D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[mellored]

Tbh I think some of you just aren't clear on what kind of activities make "a sound louder than a whisper". How are you walking right up to someone without them hearing you?

With a minimum of 15 on your stealth check.

 

[Weiley31]

I say just use the Hidden condition from one of the previous UAs and be done with it.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Stealthily. Haven't you ever been surprised to find a friend or work colleague right behind / next to you, even when they weren't deliberately sneaking?

Yes, though they weren't wearing armour at the time or carrying a backpack full of healing potions.

More broadly: yes, it seems counterintuitive that someone sneaking up like this would be "invisible", but the actual in-game effect of that is that they get advantage on an attack roll. Which seems proportionate? If a PC says they're moving in such a way as to make no sound louder than a whisper in order to get the drop on a guard, then I'm happy to make a judgment about how possible that is, and if I deem it is possible, they get the advantage. After which, they are no longer Invisible, because they've made an attack roll. And if they just stand there for some reason, there's nothing in the Invisible condition's rules that says the guard doesn't know they're there and can't take a swing at them, they just do it with disadvantage.

At worst, the net effect of all this is giving advantage or disadvantage on a couple of attack rolls, which seems a fair trade off for taking the trouble to take the Hide action. Everyone's fixating on the precise wording of the Hide action, while applying a general understanding of what is meant by invisible. You have to read what Invisible actually does in game terms, not what you think it ought to do in your imagination.

 

[Thommy H-H]

With a minimum of 15 on your stealth check.

Right, but you also have to not make a sound louder than a whisper. That's part of the conditions for remaining Invisible after taking the Hide action. So all this leaping around in front of people and armies marching past guard posts and whatever has to be conducted in, essentially, complete silence.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It’s WotC’s job to make the rules narratively sane, not mine. Obviously I will run it in a narratively sane way at my own table, but the fact that I have to interpret this rule in a way that requires it to do something it doesn’t directly say it does, is a flaw in the rule as written. One that I think it’s important to point out, and that I think warrants a swift errata.

That is a fair point but in the meanwhile, we have to wrestle this beast down and make sense of it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

if they mean 'can see you' why would they say 'find' instead of 'see'

Fair point but the finding still ends the invisible condition at such point, presumably the character is observable.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Specific beats general. It's a specific hiding rule that overrides the general invisibility rules.

They also say specifically that "being found" also breaks the invisibility condition.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Also I would rule that stabbing someone with a spear causes them to make a noise louder than a whisper.

 

[MarkB]

Honestly, I think whoever wrote this rule was just picturing a completely static scenario. The person is hiding, of course they're not going to move. And they didn't consider the idea of someone else moving to negate their cover. Since they didn't consider movement a factor, they didn't account for it in the rule.

 

[TiQuinn]

Walking in front of someone is not one of them (though it should be).

If you walk in front of someone, they have found you (they didn’t even have to search.) It’s like being really bad at hide and seek.