D&D 5E Rogue Stealth in Battle

[DMCF]

I have an arcane trickster in my group who uses her bonus action to hide. She rolls and checks with me and I just think "yeah. Something is there larger than you so you succeed."


I don't mind her hiding to get advantage for sneak attacks but I wonder at it's necessity. I'm not sure what to do about monsters finding her to hit her. It strikes me as odd that she can do massive damage to an Ogre but have him ignore her when she is hidden.


So when she hides, do I roll monster perception to see if they find her? Is that what I should have her roll? Stealth roll to see what perception DC the monsters need to see her?

I feel like I'm missing something in the RAW.

 

[Charles Rampant]

Edit to actually answer the question: monsters have a 'Passive Perception' number listed in their profile. This is effectively the Rogue's DC for the stealth check, in combat; remember that beasts like dogs and wolves often have advantage (=+5 to the number) for this.

Be logical about where she can hide. It isn't Skyrim; you can't hide in the middle of an open room. I also tend not to allow players to hide repeatedly in the same spot, as surely the monsters would quickly realise that the rogue was behind that barrel. So the rogues in my games move around a lot, dashing from hiding spot to hiding spot, taking shots at the start of their turn.

Another element that I tend to use - when the battlemat is in play - is that monsters can find someone if they happen to blunder into them. Imagine that the rogue is hiding behind a large boulder, to the right of the party proper. If a monster, due to being out on that flank, runs around the boulder to get at the party, then he'll probably spot the rogue as he runs around it: this sort of thing happens all the time in films. I don't have the monsters do this on purpose, to find the rogue, in the main: but it happens occasionally in large sprawling combats as monsters seek to flank the players.

The rulebook is pretty vague on stealth, intentionally so: it allows the DM and players to negotiate out a version of stealth that suits their game and playstyle. I strive to let my rogues use stealth to do cool stuff, but also strive to make their use of stealth 'make sense' to my mental image of the action. The above as the methods that I've settled on to do so. You can't really go wrong, so long as you and the players are happy with the way that stealth functions in your game! I hope that this helps.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I have an arcane trickster in my group who uses her bonus action to hide. She rolls and checks with me and I just think "yeah. Something is there larger than you so you succeed."


I don't mind her hiding to get advantage for sneak attacks but I wonder at it's necessity. I'm not sure what to do about monsters finding her to hit her. It strikes me as odd that she can do massive damage to an Ogre but have him ignore her when she is hidden.


So when she hides, do I roll monster perception to see if they find her? Is that what I should have her roll? Stealth roll to see what perception DC the monsters need to see her?

I feel like I'm missing something in the RAW.

She needs cover or concealment to hide behind (she can't just hide in plain sight). The stealth check is made against the passive perception of the creatures she is hiding from.

She's then either hidden until she does something to reveal herself (like attacking), or a creature uses an action to make a successful Perception check against her stealth check.

As for the ogre, you can think of it like dealing with a sniper. Sure she dealt massive damage, but he's not sure of her position. Granted, he knows where the last attack came from, so if he moves to investigate that area and she hasn't moved far she might be discovered even without a Perception check (if the ogre walks around the wall she's hiding behind and she no longer has any cover).

 

[DEFCON 1]

I tend to be very liberal with my rogue player's use of Stealth. I figure, she's spent these resources to be really good at it and wants to hide in combat, I have no reason to screw her over when she tries.

With her move and bonus action she'll get behind cover and attempt to hide behind heavily obscuring terrain or one of her teammates. She's a halfling, so finding said heavily obscuring terrain usually isn't an issue. She rolls her DEX (Stealth) check, and that number is the DC for any monster attempting to see her. If her roll is lower than anyone's Passive Perception, they see her automatically.

If they don't, then the monsters end up doing one of four things-- either they ignore her completely and attack others in the party... they use their action to make an Active Perception check (and should one of them find her, he can tell others where she is)... they delay their action to attack her when she pops out on her own attack... or they move in her direction to attempt to find her the easy way by getting into a position where she's no longer behind any obscuring terrain to them. When there's a lot of monsters on the battlefield, this is usually what a bunch of them will do... all bum rush her last known location so she can't get away.

If I'm using the grid, it's fairly easy to know when the monsters have moved into a position to where they could see her automatically. If I'm doing TotM... usually I'll just tell her they find her just as easily (since by my reckoning she gets to hide without being found probably like 5 out of every 6 fights, so she can accept getting found in that last one.) But if I'm being generous (or if the obscuring terrain is all-encompassing like a fog bank or tons of underbrush), I might have the monsters make active perception checks against her Stealth DC but only charge them a bonus action or no action at all (so they still get to attack should they see her.)

Or if her hiding gets really irritating after several sessions and no one targeting her... I'll throw out several monsters that have massive AoE spells and napalm the area where she is so that she takes at least some damage occasionally.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The way this works in the RAW is that in order to hide you must have Full Cover. Which means you need to be completely out of sight. You need to be behind a wall or an obstacle large enough that it completely covers you(except in certain circumstances like one of the Halfling subraces who can hide behind creatures).

