Rules FAQ How Does Stealth Work in D&D 5E?

Stealth is a complex skill. The rules can be found in the Player’s Handbook, largely on page 177. On the surface, it seems simple: it is a Dexterity (Stealth) check opposed by a Wisdom (Perception) check. But, there is more to it than that.

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So let’s break it down step by step. Using stealth generally means using the Hide action. Hiding is a 4 step process:

1. Are you sufficiently obscured from the creatures you're hiding from?
2. Use Hide action; this could be a bonus action if you have certain abilities, like the rogue’s Cunning Action or the Ranger’s Vanish.
3. Compare Dexterity (Stealth) check to the passive perception scores of any creature you are hiding from and against any active Wisdom (perception) checks to search for you
4. While you remain hidden, use the same Dexterity (Stealth) result until you are detected or are no longer hiding.

While Hidden
When you are hidden (which means you have used the Hide action and a creature has not noticed you with passive or active perception):

• You have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that can’t see you.
• When you make your attack, though, you reveal your position and are no longer hidden, whether the attack hits or misses.
• If a creature tries to attack you while you are hidden (and is able to guess the space you are in), it makes its attack roll with disadvantage.

Staying Hidden
You remain hidden until you are discovered, you stop hiding, circumstances no longer allow you to hide, or you make a noise or otherwise alert others to your presence.

You do not need to continually use the Hide action every round to remain hidden, but you will need to use it again to hide once you become detected or stop hiding (this could be complex to track, as being hidden is relative to each creature).

When Can I Hide?
According to the Player’s Handbook, you “can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly”. The complicating factor is the line "The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding”.

• The book reminds DMs that they might allow a player character to sneak up on a distracted creature, even leaving their concealment to do so, if circumstances allow it.
• It goes on to say "An invisible creature can always try to hide", noting that being unseen does not mean you are undetected.
• The Player's Handbook reminds us that the "Lightly obscured' and "heavily obscured" lighting affect what one can see. Being lightly obscured imposes a -5 penalty on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight, while being heavily obscured effectively blinds creatures to things in the obscured area and makes Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight automatically fail.

We still do not have a definition for “clearly”; it is left up to DM interpretation in this context.

• We know that being invisible counts. Being invisible makes one heavily obscured "for the purposes of hiding", so heavily obscured also counts.
• Full cover is not mentioned, but since it fully blocks line of sight, it is safe to assume full cover for an opaque object would be sufficient to hide behind.

This leaves the question "Can I hide when I am only lightly obscured" or "Can I use half or 3/4ths cover to hide?" The answer seems to be left up to the DM, as there are special abilities which interact with creatures who are lightly obscured.

• The skulker feat allows you to try to hide when you are lightly obscured" implying you couldn't otherwise do this.
• Wood Elves have the mask of the wild ability that lets them use the hide action "when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena''.
• Lightfoot halflings have the naturally stealthy ability, which lets them hide "even when you are obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you".

There are two ways to read this. The strict interpretation would be that you need these abilities in order to hide within lightly obscured areas. The loose way to interpret would be that these abilities allow you to use stealth to Hide in certain kinds of light obscurement even while being observed. As the Hide rules state you "can't hide from a creature that can't see you clearly" it depends on how the DM interprets “clearly. And, if a DM is going to allow lightly obscured areas to count as “not seen clearly”, then they may allow half cover or three-quarters cover as well.

Be sure to discuss with your DM how they intend to interpret when a creature can and cannot see you clearly.

 

[Iry]

My interpretation of RAW is that you can "stay hidden" in light obscurement. You need a good place to start Hiding (like heavy obscurement), but then you can move through light obscurement and remain hidden as long as you're not seen clearly. This makes it much easier to explain a wide variety of real life hiding that 5E normally doesn't support if you assume moving into light obscurement immediately reveals you.

 

[cmad1977]

This seems reasonable to me. I generally try to vary techniques depending on the needs of the particular session, setup, etc.

One technique I often use in a situation like this is give the player a choice between what they want to risk. So rolling with this example I might say something like:

"Okay, sneaking toward the camp isn't terribly hard but it depend on how close you want to get and how much you want to hear. I'll give you a choice, you can sneak up without them noticing but have to make a perception check to see how much you hear. Alternatively, you can hear it all but need to roll a sneak check to see if they catch you at the end. Which is it?"

Laying the stakes out in the open is something I do sometimes too.

 

[Asisreo]

I mean, that involves making rolls to determine if the PCs notice something. I'm not sure what we were disagreeing on that case.

Well, I was admittedly lazy because I didn't do the case in which the player just doesn't catch onto cues.

"Your master enters the room, its usually his training time and he never misses."

"Oh, OK. I want to go to the dojo and train."

"Your master interrupts your training by saying 'Your return is cause for great celebration!' And he smiles."

