D&D 5E Halfling rogue sniping from the the second rank

[fjw70]

I'll only add that to be hidden, you have to make a stealth check that's higher than the target's passive perception, which requires the hide action.

Agreed.

 

[Branduil]

There are a couple of things people seem to be confusing.


First, you don't end to be hidden to get advantage on an attack. You only need to be unseen. The target can know where you are, hear you, etc. but if they can't see you then you have advantage. Since being unseen is part of hidden then by extension you get advantage when attacking while hidden.


Second, being hidden while obscured and with total cover are two different things. If you are hidden with total cover then you must reveal yourself to make a direct attack. When you reveal yourself to make such an attack you are no longer hidden or unseen and don't get advantage on the attack, unless the DM rules the a target is distracted and doesn't see you.


If you are hidden by being obscured (including invisibility and the halfling naturally stealthy ability) then you can attack from your hidden position and get advantage on the attack.

That is explicitly not how the rules work. Page 73: "If you are hidden-both unseen and unheard-when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses." If you come out of hiding and approach the enemy that reveals your position, but just peeking around a corner and firing an arrow doesn't reveal your position until you've already made the attack, with advantage.

 

[SkidAce]

Me too, actually. That's why I don't always do it while playing a rogue, even though the rules say I can. (In fact, my DM gave me Inspiration the other day for NOT hiding behind the same doorframe a second time to snipe again, even though I could, because in the situation we were in, it seemed dumb.)

I usually tell the rogue that since they are hidden behind something, they cant see whats going on. So they have to RP the fact that they dont know the hobgoblins are charging the door and will be there next turn.

Unless one of their buddies yells "Look out Bob" of course...




The inspiration idea was nice on your DM's part.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Technically becoming partially visible does negate the advantage from being hidden ("if you come out of hiding...it usually sees you"), but I would allow a creature to shoot from behind a wall (total cover) an retain the advantage from being hidden. ("Under certain circumstances the DM might allow you to stay hidden...")
The rules don't support "Popping out" from behind cover, you technically have to move to a position where you can see your target. Again, I would allow it in some circumstances.

I think the rules DO support the pop-up attack, at least (or especially) for ranged attacks, which might even be at the heart of the issue some people are having with the attack/hide/attack/hide from the same position scenario. You quoted (I quoted, we all quoted) the line above, but actually omitted the relevant part: "In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you."

Bearing the bolded part in mind, let's go back to our lone tree example:

You're a Lightfoot halfling and you've been standing behind the tree for a while, and performed a Hide action because you're lying in wait for an orc you know is coming. The orc enters the clearing, and the DM checks to confirm your Stealth check beats his Passive Perception. Apparently you did, because he stops to relieve himself in the field. You lean out from behind a tree, and because you haven't approached him, even though you now only have partial cover, you are still "hiding" per the rules... you're still unseen. You fire an arrow with Advantage and, hit or miss, your position is revealed, meaning you're no longer hidden. You lean back behind the tree and now, out of view with total cover, use your Cunning Action for another Hide attempt. The orc turns in the direction the arrow came from and sees the tree, and assumes that's where his attacker is. He fails to overcome your Stealth roll with an active Perception check. You're unseen AND Hidden to him at the moment.

So now the question is... what I think the real question is... if you lean out from behind the tree to shoot another arrow, do you have Advantage? Since he's aware of your location (or at least, your last location before using the Hide action), he's looking at the tree. I'd say, per the rules, since he can see you when you lean out, you're no longer Hiding nor unseen, so no Advantage.

Now, replace the tree with your fighter buddy. I get the impression that some folks are thinking that because you can capital-"H"-Hide behind your buddy each round with Cunning Action, you can get advantage on attacks against the same target each round, particularly when using a ranged weapon. Again, I say thee nay. Even granting that you can repeatedly Hide behind your meat sh... er, fighter buddy... that particular tactic is only going to work once, because the target is now looking for you to pop out, negating your Hiding before your attack.

Adding to the confusion is the use of the word "obscured" in the Naturally Stealthy description. First, obscurement generally seems to refer to insubstantial things that affect vision, such as light levels or atmospheric conditions. Cover seems to refer to more solid intervening objects. Going by the text, is the halfling lightly or heavily obscured? Both have rules implications which I don't think should apply to this situation ... i.e. for lightly obscured the enemy has disadvantage on Perception checks to see the halfing, or for heavily obscured, the halfing's vision is blocked entirely. The other option would be to treat this as a special "very lightly obscured" which only gives the halfling the ability to hide, but has no other game effects.

But at the same time, the fighter buddy is a solid object, not fog or dim light. I think it would have been better to word the ability "when you have cover from only a creature that is at least one size larger than you". If you treat the fighter as cover you hide behind, then the "pop-up" logic I outlined above would apply. If you treat the fighter as obscurement, you either have to treat it as a special obscurement, or apply the other mechanics for obscurement, and at what level. However, obscurement would allow the halfing to attack while hidden, so attempting to do so every round would be more permissible.

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On the whole "move to hide again thing"... once more returning to the lone tree. Again, I'll grant you can keep performing a Hide action behind the tree between attacks, but as I stated above, I don't think you'd get advantage for that tactic after the first round (maybe two if it were a stand of trees.) But, if you use a Stealth roll to back away from the tree and slink through the tall grass, and the orc fails his Perception check, when you make another pop-up attack out of the grass, I'd grant advantage again because the orc wasn't expecting the attack from your new position. Totally getting into DM Ruling territory, but just wanted to clarify the moving + Stealth thing. It's not really about the Hiding, it's about when you're seen when you make the attack.

