Hi guys, I'm triyng to find a way to reliably hide during combat. The obvious answer would be the Lightfoot Halfling, but I'm searching something for an Human character. I's possible to use some spells, better if from the Warlock class, but obviously would be better if concentration would be not needed.
In your opinion there would be any trick, class feature or object useful to gain cover in this context?
You can always hide when invisible, so invisibility is one way. A variant human can choose a feat at level 1, so you could Shadow Touched, for example.
The feat Skulker also lets you hide when lightly obscured, so that would allow hiding in dim light, for example.
To take something account256 said, the Skulker feat allows you to attempt to hide when only lightly obscured... and dim light is one of the most common examples of being lightly obscured.
One way to assure you have more chances to hide in dim light is to buy everyone in your party lamps for a gift. A lamp sheds 15 feet of bright light and then 30 feet more of dim light. So a ring starting 15 feet from whoever has a lit lamp and extending 30 more feet to a total of 45 feet from the lamp bearer.
A 30 foot ring of dim light for your Skulker to work with. And always ask what time of day, or what the light source is underground. If any are bright and can be nullified somehow then probably dim light or darkness will be left.
I haven't theory crafted or optimized the ultimate hider or anything but if I were to do so I might look into multiclassing into a caster that had Pass without Trace and the Skulker feat.
"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
I am currently playing a Thief rogue/sorcerer with mold earth. you can move a 5ft cube of earth. that leaves 2 possible hiding places "in the hole" or "behind the mound". since I'm a sorcerer I can bonus action cast mold earth if absolutely necessary.
Hi guys, I'm triyng to find a way to reliably hide during combat. The obvious answer would be the Lightfoot Halfling, but I'm searching something for an Human character. I's possible to use some spells, better if from the Warlock class, but obviously would be better if concentration would be not needed.
In your opinion there would be any trick, class feature or object useful to gain cover in this context?
Skulker's been mentioned already. If you have Skulker and a way to see in the dark, like Warlock provides, you can reliably hide unless someone shows up with a light source - darkvision treats darkness as dim light, so skulker will let you hide from others unless they have upgraded darkvision (which skulker gives you, although it's not as good as warlock vision).
I am currently playing a Thief rogue/sorcerer with mold earth. you can move a 5ft cube of earth. that leaves 2 possible hiding places "in the hole" or "behind the mound". since I'm a sorcerer I can bonus action cast mold earth if absolutely necessary.
Be careful with trying this because it is completely DM Fiat on if it will work or not. Mold Earth says that it moves "loose earth" which can be subjective. Had a DM decide that it basically worked on stone, while another said it only worked on things like garden soil, etc. After all if you've ever tried to dig a hole, after about 12 to 18 inches it is quite compacted and would not be considered "loose".
Some other ways to reliably use the hide bonus action of the rogue: Get behind full cover, Become Invisible somehow (spell, item, etc.), Skulker Feat and using anything to be lightly obscured, Darkness Spell.
I am currently playing a Thief rogue/sorcerer with mold earth. you can move a 5ft cube of earth. that leaves 2 possible hiding places "in the hole" or "behind the mound". since I'm a sorcerer I can bonus action cast mold earth if absolutely necessary.
Be careful with trying this because it is completely DM Fiat on if it will work or not. Mold Earth says that it moves "loose earth" which can be subjective. Had a DM decide that it basically worked on stone, while another said it only worked on things like garden soil, etc. After all if you've ever tried to dig a hole, after about 12 to 18 inches it is quite compacted and would not be considered "loose".
Some other ways to reliably use the hide bonus action of the rogue: Get behind full cover, Become Invisible somehow (spell, item, etc.), Skulker Feat and using anything to be lightly obscured, Darkness Spell.
Stone? Like, solid stone? That's not even earth, let alone loose earth. People are weird.
