D&D 5E Greater Invis and Stealth checks, how do you rule it?

[Flamestrike]

I am not wrong about what is actually written in the rules.

Yeah you are.

This is the RAW:

1) In order to become Hidden in combat you generally must use the Hide action on your turn. You must first become 'unable to be seen clearly' and then you use the Hide action to make a Stealth check (representing you being quiet and concealing signs of your passage). This goes for a creature behind total cover, in a pool of total darkness, who is invisible or even a Halfling standing behind a Medium or larger sized creature. Once 'hidden' you use the rules for unseen targets in the sidebar.

2) You reveal yourself (and cease being Hidden) when you make an attack (hit or miss, unless you have the Skulker feat), after that attack is resolved or otherwise do something to reveal yourself (yell out etc).

3) In order to become hidden again, GOTO 1.

That's all RAW.

Now there might be times when a DM can rule that the above procedure is not needed. Outliers (an invisible assassin in a silence spell, 100' away from the battlefield, on a plain stone floor). That's what DMs do.

But the above 3 points can all be clearly inferred from the RAW.

that they would be able to continue to automatically track position of that foe for several turns when they are running around,

The foe is not making any efforts to conceal their position over those 'several' turns.

They COULD choose to Hide on any of those turns. Instead they're choosing to not be hidden and to instead Attack, Dash, Cast spells etc with their action.

If they want to be hidden, Hide!

I could be down with a creature who has spent several turns invisible and not really doing much (watching the battle, and moving about slowly for those turns) while his opponent was distracted fighting other things being hidden without the Hide action though. It depends on the circumstances.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah you are.

This is the RAW:

1) In order to become Hidden in combat you generally must use the Hide action on your turn. You must first become 'unable to be seen clearly' and then you use the Hide action to make a Stealth check (representing you being quiet and concealing signs of your passage). This goes for a creature behind total cover, in a pool of total darkness, who is invisible or even a Halfling standing behind a Medium or larger sized creature. Once 'hidden' you use the rules for unseen targets in the sidebar.

2) You reveal yourself (and cease being Hidden) when you make an attack (hit or miss, unless you have the Skulker feat), after that attack is resolved or otherwise do something to reveal yourself (yell out etc).

3) In order to become hidden again, GOTO 1.

That's all RAW.

Now there might be times when a DM can rule that the above procedure is not needed. Outliers (an invisible assassin in a silence spell, 100' away from the battlefield, on a plain stone floor). That's what DMs do.

But the above 3 points can all be clearly inferred from the RAW.

Yes. What is not RAW is that location of everyone is automatically known otherwise. And that's all I've been saying.

The foe is not making any efforts to conceal their position over those 'several' turns.

They COULD choose to Hide on any of those turns. Instead they're choosing to not be hidden and to instead Attack, Dash, Cast spells etc with their action.

If they want to be hidden, Hide!

Yes, they could hide, but sometimes they don't need to because them being naughty word invisible and the general chaos of battle might make their foes lose the track of them regardless.

I could be down with a creature who has spent several turns invisible and not really doing much (watching the battle, and moving about slowly for those turns) while his opponent was distracted fighting other things being hidden without the Hide action though. It depends on the circumstances.

So you are now agreeing with me? Good. We just place the threshold at somewhat different place.

 

[Maxperson]

When you make an attack from Hiding, you reveal yourself for a few seconds (till the start of your next turn when you can again take the Hide action if you want).

Which is really one of the dumbest rules in the PHB. I mean, there's a combat going on in a room with a few stacked crates. A human rogue is hiding behind them. Combat starts and he pops out from hiding and gets in a sneak attack, then because he can't hide when visible, we all watch him go back behind those crates and "hide." If we all know where he is, he isn't hidden!

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Ok, so the annoying thing about 5e is following the trail of conditions:

Invisibility: Makes you Heavily Obscured
Heavily Obscured: A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area.
Blinded Condition: A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.

So, your Hide check, while invisible auto-succeeds since you are Heavily Obscured and all checks that rely on sight automatically fail?

Or, the person has to rely on scent and hearing and gets to make a regular perception check (or hide check against Passive Perception at a normal DC?)

