D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[Xeviat]

This doesn't fix anything. It just forces the character to re-roll stealth every six seconds while moving down an empty hallways, because they "used movement" even though nothing else changed.

Forcing players to continuously re-roll their stealth checks just forces them to eventually fail, and is bad design.

My suggestion is 1 stealth check per action (lower case action). "I try to sneak down the hall" out of combat is one stealth check. "I try to sneak past the guards" is another stealth check. In combat would be the only time you'd be making a stealth check each round.

 

[mellored]

I see. So sneaking around silently is in your opinion just something people can automatically do, no roll required? That certainly would be a novel way to handle it for D&D.

You need to make a DC15 stealth check. That includes your effort to move around quietly.

You don't need to addional rolls for each step you make. That would be annoying and slow.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You need to make a DC15 stealth check. That includes your effort to move around quietly.

It doesn't say that though. All it gives you is invisibility that ends if you make a sound louder than a whisper. So it would be rather circular to say that the same thing that is conditional of you being quiet ensures that you're quiet...

 

[OB1]

Got ya. Didn’t realize that.

That’s just it, I don’t think it is in 2024.

The way the guard example is supposed to work. You take the hide action and succeed. As you try to sneak past him the passive perception is checked vs the result of your hide (stealth) check. If the guard is actively looking he makes a perception check per the search skill against the stealth check you rolled by hiding as the dc. If the guard succeeds in either case he sees you.


‘I was hiding from my wife as I approached her while she was distracted’. Perfectly fine grammatically and semantically

Are you suggesting this is how it works or is this a fix to the rules?

The last example is based on my fix to the rule, that movement while hidden breaks the invisible condition at the end of your turn. But it's also my logical reading of the action. I'm giving the benefit of having successfully hid until the end of your turn when you move for ease of play and abstraction of a chaotic scene, so that every time someone hides in combat, we don't need to track facing, where people are, etc. Once hidden, you can come out of cover and move up to someone on your turn while still having the invisible condition. Maybe you wated for the perfect moment for them to turn their head, maybe you climbed up on the wall and dropped on their head, players can describe it however they want, but the mechanical effect is the same. Once you've moved though, you loose the inviible condition at the end of your turn.

DMs can absolutely ask for an ability check anytime they want in 2024. It's in the first page of how to play the game. The specific list of actions that PCs can take are just that, specific rules that override the general and give players options to 'ask' for a roll when they want one, as opposed to waiting for the DM to ask for it. Again, if my players aren't in combat and want to sneak past guards, I'll ask for a Dex (Stealth) check against a DC that I set to succeed at the task (assuming the outcome is uncertain). Furthermore, if a Paladin wearing full plate armor succeeds at Hiding, and then wants to move 20 feet to take a swipe at a monster, I might ask for a Dex (Stealth) check to see if she can do so without making a noise above a whisper (DC20, likely), but I might instead just give the passive check of the monster advantage (+5) due to the circumstance and use the original Hide check (probably a case by case basis). If instead she shoots from behind cover, I wouldn't ask for the check.

So if you move you need to spend an action and reroll?

So..
no hiding and dashing.
And walking further is more likely to be found.
And if your hidden behind a tree, waiting in ambush you can still run out and stab someone with advantage.



I'll have to think about it some more, but that might work.

Well, you could hide, then take the dash action on your turn (or the next one) to get down the hallway without an opportunity attack even if you walk right by a guard, but then be visible after. The advantage then being that they might have to dash to catch up with you, and so couldn't get a melee attack. They could shoot you after moving, but then if you dash again you might be able to slip away. I really think a lot get's fixed if you change the rule to have the invisible condition go away at the end of a turn in which you move (assuming you didn't hide again during that turn, which would reset it).

 

[mellored]

That’s kind of a problem. Is walking generally louder than a whisper? Different DMs will rule differently even in the normal case.

Should I download a decibel meter and check?

I got about 10-15 decibels walking around in socks on concrete. Most of that was my pants swishing, not my foot step. (Not going to try nude at the moment).

Peaked at 36 when my ankle poped.

 

[FrogReaver]

DMs can absolutely ask for an ability check anytime they want in 2024. It's in the first page of how to play the game. The specific list of actions that PCs can take are just that, specific rules that override the general and give players options to 'ask' for a roll when they want one, as opposed to waiting for the DM to ask for it. Again, if my players aren't in combat and want to sneak past guards, I'll ask for a Dex (Stealth) check against a DC that I set to succeed at the task (assuming the outcome is uncertain).

