D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[MarkB]

@Maxperson

It was stated here, but not I'm wondering if the red text was just intended to be commentary.

The red text was inserted by Treantmonk as a clarification. But we do know that there is a Search action in combat which is how the Perception skill is intended to be deployed under those conditions.

 

[Maxperson]

The red text was inserted by Treantmonk as a clarification. But we do know that there is a Search action in combat which is how the Perception skill is intended to be deployed under those conditions.

I think that's more for when you are looking for a trigger to a trap during combat or something. I think a perception check to notice a "hiding" rogue standing right in front of you will not require an action. At least it shouldn't.

 

[Chaosmancer]

While I agree that the RAW Hide rules seem absurd in a sandbox, I think they make sense in the context of actual roleplaying.

An army of hobgoblins trying to sneak past all of the towns to get to the capital is an awesome story. The rules enable this by having the hobgoblins roll Dexterity (Stealth). The hobgoblins are trying to be sneaky; they aren't dancing their way through the countryside. If the army rolls well, they are able to be sneaky with nobody noticing them. If they roll poorly, then some hobgoblin soldiers were being insufficiently sneaky and gave everyone away.

The army might need to get past a guard tower manned by guards actively searching for threats. The guards make the Search action and make a Wisdom (Perception) check to identify threats. If they roll higher than the army's previous Dexterity (Stealth) roll, then the guards raise the alarm. If the guards roll low, then the army is able to sneak past the and get to the capital.

If the DM wants to have Gollum hiding in a cave for hundreds of years, then it is totally fine for Gollum to be totally unnoticeable to any PC who doesn't explicitly try to search for hidden creatures. If Gollum sneaks up on the PCs, he can follow them for many nights and then get a single attack with Advantage before his Invisible condition ends.

I don't disagree with your interpretations at all, because you included a key thing that people keep ignoring.

The army is TRYING to be sneaky. Gollum is SNEAKING behind the party. There is a good faith effort on the part of the narrative to act towards the goal of remaining unseen.

Many people keep claiming that is unnecessary, because RAW is poorly written and implies that you need not make any token effort towards remaining stealthy after your initial roll. Which is nonsense, and clearly not the intent. The intent is that stealth is being attempted the entire time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I likw #2 because even though I know we don't have facing rules, if a guard is staring across the valley and not checking their six (like they should be trained to do) then I want my stealth characters to be able to creep up behind them and murderize them with every advantage they can get.

Agreed, and narratively that is the intent of the stealth. We simply don't have facing rules in combat, because they are a bit of a pain in the butt to add on top of all the other rules in combat. But outside of combat and in the narrative, such a thing makes 100% perfect sense.

 

[Kinematics]

Alright, here’s my proposed fix:

0. Change the name of the invisible condition to “hidden.” Technically not necessary, but might make the mechanics more palatable to some folks.
1. Delete the “concealed” benefit of the hidden condition because it’s tautological, and remove the unnecessary “somehow” from the language of the “attacks affected” benefit.
2. Add to the effects of all spells, magic items, and other sources of magical invisibility that creatures cannot see you unless they have blindsight, truesight, or a magical ability that allows them to see invisible creatures.

Hmm.

This could actually work. I'd put a lot more detail into the actual implementation, but at base, it describes a useful summary.

Basically, Hide gains details on an "unnoticed" status, while the Invisible spell gains details on the "unseen" aspect of invisibility.

I would have built it using two or three separate conditions, but that starts adding friction for players to track, so the extra conditions can just be wrapped into the actions themselves, leaving Hidden as the only common element.

The fact that multiple spells and items and such may generate the unseen aspect of invisibility, though, really suggests making that its own condition, and that friction about multiple conditions starts motivating one to consolidate everything into a single condition, putting us back where we already are.

It's easy to see how everything leads back to our current rule set, even if there's minutia that pedants would prefer to be separated out.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There are prototypes for invisibility cloaks that function by manipulation of light.

Infrared light is normally not visible, but there are real-world methods for being able to observe that it is there.

So, per the definition put forth that invisible means "impossible to see" neither of those are invisible. Nice swerve from my "no living creature" to "infrared light" though. Kind of helps prove my point when you don't even attempt to find a creature that is impossible to see.

Even ignoring that, camouflage and invisibility are defined differently in relation to how human vision typically works.

