D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[Chaosmancer]

OK. Most of your interpretations seem to assume that the PC should only briefly leave the cover in order to maintain the condition.

Mostly because I didn't think it was pertinent to add: PC hides, then walks for an hour down an abandoned hallway with no other creatures around, then presses up against an archway at the end of the hall, and maintains the condition. Which I think is perfectly viable.

And it would be nice if rules required such, but they don't.

They do if you see the part about "find you" and don't think it can only ever be a single specific action which must be taken, but interpret it more broadly to cover other types of actions like I have repeatedly listed.

And we don't need to assume intentional bad faith play from the player for weirdness and ambiguity to arise. By the rules the character could move around in a room full of people as long as they like, and remain undetected, especially if the people there had no reason to suspect anyone would be there and would not take search action. Now at what point this becomes absurd? How many people there need to be, how long must the PC move around in the room?

I think clause that hidden character must end their turn in cover if they wish to remain hidden would at least significantly lessen absurdities whilst maintaining usefulness of the action.

This is only absurd if you insist it must be absurd. There are three or four ways to make this work perfectly fine within the fiction, depending on what you are actually doing. If you take reasonable actions with reasonable expectations, then the rules cover it perfectly fine.

 

[Charlaquin]

So....

Does everyone agree that it should break at the end of your turn without cover? (In addition to attacking and making noise?

You also lose the condition if you end up with no cover and no concealment

I don’t believe everyone agrees on that, no. Everyone agrees that you shouldn’t be able to spend an indefinite amount of time in plain sight and remain hidden, but not everyone agrees that ending your turn not obscured or behind cover ending stealth as a hard rule is a good way to insure that.

 

[mellored]

I don’t believe everyone agrees on that, no. Everyone agrees that you shouldn’t be able to spend an indefinite amount of time in plain sight and remain hidden, but not everyone agrees that ending your turn not obscured or behind cover ending stealth as a hard rule is a good way to insure that.

But do we agree that you should be able to spend some amount of time out of cover / obscurement?

Less than infinite, but more than 0?

 

[Chaosmancer]

So....

Does everyone agree that it should break at the end of your turn without cover? (In addition to attacking and making noise?)

You also lose the condition if you end your turn with no cover and no concealment

I would agree to that, as a general statement, if you include being in an enemies line of sight. Walking down an empty hallway because you stealthed past guards and stopped by an arch to peer out into a courtyard shouldn't break stealth to the guards below in the courtyard even though you ended at least one turn without cover.

I also think that there are ways that have been put forth that make sense for maintaining stealth narratively, which could in specific circumstances obviate the need for cover. IE "Face in the crowd", heavy fog, disguises, ect

 

[Chaosmancer]

I mean, there’s a difference between “these rules are broken, here’s a suggestion for a house rule you could use to fix them” and “the rules are fine because obviously you’re supposed to [thing the rules don’t actually say], and anyone who thinks otherwise must be acting in bad faith.”

Except the only broken thing in these rules is specifically people jumping out of cover, acting like they are transparent, and expecting to justify it via "Well, technically RAW...."

Yeah, sure, technically RAW allows for "bag of rats" problems too, or the "I declare combat against the tree, therefore I get the bonus from rolling initiative. Then I declare combat against that rock to do it again" but even though those things are technically RAW... everyone knows it isn't supposed to work that way.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No. "Adding rules" thing was about people like you defending the RAW and WotC by inventing stuff that is not actually there and not admitting doing so.

Is Divine Sense a search action? Does Divine Sense allow you to find Undead?

 

[Charlaquin]

But do we agree that you should be able to spend some amount of time out of cover / obscurement?

Less than infinite, but more than 0?

I think most folks would agree with that, since there’s not much point in stealth if it can only hide you in situations where you couldn’t be seen anyway. Personally, my preference is what we had in 2014: by default, you stop being hidden from a creature if you’re in a position where that creature could see you, and the DM can overrule that default if they feel circumstances are appropriate for you to remain hidden (such as if the creature is distracted). The 2024 rules seem to be going with the opposite approach: by default, you remain hidden in all circumstances unless a creature succeeds a Perception check (possibly including a passive Perception check?) to find you, and the DM can overrule this default and say you’re found automatically if circumstances are inappropriate for you to remain hidden (such as if you’re being blatantly obvious about your presence). This sort of has the same net result, except in the 2014 rules the DM is being more permissive than the book if they overrule the default, whereas in the 2024 rules the DM is being more restrictive than the book if they overrule the default. And in my experience a DM being more permissive than the book is pretty much always accepted by the players, while a DM being more restrictive than the book is very often poorly received by the players. I don’t anticipate this rule leading to a lot of arguments, but I do anticipate it leading to a lot of players feeling unfairly targeted, which is not a good environment to be fostering in my opinion.

 

[Charlaquin]

I would agree to that, as a general statement, if you include being in an enemies line of sight. Walking down an empty hallway because you stealthed past guards and stopped by an arch to peer out into a courtyard shouldn't break stealth to the guards below in the courtyard even though you ended at least one turn without cover.

Doesn’t the PC in this scenario have at least partial cover from the guards in the courtyard? The floor can provide cover too, not just walls.

 

[mamba]

But do we agree that you should be able to spend some amount of time out of cover / obscurement?

Less than infinite, but more than 0?

no, 0 is also acceptable, the second you leave cover, the condition ends

 

[Charlaquin]

Except the only broken thing in these rules is specifically people jumping out of cover, acting like they are transparent, and expecting to justify it via "Well, technically RAW...."

Yeah, sure, technically RAW allows for "bag of rats" problems too, or the "I declare combat against the tree, therefore I get the bonus from rolling initiative. Then I declare combat against that rock to do it again" but even though those things are technically RAW... everyone knows it isn't supposed to work that way.

Obviously players doing silly things like that isn’t going to be a real problem in play. But what might be a real problem in play is players and DMs having different opinions about how obvious the thing the character is doing should be to the enemies. This rule provides no default way to determine if an enemy should spot a PC, short of a successful Perception check, so any time a DM thinks a players character should be spotted without need for a check, they must use fiat to rule as much. This puts the DM in the position of always needing to rule more restrictively than the book, which is a recipe for hard feelings, and hard feelings are not something I think the rules should set groups up to have to deal with. The PC mooning the enemies while “invisible” is not meant to be a serious example of something that would realistically happen in play, but as a point of commonality - something we can all agree the rules should not allow, yet the rules as written don’t provide a clear mechanism to prevent. From that point of common ground, we can imagine incrementally less egregious examples of cases where the DM might reasonably think the PC should be spotted, but the rules as written still don’t provide a mechanism for the DM to rule that they are, other than fiat, which may cause the player to feel unfairly treated.