Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
DM Help! My rogue always spams Hide as a bonus action, and i cant target him!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Uller" data-source="post: 6954105" data-attributes="member: 413"><p>or consider...there is a possible way to sneak out of the box (trap door or obscured path). You move into the box, then DON'T hide but take the way out. The observer knows you left the box because you didn't spend an action hiding (they hear the secret door or you fail to remain obscured). You take the hide action and successfully beat their passive perception, then they THINK they know you are still in the box. </p><p></p><p>These threads are so useless. When does this happen at the table? Is there ever a perfectly lit room with exactly one hiding place and a perfectly perceptive, undistracted observer? In combat, all observers are potentially distracted. It's the DM's call in any particular situation and different DMs will make different calls. I tend to be more lenient on the hider because combat is chaotic and frightening and only a trained observer (i.e. a high perception bonus) will be good at keeping track of that pesky halfling that disappeared behind a box while the big armored man with the two-handed sword attempts to cut the observer's legs off and the she-elf (wait..is it a <strong>she</strong>-elf?...it's always so hard to tell) makes pretty lights dance around the observer's head. </p><p></p><p>Out of combat, it takes a disciplined mind to keep look out in the alley while the rest of the gang loots the warehouse. There was a cat playing with some string and then it noticed a mouse. Oh...and then the memory of that pretty girl I saw early in the day popped in my head. Why is my stomach growling? I just ate! Oh! I have to take a...</p><p></p><p>Characters with high stealth are good at taking advantage of the many little things that might distract an observer both in and out of combat. DMs, you can't possibly track every possible distraction, nor can you expect your <strong>player</strong> to know about them our how to take advantage of them any more than you can expect your wizard <strong>player</strong> to know how to cast a magic missile spell or your fighter <strong>player</strong> to know how to swing a sword. </p><p></p><p>The perception bonus covers how well a character filters out distractions and remains observant. All you as a DM have to do is decide is what is the "normal" level of distraction/alertness and whether this situation makes the observer more or less distracted or alert. More distracted, he gets disadvantage. More alert, he gets advantage. Various factors can affect both.</p><p></p><p>The stealth bonus is not just how quiet and nimble a character is but also how well he or she takes advantage of those distractions. The DM has to decide does the situation present more or less of an opportunity to be stealthy. More shadows, fog, smoke, noise, foliage, blocking terrain or objects etc make it easier. Better light and more open space and less noise make it harder. Apply advantage, disadvantage as applicable. In some cases it is fine to say it is simply not possible but in the main, IMO, the DM should allow characters to try.</p><p></p><p>So...at my table: Halfling and ogre are in a well lit room with a box. The halfing hurls a sling stone at the ogre then moves into the box and "hides". Me as a DM says...okay. The ogre is alert to the halfling and there really is nothing distracting him. So advantage to him. The room is well lit and not really conducive to hiding. So disadvantage to the halfling. Lets say for argument's sake the halfling's stealth check beats the ogre's passive perception (+5 because of adv). Okay. The ogre is not real bright but he's at least as smart as a young human child. He has object permanence. He has no reason to think the halfling is anywhere but in the box...so he moves up to the box and looks in...see's the halflng and smashes him. If, for some reason the ogre can't get to the box or get LOS on the halfling, so what? The halfling is hidden. But the ogre got distracted somehow. He had an itch, he had to pick his nose. He saw a mouse. He heard a noise...whatever. The halfling pops up and gets adv on his next attack. Is this really the end of all things good and holy? </p><p></p><p>If the ogre can reach the halfling's hiding place he SHOULD have used dash to move to a place the ogre could not attack OR used dodge to give it disadvantage on the attack because he'll get crushed. If I (as the DM) can, I'd have the ogre grab the halfling so "can't do dat li'l trick agin!" </p><p></p><p>In this case, the player would learn that I don't say "No...you can't do something obviously dumb." Instead I let the player do it and suffer the consequences for it. Add in a party of characters, more furniture, torches, shadows, flashes from spells, noise, etc and adv/disadv get applied differently. But the ogre is still not dumb enough to not make a logical guess as to where the halfling went. If he is hitting the ogre with SA damage for 1d4+5+3d6 (5th level rogue) while the fighter is only hitting for 1d12+5 and is well armored, the ogre is likely to move to where he can see the halfling and smash him if it can. The cool thing about a rogue character is the player has three (at least!) choices for his bonus action and different situations make those choices vary in usefulness. Dash can be used to get out of reach. Dodge can be used to give multiple attackers disadvantage. Hide can be used to avoid being directly targeted and gain adv on attacks but it's not that hard to uncover a hidden character that is close by simply by moving to where you have line of sight.