D&D (2024) Stealth Errata

[Charlaquin]

I guess I'm just not seeing the ambiguity in the updated rules, probably because I'm not seeing where it says anything about "remaining hidden." The Hide action says you gain a condition "while hidden" (which is just the phrase "while hiding" written in passive form). The DM determines when hiding is allowed.

The main problem I have with the new rule is that the wording is still split between two parts of the rulebook instead of being collected in one place. To me, the actual wording itself seems pretty straightforward.

The problem is that the rules don’t explicitly define being outside the conditions that the DM determines to be “appropriate for hiding” as causing a hidden character to stop being hidden. If this is not explicitly stated, there is room for ambiguity.

 

[Shardstone]

Honestly, I think this might be a place where we have to use """""natural language"""" and call it a day. WHat does it mean to be concealed? What does it mean to be found while concealed or hidden? Those are things that should probably just be resolved by the in-game fictional state as determined by the DM and discussed with the players. An answer that a lot of people don't like but that I think IMO is the best case scenario.

 

[Charlaquin]

Since the game now has these situations where players make initiative rolls before the they know why they're being placed in initiative order (which wasn't necessary when the game had surprise rounds),

5e never had surprise rounds. By RAW, surprised creatures still rolled initiative in pre-2024 5e, they just couldn’t take actions or reactions until the end of their first turn in combat (which you had to roll initiative to determine when in the count that occurred, since they could take reactions after that count if there was still round left to take them.)

 

[Charlaquin]

Honestly, I think this might be a place where we have to use """""natural language"""" and call it a day. WHat does it mean to be concealed? What does it mean to be found while concealed or hidden? Those are things that should probably just be resolved by the in-game fictional state as determined by the DM and discussed with the players. An answer that a lot of people don't like but that I think IMO is the best case scenario.

I mean, the best case scenario would be that the rules just be phrased in a way that doesn’t require such fuzzy interpretation. But accepting that the wording is going to require fuzzy interpretation whether we like it or not is probably necessary.

 

[Epic Meepo]

The problem is that the rules don’t explicitly define being outside the conditions that the DM determines to be “appropriate for hiding” as causing a hidden character to stop being hidden. If this is not explicitly stated, there is room for ambiguity.

None of that needs to be explicitly stated in the rules. It's true by definition. The words "hiding" and "hidden" aren't capitalized, so they aren't keywords; their normal, English-language definitions apply.

 

[Stalker0]

Since the game now has these situations where players make initiative rolls before the they know why they're being placed in initiative order (which wasn't necessary when the game had surprise rounds), the only thing I can figure is the characters being placed in initiative order have some vague sense that something is wrong, but they don't know exactly what it is. This lets them use their first turns to make Perception checks or to brace themselves for some unknown danger they haven't consciously identified yet.

Technically the surprise round worked in the same manner, in that you had an initiative order its just surprised characters could not go on the 1st (aka surprise round). But you were still technically placed in initiative order. That said I get your point that since they didn't act there was no scenario where they acted against something they didn't know was there.

The way I would handle it now is that something happened that made the player's spidey sense go off. Maybe they heard a bit of a noise, or a flutter of motion. Not enough to find the hidden creature, but enough to put them on alert and possibly take an action to look around (search) or prepare a buff or XYZ.

 

[Stalker0]

Honestly, I think this might be a place where we have to use """""natural language"""" and call it a day. WHat does it mean to be concealed? What does it mean to be found while concealed or hidden? Those are things that should probably just be resolved by the in-game fictional state as determined by the DM and discussed with the players.

This is the crux....ultimately the Hide rules in 2024 completely failed at their job. There is incredible confusion in the player base as to how they work (honestly more than in 2014), and so everyone is just having to default to their own stab at them. This is like the 20th thread we have had on stealth, and every one of them circles the same exact issues....because no one knows what the designer intended answer is and its just really really vague and confusing.


The hide rules to me are the biggest failure in 2024....because they were introduced in the playtest and EVERY SINGLE ONE of the arguments and confusions I have seen brought up in these threads were the exact same as during the playtest. Pages and pages of people showcasing why the rules were bad. The rules survived multiple playtest rounds and were introduced basically unchanged in the PHB. They had every chance to fix them, and now with this errata they had another chance to fix them if they had desired to. But the ship has sailed it appears.

 

[BruceWright]

Well I guess we know why Jeremy and Chris left. It's all because of the scandal of Hide-Gate 2024!!!

 

[Charlaquin]

None of that needs to be explicitly stated in the rules. It's true by definition. The words "hiding" and "hidden" aren't capitalized, so they aren't keywords; their normal, English-language definitions apply.

And the thing about the English language is that words have fuzzy definitions. “Conditions aren’t appropriate for hiding” doesn’t necessarily mean someone or something can’t be hidden there, especially if they/it initially hid under different conditions.

 

[Mistwell]

I think if they just answered the question @Charlaquin highlighted most of the problem with the rule is resolved. That being:

Once you successfully take the Hide [Action], can you leave the conditions which allowed you to hide (see below) into conditions which normally do not allow you to make a new Hide Action, and remain hidden until you or someone else does something which stops you from being hidden (see below)?

Examples of conditions which allow you to initially take the Hide action: 3/4ths cover, full cover, total obscurement, Halfling species Naturally Stealthy, a spell like Invisibility, etc.

Examples of conditions which break your hiding: an active Perception check which successfully spots you, a See Invisibility spell, you make a sound louder than a whisper, you make an attack roll, you cast a spell with a Verbal component, etc..