D&D 5E "when circumstances are appropriate for hiding"

[Rodney Mulraney]

Which part of "The DM will adjudicate when circumstances are appropriate to hide" or "creatures usually pay attention to threats from all directions while in combat" (paraphrasing) are you having trouble with? Is it the part where you're subject to oversight from the DM, to prevent your ridiculous hiding-in-one-spot cheese? This isn't 4E, 3E, or even Pathfinder. The DM's major job in 5E is to stop you from abusing the narrative by doing the sort of ridiculous thing that you keep insisting is your Mearls-given right as a player.

The sense of player-entitlement that you are demonstrating here is one of the main things that drives away DMs. This isn't a competition. The DM isn't out to get you; they're just doing their job, which is adjudicating what makes sense. As long as everyone is playing in good faith, and not trying to pull ridiculous shenanigans by claiming that they're RAW (or RAI), everything will work out just fine.

I am not having trouble with those rules, I interpret then as intended, as supported by the link to Crawfords tweet and his podcast I linked earlier in this thread. You are free to rule it how you want, but the example you give is specifically clarified by Crawford, as to be intended to be interpreted as I do, that is how they say we should interpret them, even if you think that interpretation is ridiculous, or abusive.

The DMs NPCs can always just walk around the obstruction the PC is hiding behind and see them, or do a whole host of other things that easily overcome a PC hiding behind the only pillar in teh room.

EDIT: BTW im a DM, I rarely get a chance to be a player.

EDIT2: Sorry if I'm coming across as a bit of a jerk, I do not intend to. Basically a few years ago, we lost heart with WH40k due to GW decisions, and looked into D&D, I was instantly hooked, brought the three core rule books and have been DMing for a few years. My main concern is that as a DM and I providing a "proper" and "clean" 5e experience to my players. Since I'm new and learning alot still, I just want to know for myself how to properly be a 5e DM. I joined this forum to get help with firearms rules for 5e, and have been interested in various posts that pertain to various fuzzy areas that are still a little uncertain in my mind.

I mean the whole stealth/hiding thing, had me confused for a while, and it was only about 1 year ago, that finally I was implementing that mechanic properly (as far as I am aware). So getting this stuff clear and accurate is important to me.

 

[Mistwell]

That is fine, and you can play any game you want as a DM, but in D&D 5e it is how I've explained and given official sources to confirm. Your reasons are understandable, but they are just your personal house overrulling of the 5e rules, arent they?

You can do what you want, but you shouldnt try to claim it is 5e if it directly contradicts the official 5e sources.

Edit - I had a reply to this, but your next post clarified things a lot so I don't see the point in disagreeing with this post. We mostly agree.

 

[Mistwell]

Ah yeah sorry about that, the bit where I said - a pc between you and the creature - I just made that up, that is no where mentioned. I made that up since its an edge case and well 50/50? ask the DM. So you are completely correct, and I'm sorry if it came across as if I was claiming that was somehow some official ruling, it definitely isnt. The DM would judge that and frankly I agree you that a player should probably not attempt such reckless behaviour, although I would probably allow it unless it was silly. Which it kinda already borders on the silly. The point I was trying to make with that is that when you do a hide check that is stricter and you need to conceal yourself to do that, but after that you don't need such heavy concealment to remain hidden as you stealth about ducking and dodging, etc... It was basically in reference to the barb attacking the creature the rogue hid from anyway, so you got a bit of concealment and the barb is distracting the creature by hitting its head with their axe or whatever...

But yeah sorry about the confusion there, I completely agree with your take on that. (even if as a DM, I would probably lean to more lenient rullings, with the edge cases).

Cool. Thanks for that. I think we mostly agree at this point.

 

[FrogReaver]

Isnt that circular though, since you only think they have that level of "combat awareness" because you think the hiding box that lays this stuff out is saying the creatures you hid from are engaged in melee or whatever. But that is the issue we are discussing.

The text from PHB, page 177:

"In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the DM might allow yhou to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen"

The creature you have hidden from is not specified as being in melee or anything, it only says its in "combat", which is merely when we are going in initiative order with the expectation of engaging in attacks.

You are intrepreting that "combat" mentioned in the above quote to be actually doing/recieving attacks, whereas I am assuming they just mean that "combat sequence; more stringent initiative ordered turns"

In combat there are 8 basic actions you can take, Attack is one of them, the other seven are not so distracting, and you dont even have to take an action in your combat turn anyway.

