if you are within it you can't be seen (clearly).

Seen was modified with the addition of clearly to facilitate hiding in TotM, where there are no corners of squares from which to draw lines of sight. The "correction" to the text tells us that the line-of-sight interpretation wasn't intended in the first place. What was intended, in my opinion, was for a creature to be unseen (because heavily obscured) yet maintain a clear path to its target.

That's why it's the DM's call, because the DM decides what areas are obscured and to what degree.

Sadly unless you have mind reading powers or some other way to know how WotC want you to play their game (the internet might suffice ) the only things you can base your rulings on are the book and your experience (i.e. also counting reality). The fact that RAI does not change doesn't help anyone if that RAI is not explicit. The fact that Line of Sight was NEVER INTENDED to be part of the rules does not mean that Line of Sight was NEVER part of the rules.

And do not make confusion: Line of Sight is not Line of Effect. Someone under heavy obscurement can very well be NOT in Line of Sight. Heavy Obscurement actually blocks LoS, rulewise.
"A heavily obscured area-such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage-blocks vision entirely."

Which by the way i believe is bullcrap - at least for darkness - and the wording had to be changed to make it even at least a bit "reasonable", since as it was originally was absolutely unrealistic (and still is if you follow the rules AW...) because before the errata you could not see ANYTHING while standing in an heavily obscured area since you where blinded. No, you could not see that fire 10 paces from you. Right now you could still be facing people telling you that darkess does not allow you to see anything behind it because it blocks vision entirely... and rulewise they would be right. I personally still apply this ruling for Darkess (the spell) because i find it unpleasant having darkvision enabled species unable to see through the spell, while non darkvision races treat the area normally. But saying that Heavy Obscurement does not block Line of Sight is at the same level of "WTF" as the rules as currently written. Can you see through a bank of thick fog?

I'm not that unreasonable to understand that that's not what is meant in the case of darkness... but what in case of MAGICAL darkness? Does it effectively block vision only on the area that it rests on or also blocks vision of things behind it? And clearly dense enough foliage does not allow you to see through them in reality...

So yeah, rules are there and as written make no distinction one way or another because a certain amount of ruling is always required, however rules are there and sometimes are written in a gamish way to be simple. Complexity can be added on taste of the group. RAI can sometimes be extrapolated when things really do not make sense. But for other cases (like magical darkness) we have no way to judge them in a way that's really "correct" RAI wise since there's no RAI explicit (at least, i do not know any RAI on this subject).

TL,DR version: It might have been that RAI LoS was never required to hide. But really i had no way to know that if i only had the book (and still i wouldn't if i only had old editions of the book). Heavy obscurement can block LoS. Obscurement is still broken RAW. How do you rule Darkess (spell) ?

P.S. I know LoS and LoE are old terms. It just makes it easier for me to be understood.