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

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's assuming he's an arcane trickster (or caster multi).

Besides, those tactics won't always work. Depending on the terrain (such as a small cavern where the effect will fill the entire area) you might seriously hamper your party. Plus, the enemy could employ similar tactics by utilizing your fog cloud / darkness to deny you sneak attack*.

Those spells are excellent choices for a rogue to have on hand, but I can't imagine using them in every encounter.

EDIT: *wait, no, those are my house rules

Yes, yes, yes, of course there are costs and tradeoffs in casting Fog Cloud/Darkness/etc. All I'm saying is that Greater Invisibility is expensive and overkill for a rogue who wants to hide.

 

[Shiroiken]

In general, the ranged Rogue shouldn't take much damage. They can fire from safety, then hide again pretty easily. This can be problematic, but it's no worse than the artillery mage IME. The best way to counter that would be to have monsters bypass the party and hunt them down, since you can't be hidden from something that can see you clearly. Also, you can have other monsters come in from other directions, keeping the Rogue from having a hiding spot. Readied Actions can work, if you have Ranged Attackers, as they can shoot the Rogue after he makes his attack, but before he hides again.

The melee Rogue won't have much stealth benefit, beyond a single ambush. It just takes too much (disengage, move, hide) and they are likely to be seen before they can get in another ambush. I wouldn't worry about them.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

In addition to the fine suggestions above:

1. Focus fire the wizard or some other squishy instead. It doesn't matter if the rogue ends the combat at full health if everyone else is dropped or hurting. Hiding in combat is tactic that is good for the rogue but ultimately not beneficial to the party as a whole as those attacks vs. the rogue now target other party members.

2. Ready actions to attack the rogue as he comes out of hiding to make his own attack. They can only make a single attack, meaning a lot of monsters will not be able to put out significant damage this way. It may be the best play depending on circumstances, such as if the monster has no other valid targets or a single attack or spell that can potentially disrupt the rogue's actions.

 

[zaratan]

Kill the rest of the group and show to the rogue that be untouchable ins't good for the party, lol.

Enviado de meu SM-G900MD usando Tapatalk

 

[Plaguescarred]

So, i know that rogues are the best at hiding, moving in slowly, hitting with a nasty Sneak Attack, and then, hiding as a bonus action to avoid getting hit themselves.

It's their thing. I get it.

However, it doesn't seem that any of the monsters presented in the MM or elsewhere really have a good enough Perception skill to find my rogue player.

I am DMing "Out of the Abyss", and at this point, they are levels 11 going on 12, so i expect them to be top notch characters, but this has been going on for a while now....

Most monsters just dont have the Perception to find the rogue when he hides. Worse, some monsters dont even have the Perception skill and must use thier weak Wisdom scores (at best a +3 or +4) to even try.

I've tried things like giving my rogue disadvantage while hiding in watery puddled places...

I've also had the monster go look around for the rogue at the spot where he last was seen, forcing my rogue to re-roll on his hide check...

..but rogues are just too damn good at it! Especially, when sneaking around in the Underdark.

I just dont know what to do at this point.

I want to hit my damn rogue so bad, but he's always hiding! And its like every round because he can do this as a bonus action with Cunning Action (granted at 2nd level!)

Any suggestions?
Anyone else have this problem?

When they do hide rogues tend to generally be very good at it since they're expert at hiding and so it's normal that barring any bad luck they succeed against most creatures. While the rogue can hide more easily than most (high Stealth bonus action vs action), it still need to not be seen clearly in order to even try. A rogue can't hide in the darkness of the Underdark if creatures with darkvision can still see it for exemple. So it means the rogue still need to find heavy obscurement of some sort, invisibility or other opaque source of cover, this in addition to not make make noise. This often mean the rogue must go hide behind or into specific location further way. But that doesn't mean you can't necessarily target him anymore, just that you need to choose which 5' space you will attack and can still result in being the right one, and choosing rightfully can be easy especially if the rogue keep hiding in the same location.

I don't have a problem with it as usually it doesn't result in suprise since enemies usually detect the presence of other party members and so it can be setup to either grant defensive aid by being harder to target or offensive aid by giving advantage to one attack. Either way it help the rogue being better in combat, which is a good thing since next to it the spellcasters shine like no one!

 

[happyhermit]

I was going to say don't forget about "ready actions", they have solved a lot of problems like this for my monsters (when it made sense). I like how it plays out story wise most of the time as well, a character or monster waiting there for someone to pop out or take a shot. It may not be the "optimal" move but it plays out rather "cinematic-ly" in a way that makes sense in the mind's eye, one of the things I like about 5e combat.

 

[cmad1977]

I have a feeling you're gonna have a 'we've been doing this wrong for a while' conversation with your rogue player.

I've had many such convos.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Plaguescarred]

Also barring things making one not see such as blinded or invisible, constant source of hiding will generally be from being heavily obscured, which in itself grant disadvantage to attackers or total cover, which prevent all targeting already.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Kill the rest of the group and show to the rogue that be untouchable ins't good for the party, lol.

That will provide a perfect roleplaying explanation for why the rest of the party starts studying stealth from the rogue (i.e. everyone that can will multiclass to Rogue 2). ;-)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Advantage on passive perception is the least you could do. That means +5 for every monster. Why? Because you are at advantage noticing someone when you know that he is there.
If you use the same trick over and over again it is disadvantage on top.
On the other hand, rogues at that level will always roll 10+5+6 minimum so it does not really matter if you increase passive scores for most monsters.