Friendly reminder of the contextual definition of "lose" (not for you, you're completely right, just for anyone in this thread contemplating the spell:
"not close, compact, or tight in structure or arrangement"
And earth literally means "soil", although here I'll grant I think any reasonable DM would let the spell work on sand, even though by definition sand is not earth.
Speaking of spells, I don't think anyone's pointed out yet that Shape Water and Minor Illusion can both make portable cover - Minor Illusion is a lot more portable, but Shape Water gets you genuinely opaque ice. My Arcane Trickster carries both cantrips.
That helps everyone in the party (including familiars and beast companions etc.).
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"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
One thing I'm going to ask is why your looking for a reliable way to hide? I'm not saying that it's not useful in some way. I'm just curious to know what your looking to do with it.
One thing I'm going to ask is why your looking for a reliable way to hide? I'm not saying that it's not useful in some way. I'm just curious to know what your looking to do with it.
That's a good question.
What I'm going for is finding a reliable way to increase my character's survivability. The character I'm talking about is a Warlock (hexblade, chain pact) Rogue (Swashbuckler). He has various combos at his disposal (mainly Thousand Faces+ Actor) and a decent output of damage (thanks to the Blast which scales on proficiency) but lacks in the defence sector. ovously Rogue 5 would help, but being hidden would grand even greater advantages in my opinion (if you are hidden you cannot be targeted even by spells). Furthermore, if I start my casting action hidden I would benefit from Advantage for all the rays of the blast.
Why not use darkness+ devil's sight then? Various reasons. Mostly it's because it is a so abused combo that it is a little boring in my opinion. But it is also because I would very much try to keep concentration on Hex all day long for support and damage reasons. Even more, the problem is that darkness creates a bubble of gloominess that is very much individuable by an exterior onlooker making easier to be targeted by AoE Spells.
One thing I'm going to ask is why your looking for a reliable way to hide? I'm not saying that it's not useful in some way. I'm just curious to know what your looking to do with it.
That's a good question.
What I'm going for is finding a reliable way to increase my character's survivability. The character I'm talking about is a Warlock (hexblade, chain pact) Rogue (Swashbuckler). He has various combos at his disposal (mainly Thousand Faces+ Actor) and a decent output of damage (thanks to the Blast which scales on proficiency) but lacks in the defence sector. ovously Rogue 5 would help, but being hidden would grand even greater advantages in my opinion (if you are hidden you cannot be targeted even by spells). Furthermore, if I start my casting action hidden I would benefit from Advantage for all the rays of the blast.
Why not use darkness+ devil's sight then? Various reasons. Mostly it's because it is a so abused combo that it is a little boring in my opinion. But it is also because I would very much try to keep concentration on Hex all day long for support and damage reasons. Even more, the problem is that darkness creates a bubble of gloominess that is very much individuable by an exterior onlooker making easier to be targeted by AoE Spells.
The Hexblade and the swashbuckler rogue actually have some of the best survivability by moving in and out of the fight if they can. They shine by switching tactics from turn to turn as necessary but being able to move into and out of battle is very strong and probably the primary thing that helps keep them alive with the increased mobility of bonus action dashing. Swashbuckler will definitely help but Hexblades have quite a bit of survivability already. The issue is getting to the level where it comes fully online. Because the 50% chance to just miss them is actually the strongest survivability feature there is.
Also Targetting by spells is only a somewhat limited advantage. it helps against single targets but once you get into the levels where AoE's start happening regularly it becomes very easy to hit the places that you would run to and hide or get caught in them even by circumstance. the more these spells get used the more you kind of end up a target without specifically being targeted. This is one of the reasons that evasion is so strong. But it's a heavy cost to go that far into rogue to get it. You also either get it so late or put off much of what makes the hexblade tanky for so long that it loses quite a bit of it's viability as a leveling up tactic.
Something to also Remember about Hiding is that it in no way makes an enemy forget about you. They do have a chance to detect you and can help that by doing things like move into positions to find you if you remain still, Simply target where you are at, Or make guesses about where you might go. Even if not all DM's play enemies this way. NPC's are often capable of these kind of tactics just like players use them all the time so it should be kept in mind unless you know for a fact it won't come up with your DM. But then they might surprise you if they change that.
