D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[Chaosmancer]

It is really bad. Even basic stuff like encumbrance and travel pace seems to be handwaved now. My last hope is that th DMG will have something to say about that.

We've seen the travel pace rules and they aren't handwaved at all?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I can't believe that they went with the last playtest version of hiding. I also can't believe that they read what they wrote and thought that how it worked would now be clear to the players.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

We've seen the travel pace rules and they aren't handwaved at all?

I've seen Encumbrance, too - it's exactly the same as 2014. It's under Carrying Capacity in the Glossary.

 

[Thommy H-H]

I just wish they'd called the Invisible condition Concealed or something. That's all this is: semantic confusion. The rules work fine if you don't get hung up on the fact that Invisible doesn't mean what you think it means based on how things have worked in the past.

 

[Chaosmancer]

B can only attempt to hide if it is outside of an enemy's line of sight. C can see B, so B cannot attempt to hide.

I think it is a bit more interesting if C had previously hid and thus has the Invisible condition. Does the DM tell B that they cannot take the hide action because they are not out of line-of-sight from all enemies, or does the DM let B waste their action and get an automatic fail? If the DM tells B about an invisible creature, it gives away that C is present at all.

I suppose that the Invisible condition does not make a creature undetectable, so B immediately knows that an invisible creature C is in the hallway, even if B can never see C.

The wizard's familiar is also a creature, and is presumably also an enemy of B. Therefore B cannot even attempt the Hide action, because an enemy can see it.

Now, if C starts out on the wizard's shoulder, and then flies around the corner only after B has successfully hidden, then you have more of a conundrum.

And what if they were not an enemy until after B pulled the knife? Say a chambermaid who is allowed to wander the tower, but then hides and pulls a knife?

Sure, we can argue specific semantics here, but honestly.... Rules as Intended. The intent of the rules is clear. The narratives that work and the narratives that don't are clear. I have never in my life been more crystal clear on why this is the only community in the world that has come up with both the term RAW and RAI, and why RAW is so despised as an argument.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just wish they'd called the Invisible condition Concealed or something. That's all this is: semantic confusion. The rules work fine if you don't get hung up on the fact that Invisible doesn't mean what you think it means based on how things have worked in the past.

Or what the word "invisible" means.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Or what the word "invisible" means.

I mean, technically it just means "not visible" - which works fine for a hiding Rogue.

The trouble is that this is a FANTASY game, where "invisible" usually means right in front of you but you still can't see it.

What we're used to it meaning in our games, and what it means here are at odds.

 

[MarkB]

And what if they were not an enemy until after B pulled the knife? Say a chambermaid who is allowed to wander the tower, but then hides and pulls a knife?

Yeah, isn't "enemy" a wonderful term to have to adjudicate things on when stealth can be employed in non-hostile situations?

Sure, we can argue specific semantics here, but honestly.... Rules as Intended. The intent of the rules is clear. The narratives that work and the narratives that don't are clear. I have never in my life been more crystal clear on why this is the only community in the world that has come up with both the term RAW and RAI, and why RAW is so despised as an argument.

Except that there are at least a couple of interpretations that have some degree of consensus in this thread - one, that you automatically get found if you leave cover, and another that you can stay hidden if you get back into cover by the end of your turn, allowing you to sneak from hiding spot to hiding spot.

 

[Thommy H-H]

I mean, technically it just means "not visible" - which works fine for a hiding Rogue.

The trouble is that this is a FANTASY game, where "invisible" usually means right in front of you but you still can't see it.

What we're used to it meaning in our games, and what it means here are at odds.

Yeah, everyone is bouncing off that "you have the Invisible condition" bit in the Hide action, and struggling to come back from that. Look back at my posts in this thread: I've had to reiterate that, in rules terms, "Invisible" doesn't mean "invisible" time and time again. It all works, it just requires that you get past "hiding makes you invisible" as a concept.

The problem is the backwards compatibility tbh, because Invisible already existed in the 2014 rules as a condition, and is referenced in various stat blocks etc. so they couldn't (or didn't feel they could) just replace it with Concealed, or Unseen, or something like that which would probably cause less furrowing of brows.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

"Hiding makes you Invisible" works fine if Invisible = Not Seen.

It gets weird when your brain thinks Invisible = See-through.