D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[mamba]

He can't see you to find you.

But if you want to rule that he finds you by smell, touch, sound, or taste (?) then sure. That works.

Guard dogs would get advantage (+5) to smelling.

nah, I am going to rule that the rule itself is broken beyond repair and replace it

Well, maybe 'creature can detect' instead of 'enemy finds' is sufficient, guess we will see what you come up with to invalidate it

 

[Maxperson]

nah, I am going to rule that the rule itself is broken beyond repair and replace it

Don't tell your players. Make it a stealth change.

 

[Chaosmancer]

rules as unintended, the line of sight is only relevant for the Hide action, not for the invisibility condition

Which is such clear and utter nonsense that it boggles the mind anyone would take it seriously. But it is clear exactly why this was written the way it was. To allow exactly the sort of things that the stealth rules are meant to emulate. Which isn't "I hid behind a bush and can now Salsa dance my way through the gate at High Noon and no one will see me" but is actually, "I hide behind the tree, then on my turn I am going to make a break for the abandoned well and hide there."

The previous rules broke stealth the instant you broke cover, meaning you could never benefit from them if read pedantically. So, they corrected it and no one, anywhere, thought they would need to explain that you can't pretend no one can see you if you intentionally act pedantically.

there should not be a don't in your last sentence.

Ah, sorry, juggling a lot today.

 

[Charlaquin]

He can't see you to find you.

But if you want to rule that he finds you by smell, touch, sound, or taste (?) then sure. That works.

Which is why it requires a perception check.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, if you're lightly obscured something has disadvantage to perceive you, so -5 on passive perception or disadvantage on rolling against your stealth check with a Search action. If you are heavily obscured you have the blinded condition with regard to perception. So, so far from what we know, it does seem like even if you walk out in the open they need to beat your stealth DC to find you, either with passive perception or an active Search check?

I still am unsure.

I mean, I seriously doubt that was the intent. As we saw with the 2014 rules, what they intended and what they wrote are sometimes miles apart.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That’s a caveat for taking the hide action. The only caveats these rules give for ending the invisible condition are making an attack roll, casting a spell with a verbal component, making a sound louder than a whisper, and being found by a creature. The lattermost of those is actually undefined, but we can infer from the result of the stealth check setting the DC to find you with a perception check that a successful perception check is required to find you.

The attack is the part that would otherwise end the invisible condition.

And if you didn't need to be in cover, then the ability could just read "your attack doesn't end the invisible condition". They specify needing cover, because the intent of the stealth rules are needing to break line of sight.

The difference is the invisible woman could move in front of me without me seeing her.

And if the hiding woman moves in front of you, she is no longer hiding, is she?

 

[Charlaquin]

Which is such clear and utter nonsense that it boggles the mind anyone would take it seriously. But it is clear exactly why this was written the way it was. To allow exactly the sort of things that the stealth rules are meant to emulate. Which isn't "I hid behind a bush and can now Salsa dance my way through the gate at High Noon and no one will see me" but is actually, "I hide behind the tree, then on my turn I am going to make a break for the abandoned well and hide there."

And so instead of doing the obvious thing and saying you remain hidden during your movement if you start and end your movement sufficiently covered or obscured, and updating sneak attack to work if you were hidden on your turn before you attacked, they decided to make it grant the invisible condition, leaving the door wide open for the salsa dance interpretation.

The previous rules broke stealth the instant you broke cover, meaning you could never benefit from them if read pedantically. So, they corrected it and no one, anywhere, thought they would need to explain that you can't pretend no one can see you if you intentionally act pedantically.

The option to write it in a way that created this ambiguity was open to them. And I’m sure if they had actually asked for people to rate the stealth rules in the UA surveys, they would easily have seen that a lot of players did come to the salsa dance conclusion and fixed it.

 

[Charlaquin]

And if you didn't need to be in cover, then the ability could just read "your attack doesn't end the invisible condition".They specify needing cover, because the intent of the stealth rules are needing to break line of sight.

You need to be in cover at the end of your turn for this ability to function. That in no way implies that you need to be in cover to remain hidden if you don’t attack.

And if the hiding woman moves in front of you, she is no longer hiding, is she?

Right, which why hiding and invisibility are different things, and they should not have used invisibility as the effect of hiding.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And so instead of doing the obvious thing and saying you remain hidden during your movement if you start and end your movement sufficiently covered or obscured, and updating sneak attack to work if you were hidden on your turn before you attacked, they decided to make it grant the invisible condition, leaving the door wide open for the salsa dance interpretation.