And listening and hearing are defined differently. Doesn't mean the rules can't lump them into the same thing since they are close enough.

Do I think that the current interpretation of how stealth and invisibility works in D&D 5e24 is nonsense? Yes, and I have said that.

However, with the limited information currently available to be, it appears that the 5e24 rules currently offer no way to interpret how it works without creating broken interactions with other aspects of the game.

Except multiple people have offered extremely common sense interpretations, despite your claim that there is "no way" to interpret it any differently.

Another example of something absurd could be that the entire army you've mentioned could grapple a character, and the character would still be able to use a longbow.

In 3rd Edition, a high level fighter with the right chain of Cleave feats could teleport around the world in 6 seconds by lining up a bunch of commoners and killing them.

In early 4th Edition, I could use Mirror Sphere to force a character to eat itself.

5th Edition isn't immune to having some unusual rules.

Sure it isn't immune. But did a fighter ever once find a line of people standing around the entire globe? Have you ever stuffed an entire army into 8 spaces, and had them all attempt to grapple one character? Looking at Mirror Sphere, I don't see how dealing yourself psychic damage can cause you to eat yourself unless you start activating other weird abilities. But even then... did it ever actually happen at the table?

Do ANY of these bizarre what-ifs actually happen at any actual table during natural play? Or do they all have to be engineered to occur?

It's not difficult to houserule that a "hidden" condition exists in 5e. However, such a thing does not currently appear in the 5e24 rules.

And yet, for not being difficult to fix, people are losing their minds and declaring the ruleset untenable, a travesty of design that could not possibly have happened if anyone put any effort into the rules!!

And it took me all of 30 seconds to understand the intent, and see that it works perfectly fine, as long as you approach playing the game in good faith, and not via whatever this thread is that insists that every word must have one, and only one, possible definition and interpretation and it must be ridiculous.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's absurd yes, but it's also the only rules for stealth and invisibility in the PBH. It's not a joke like the Peasant Railgun, it's something that's going to come up at pretty much every 5.5 table. Every DM will have to either use the absurd rule or come up with their own houserule for stealth, possibly on the spot. That's not a big problem for experienced gamers like you and I, but D&D 5.5 will presumably be many people's very first RPG.

WotC should print rules that are good and can be used straight out of the book, not nonsense like this. Houserules should be for tweaking the game, not 'fixing' core functionality.

The only "houserule" they will need on the spot is if you stop attempting to hide, or have nothing to hide behind, and enemy can find you.

That's it. And as has been pointed out in this thread REPEATEDLY, nothing actually states that the only possible way to find someone is to take the search action. In fact, we KNOW it cannot be the only way because we know of other conditions or situations which would break the stealth without the enemy needing to take the search action.

Even though I know this will only be used as a "see, this is totally broken" let me show you what I mean.

A is a Wizard
C is a bat that is the Wizard's familiar.

B attempts to hide from the Wizard. Per the rules they can, because they are not in line of sight of the wizard and they roll a 17. The wizard, getting a sense of danger from their familiar who sees a knife being drawn, uses their bonus action to use their familiar's senses.

B cannot hide from C. They don't have cover, so they cannot hide from them and C absolutely sees them.

By the current interpretation that you absolutely need to take the search action to find a creature that hid from you, and the fact that the wizard only used their bonus action... suddenly C stops being able to see the creature that hid, who is now completely invisible to them. Which is nonsense, because the wizard can now "somehow see" them and has found the intruder. And even if you want to argue that because it is the invisible condition and B miraculously became transparent from their hide action.... Bats have blindsight and can see them anyways.

And no one who is approaching gameplay in good faith would ever state that using their familiar doesn't let A see B.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You have to have cover or concealment to hide. Period. You are not invisible in plain sight.

That's not what the rules say. This is about what the rules say, not how a DM would adjudicate it at the table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I did explain why I'd rule it in a way consistent with the RAW in the rest of the post. Invisibility only grants combat-based effects; it's not so much that you'd lose the condition, it's that the condition doesn't matter if all you're doing is wandering around not fighting anyone.

And you would do the same with the invisibility spell then, since it grants the same condition as hiding and nothing else?

 

[Clint_L]

Am I the only person who thinks that if we have an 83 page (and counting) thread on the new wording of the stealth rule, then overall the 2024 PHB is a resounding success? Like, if this is our biggest bone to pick?