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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sir Brennen" data-source="post: 6351566" data-attributes="member: 553">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.-----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.</blockquote>

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