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

[Caliban]

I'm going with what I have seen (hehe) work in the realm world.

Activate Mask of the Wild while I am watching you, I can shoot, fireball, or run over and whack you cause I can still see/recognize where you are/went.

Activate it while my back is turned, or before I come into view of where you are, I don't have a clue unless I win perception.

Basically camouflage.

------

A human who lacks the Mask of the Wild ability could do it with special equipment (ghillie suit) , or extra preparation.

That's a perfectly reasonable house rule. Just not what the ability says it can do, or what Sage Advice confirmed it can do. Yes, the racial abilities are a bit over the top. Toning them down if you want a more realistic stealth setup in your campaign make sense. What Pemerton and Hriston have been doing (trying to redefine the way the abilities work and pretend that is what the designers intended) does not.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Activate Mask of the Wild while I am watching you, I can shoot, fireball, or run over and whack you cause I can still see/recognize where you are/went.

This is true anytime you hide, even while heavily obscured since you always know the last location a creature occupied until it hid, it's always best to move after you did.

 

[Ovinomancer]

As far as I'm concerned, I suggest you read my posts 898, 905, 909 (at least,that's their numbering for me).

I have, but, as I noted, subsequent and concurrent conversations made it difficult to follow your exact position.

In the circumstance you describe I don't think that Tom can hide because Chick can see where he goes and hence keep track of him.

I translate that as:

1) no, Tom cannot attempt to hide behind Bob
2) n/a
3) because Chick can still see Tom, so his attempt to hide automatically fails.

Yes?

If Tom's player want to make a DEX check to see how still and quite Tom can be behind Bob, I've got not problem with that. But it won't make any difference to Chick's ability to see Tom.

Followup -- if a new observer, say Chick's companion Christy, enters the room such that Bob is between her and Tom, and Tom has indeed attempted to be still and quiet, would you compare Tom's ability check to Christy's passive perception and, if successful, allow Tom to be hidden from Christy?

(If someone - eg Bob - distracted Chick, it would be a different matter. The adequacy of distraction is a matter for GM adjudication, though presumably a CHA check would be one way to do it, or throwing a flash powder grenade, or something similar.)

Interesting. What effects would this have on an encounter that did not feature a halfling attempting to hide behind a larger creature? IE, what would be the benefit for attempting such a distraction in other situations? I'm curious because this seems as if it's a new mechanical requirement to enable halfling hiding opportunities. If, however, you routinely feature such distractions that allow other benefits to non-hiding lightfoots, then it wouldn't be so. Can you provide examples from your game as to how players have utilized flashbombs or CHA checks in encounters to distract opponents, and what they gained from doing so?

I am guessing that [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION]'s view is similar to what I've outlined.

Thanks, but I'm sure Hriston can answer for themselves if they wish. Until then, I'd like to keep discussions with you on what you think and not what you think Hriston thinks.

What causes me confusion is that others are confused by the view. (Which is separate from whether or not they share it.) The conception of the fiction strikes me as very straightforward - if a halfling or an elf is actually being seen by someone, stepping behind a person or behind a rain drop won't change that, because those things don't block vision and the viewer can track the halfling or elf's movement.

I'm not confused that you can hold this view, I was asking for clarity because the discussion has spiralled into increasingly obscure and ridiculous semantic arguments over choices of word substitutions and definitional hijinks that clouded the basics. As I understand it, you would not allow anyone to attempt to hide in any situation where vision is not blocked. I infer (and correct me if I'm wrong) that this would mean that anything less than full cover or total obscurement would qualify as blocked vision.

However, if a halfling or elf is not actually being seen then s/he can vanish behind a person or a raindrop and then when s/he comes into someone's field of vision will not be noticed unless s/he isn't still or quite enough, which will occur (i) if the potential observer succeeds in a WIS vs DEX check, or (ii) the halfling or elf performs the sort of movement, or makes the sort of noise, that automatically makes him/her noticable (the canonical instances of this are attacking and shouting).

The only issue I have with your view is that it's not any different from normal. This is the general rule. The case you've carved out is that the Wild Elf and Lightfoot Halfling racial abilities only offer areas where being already hidden continues to allow you to remain hidden. However, the normal rules could also offer this, as hiding is something that can only be done if un-observered, but remaining hidden is more open to interpretation and seems to imply that one can sneak around in light obscurement or less than full cover. Essentially, your ruling means that no one can remain hidden in light obscurement or less than full cover unless they have a special carve out. The issue I have with that is that it handicaps stealth to situations where it's only useful to hide your presence when no one can see you at all -- ie, hiding only masks sound/smell/other because it never masks sight unless you have a special call out. That's the logical outcome I see from your argument when applied broadly.

 

[Plaguescarred]

if a halfling or an elf is actually being seen by someone, stepping behind a person or behind a rain drop won't change that, because those things don't block vision and the viewer can track the halfling or elf's movement.

Naturally Stealthy and Mask of the Wild on the contrary does, because it allow them to try to hide under these circumstances!

However, if a halfling or elf is not actually being seen then s/he can vanish behind a person or a raindrop and then when s/he comes into someone's field of vision will not be noticed unless s/he isn't still or quite enough, which will occur (i) if the potential observer succeeds in a WIS vs DEX check, or (ii) the halfling or elf performs the sort of movement, or makes the sort of noise, that automatically makes him/her noticable (the canonical instances of this are attacking and shouting).

