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

[fjw70]

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.

 

[Psikerlord#]

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 andthe 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.

The last part may not be true - perhaps the halfling ability means he obtains total cover by going behind the tank, which is what allows him to attempt to hide, as opposed to an invisibility like power. The halfling ability is not explained. The whole halfling ability and hiding rules are vague and dodgy as hell. Ugh what a mess.

 

[jadrax]

You know. I am starting to be a bit unclear what being 'Hidden' actually does for you.


To get Advantage on an attack you need to be unseen by the target. Being Hidden is not actually required.
'When a creature can’t see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.' - Basic 0.1, page 73.

To get Disadvantage on attacks against you, you need to be unseen by the attacker. Being Hidden is not actually required.
'When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or you’re targeting a creature you can hear but not see.' - Basic 0.1, page 73.

What does being Hidden actually do?
'hidden—both unseen and unheard', - Basic 0.1, page 73.

 

[fjw70]

The last part may not be true - perhaps the halfling ability means he obtains total cover by going behind the tank, which is what allows him to attempt to hide, as opposed to an invisibility like power. The halfling ability is not explained. The whole halfling ability and hiding rules are vague and dodgy as hell. Ugh what a mess.

I am not sure what isn't explained. The power doesn't say anything about cover so it doesn't grant total cover. It says they can hide by being obscured by a larger creature.

 

[fjw70]

You know. I am starting to be a bit unclear what being 'Hidden' actually does for you.


To get Advantage on an attack you need to be unseen by the target. Being Hidden is not actually required.
'When a creature can’t see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.' - Basic 0.1, page 73.

To get Disadvantage on attacks against you, you need to be unseen by the attacker. Being Hidden is not actually required.
'When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or you’re targeting a creature you can hear but not see.' - Basic 0.1, page 73.

What does being Hidden actually do?
'hidden—both unseen and unheard', - Basic 0.1, page 73.

Normally during combat being hidden doesn't do much for you. You are right that being unseen is the key for combat. The halfling's naturally stealthy ability is very useful since it allows you to be unseen in combat when you normally couldn't be unseen.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

You know. I am starting to be a bit unclear what being 'Hidden' actually does for you.
...
What does being Hidden actually do?
'hidden—both unseen and unheard', - Basic 0.1, page 73.

Excellent question. And that entire quote is important:

If you are hidden - both unseen and unheard - when you make an attack, you give away your location when an attack hits or misses.​

What that doesn't say is whether 'giving away your location' eliminates your advantage when making an attack, or the disadvantage and attacker suffers when attempting to attack you.

So I think we should look at your first statement, what being 'Hidden' actually does for you. I think that perhaps it should be a new thread (with a link to this one), since this one was to answer a specific question.

To answer that question I think it would be beneficial to identify the benefits the halfling would receive. On the other hand, I think that according to the rules as written the original question is correct as interpreted except for the -2 to attack.

Having said that, in my view this benefit is circumstantial. The reason I say that is that my mind requires some sort of mechanic to make it work. OK, the halfling can attempt to hide.

But there's the halfling and his human fighter as the only two people in the room. Whether the halfling starts out hidden, then attacks, or starts out seen, then runs behind the fighter, the end result is that the opponent knows where you are, or at least thinks it very likely that he knows where you are, and is expecting an attack from you from behind the fighter.

To me, the mechanic that provides your hiding place in this instance is cover. You are entirely behind the fighter (as you'd have to be to remain unseen) and therefore in total cover. You could also say he is heavily obscured.

In order to attack when completely behind physical cover (the fighter) you have to reveal yourself. If the opponent doesn't know where you are at all, then I think when you reveal yourself you still have advantage on that attack. Once they know where you are, then when you reveal yourself to attack you are seen, therefore not 'unseen and unheard' and thus don't receive advantage on your attacks until the circumstance changes.

That's why I think your position, or more importantly your opponent's perception of your position is important.

