D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[mamba]

Anyway, this is likely to get refined through editing and playtest. I wouldn't put much stock in a pre-release verbal explanation of anything.

are we sure this is still pre-release? Given that it is from today and says 'embargo over' this should be straight from the PHB

 

[mamba]

This actually isn't as bad as it first seems.

So the following works, There are guards outside the city gate, and a forest 100 feet from the city wall. I go into the forest, hide, and walk past the guards invisible? That makes zero sense, how stealthy do you have to be to not get noticed....

 

[mamba]

BUT, it strikes me a wee bit disingenuous to take what are obviously game mechanics terms and treat them like natural language. The invisible condition is not invisibility, it is mechanical heuristic to simplify various situations in which a character cannot be seen by visual means. A character that walks right by the guards is no longer hiding, thus no longer benefiting from the Hide Action, thus no longer under the Invisible condition, thus is seen by the guards. I would adjudicate it this way every day of the week, twice on Sundays, and lose nary a wink of sleep over it.

and that is why invisible and hidden are good to separate, even if you do not like all that many distinct conditions. I absolutely agree on the ruling...

 

[TiQuinn]

So the following works, There are guards outside the city gate, and a forest 100 feet from the city wall. I go into the forest, hide, and walk past the guards invisible? That makes zero sense, how stealthy do you have to be to not get noticed....

Which is why I think movement is key to the scenario. You’re an adventurer carrying weapons and armor of some sort. You’re probably making more noise than a whisper.

 

[mamba]

The rules mention that if you are in line of sight you aren't invisible.
You clearly give up your stealth when in such a situation.

the rules say I cannot turn invisible while being in the line of sight. They say nothing about not remaining invisible.

 

[mamba]

Which is why I think movement is key to the scenario. You’re an adventurer carrying weapons and armor of some sort. You’re probably making more noise than a whisper.

I can be a monk or leave my armor behind, don't need it just going into town, esp. when no one can see me. That a noise I can make gives me away is not a fix for the stupidity of it.

 

[Charlaquin]

So the following works, There are guards outside the city gate, and a forest 100 feet from the city wall. I go into the forest, hide, and walk past the guards invisible? That makes zero sense, how stealthy do you have to be to not get noticed....

According to my reading, no. Since stealth doesn’t make you literally invisible (despite the name of the condition), the guards are “somehow able to see you,” negating most of the benefits of the condition as it relates to them. Though, if neither of them have passive perception higher than the stealth check you made in the forest, and neither did any creature you incidentally passed on your way there, you would have advantage on initiative if they attack you to try to stop you walking past them. And, if you shot an arrow at one them from the cover of the foliage, you might get advantage on that attack roll.

It actually all works pretty well if you assume the “invisible” condition doesn’t actually make you invisible. Which, to be fair, the text of the condition never actually say it does.

 

[Kinematics]

Wow, right you are. Why the hell is the condition even called “invisible” if being seen negates its benefits?

Because "See Invisible" exists. As mentioned by Treantmonk, technically being invisible vs a creature with See Invisible still allowed you to have the benefits of being invisible (advantage to hit, disadvantage to being hit), despite being seen. This closes that loophole.


Personal view on some of this:

Say we're in a forest, and a rogue slips behind a tree and tries to hide. He has total cover at the moment, so he can attempt the Stealth check. He makes the roll, making him invisible. What impact does that have?

Well, if he loses the status as soon as he's in line of sight again, and there's nothing providing additional obscurement other than the trees, he's basically stuck staying behind that one tree.

However, by making him "invisible", we can now use the trope of him moving from tree to tree, carefully avoiding any enemy's sight, until he can sneak up behind the shaman that is directing the battle, or whatever.

This, to me, feels like the old Eagle Totem flight shtick: You can fly, but have to land at the end of your turn. In this case, you remain invisible, as long as you end up out of direct sight at the end of your turn. You can move in the open by taking advantage of lapses in attention — the chaos of battle, the guards talking to each other at the gate, the flow of the dance at the ball, etc — and be "invisible" because you aren't being "seen".

You lose the invisible status when you attack or do something else to draw attention to yourself.

In another situation, if a guard is guarding a warehouse door, standing like 10' in front of it, and you walk straight up to him, you can't possibly remain invisible. But if you carefully edged along the wall behind him, you might be able to avoid his attention and slip through the warehouse door, even though you're technically within range of his sight, given the usual, "Anything within 360° is fair game"-approach to visibility.

In a way, it's to allow for some of the tactics that facing rules might allow for, without actually having to implement facing rules.

And while it might not be part of the rules, I personally would say that a passive perception that beats the stealth roll of the rogue does not automatically reveal him; rather, I would instead say that a passive perception beating the stealth roll indicates to the creatures that something is amiss, and thus given them a reason to use the Search action.

In addition, there's a difference between giving up stealth entirely and just walking up, and trying to move stealthily towards a creature that happens to be looking your direction. If you're trying to maintain stealth, even taking advantage of lapses in attention to move towards someone who's looking your way, I'd still expect you to end your movement in a position where you can't readily be seen (ie: at least partial cover, dim lighting, light obscurement, etc). Being in direct view, completely out of cover and in bright light, when the creature's turn starts, I can't imagine not leading to the rogue being spotted.

A stupidly high stealth roll may let the rogue slip from potted plant to trophy pillar to tapestry as he sneaks up to the guards watching the king's bedroom door, but thematically, I'm OK with that. Sometimes players get to do crazy, over-the-top stuff. And I think treating being hidden as "invisibility" allows for that sort of thematic play.

Overall, it seems to be written to let you do cool stuff, as long as the GM keeps a handle on people trying to do stupid stuff.

 

[TiQuinn]

I can be a monk or leave my armor behind, don't need it just going into town, esp. when no one can see me. That a noise I can make gives me away is not a fix for the stupidity of it.

But if an enemy can see you, it has found you too. It doesn’t have to make a Search action.

 

[mamba]

This position requires redefining the word "while"

no, this whole thing needs you to understand what the while applies to, which is taking the hide action

The occurrence of the condition is no longer true if you choose to end that occurrence, say by walking directly towards someone who can clearly see you

the while is not in the invisible condition, it is in the hide action, so the while is completely irrelevant to the condition