It would be true if Naturally Stealthy and Mask of the Wild let them only remain hidden under these circumstances, but it let them try to hide in them.

If they can only hide when no one can see them, like anyone else, that's not a situation unavailable to other creatures.

You're not letting them try to hide while lightly obscured if you rule this way, you let them remain hidden and that is not what their ability does.

 

[Plaguescarred]

In the circumstance you describe I don't think that Tom can hide because Chick can see where he goes and hence keep track of him.
.

A developper disagree with you and says it can try to hide again behind an ally he'd just hide behind and attack.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/496747951570448384?lang=en

 

[Maxperson]

These semantic arguments are getting more and more surreal!

Of course you can't observe X without seeing X - that's "observe" in its transitive usage. But you can observe without seeing anything - that's "observe" in its intransitive usage. "Observer" is cognate. It means (among other things) watcher - as in, one who watches. One can watch without seeing. Which brings us back to the intransitive use of "observe" - eg dictionary.com gives "to act as an observer", which is "someone who observes". So "to observe" includes "to act as someone who observes". There need not be anything actually observed.

Your argument is circular. An observer can be an observer without observing because he's an observer. It ignores the definitions of observer and observer which involve actually sight of the target. By definition, you cannot be an observer without successful observation. You can only be a potential observer who has failed to observe and become an actual observer.

 

[Corwin]

I was going to make an observation, but turns out I didn't actually see it...

 

[Hriston]

I think this is the real crux of the disconnect here. These attempts to jargonize "natural language." When the devs decided to write the game this way, *specifically* to allow each table to read it in a way that makes sense for *them*, you can't then try to speak to everyone else's reading of the rules by "defining" what it means for them. WTH? As soon as you stop telling others how they should interpret something, designed intentionally to *be* interpreted, you will be much better off, IMO.

But I'm not telling anyone how they should interpret the rules. I'm explaining how I interpret the rules the way I do, and, as a result, am having many other posters tell me my interpretation is unsupported by the written rules and isn't even valid. How is that me telling other people how they should interpret the rules?

For the record, I am of the opinion that there is more than one valid interpretation of the rules, and I don't believe any of my posts in this thread were about my judgement of the validity of someone else's interpretation, unless you're just using the general you there.

 

[Hriston]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION]

It's becoming difficult to actually understand the positions involved. To clarify that, would you please provide answers to the following thought experiment?

Setup:
Tom is a lightfoot halfing. Bob is a human ally of Tom. Chick is a hobgoblin adverse to the existence of Bob and Tom. The are all in an empty, well-lit room, and all can clearly see each other at the start of the thought experiment.

Tom wishes to hide from Chick. Lacking other options, he moves behind Bob (ie, Bob is directly between Tom and Chick), and declares an attempt to hide from Chick.

Questions:
1) Is Tom allowed to make an ability check to hide from Chick?
2) If 1) is yes, and assuming the hide check is higher than Chick's passive perception, what is the result?
3) If 1) is no, why not?
4) If the above questions fail to capture your ruling, please elucidate how you would referee this situation.

1) No.
2) n/a
3) Chick sees Tom clearly.
4) I would tell Tom's player that Tom can tell he won't be hidden under these circumstances.

 

[Hriston]

At its most basic, whether or not the hiding character successfully evades notice--and for how long--directly contributes to encounter distance.

That isn't the way I conceive of it. Encounter distance is limited to either visible or audible distance, whichever is greater. Let's take your room as an example. The human has said he wants to stay quiet to avoid notice from anyone who happens to be out in the hall. For simplicity, let's say that the room's interior is not visible to anyone not within the room itself. So unless sound is made that can travel outside the room, the room is the limit of any encounter area. I like to use the audible distance table found on one of the published DM screens (I forget which one). It gives an audible distance of 10 to 60 feet for someone trying to be quiet. Because it's a 2d6 roll, it usually comes out to 35 feet, so let's say the DM determines that any quiet noises the human makes have a chance of being heard out to 35 feet. Now how big is the room? Assuming the human is standing in the center of the room, if the room is at least 70 feet in diameter there is no chance of someone in the hall hearing the human, and encounter distance is limited to the room. If the room is small enough to permit sound to travel beyond it's perimeter, however, then encounter distance extends out into the hall. It doesn't seem too complicated to me. Also, whether the human evades the notice of someone in the hall or not doesn't change the distance at which he could possibly be detected.

Out of curiosity, before allowing someone to hide outside of an encounter, do you really sit down and try to figure out what the parameters of future encounters will be in order to determine whether or not the character is in full view?

I'm not sure what you mean by "parameters of future encounters". Since I'm the DM, I have a pretty good idea of what sort of things are out there for the PCs to encounter, but I don't have to figure everything out before hand. In particular, when the question of whether a creature can hide or not comes up, I just do what it says in the hiding rules. I determine whether circumstances are appropriate for hiding, namely do the walls provide an obstruction for the purpose of hiding? If I want to account for random factors, such as air currents and humidity, I roll 2d6, which tells me how far sound travels. If not, I might go with a number like 35 feet. Let's say the room is only 20' x 20', and the human is standing in the center of the room. I would have to roll a 2 for the audible distance of the human's quiet noises to only be 10 feet. Otherwise, the walls obstruct vision for the purpose of hiding, and the human is not in full view and can try to hide from passers by.