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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6774585" data-attributes="member: 2067">The rules for stealth are crazy confusing. Here's what I've come down on:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> If an enemy cannot see you, you can try to hide from them. If an enemy CAN see you, you cannot try to hide from them. Darkness and invisibility don't give you a bonus to hide or make you automatically hidden, they make it possible. If you're standing in the middle of the room invisible, it's still pretty clear to everyone where you are, just as, in a pitch-dark room, it's not too hard to tell where someone is. You don't need to make a check to "hide in shadows" to become unseen - you either can't be seen, or you can, depending on your environment.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> Trying to hide is an action. The action represents you shifting your weight, quieting your equipment, finding places where your footprints don't show and aren't audible, hushing your involuntary noises, etc. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> You can move freely when you are hidden, but if you are ever in a place where the enemy can see you, you are no longer hidden from that enemy. So, if you're hidden because you're hunkering down behind a low wall, if there's a gap in that wall, the enemy sees you when you cross the gap. If you're in darkness, entering an area of light makes you seen. If you're invisible, you don't care much about your environment (one of the advantages of invisibility!). There's no rules to determine exactly where an enemy is looking, so the DM's got some flexibility to say that a critter had its back turned or whatever. This encourages the non-hiding party members to MAKE A DISTRACTION. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> Because trying to hide is an action, you roll a new Stealth check every time you move your speed, if you are hiding for long periods of time. You need to take a new Hide action in a new location each time.</li> </ol>Generally, I'm pretty happy with this, but my HotDQ party has been making ample use of stealth to sneak up on folks (and I'm struggling to come up with at what radius walking around in heavy armor is audible for those NOT using stealth...), so I've needed to lock it down a bit more coherently than the RAW does.</blockquote>

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