D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[Mistwell]

Ah ha! More rules that shed some (?) light on this murky topic.

Hiding
Adventures and monsters often hide, whether to spy on one another, sneak past a guardian, or set an ambush. The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. When you try to hide, you, take the hide action.

 

[Charlaquin]

Might be worse than that.

Level 20 Rogue gets greater invisibility cast on them, tries to sneak past an old blind drunk man with 6 Wis.

The man still "sees" them.

I assume the invisibility and greater invisibility spells will have the effect of making the creature impossible to see without see invisibility or truesight, in addition to granting the invisible condition.

 

[MarkB]

Interestingly, 3/4 cover does not prevent the covered creature from being seen. So, if we look at this example again assuming 3/4 cover instead of total cover, the rogue can still hide to gain the condition, but doing so will really only grant her advantage on initiative checks, since the guard would be able to see her from any position, so she would never be able to benefit from advantage on attacks against him or impose disadvantage on his attacks against her.

The other condition for attempting to hide is being out of line of sight. If your current level of cover doesn't prevent the guard from seeing you, you can't even make the attempt.

 

[Charlaquin]

The other condition for attempting to hide is being out of line of sight. If your current level of cover doesn't prevent the guard from seeing you, you can't even make the attempt.

Well, 3/4 cover is explicitly mentioned as a suitable degree of cover for hiding. But in the 2014 rules it doesn’t prevent you from being seen, only gives +5 to AC and Dex saves. Unless the rules for cover have changed (which they very well might have!), I assume “line of sight” is meant to be a nebulous enough term that the DM can assume a 3/4 covered creature can duck out of the way enough to “break line of sight” to become hidden, but not enough to count as total cover and therefore prevent the creature from being seen at all.

 

[MarkB]

Well, 3/4 cover is explicitly mentioned as a suitable degree of cover for hiding. But in the 2014 rules it doesn’t prevent you from being seen, only gives +5 to AC and Dex saves. Unless the rules for cover have changed (which they very well might have!), I assume “line of sight” is meant to be a nebulous enough term that the DM can assume a 3/4 covered creature can duck out of the way enough to “break line of sight” to become hidden, but not enough to count as total cover and therefore prevent the creature from being seen at all.

Reasonable. As the rule says that you can tell whether any creature you can see is able to see you, it might also be a matter of waiting until they turn away and then making the check.

 

[Stoutstien]

I don't think it matters clean they end up making this. Static DCs are contradictory to the core game logic. It's devalues situational factors which are the most important parts in determining the odds of success.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't think it matters clean they end up making this. Static DCs are contradictory to the core game logic. It's devalues situational factors which are the most important parts in determining the odds of success.

Note entirely. We still have two rules for that:

1) "Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding."
2) Advantage/Disadvantage: If you are lightly obscured or the equivalent, creatures have a -5 to their passive perception, and disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The intent appears to be to give a floor to the difficulty of becoming hidden. Since passive perception still exists, a creature with higher than passive perception than your stealth check can still automatically detect you, ending the invisible condition, at least according to my interpretation. It’s just that, if you’re trying to hide from a bunch of creatures with below 15 passive perception, you still need to hit that minimum of 15 to become hidden. I suppose this could represent the difficulty of remaining still and quiet enough to even require perception (even passive) to detect.

That feels really duplicative of Perception to me, which I feel adequately models that some people just aren't good at perceiving things even right in front of them (think of the viral video where the guy in the gorilla suit wanders through while a bunch of other crazy stuff is going on to distract the viewer), independent of how good or bad the person hiding might be.

In the 2024 rules, the Apple Dumpling Gang can't get past Barney Fife, no matter how clueless he is, if they can't hit an above-average roll at level 1. That doesn't feel like it fits either reality or fiction very well. This feels like a solution in search of a problem.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It likely also means the DM doesn't have to come up with custom passive perceptions for general stealth checks. If the party is going through an area with just general people and no "sharp eyed guards", a simple DC 15 gets teh job done. you only need something else if there is a hawk-eye in the area that actually could spot them.

If the intent was to represent what's necessary to get past the average person, why not say that and why not set that DC as 10?

 

[Stoutstien]

Yoy

Note entirely. We still have two rules for that:

1) "Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding."
2) Advantage/Disadvantage: If you are lightly obscured or the equivalent, creatures have a -5 to their passive perception, and disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.

Neither points address the fact when you do roll stealth it's completely disconnected from everything else.