"Alright."

"He walks behind you, out of your sight."

"Yeah."

"He pulls out a dagger! Roll initiative, you're surprised!"

While no roll was directly called for, the player would have had several chances to find the Assassin suspicious and investigated further.

This is what I mean. Sure, there's opportunity to roll and avoid surprise and those opportunities don't have to be too difficult to find, but its not reliant on dice at all times.

 

[Reynard]

Well, I was admittedly lazy because I didn't do the case in which the player just doesn't catch onto cues.

"Your master enters the room, its usually his training time and he never misses."

"Oh, OK. I want to go to the dojo and train."

"Your master interrupts your training by saying 'Your return is cause for great celebration!' And he smiles."

"Alright."

"He walks behind you, out of your sight."

"Yeah."

"He pulls out a dagger! Roll initiative, you're surprised!"

While no roll was directly called for, the player would have had several chances to find the Assassin suspicious and investigated further.

This is what I mean. Sure, there's opportunity to roll and avoid surprise and those opportunities don't have to be too difficult to find, but its not reliant on dice at all times.

I am more inclined to challenge the characters than the players. That's just a playstyle preference. I don't want them to have to pixelhunt or play DM-may-I. Players aren't their characters, and there is no reasonable way to be sure I as DM am providing enough contextual information to be sure it is the player's "fault" and not mine. So I give them a (potentially secret) roll.

 

[Stalker0]

It's perfectly reasonable to say you hear the wings flapping or even see a trail of pixie dust. It's not unreasonable to say this works as written even in this very specific edge case.

I agree, which is why I give a free stealth check, not automatic stealth.

pixie fails, her wings gave her away.

what I don’t like is that invisibility is so poor that unless a pixie makes some kind of effort to mask their sound that a PC 100 feet away can tell where she is from wing sound with no check…that’s just too unbelievable for me…hence the small house rule

 

[Iry]

what I don’t like is that invisibility is so poor that unless a pixie makes some kind of effort to mask their sound that a PC 100 feet away can tell where she is from wing sound with no check…that’s just too unbelievable for me…hence the small house rule

Have you ever heard a pixie? Their wings buzz like jet engines!

 

[Stalker0]

Have you ever heard a pixie? Their wings buzz like jet engines!

Except when they take 3 secs (aka use stealth) to not do that? And then once they do they can now move freely around at full speed and remain under stealth…again just a bit weird for me

and if pixie doesn’t work, choose an invisible human instead.

 

[Asisreo]

I am more inclined to challenge the characters than the players. That's just a playstyle preference. I don't want them to have to pixelhunt or play DM-may-I. Players aren't their characters, and there is no reasonable way to be sure I as DM am providing enough contextual information to be sure it is the player's "fault" and not mine. So I give them a (potentially secret) roll.

And this is where we disagree. The players play the game, not the characters If your players enjoy that style of play, that's absolutely fine though.

For what its worth, I'd also not even run this scenario until the players are at least level 17 as that would ensure the surprise isn't fatal.

 

[mrpopstar]

The stealth rules work okay for combat, but it'd be nice to have at least a nod to formal "social stealth" rules whereby people 'hide' by not drawing attention to themselves. As it stands, only a halfling can hide by blending into a crowd.

Halflings have a lot going for them in this regard: Small, unassuming, and stealthy. All those things together inform in their Naturally Stealthy trait, but nothing moreso than the fact that they're physically able to make use of the obscuring cover provided by a crowd of creatures larger than themselves.

I tend to use the Deception skill to be "bland" to blend into a crowd.

But I normalize Intelligence for most Deceptions checks. (One really needs to know what one is doing to get away with a deception, especially if under scrutiny.)

An other way I look at it is, blending into a crowd is about understanding how the crowd of a culture operates, thus is a History check for social customs. In a weird way, being bland is a kind of etiquette.

Either way, for me, Intelligence turns out to be the key for this kind of "hiding" in plain sight.

I call for a Charisma check when players try to blend into a crowd, and a Charisma (Deception) check when resolving contests. Just feels right to me.

Personally, because Perception and Stealth are already so powerful, I try to restrict them to the five senses only.

In many ways, the game restricts Perception and Stealth to just two (sight and hearing).

Touch (in the form of vibrations) and smell are barely mentioned outside of the special senses and special traits specific to monsters, and taste makes the weakest showing.

I mean, poisons are designed for stealth, but you mean to tell me that a potion of water breathing is cloudy green, smells of the sea, and tastes like nothing!?

 

[Iry]

Except when they take 3 secs (aka use stealth) to not do that? And then once they do they can now move freely around at full speed and remain under stealth…again just a bit weird for me

and if pixie doesn’t work, choose an invisible human instead.

I'm always REALLY loud when I'm invisible. Until I choose not to be. Sage nods.