Once you have Full Cover, you can then make a Stealth check as an action(or a bonus action if you have the Rogue ability). That roll is opposed by the Passive Perception of everyone would could possibly hear or see them. They are now considered to be "Hiding" from everyone that they beat. They've failed to hide from anyone that they don't beat and those creatures can hear/see them normally(which is to say that they still can't SEE them because they are behind Full Cover. But they have a good idea of where they are because they can still hear them).

Once you are hidden from a creature, you stay hidden from them until you no longer have cover or concealment from the person you are hiding from. If you are no longer hidden, you need to start the process over again. Attacking someone also ends Hiding.

This means that if you are in the middle of a battle, you can leave the room and put a wall between you and the enemies. That gives you full cover. You can then Hide. If you beat the Passive Perception of all the enemies, they no longer know EXACTLY where you are. They can guess, however. They did see you leave the room. They just can't hear how far down the hallway you've gone. If one of the enemies walks into the hallway, they immediately see you since there is no longer a wall between you and them and therefore you don't have any cover or concealment and are no longer Hidden.

However, if you move out of the room into the hallway, you hide and the hallway is filled with smoke(or it is really dim light and the enemies don't have Darkvision), you can continue hiding even when the enemies walk into the hallway. You no longer have Full Cover but you do have Obscurement. The same thing is true of small amounts of cover. If there is a barrel that isn't big enough to completely cover you but blocks enough of you to count as "cover" then you can continue hiding while behind the barrel. The idea being that it is POSSIBLE for the enemies to see you but you are staying in the shadows and moving very carefully in order to avoid being seen. Since they have no idea where your starting location is(since you were hidden while you had Full Cover), they can't find you. But once again, if that smoke clears, someone turns on a light or someone walks around that barrel, they see you immediately. Also, if the Rogue walks up to one of the enemies and attacks then they know where he is now. He's no longer Hidden and therefore needs for find Full Cover again before he can hide again.

Passive Perception is always 10 + Perception. So if a monster has a Perception of +4 then their Passive Perception is 14. If Perception isn't listed on a monster then just use their Wisdom modifier.

The key thing to remember is that Full Cover thing. If a Rogue walks behind a barrel that is half their height, they can't hide. The monsters watch him walk behind the barrel and crouch down. They know exactly where he is and they can still see him. The idea is that in order to hide from someone they must not currently be able to see you.

 

[Scorpio616]

Once you are hidden from a creature, you stay hidden from them until you no longer have cover or concealment from the person you are hiding from.

A hugely important thing. You get NO movement between turns in combat so a hiding rouge will generally be found as a foe crosses past what was granting cover/concealment.

OUT of combat there are assumptions for sneaking past foes as backs are turned as such, but one the fight starts, everybody is on 360^O vision barring facing rules.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

As a side note, the reason the Stealth rules are so confusing is that they copied and pasted the 4e Stealth rules exactly during the playtest. They worked well and there was no real reason to change them so they just used them precisely as written. However, the 4e Stealth rules are very technical and read kind of like a board game. They talk about being able to trace line of sight to the target on the battle map through corners of the person's square and so on. A lot of people felt that the wording made it sounds like you needed a battle map in order to play and that it made the game into a board game instead of a roleplaying game.

So, before the final version of 5e came out, they rewrote the Stealth rules to say precisely what the 4e rules said but with less precise language. The general idea stayed the same, however:

You can't be seen if you want to hide. You need something to cover you or conceal you to continue hiding. Attacking ends hiding.

 

[DMCF]

Thanks guys. Great advice. So when she asks me if her stealth roll makes it I will just be quiet and play accordingly.

I don't set out to kill my players but in order to feel epic there has to be some danger. Taking the passive perception of monsters into account I can start giving her thrills. Yes she does awesome damage but when you get that rush it feels better with the accomplishment!

Thanks again!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

As a side note, I really do think that it should be possible to determine if an enemy has successfully spotted you or heard you or not as long as you can see them. If you are sneaking down a corridor, it's possible that enemies in every room could have heard you. This is a great time to build up that tension. Was their Stealth check high enough? Are the enemies going to be ready for them when they open that door?

If you open the door to a room and peek inside, using the door for cover and look at the enemies, you should see them looking in your direction if they've spotted you. Same thing if you dive behind a large pillar, hide and then peek out and look at the enemy. If they've seen you, it's very likely they'll give some indication of it.

My general rule is that people can make a Stealth check and if they succeed and can see the enemy I'll tell them. Partially because it's so much easier when the Rogue standing in the doorway says "I move out of the doorway to where I can't be seen, I hide getting 22 on my check, then I move back to the door, I peek around the corner. Does it look like anyone is looking at me?" I can just simplify it and say "No one is looking at you, 22 beats all of their Passive Perceptions. Go ahead and have advantage on your attack for being hidden".

 

[MG.0]

I would never let a anyone use hide in the middle of a battle behind something like a barrel. If it's bloody obvious where the character is, then they have full cover, but they can't hide. Hiding is more than not being seen and in that case the enemy knows exactly where the character is even if they can't see them.

The character would have to disappear behind a maze of stalagmites or run around a corner or something that makes the enemy unsure of the character's exact position.