 

[fjw70]

That is explicitly not how the rules work. Page 73: "If you are hidden-both unseen and unheard-when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses." If you come out of hiding and approach the enemy that reveals your position, but just peeking around a corner and firing an arrow doesn't reveal your position until you've already made the attack, with advantage.

Wrong. If you can see them then they can see you and you have revealed yourself (again unless they are distracted). But that's probably will only work once.

That's the big difference between hiding with total cover and hiding while being obscured (which is the category of the halfling ability). You can attack while hidden in obscurement but cannot directly attack while behind total cover.

So the doorway sniping would probably only work once but the halfling sniping behind an ally can work all day long.

 

[Branduil]

Wrong. If you can see them then they can see you and you have revealed yourself (again unless they are distracted). But that's probably will only work once.

That's the big difference between hiding with total cover and hiding while being obscured (which is the category of the halfling ability). You can attack while hidden in obscurement but cannot directly attack while behind total cover.

So the doorway sniping would probably only work once but the halfling sniping behind an ally can work all day long.

The rules do not in any way differentiate between hiding using cover and hiding using concealment in the RAW. They also explicitly say you can attack from hiding, revealing your position only once the attack hits or misses.

Again, it's fine for people to houserule how they like stealth to work for their group, but by the RAW, a lot of these interpretations of the stealth rules are actually adding restrictions which aren't in the text.

 

[TDarien]

So now the question is... what I think the real question is... if you lean out from behind the tree to shoot another arrow, do you have Advantage? Since he's aware of your location (or at least, your last location before using the Hide action), he's looking at the tree. I'd say, per the rules, since he can see you when you lean out, you're no longer Hiding nor unseen, so no Advantage.

I agree with this. You have to move out from behind the tree to attack which makes you visible and reveals you to the target. (as you said, I would allow this once or twice, but not more than that).

Now, replace the tree with your fighter buddy. I get the impression that some folks are thinking that because you can capital-"H"-Hide behind your buddy each round with Cunning Action, you can get advantage on attacks against the same target each round, particularly when using a ranged weapon. Again, I say thee nay. Even granting that you can repeatedly Hide behind your meat sh... er, fighter buddy... that particular tactic is only going to work once, because the target is now looking for you to pop out, negating your Hiding before your attack.

Now here's the interesting part. Because the creature you're hiding behind only grants you half cover, you can still see it, even after you've hidden. So you don't have to "pop-out" of cover to attack (popping out would only apply to total cover, as you can see the target with any less cover). Of course the target would also have half cover. So when you hide behind the fighter, you're in an awesome position where you can see the target, but it can't see you. It's exactly the same as if you were invisible and repeatedly attacked from the same position. (Hiding and being invisible are two different ways to gain advantage from being unseen. If your target can't see you, you get advantage, even if it knows where you are)

Again, it's trivially easy to defeat this tactic. Simply moving around the fighter to a position adjacent to the halfling prevents him from hiding again until he moves, provoking an opportunity attack.

On the whole "move to hide again thing"... once more returning to the lone tree. Again, I'll grant you can keep performing a Hide action behind the tree between attacks, but as I stated above, I don't think you'd get advantage for that tactic after the first round (maybe two if it were a stand of trees.) But, if you use a Stealth roll to back away from the tree and slink through the tall grass, and the orc fails his Perception check, when you make another pop-up attack out of the grass, I'd grant advantage again because the orc wasn't expecting the attack from your new position. Totally getting into DM Ruling territory, but just wanted to clarify the moving + Stealth thing. It's not really about the Hiding, it's about when you're seen when you make the attack.

Ah, but you can't make a stealth roll to back away from the tree. In order to move unobserved in combat, you must first take the hide action. The stealth roll is tied to the hide action, and NOT the movement.

This is completely different from previous editions where stealth was tied to whatever action you were doing. That's not the case in this edition, because Using stealth (hiding) is an action by itself.

 

[fjw70]

The rules do not in any way differentiate between hiding using cover and hiding using concealment in the RAW. They also explicitly say you can attack from hiding, revealing your position only once the attack hits or misses.

Again, it's fine for people to houserule how they like stealth to work for their group, but by the RAW, a lot of these interpretations of the stealth rules are actually adding restrictions which aren't in the text.

The rules do say that you cannot directly attack someone who has total cover and since it is logical that total cover goes both ways then you must give up total cover to attack and giving up total cover mean you can now be seen.

 

[Sir Brennen]

The rules do not in any way differentiate between hiding using cover and hiding using concealment in the RAW. They also explicitly say you can attack from hiding, revealing your position only once the attack hits or misses.

If you've got total cover behind a solid object, how do you attack? You have to reveal yourself partly at least, at which point, you might be seen before the attack. Per the RAW, you can't be hiding from a creature that sees you. If you're obscured by darkness from a creature without darkvision, there's no risk of being seen before the attack (tho you might be heard). So, there's your difference in the rules between the two.

Edit: Ninja Sneak-Attacked

 

[Branduil]

The rules do say that you cannot directly attack someone who has total cover and since it is logical that total cover goes both ways then you must give up total cover to attack and giving up total cover mean you can now be seen.

Players don't take up an entire 5-foot square. It is more than possible to hide behind a wall, peek around the corner to shoot, and then duck back around the corner.

RAW, there is nothing in the rules that says attacking from hiding only applies to the first attack made in combat.