Or, the person gets advantage to hide(or the opponent gets disadvangate) on the check?

Like...totally hand-wavey stuff here. It's just up to the DM to adjudicate what happens. So, potentially, your Hide action is an action on your turn that auto-succeeds. Potentially. Like, in a noisy combat where a person has no chance of distinguishing your footprints from the melee going on.

So, if it was me, I'd say, during a combat, an invisible person would, usually, get advantage against everyone who gets disadvantage to their Passive Perception. Something like a dog would get a normal check because of their scent ability.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah you are.

This is the RAW:

1) In order to become Hidden in combat you generally must use the Hide action on your turn. You must first become 'unable to be seen clearly' and then you use the Hide action to make a Stealth check (representing you being quiet and concealing signs of your passage). This goes for a creature behind total cover, in a pool of total darkness, who is invisible or even a Halfling standing behind a Medium or larger sized creature. Once 'hidden' you use the rules for unseen targets in the sidebar.

I bolded the important part there. If you are invisible and circumstances make it so that you are not heard, you are hidden unless the DM is failing to do his job and rules that you are not.

Now there might be times when a DM can rule that the above procedure is not needed. Outliers (an invisible assassin in a silence spell, 100' away from the battlefield, on a plain stone floor). That's what DMs do.

No outliers are needed. All that's needed is a reasonable chance that you are not heard. Once that is achieved, if the DM is doing his job, there will at least be a perception check to find you, if not an outright failure(such is if using a silence spell).

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, so the annoying thing about 5e is following the trail of conditions:

Invisibility: Makes you Heavily Obscured
Heavily Obscured: A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area.
Blinded Condition: A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.

So, your Hide check, while invisible auto-succeeds since you are Heavily Obscured and all checks that rely on sight automatically fail?

Once you are able to hide, all hide checks automatically succeed. The hide roll isn't a roll for success/failure. It's to set the DC to find the successful hider.

Or, the person has to rely on scent and hearing and gets to make a regular perception check (or hide check against Passive Perception at a normal DC?)

Normal DCs don't come into play during hiding unless the hider became hidden without a roll. Then the DM would have to set a DC, which will often not be as high as a roll, and will often be higher. 20 sided swinginess.

Or, the person gets advantage to hide(or the opponent gets disadvangate) on the check?

Circumstances might allow this, but that's a DM call.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Once you are able to hide, all hide checks automatically succeed. The hide roll isn't a roll for success/failure. It's to set the DC to find the successful hider.



Normal DCs don't come into play during hiding unless the hider became hidden without a roll. Then the DM would have to set a DC, which will often not be as high as a roll, and will often be higher. 20 sided swinginess.



Circumstances might allow this, but that's a DM call.

Yeah, that's not how I'd run it. Stealth vs Passive Perception taking into consideration conditions that might make it easier or harder to find the invisible person. Passive Perception sets the DC.

On a dusty floor, I wouldn't give the Invisible Person Advantage but I'd still give the Seeker disadvantage on the Passive Perception.

I'd also allow you to use Investigation as an action to find them if you didn't automatically notice them...in which case, it's the opposite: the original Stealth roll is the DC to locate them.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that I'd probably do it that way.

Which is the way I've always done it. I just didn't realize hiding was an action.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ok, so the annoying thing about 5e is following the trail of conditions:

Invisibility: Makes you Heavily Obscured
Heavily Obscured: A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area.
Blinded Condition: A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.

So, your Hide check, while invisible auto-succeeds since you are Heavily Obscured and all checks that rely on sight automatically fail?

Or, the person has to rely on scent and hearing and gets to make a regular perception check (or hide check against Passive Perception at a normal DC?)

Or, the person gets advantage to hide(or the opponent gets disadvangate) on the check?

Like...totally hand-wavey stuff here. It's just up to the DM to adjudicate what happens. So, potentially, your Hide action is an action on your turn that auto-succeeds. Potentially. Like, in a noisy combat where a person has no chance of distinguishing your footprints from the melee going on.

So, if it was me, I'd say, during a combat, an invisible person would, usually, get advantage against everyone who gets disadvantage to their Passive Perception. Something like a dog would get a normal check because of their scent ability.