I mean I can have the players roll acrobatics checks every 5ft of movement to keep their footing. I can have them roll an athletics check to avoid being exhausted at the end of each adventuring day. Etc. Yep, DM can call for any roll and consequence he wants.

I don’t think any of that is RAW or RAI, but yep he can do so.

Furthermore, if a Paladin wearing full plate armor succeeds at Hiding, and then wants to move 20 feet to take a swipe at a monster, I might ask for a Dex (Stealth) check to see if she can do so without making a noise above a whisper (DC20, likely), but I might instead just give the passive check of the monster advantage (+5) due to the circumstance and use the original Hide check (probably a case by case basis). If instead she shoots from behind cover, I wouldn't ask for the check.

Why penalize the Paladin in plate twice? He already took disadvantage to his stealth check.

Well, you could hide, then take the dash action on your turn (or the next one) to get down the hallway without an opportunity attack even if you walk right by a guard, but then be visible after. The advantage then being that they might have to dash to catch up with you, and so couldn't get a melee attack. They could shoot you after moving, but then if you dash again you might be able to slip away. I really think a lot get's fixed if you change the rule to have the invisible condition go away at the end of a turn in which you move (assuming you didn't hide again during that turn, which would reset it).

I think it just introduces other issues.

 

[FrogReaver]

Should I download a decibel meter and check?

I got about 10-15 decibels walking around in socks on concrete. Most of that was my pants swishing, not my foot step. (Not going to try nude at the moment).

Peaked at 36 when my ankle poped.

Only matters if your going for real world genre and setting, which most don’t. More like action movie logic

 

[mellored]

It doesn't say that though. All it gives you is invisibility that ends if you make a sound louder than a whisper. So it would be rather circular to say that the same thing that is conditional of you being quiet ensures that you're quiet...

Again, quite is default.
Like not being on fire is default.

There is no rule that says your character isn't on fire.

You have to do something to make noise, or to set it be on fire.

 

[OB1]

I mean I can have the players roll acrobatics checks every 5ft of movement to keep their footing. I can have them roll an athletics check to avoid being exhausted at the end of each adventuring day. Etc. Yep, DM can call for any roll and consequence he wants.

I don’t think any of that is RAW or RAI, but yep he can do so.


Why penalize the Paladin in plate twice? He already took disadvantage to his stealth check.

I think it just introduces other issues.

Right, I wouldn't bog down play with an acrobatics check every 5 feet or a stealth check every 6 seconds even though RAW I could. I ask for Ability checks to abstract many small things going into what the players are trying to acomplish when they tell me what they are doing in response to the scene I've set, only asking for a roll if there is a meaningful chance of failure.

I might not ask the Paladin to do it twice, I'm still working that out with the new rule I suggested. It probably makes sense not to ask for it. That was sort of left over from how I would adjudicated the rule RAW. That because noise above a whisper breaks the invisible condition, I'd ask for an additional Stealth role anytime someone moves from their hiding spot, because the question of whether that would make noise above a whisper is uncertain (higher DC if enemies are close, lower if they are far away). The new rule gives an added benefit to ease play, so yeah, I probably wouldn't ask for a roll using the new proposed rule.

 

[Kinematics]

I'm not saying that the 2024 rules require two checks. I'm saying that becoming or remaining unheard (i.e. preventing creatures from locating you by sound) doesn't appear to be supported in the 2024 rules at all.

I agree that it's supposed to be, as indicated by the description of the Stealth skill. But from the general Hiding rules excerpted in the post quoted below, we know that "sneaking past a guardian" is an application of hiding, and that when trying to hide one takes the Hide action. From the text of the Hide action quoted in the OP we know that its benefit is providing the Invisible condition. But from the text of the Invisible condition quoted in the OP we know that it has nothing at all to do with sound--it's concerned only with vision....

To address this:

The Invisible condition does not concern itself with noise at all. I think this makes sense. The Invisibility spell, granting magical invisibility (ie: One Ring-style invisibility), gives you the Invisible condition without any other strings attached. You can make as much noise as you want, and you're not losing the Invisible condition it grants.

The Hide action does care about noise. It also grants the Invisible condition, but it's not the Invisible condition which determines if you can be heard; it's the conditions attached to the Hide action which do. To Hide, and retain the Invisible condition, you have to not make noise.

As such, you are as quiet as your Stealth check managed to make you, at a baseline. If you yell out a warning to a friend about to step into a trap, that was your choice, and not part of the baseline noise of your Hide action. But if you want to know how noisy you are being in general, just look at the Stealth check you made.