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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6374813" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here are some more thoughts on word choice and usage.At least in English and Australian style guides, the general advice is to use active rather than passive constructions. So conventional notions of "good style" would favour "You cannot hide from someone who can see you" over "You cannot be hidden from someone who can see you".Also, I wouldn't generally regard "You cannot be hidden from someone who can see you" as synonymous with "You cannot remain hidden from someone who can see you". The first is ambiguous between an event (of becoming hidden) and a state (of being hidden) whereas the latter is unambiguously about a state (of being, and remaining, hidden). Hence the former can bear an interpretation that the latter can't. Hence they are not synonymous.Maybe there are difference of usage in play here. Australian English is not identical to UK English (and has its own, modest, regional variations), and US usage is more different from both than the difference between the former two (and exhibits wide regional variations).Nevertheless, some things are the same, I think. Consider "You can run but you can't hide!" In Australian English, that does not imply that you cannot become hidden temporarily. Rather, it is an assertion that even if you manage to temporarily become hidden, you will be found in short order. In other words, the verb "to hide" in that sentence is denoting the state of remaining hidden rather than the event of becoming hidden. I am pretty confident that in standard American English it has the same meaning as I have just described.Also I assume that, for you, "You cannot remain hidden from someone who can see you" is not any less clear than "You cannot hide from someone who can see you". Which is why I think that, if that is what they meant, then that is what they should have said.What does the "purposefully" mean?I read the sentence "You cannot hide from someone who can see you". To me, that means if someone can see me then I cannot hide from them - neither become, nor remain, hidden. If, in fact, the authors meant to communicate to me that I cannot become hidden from someone who can see me but, once hidden, I can remain hidden even if someone can see me then they failed to communicate that to me. Becuase it would never have occurred to me to read the sentence in that way until Ratskinner explained that reading.Hence my contention that the sentence is ambiguous.The whole point is that the verb "to hide" in English also denotes the state of being hidden. So what you say is "simple enough" is in fact one of two possible readings, and a reading that did not occur to me, for some of the reasons I posted upthread, until Ratskinner explained it. I am not denying that it occurred to you. But that does not show that the meaning is unambiguous. Some people look at the duck-rabbit and see ony the duck. That doesn't mean others aren't looking at the same picture and seeing only the rabbit.So are you saying that if my PC is hiding behind a wall, and then a NPC mage disintegrates the wall, the ony way that mage can see my PC is by succeeding on a WIS (Perception) check (active or passive, as appropriate) that beats my DEX (Stealth) check?I don't think that is what the authors of the rules intended. I think they intended that, even if a character has become hidden, certain visual cues can end that status regardless of any checks. And for me, the most natural reading is that any visual cue ends that state because you cannot hide from someone who can see you.Is this more evidence that the rules are unambiguous plain English?I definitely agree with this. But I still think there are better and worse ways to write the rules. In particular, if you want to differentiate the event of becoming hidden from the state of remaining hidden, there are very simple, plain language devices for doing so.</blockquote>

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