D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[mellored]

The players would lynch the DM if that happened. They simply outnumber them. This is going to be a player thing in practice.

Well... the DM has always had the ability to make infinite invisible wolves.

Either way. 1 sentence fixes the issue. We just need to get Crawford to write it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Yes, I agree.

That is what invisible means though. If I can see something when it’s in front of me, it’s visible.

But it doesn’t innumerate any other ways of finding you. Again, the rules do what they say they do, and don’t do things they don’t say they do.

This is where our interpretations differ.

That is also a problem with these rules.

I think that any legitimate way of finding the hidden character has to count. Otherwise, why say it? Also, if the character is invisible as per "cannot be seen" then how does a search (perception) break the Invisible condition in the first place?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Because I don't always get to make those decisions. In some games I'm just the player.

Then you are stuck playing whatever rules your DM uses. So it still doesn't matter what the rules are.

A player either can use whatever Stealth rules they want, or have to use whatever Stealth rules their DM wants. So either way there's no point in being concerned with what is written in the book.

 

[Argyle King]

I think that any legitimate way of finding the hidden character has to count. Otherwise, why say it? Also, if the character is invisible as per "cannot be seen" then how does a search (perception) break the Invisible condition in the first place?

By beating the DC set by the stealth check

 

[Thommy H-H]

I've been thinking about this and...okay, bear with me, but what if the rule is structured in such a way as to favour a PC who makes the effort to conceal themselves from the enemy? Look at it this way: playing with the (vague) 2014 rules, you'd let a PC take the Hide action to duck behind a wall or something, right? And they'd make a Dexterity (Stealth) check, probably with a DC equal to the passive Perception of whomever they were hiding from. At that point, you'd rule they were unseen, and would get advantage on an attack roll, for example. Let's say the PC wants to dart (or sneak) out of cover and stab a guard, rather than shoot. How do you rule that? The actual rules don't really cover it - in theory, the instant they're out of cover, they're visible, and they don't get advantage. Which kind of defeats the purpose of sneaking up and getting into a hiding position first. The guard ought to be vulnerable in that situation, and you might rule the stealthy PC is carefully picking their moment to strike (like when the guard is looking away). Similarly, if they wanted to sneak past the guard, would you make them take the Hide action every turn they were tiptoeing away? I think most of us would let the initial Stealth check result ride.

So, let's take that (common) ruling and turn it into a specific rule. What does that look like? Well, maybe it looks like a PC becoming "Invisible" when they succeed on a check, and gaining the benefits thereof until the situation changes radically. Either they make an attack (so the condition ends anyway), or they sneak away and go unnoticed...in which case, yeah, they'd stay Invisible as long as they don't make a loud noise. If they step right in front of someone? Well, they'd get advantage on their attack roll, which is not unreasonable in that circumstance. Or, if they don't attack, you'd rule that the spotter would see them automatically on their turn, ending the condition anyway. They can only run away so fast without making "a noise louder than a whisper", so the worst case scenario is that the Invisible PC gets 60 feet away before the guarded who spotted them can react, automatically spot them and end the Invisible condition. Remember that Surprise as it was doesn't exist any more: there's no free turn, just advantage on your Initiative roll if you're Invisible. So that extra turn to run away, or get the drop on an enemy, is instead built into Invisibility as a condition.

What I'm saying is, this rule seems to be set up to essentially give a PC the benefit of the doubt when it comes to stealth. That might be why it's a DC 15 check instead of DC 10. They used an action to Hide and made a successful non-trivial ability check (or alternatively burned a level 2 spell slot); let them have a bit of Invisibility, as a treat. It's still highly conditional, so at most you might get one or two slightly weird interactions, which are fairly easy to rationalise. "How can I be Invisible when he's looking right at me?" "Well, you stepped out of the shadows; he didn't know you were there until that moment, that's why you got advantage on the attack roll. Remember, this is all happening in less than 6 seconds!"

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that any legitimate way of finding the hidden character has to count.

But only one “legitimate way” is described in the rule.

Otherwise, why say it? Also, if the character is invisible as per "cannot be seen" then how does a search (perception) break the Invisible condition in the first place?

Because the rule explicitly says it does. That’s how exceptions-based rules design works.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

By beating the DC set by the stealth check

Technically correct but the claim is that the Hide action confers invisible of the "cannot be seen type" and thus the character can walk past the guard. Now if the guard can break the invisible condition with a search (perception), that is, a good look se with the mark one eyeball then clearly the invisible condition is not of the " cannot be seen " variety.
Which would imply that other methods of direct observation should be also effective.
Which would be a big nerf to the invisibility spells.

 

[Stalker0]

yea. I’d find his assessment far more believable if they hadn’t provided a specific list of things that end the invisibility condition granted by hide in the hide rules.

agreed. If they didn't specifically list out what ends the condition, I could be swayed that the intention was an "ongoing condition" that only lasts as long as the initial requirements. But its very hard to swallow that when you are given a completely seperate list of things that end the condition and it does NOT note the "losing of cover or concealment".

If that's your intention that's just a gimme, you add it to the list. Done and done, we all literally stop arguing about this and go on our separate ways. And again, we have all commented on this in the playtest, so this isn't a scenario where the team wasn't told.

 

[Stalker0]

While not enough votes to be statistically significant, #2 has a solid lead.

Well if we are quoting statistics, the very fact that is not statistically significant means....none of the options are in the lead. We cannot draw any conclusions

 

[UngainlyTitan]

But only one “legitimate way” is described in the rule.

Because the rule explicitly says it does. That’s how exceptions-based rules design works.

The condition (Invisible) ends on making a sound louder than a whisper, the enemy find you, you make an attack roll or cast a spell with a verbal component.
I believe your claim is that the only way to find the invisible character is by a search action but the sentence saying why the condition end does not say that, it says "then enemy finds you".
If it was restricting this to the search action why not say so?