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Uller, post: 6954105, member: 413"] or consider...there is a possible way to sneak out of the box (trap door or obscured path). You move into the box, then DON'T hide but take the way out. The observer knows you left the box because you didn't spend an action hiding (they hear the secret door or you fail to remain obscured). You take the hide action and successfully beat their passive perception, then they THINK they know you are still in the box. These threads are so useless. When does this happen at the table? Is there ever a perfectly lit room with exactly one hiding place and a perfectly perceptive, undistracted observer? In combat, all observers are potentially distracted. It's the DM's call in any particular situation and different DMs will make different calls. I tend to be more lenient on the hider because combat is chaotic and frightening and only a trained observer (i.e. a high perception bonus) will be good at keeping track of that pesky halfling that disappeared behind a box while the big armored man with the two-handed sword attempts to cut the observer's legs off and the she-elf (wait..is it a [B]she[/B]-elf?...it's always so hard to tell) makes pretty lights dance around the observer's head. Out of combat, it takes a disciplined mind to keep look out in the alley while the rest of the gang loots the warehouse. There was a cat playing with some string and then it noticed a mouse. Oh...and then the memory of that pretty girl I saw early in the day popped in my head. Why is my stomach growling? I just ate! Oh! I have to take a... Characters with high stealth are good at taking advantage of the many little things that might distract an observer both in and out of combat. DMs, you can't possibly track every possible distraction, nor can you expect your [B]player[/B] to know about them our how to take advantage of them any more than you can expect your wizard [B]player[/B] to know how to cast a magic missile spell or your fighter [B]player[/B] to know how to swing a sword. The perception bonus covers how well a character filters out distractions and remains observant. All you as a DM have to do is decide is what is the "normal" level of distraction/alertness and whether this situation makes the observer more or less distracted or alert. More distracted, he gets disadvantage. More alert, he gets advantage. Various factors can affect both. The stealth bonus is not just how quiet and nimble a character is but also how well he or she takes advantage of those distractions. The DM has to decide does the situation present more or less of an opportunity to be stealthy. More shadows, fog, smoke, noise, foliage, blocking terrain or objects etc make it easier. Better light and more open space and less noise make it harder. Apply advantage, disadvantage as applicable. In some cases it is fine to say it is simply not possible but in the main, IMO, the DM should allow characters to try. So...at my table: Halfling and ogre are in a well lit room with a box. The halfing hurls a sling stone at the ogre then moves into the box and "hides". Me as a DM says...okay. The ogre is alert to the halfling and there really is nothing distracting him. So advantage to him. The room is well lit and not really conducive to hiding. So disadvantage to the halfling. Lets say for argument's sake the halfling's stealth check beats the ogre's passive perception (+5 because of adv). Okay. The ogre is not real bright but he's at least as smart as a young human child. He has object permanence. He has no reason to think the halfling is anywhere but in the box...so he moves up to the box and looks in...see's the halflng and smashes him. If, for some reason the ogre can't get to the box or get LOS on the halfling, so what? The halfling is hidden. But the ogre got distracted somehow. He had an itch, he had to pick his nose. He saw a mouse. He heard a noise...whatever. The halfling pops up and gets adv on his next attack. Is this really the end of all things good and holy? If the ogre can reach the halfling's hiding place he SHOULD have used dash to move to a place the ogre could not attack OR used dodge to give it disadvantage on the attack because he'll get crushed. If I (as the DM) can, I'd have the ogre grab the halfling so "can't do dat li'l trick agin!" In this case, the player would learn that I don't say "No...you can't do something obviously dumb." Instead I let the player do it and suffer the consequences for it. Add in a party of characters, more furniture, torches, shadows, flashes from spells, noise, etc and adv/disadv get applied differently. But the ogre is still not dumb enough to not make a logical guess as to where the halfling went. If he is hitting the ogre with SA damage for 1d4+5+3d6 (5th level rogue) while the fighter is only hitting for 1d12+5 and is well armored, the ogre is likely to move to where he can see the halfling and smash him if it can. The cool thing about a rogue character is the player has three (at least!) choices for his bonus action and different situations make those choices vary in usefulness. Dash can be used to get out of reach. Dodge can be used to give multiple attackers disadvantage. Hide can be used to avoid being directly targeted and gain adv on attacks but it's not that hard to uncover a hidden character that is close by simply by moving to where you have line of sight. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
DM Help! My rogue always spams Hide as a bonus action, and i cant target him!
Top