Combat does not imply attacking, you can use an object, cast a utility spell, SEARCH, do nothing..e.tc... And that is just what you (or in this case, the creature) does, some other PC might not interact with the creature, let alone attack it.

I think your distinction about combat as in your face action and combat as a game turn imposing initiative is meaningless as I believe they are the same thing but I don't think that's the part to focus on. Instead I want to ask this:

If the enemy is always so distracted by the barbarian in it's face, why is that barbarian only good enough to let those 30ft away hide behind a rock or something? Why can't a rogue stand 5ft away and hide. It's not like the distracted enemy is seeing the rogue. As you have said the "hide check is to see if the rogue succeeds?"

But even more importantly: If the enemy is distracted by the barbarian why isn't the barbarian in the enemies face distracting enough to grant all your allies advantage on attacks against it without even trying to hide? If the notion is the enemy is very distracted by the barbarian in their face isn't that sufficient enough reason to give advantage on attacks against that enemy?

 

[Hriston]

The point I was trying to make with that is that when you do a hide check that is stricter and you need to conceal yourself to do that, but after that you don't need such heavy concealment to remain hidden as you stealth about ducking and dodging, etc...

Are you saying there are circumstances that are appropriate for staying hidden that are different (less strict) than circumstances appropriate for becoming hidden? We know distraction can momentarily keep you from being noticed, but are there other conditions that allow a hidden creature to remain hidden that wouldn't allow it to hide in the first place? To me, the rule-book is clear that you can't hide if you are "in the open" (i.e. unconcealed).

 

[FrogReaver]

Anyway after all this, I did some searches; sure I read, and listened to all this before, but:

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/834885800626008064

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing

Long story short - the DM is always right, so we are both right. Officially they seem to be leaning towards my interpretation of RAW/RAI though. Even specifically mentioning the hide behind the single pillar and popping up to attack and ducking back down, which they (Crawford) agree with me about.

Our specific current argument; just make sure you are not completely out in the open when you move, and you keep your stealth, hence just a pc between you and the creature you hid from is enough to maintain your stealth and advantage. Even if you are completely in the open, if the creature is distracted - watching TV, (or dealing with a barbs blows I suppose), you keep your stealth.

Crawford stresses as they always do; DM is always right, but as soon as he goes into the details, he seems to be completely agreeing with me.

EDIT: It is specified that if you MOVE OUT from where you were hiding and no longer have anything to conceal you, you ARE seen, and lose the adv for your attack. However the specifics/details and the tweet show this is for creatures essentially just waiting for you to come out, otherwise they generally going to be distracted enough for you to maintain your "stealth roll" on approach; which ultimately decides if you were even hidden in the first place anyway.

Yea, I'm going to keep following the RAW. "You can't hide from a creature that can see you" and "In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around" and "However, under certain circumstances a DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted".

Again,
1. "You can't hide from a creature that can see you"
2. "In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around".
3. "However, under certain circumstances a DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted".


All this means that hiding is basically worthless in combat unless your DM allows otherwise. Hide behind that tree all you want. When any bit of you comes out from behind it the DM is within his rights to rule you are seen (see the above rules). The DM is within his rights to rule that a barbarian 5ft away from an enemy swinging an axe at it is not going to be sufficiently distracting to let you hide (see the above rules).

You see I can admit how you prefer the DM to rule in these situations are valid rulings. But the bottom line is that you can't admit that the way we suggest the DM rule on those things are valid rulings and you can't find anything in the rulebook that even suggests otherwise.

So yes, if you want to get technical, you can hide behind a tree. It does nothing for you though because the moment you step out from behind it in combat then you are seen because creatures in combat stay alert for signs of danger all around (that is unless the DM has ruled the enemy in question is sufficiently distracted that he doesn't automatically notice you).

 

[FrogReaver]

Right, so a DM can nerf rogues and play a game that isnt quite D&D 5e. Since in 5e you can hide every turn if you want, and if you have a feature that allows that as a bonus action it is actually pretty solid tactic for its effects.

