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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6959466" data-attributes="member: 42582">You seem to be confusing   [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION]'s use of words such as "try" and "attempt" with particular game-mechanical resolution events like rolling a DEX check or spending an action in the turn sequence.I'm pretty confident that   [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] has a sound grasp of the 5e action economy, and realises that a single DEX check governs the entirety of a single episode of hiding. But in talking about the need to remain hidden by making sure one does not reveal one's position, I think Hriston is trying to characterise what is taking place in the fiction. (I did likewise by referring to the DEX check determining whether noise is made inadvertently, while action declarations determine whether or not noise is made deliberately.)And because the rules use natural language that talks about the fiction (eg being observed, or revealing one's position by making noise) I think Hriston is on the right track. If we don't conceive of how events are unfolding in the fiction, how can we apply those elements of the rules?There seems to be some confusion here arising from the fact that "hiding" is being used to denote an event in the fiction (of becoming hidden), a state in the fiction (of being hidden), and a game-mechanical event that occurs at the table (of making a DEX check).I don't think anyone here is unsure about the game-mechanical event.But, in the fiction, I agree with Hriston that there is no point in (fictional) time at which (i) the elf's state is one of being hidden, and yet (ii) the elf's state is one of being observed. There may be a point at which the elf is observed (and hence not hidden). But once the elf becomes hidden, the situation reverses: s/he is no longer being observed.The actual event (of becoming hidden) is not one which takes any time as far as the fiction of D&D is concerned. But something clearly takes place that renders the elf unable to be seen (and I think the Sage Advice confirms that it is not that the elf changes colour/visual texture so as to camouflage him-/herself). That thing means that it is no longer true that s/he is able to be observed.Consider, thus, those who are staring at the elf - at one moment they can see him/her, then it starts snowing and s/he disappears. Or, if it is already snowing, then at one moment they can see the elf through the snow, then suddenly their is a swirl of snow ("nature itself cloaks the wood elf") and s/he vanishes.</blockquote>

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