So for the bigger question, what benefit do you get from being Hidden? There are actually quite a few, and they aren't all combat related. I guess you could say these are a lot of different but related conditions. I don't have time to go through all of my thoughts right now but I'll get it started:

1. Undetected. That is, you enter the range of Perception of somebody and you are able to do so without them even knowing you are there. This would give you advantage on your first attack, might cause the opponent to have disadvantage to attack you, and other conditions may or may not apply (cover, obscured, etc.).

For example, if you're sneaking across a room 'in plain sight' but undetected you would gain advantage on your first attack. At that point your opponent wouldn't suffer any penalty to hit you because you have been seen.

However, if you're trying to sneak around behind a large sofa, and make a noise, you are no longer undetected, but you do have full cover. If you choose to reveal yourself you would not gain advantage to your attack, but you would have the benefit of at least half cover.

If you come around the corner in a dark hallway and can see into a lighted room, but remain in shadow yourself you are undetected until you fire your first arrow. At that point you still have advantage when attacking, and they are at a disadvantage when attacking you. But your advantage in attacking is limited since they can determine where to move or where to take cover to avoid being hit by somebody down the hallway. It could also be argued that unless you are magically silenced, they can hear you in which case you no longer have advantage on attack since you are not 'unseen and unheard.'

I also think that once you have been discovered, either through action or a failed Stealth/Perception check, the circumstances would need to change before you could possibly be undetected again.

Hiding in a crowd is another possibility for being undetected. You aren't unseen or unheard, but your threat to the opponent is undetected. This could be a Deception instead of a Stealth check.

The advantages to being undetected aren't just combat, though. They include things like escaping, stealing something, planting something incriminating, etc.

More later!

Randy

 

[TDarien]

In the game, whenever you try to Hide, the opponent gets at least a Passive Perception, and quite likely an active Perception check. You can be completely hidden from view, but with a good Perception check the opponent can negate your attempt to Hide by hearing you, seeing you, seeing a shadow, tells from your allies, etc., or just deduction.

I agree except for the deduction part. If can deduce where you are, but that doesn't mean you're not still hidden. [/quote]

That Perception could be entirely independent of being able to see you or hear you. They've just 'figured out where you are.' As a result, you don't have advantage to your attack anymore and you are no longer Hidden (from that opponent). You can remain Hidden from others until that opponent tells them where you are. Then you are no longer Hidden from them either. Even if they can't see or hear you.

I'm going to argue that your allies indicating where an hidden creature is does NOT stop the creature from being hidden from view. It's the same as deducing that creatures position, you'd still can't observe it directly, therefore it's still hidden.

Now you could go through the trouble of another Hide/Perception check in the next round if you want to try to Hide again (to gain advantage). But I think that unless the circumstances warrant something different, their Perception check automatically succeeds. I suppose you could just give them a hefty bonus, or advantage on their Perception check, but there are certain circumstances that I think would go beyond stretching the limits of plausibility.

It doesn't automatically succeed, because Perception is the ability to observe you directly. Knowledge of your position does not improve a creatures ability to observe you.
If I duck behind a wall and don't make a noise, you can't be sure if I'm still there or I moved without some other evidence.

But the opportunity to attempt to Hide (and gain advantage) is because you are moving under concealment. You are changing the circumstances. Otherwise the opponents perception is that you are where they expect you to be. And your attacking from that position without moving confirms this and thus no advantage.

This is where you're getting it wrong. Hiding is not connected to movement at all. Moving Stealthily requires hiding (and NOT the other way around), yes, but the hide action does not require movement ("When you take the hide action, you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check in an attempt to hide, following the rules in Chapter 7 for hiding")-- the False Appearance ability you quoted earlier supports that.

This is a change in the rules from previous editions, which is where the confusion might be coming from

So I do think that the rules support my position, including the bolded part in your prior post. It's inferred with the way Perception, the rules as written for Hiding, etc. are presented. That doesn't mean that I think that it doesn't support your position, or other alternate interpretations. There's a lot of room for interpretation, because there are pretty much an endless number of possible scenarios.