Let's look at a normal case. To hide, you have to be not seen clearly, so just not being seen isn't sufficient but it is necessary to being able to hide. Your GM will then decide if your action to hide is a success, a failure, or is uncertain. If it's uncertain, you'll probably be asked for a DEX ability check, to which you can add your stealth proficiency. Note: I'm being explicit on procedure, here, to make the rules case very clear -- in practice you'll usually just be asked to make the check without much fuss. The results of this check will go against the passive Perception of your foes and, if it's greater, your location is masked from them until the situation changes -- and by that I mean the situation regarding hiding, not anything else. This is the normal loop of play.

So, then, if that's that general rule, Invisibility would be the specific rule and we look at it to see what changes. The only thing that Invisibility changes about how hiding works is that you're always considered to have heavy obscurement for purposes of hiding. Further, the actual rules for hiding say that you can always attempt to hide while invisible -- largely because you automatically meet the "not clearly seen" requirement for hiding. No other facet of hiding is addressed or changed, so there's no other change to hiding.

This means that hiding while invisible works pretty much exactly like normal hiding in all regards except that you don't need terrain obscuremnet or cover to be not clearly seen as Invisibility does that for you. To answer your questions with this in mind:

No, your hide check doesn't automatically succeed because you are invisible -- to hide normally you must not be seen and invisible just meets that
condition.

Yes, an observer will rely on clues that don't involve seeing you directly to detect you while hiding. These may be sounds, or scents (depending), or other clues to your existence like signs of passage.

No, you do not get advantage on your hide check while invisible. Again, normally to hide you have to not be seen, so there's no difference or improvement with invisibility to hiding.

And, finally, yes, there's still stuff up to the GM, here. Invisibility alone isn't sufficient for that, though, it must be paired with something else -- be that distance, or environment, or the GM's ruling on how attentive an observer is. Invisibility, according to how exception based rules work, doesn't do anything to the normal rules for hiding except always provide the necessary requirement to not be clearly seen. If you're going to rule that invisibility means you're undetected, you should, for consistency, also apply that to any normal hiding attempt that meets the same extra criteria. And, you can do this, no problem. I think it makes hiding a bit to powerful, and it certainly makes invisibility more powerful. Even if you can locate an invisible creature, the advantage of being invisible are still huge. It doesn't really need the boost.

 

[Helldritch]

Ok, so the annoying thing about 5e is following the trail of conditions:

Invisibility: Makes you Heavily Obscured
Heavily Obscured: A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area.
Blinded Condition: A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.

So, your Hide check, while invisible auto-succeeds since you are Heavily Obscured and all checks that rely on sight automatically fail?

Or, the person has to rely on scent and hearing and gets to make a regular perception check (or hide check against Passive Perception at a normal DC?)

Or, the person gets advantage to hide(or the opponent gets disadvangate) on the check?

Like...totally hand-wavey stuff here. It's just up to the DM to adjudicate what happens. So, potentially, your Hide action is an action on your turn that auto-succeeds. Potentially. Like, in a noisy combat where a person has no chance of distinguishing your footprints from the melee going on.

So, if it was me, I'd say, during a combat, an invisible person would, usually, get advantage against everyone who gets disadvantage to their Passive Perception. Something like a dog would get a normal check because of their scent ability.

That's it. Nothing left to add.

I bolded the important part there. If you are invisible and circumstances make it so that you are not heard, you are hidden unless the DM is failing to do his job and rules that you are not.

No outliers are needed. All that's needed is a reasonable chance that you are not heard. Once that is achieved, if the DM is doing his job, there will at least be a perception check to find you, if not an outright failure(such is if using a silence spell).

Perfectly right on that. Otherwise, it is gimping players' abilities. (and foes' too).

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's it. Nothing left to add.


Perfectly right on that. Otherwise, it is gimping players' abilities. (and foes' too).

How is not offering free hide attempts gimping players' abilities? Not following that argument. I could follow one that says the GM should look at the situation and make a reasonable call, but that got nothing to do with players' abilities. Invisibility is super good without lots of free hide attempts.

ETA: asking because I actually don't follow that argument and would like to understand where you're coming from here.