Because the invisible condition was already there and did exactly what they needed to do. Which you yourself were saying before. It is obvious that the stealth and hiding rules are meant to act like conditional invisibility, just like the rules on heavy obscurement. It is equally obvious that magical invisibility works differently.

They could have renamed the condition, sure, but they didn't need to, because the intent is clear here.

The option to write it in a way that created this ambiguity was open to them. And I’m sure if they had actually asked for people to rate the stealth rules in the UA surveys, they would easily have seen that a lot of players did come to the salsa dance conclusion and fixed it.

So what, because no one was asked to rate it, no one could read it in the playtest documents before now? Nobody was making these claims during playtest 6, when these EXACT rules were in the playtest document.

You need to be in cover at the end of your turn for this ability to function. That in no way implies that you need to be in cover to remain hidden if you don’t attack.

Why do you need to be in cover instead of it saying "this attack doesn't end the invisibility condition granted by the Hide action"? Why does it specify the Hide actions invisibility and not any other sort of invisibility?

Because the intention of these abilities is clear. It is not meant for you to stand in the middle of a white room and be invisible just because no one took an action yet.

Right, which why hiding and invisibility are different things, and they should not have used invisibility as the effect of hiding.

So they should have two identical conditions that do the exact same thing, but each have a different name? Would this discussion LITERALLY be any different if it was "concealed condition" instead? Since people would still argue that the rules text says you can't be seen, so you can't be seen to be found even if you stand in the open, it would be the exact same thing. Because this isn't about the actual differences, it is about being pedantic about "Well, ACTUALLY, it doesn't say..." even as it makes no sense to read it that way.

 

[Charlaquin]

Because the invisible condition was already there and did exactly what they needed to do. Which you yourself were saying before.

No, before I was saying that the invisible condition didn’t actually make the character impossible to see, it just defined what benefits they would receive from being unseen (and also granted them advantage on initiative rolls even if they were seen). We now know that is not the case. The invisible condition does make the character impossible to see. Well, either that or the invisibility spell doesn’t make the character impossible to see, which is equally absurd.

It is obvious that the stealth and hiding rules are meant to act like conditional invisibility, just like the rules on heavy obscurement. It is equally obvious that magical invisibility works differently.

Right, but the conditions that end this functional invisibility are listed as
1. You make too much noise
2. You make an attack roll
3. You cast a spell with a verbal component (arguably just a clarification of 1)
4. An enemy finds you

Since the invisible condition does in fact make you impossible to see, salsa dancing in front of an enemy does not satisfy condition 4. It might satisfy condition 1, if you don’t dance quietly enough, hence the listed perception check required to find you. But that requires the enemy to spend a whole action looking for you on its own turn. You are otherwise free to salsa dance to your heart’s content. If this is not the intended function of the rule, then the rule should not be written this way.

They could have renamed the condition, sure, but they didn't need to, because the intent is clear here.

The name of the condition isn’t the problem. The fact that the condition prevents creatures from finding you by looking at you with their open, functioning eyeballs is the problem, because that’s not how sneaking works.

So what, because no one was asked to rate it, no one could read it in the playtest documents before now? Nobody was making these claims during playtest 6, when these EXACT rules were in the playtest document.

A lot of people, including myself, were making these very claims about it at the time. If you don’t believe me I will go dig up quotes.

Why do you need to be in cover instead of it saying "this attack doesn't end the invisibility condition granted by the Hide action"?

Because they wanted you to have to run for cover after making the attack.

Why does it specify the Hide actions invisibility and not any other sort of invisibility?

Because they didn’t want the rogue to be able to use this feature to extend the duration of an invisibility spell that was cast on them.

Because the intention of these abilities is clear. It is not meant for you to stand in the middle of a white room and be invisible just because no one took an action yet.

Then they shouldn’t have written it that way.

So they should have two identical conditions that do the exact same thing, but each have a different name? Would this discussion LITERALLY be any different if it was "concealed condition" instead?

No. They should have had two different conditions that worked differently. Because sneaking should not work the same as magical invisibility. Sneaking should stop working when someone looks at you with their open, functioning eyeballs and magical invisibility should not.

Since people would still argue that the rules text says you can't be seen, so you can't be seen to be found even if you stand in the open, it would be the exact same thing. Because this isn't about the actual differences, it is about being pedantic about "Well, ACTUALLY, it doesn't say..." even as it makes no sense to read it that way.

No, stealth making you unable to be seen is the problem. Mundane stealth shouldn’t do that.