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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6940313" data-attributes="member: 6787650">I know we agree on the substance of the ruling, but the thing is--I don't agree that 5E rules even require this in the first place. Nowhere in the PHB does it ever define &quot;hidden&quot; as &quot;has successfully taken the Hide action.&quot; A DM is completely within his rights to just set a DC to spot something instead of basing it on some Dexterity (Stealth) check. In fact there are monsters (Hulking Crab) which are written this way. In the case of the Hulking Crab, it is camouflaged instead of hidden; an mud-smeared kobold might be hidden instead though. Furthermore, the PHB explicitly calls out that improvised actions are 100% okay, and can have various effects. &quot;I'm going to try to smear mud on everyone to disguise us from the Predator's vision; then I'll look around and smear more mud on anyone I can still see, and repeat until they are perfectly hidden&quot; isn't something you can do in six seconds during combat, and it affects more than one person, so it clearly isn't the Hide action, and yet it can still hide you if your DM says so, according to the PHB.The Hide action is a generic &quot;do something to quickly hide in shadows/move silently&quot; affordance that handwaves the question of &quot;what exactly are you doing to become hidden?&quot;. It's designed to make things simple and quick during combat. It's not the only way to become unseen, unheard, or unnoticed, i.e. &quot;hidden&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6940313, member: 6787650"] I know we agree on the substance of the ruling, but the thing is--I don't agree that 5E rules even require this in the first place. Nowhere in the PHB does it [I]ever[/I] define "hidden" as "has successfully taken the Hide action." A DM is completely within his rights to just set a DC to spot something instead of basing it on some Dexterity (Stealth) check. In fact there are monsters (Hulking Crab) which are written this way. In the case of the Hulking Crab, it is camouflaged instead of hidden; an mud-smeared kobold might be hidden instead though. Furthermore, the PHB explicitly calls out that improvised actions are 100% okay, and can have various effects. "I'm going to try to smear mud on everyone to disguise us from the Predator's vision; then I'll look around and smear more mud on anyone I can still see, and repeat until they are perfectly hidden" isn't something you can do in six seconds during combat, and it affects more than one person, so it clearly isn't the Hide action, and yet it can still hide you if your DM says so, according to the PHB. The Hide action is a generic "do something to quickly hide in shadows/move silently" affordance that handwaves the question of "what exactly are you doing to become hidden?". It's designed to make things simple and quick during combat. It's not the only way to become unseen, unheard, or unnoticed, i.e. "hidden". [/QUOTE]

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