That's silly. Why don't I just claim you are arbitrarily buffing rogues and go on and on about how that's a bad thing and how you aren't playing 5e for doing so? Can you imagine how annoying that is. The math behind it has rogues very close to non-GWM and non-SS fighters in terms of damage. Fighter Damage at level 11 is 6d6 + 15 = 36 (with a great weapon) and a level 11 rogue damage (2 short swords) is 8d6 + 5 = 33 (with a very good chance to land at least 7d6 of that damage). Fighter's probably pull ahead a bit because of their subclass features, but just looking at the base class the rogue is every bit as damaging if not more damaging than a basic fighter at level 11.

I'm sorry the math behind it is soo hard to grasp but rogues are not indebted to advantage for solid damage.

 

[Rodney Mulraney]

I think your distinction about combat as in your face action and combat as a game turn imposing initiative is meaningless as I believe they are the same thing but I don't think that's the part to focus on. Instead I want to ask this:

If the enemy is always so distracted by the barbarian in it's face, why is that barbarian only good enough to let those 30ft away hide behind a rock or something? Why can't a rogue stand 5ft away and hide. It's not like the distracted enemy is seeing the rogue. As you have said the "hide check is to see if the rogue succeeds?"

But even more importantly: If the enemy is distracted by the barbarian why isn't the barbarian in the enemies face distracting enough to grant all your allies advantage on attacks against it without even trying to hide? If the notion is the enemy is very distracted by the barbarian in their face isn't that sufficient enough reason to give advantage on attacks against that enemy?

Because they are different mechanics. How you fluff the mechanics in game is kinda up to you really. But I'd go with something like the enemy losing tracking. For the barb to grant that to the ally without the ally hiding, the barb would have to take the HELP (singular ally) action.

Remember its about "perception" which is more than just "seeing".

So anyway the rogue has used his action to hide (here is where the enemy loses tracking on the rogue), the barbarian then keeps the enemy busy, so as the rogue can come out of hiding and maintain their unseen status to that enemy whilst they approach the enemy.

I'm not really sure what to say to you though, since it seems the issue is about you personally not thinking the mechanics make sense. Hopefully my fluff of the different situations above is enough to see how the different mechanics do make sense.

At the end of the day, melee attacking an enemy doesnt (usually) give allies advantage, you need the help action to do that. We both agree these are the rules here.

Also hiding and being an unseen attacker is another mechanic where you can advantage, we both agree here too, right?

Now we also agree that if you are in hiding and MOVE towards an enemy in combat phase, with nothing to conceal your movement at all, then you are no longer unseen.

So far its just all rules we all agree on.

We could nitpick about how this all functions fluff wise - how do you describe/portray that as a DM, but we dont because mechanics come first and the fluff sticks to the mechanics. So we don't need to talk about how that is all possible.

But the issue we are having is also clearly stated in the hide box in the rules as well; the DM can judge that the enemy is sufficiently distracted and so you do not lose your unseen attacker advantage.

So the real question about fluff is how do you fluff up such a situation; Crawford says something about the enemy watching a play or something (he gives other examples), so anything that sufficiently grabs the enemies attention. The enemy is considered to always be tracking anyone he hasnt lost track of essentially, but he lost track of the hidden PC, so has the enemy re-acquired the hidden PC - as he would normally if his attention wasnt elsewhere. If the hidden PC has moved out of the place that hid him, then the DM adjudicates. It seems to me that given Crawfords descriptions, the enemy wouldnt have re-acquired the hidden PC if he hid successfully in teh first place, since the barbarian is now needing his full attention.

I mean are you just saying the DM should never or only in extreme cases judge the enemy doesnt re-acquire the hidden pc ? You are free to adjudicate in that way if you wish. The RAW / RAI specifically leaves that in the standard DM adjudication realm anyway. Listen to the podcast from Crawford explaining all this and judge yourself what you think is appropriate. My take is that maintaining unseen attacker status is pretty easy, a play will do it, an explosion down teh road will do it, a barb in the face? I think so also.

 

[FrogReaver]

Hiding to avoid damage all the time is stupid. It just results in damage being focused on other characters. Since the rogue is one of the most durable characters (uncanny dodge, evasion, battlefield mobility), he's better off wasting enemy actions than simply being a non-target.

Hiding to attack is also stupid, because he could simply dual wield: most of the time his allies will allow him the use of sneak attack.

