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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6373649" data-attributes="member: 42582">The problem results from the fact that the verb "to hide" denotes both the act of becoming hidden, and the state of remaining hidden. If a door is opening and I call out "Hide!", I am telling you to engage in the act of becoming hidden. If I say "No one can hide from me for long" then I am stating that, even if someone successfully becomes hidden from me, that state will not endure for very long.Both are quite acceptable and literal uses of the verb "to hide". If the rules want to distinguish between them, they need to be clear. The AD&D rules have a bit of ambiguity in this respect, but not as badly as 5e (they say that you can't use the Hide in Shadows ability while being observed, but that once you have successfully used the ability you remain effectively invisible provided you don't move). In 4e, the rules avoid the problem by being very clear that the act of becoming hidden requires a lot of cover/concealment, whereas maintaining the hidden state requires only a bit of cover and concealment.There is no corresponding clarification in the 5e rules. Hence my view that they are ambiguous and poorly written.For instance, the rules could state "You cannot become hidden from someone who can see you. Once you become hidden, however, you may remain hidden provided that . . ." and then state some conditions that end the hidden state (making noise, moving violently, having no significant cover, concealment or camouflage, etc). But they don't.That may well be what they intended. But that is not a "plain English" reading. There is nothing deviant or atypical about my reading of the rules. As I will explain below, it also has an interpretive virtue that otherwise is absent.I don't see how the fact that you interpreted it one way, when another interpretation is equally available - because of the ambiguity between event and state in the English verb "to hide" - shows that the rules aren't ambiguous.I'm glad you find the rules clear. I don't, and I'm used to reading much more complex material than the D&D rules. (Not all of that is clear, either. Bad drafting is rife outside of RPG rules.)For instance, here is a sentence from p 60 of the Basic PDF:You can’t hide from a creature that can see you, and if you make noise (such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase), you give away your position.The second clause of that sentence - about making noises - is clearly discussing how a hidden character loses the state of being hidden. Yet you are saying that it is plain that the first clause - "you can't hide from a creature that can see you" - is not about how one loses the state of being hidden, but how one attains it in the first place. I don't think that's plain at all. If that is the intended meaning - which for all I know, it is - it could hardly be drafted more ambiguously.Contrast: You can't become hidden from a creature that can see you. Once hidden, you give away your position if you make noise. That introduces 2 more words (and 17 characters, including spaces). And unambiguously conveys the meaning that you are saying is plain. It also makes it clear that if the authors intended your preferred interpretation - which, for all I know, they did - then they also left something of a gap. Namely, they discussed auditory but not visual cues for ceasing to be hidden. Whereas my reading of the current rules is that any visibility ends the hidden status, because you can't hide from a creature that can see you. It is a virtue of an interpretation that it exhibits the rule as covering an obviously common case.If the authors of the rules intended to leave that gap - eg, to be interpreted by the GM - then it would have been very easy for them to say so. Their failure to do so is a reason to think that they thought the gap was covered. And that is a reason to favour my suggested interpretation, namely, that any visual cue ends hiding because you can't hide from a creature that can see you.When rules are well-drafted, the exceptions are called out as such. The easiest way to do so, when the drafting is relatively informal (as is the case for RPG rules) is to use a word like "ordinarily" or "typically" before introducing the general rule, or to use a word like "however" or even the phrase "As an exception, however . . ." when introducing the exception.Now I'm confused. If a wood elf can't become hidden when being watched in a light mist, what benefit does s/he get from his/her racial ability? Perhaps you're saying that a wood elf can remain hidden in a light mist whereas a human can't - but then you seem to be agreeing with me that a sufficient condition for a non-elf to lose the state of being hidden is for him/her to be visible (because "you can't hide from someone who can see you").And why does the verb "to hide" denote the action of becoming hidden on p 60 of the PDF, but not in the rules for wood elves?Perhaps I've misunderstood you, but your remark about wood elves is not persuading me that your interpretation is a simple matter of plain English.</blockquote>

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