I don't think that you can infer from that your position being discovered supports you not being able to hide again. You seem to think that being discovered = not hiding, and that's not true. Both of those things just end your attempt to hide. Not hiding means you're not actively concealing yourself, while being discovered means that you were unsuccessful in concealing yourself. You also can't infer from the sentence "If you make a noise, you give away your position" means you can't attempt to hide again, but in the very next sentence, it says "an invisible creature...can always try to hide" even if its position is known.
This supports the notion that the requirements to hide are only that a creature can't see or hear you.

In many cases when you attack while Hidden (and have advantage), you will become at least partially visible. That doesn't negate your advantage, though. Missing your attack does, even if they still can't see or hear you. You may still be able to remain hidden, just as a sniper can often get off several shots before their location is pinpointed. Once it is, unless the sniper moves, they've lost their advantage.

Attacking Specifically gives away your position, hitting or missing is irrelevant ("If you are hidden—both unseen and unheard—when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.")

There are also situations where you could even be seen by your target, but still gain the advantage, such as being one in a crowd. I might use a Deception instead of a Stealth check depending on the circumstances, but the result is the same - you would have advantage on your attack due to being hidden.

This is 100% DM fiat, and not supported at all by the rules. (Which isn't to say I wouldn't allow it)

As I stated before, invisibility is a different situation altogether because you're invisible, not hiding. There are different reasons as to why you maintain advantage while invisible, although it still falls under the category of not being seen.

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 you're bringing a lot of concepts of "how things should work" into the discussion, which is fine, but those things don't necessarily agree with the rules. Let's clear a few things up

- Hiding is the act of actively trying to conceal yourself (your position) from others (Hide action, pg. 72)
- In combat, hiding takes an action. You can't make a stealth check in combat without using the hide action. (hide action p. 72)
- If you don't hide, enemies know your position, even if they can't see you. (Hiding "In Combat, most creatures stay alert..." p 60)
- a Creature knows the position of every creature that's not hidden from it. (same)
- You can only hide from a target that can't see you or hear you
- Hiding is the act of concealing your position (Stealth, page 60-- not the hide box)
- When you try to hide, creatures get a passive perception check to find you. An active perception check takes an action (Search Action, pg 72)
- Once you're hidden, The enemy can no longer be sure of your position, because it has no direct evidence of it. It knew where it last saw you, (which could very well be where you still are), but since you're hidden, you can move without it noticing.
- If an enemy gets direct evidence of your position, passes a perception check(shadow, sound, glimpse, etc.) or sees you directly, you are no longer hidden from that enemy. He his again fully aware of his position in exactly the same way as he did before you hid.

 

[Agamon]

As usually when one of these threads get this long, people are debating using two (at least) different meanings to the term, "hidden."

Some say hidden, as in not seen, like the guy around the corner that your talking to. You can't see him, therefore, he's "hidden." Others say hidden, as in not knowing where something is, like your keys when you lost them and now you have to try and find them because they are "hidden."

Unfortunately, the hidden rules kinda point to both aspects of the word without being definitive. I'm all for DM rulings, but this specific rule might need an FAQ answer.

 

[fjw70]

You guys are making this a lot more complicated than it is.

You are Hidden if and only if you are unseen and unheard.

That goes both ways. If you unseen and unheard then you are Hidden. If you are Hidden then you are unseen and unheard.

There is no requirement that the enemy not know which space you are in or that your situation must change to re-hide after losing your hidden status.

Obviously any DM can run this how they want but the RAW are pretty clear.

 

[TDarien]

You guys are making this a lot more complicated than it is.

You are Hidden if and only if you are unseen and unheard.

That goes both ways. If you unseen and unheard then you are Hidden. If you are Hidden then you are unseen and unheard.

There is no requirement that the enemy not know which space you are in or that your situation must change to re-hide after losing your hidden status.

Obviously any DM can run this how they want but the RAW are pretty clear.

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.