The only time that hiding during combat is strictly advantageous is if the rogue is alone. And the only thing that makes it drastically advantageous is the broken readying rules (which IMO need modification)

Given all of that:
removing the ability to hide during a round where you attack simplifies the game and prevents a tactic that is usually counterproductive to the PCs.

Mind you, personally I subscribe to a model where any character that is out of sight is being stealthy with no action invested. A stealth action is only necessary to remain stealthy when one would otherwise be automatically detected.

I don't believe you've met my 20 dex 8 con woodelf rogue. We played in a campaign that was very liberal on stealth rules. Basically I could get advantage anytime I wanted. I could also kite almost any enemies imaginable. I'll give you that the campaign wasn't a dungeon crawl but hardly anything could get next to me and I typically output more damage than my only other 2 allies combined. All that was thanks to the liberal advantage rules. That's the experience aspect.

Here's the math part:
Consider this a GreatWeapon Fighter at level 5 will do 4d6+8 = 22 damage. A rogue will do 5d6 + 4 = 21.5 damage and advantage can easily put me upward to 50% more DPR. And this is just looking at the levels that the fighter "catches up" with extra attack. Also, I find it funny that no one realizes that a rogue dual-wielding actually does less DPR than firing a longbow (woodelf) while having advantage.

 

[FrogReaver]

Because they are different mechanics. How you fluff the mechanics in game is kinda up to you really. But I'd go with something like the enemy losing tracking. For the barb to grant that to the ally without the ally hiding, the barb would have to take the HELP (singular ally) action.

Remember its about "perception" which is more than just "seeing".

So anyway the rogue has used his action to hide (here is where the enemy loses tracking on the rogue), the barbarian then keeps the enemy busy, so as the rogue can come out of hiding and maintain their unseen status to that enemy whilst they approach the enemy.

I'm not really sure what to say to you though, since it seems the issue is about you personally not thinking the mechanics make sense. Hopefully my fluff of the different situations above is enough to see how the different mechanics do make sense.

At the end of the day, melee attacking an enemy doesnt (usually) give allies advantage, you need the help action to do that. We both agree these are the rules here.

Also hiding and being an unseen attacker is another mechanic where you can advantage, we both agree here too, right?

Now we also agree that if you are in hiding and MOVE towards an enemy in combat phase, with nothing to conceal your movement at all, then you are no longer unseen.

So far its just all rules we all agree on.

We could nitpick about how this all functions fluff wise - how do you describe/portray that as a DM, but we dont because mechanics come first and the fluff sticks to the mechanics. So we don't need to talk about how that is all possible.

But the issue we are having is also clearly stated in the hide box in the rules as well; the DM can judge that the enemy is sufficiently distracted and so you do not lose your unseen attacker advantage.

So the real question about fluff is how do you fluff up such a situation; Crawford says something about the enemy watching a play or something (he gives other examples), so anything that sufficiently grabs the enemies attention. The enemy is considered to always be tracking anyone he hasnt lost track of essentially, but he lost track of the hidden PC, so has the enemy re-acquired the hidden PC - as he would normally if his attention wasnt elsewhere. If the hidden PC has moved out of the place that hid him, then the DM adjudicates. It seems to me that given Crawfords descriptions, the enemy wouldnt have re-acquired the hidden PC if he hid successfully in teh first place, since the barbarian is now needing his full attention.

I mean are you just saying the DM should never or only in extreme cases judge the enemy doesnt re-acquire the hidden pc ? You are free to adjudicate in that way if you wish. The RAW / RAI specifically leaves that in the standard DM adjudication realm anyway. Listen to the podcast from Crawford explaining all this and judge yourself what you think is appropriate. My take is that maintaining unseen attacker status is pretty easy, a play will do it, an explosion down teh road will do it, a barb in the face? I think so also.

At least you gave the last part. That's what I was looking for. I still don't think you really differentiated why a barb distracting an enemy shouldn't be ruled to give advantage to all allies attack it. If it's really that big of a distrucation the DM can rule it's the case right? The DM determines what circumstances cause advantage right? Why wouldn't a big barb swinging a big axe at an enemy distract it enough to give your allies advantage?

Notice how it's the same argument you are applying to the stealth discussion? I want to know why it shouldn't apply to a general case of advantage. So far I'm getting "advantage is not hiding". Well nah-duh. That's not an explanation though is it?