One thing I'm going to ask is why your looking for a reliable way to hide? I'm not saying that it's not useful in some way. I'm just curious to know what your looking to do with it.
That's a good question.
What I'm going for is finding a reliable way to increase my character's survivability. The character I'm talking about is a Warlock (hexblade, chain pact) Rogue (Swashbuckler). He has various combos at his disposal (mainly Thousand Faces+ Actor) and a decent output of damage (thanks to the Blast which scales on proficiency) but lacks in the defence sector. ovously Rogue 5 would help, but being hidden would grand even greater advantages in my opinion (if you are hidden you cannot be targeted even by spells). Furthermore, if I start my casting action hidden I would benefit from Advantage for all the rays of the blast.
Why not use darkness+ devil's sight then? Various reasons. Mostly it's because it is a so abused combo that it is a little boring in my opinion. But it is also because I would very much try to keep concentration on Hex all day long for support and damage reasons. Even more, the problem is that darkness creates a bubble of gloominess that is very much individuable by an exterior onlooker making easier to be targeted by AoE Spells.
The Hexblade and the swashbuckler rogue actually have some of the best survivability by moving in and out of the fight if they can. They shine by switching tactics from turn to turn as necessary but being able to move into and out of battle is very strong and probably the primary thing that helps keep them alive with the increased mobility of bonus action dashing. Swashbuckler will definitely help but Hexblades have quite a bit of survivability already. The issue is getting to the level where it comes fully online. Because the 50% chance to just miss them is actually the strongest survivability feature there is.
Also Targetting by spells is only a somewhat limited advantage. it helps against single targets but once you get into the levels where AoE's start happening regularly it becomes very easy to hit the places that you would run to and hide or get caught in them even by circumstance. the more these spells get used the more you kind of end up a target without specifically being targeted. This is one of the reasons that evasion is so strong. But it's a heavy cost to go that far into rogue to get it. You also either get it so late or put off much of what makes the hexblade tanky for so long that it loses quite a bit of it's viability as a leveling up tactic.
Something to also Remember about Hiding is that it in no way makes an enemy forget about you. They do have a chance to detect you and can help that by doing things like move into positions to find you if you remain still, Simply target where you are at, Or make guesses about where you might go. Even if not all DM's play enemies this way. NPC's are often capable of these kind of tactics just like players use them all the time so it should be kept in mind unless you know for a fact it won't come up with your DM. But then they might surprise you if they change that.
Hmmm. That's right. Sure, Armor of Hexes is limited to only one attack per Round and only when you target your Hexblade-cursed enemy, but this is indubitably one of the most efficient defensive features in the game... and I think that your analysis on the chance of being targeted by a Spell or a Monster in combat are absolutely correct.
Keeping this in mind, in your opinion a feat like Skulker is worthy of consideration or would be better not invest an advancement in this direction?
I'm a fan of Skulker, but only for when it will come up a lot:
You have darkvision, but not devil sight, so the upgrade to Perception in full darkness matters, and one of your jobs in the party is being good at Perception (i.e. you're a party scout, however you built it).
You want to hide all the damn time, so being able to hide at will in darkness when fighting darkvision or worse enemies is clutch. This doesn't have to be a rogue, since e.g. Goblins can do it, but by and large it means you need access to bonus action Hide, and you need to thrive on being hidden, which rogues do.
As above, but also what you do from hiding is make attacks rather than casting any sort of V spell, so staying hidden when you miss is a real possibility - if you can't miss it can't come up, and if you break stealth for other reasons, it can't help you.
The rules for breaking stealth aren't the clearest in the world, so I'm assuming while hidden your S and M components are also hidden and won't auto-break stealth at all, but a V component announces your position with no allowance for muffling the cast with a stealth check.
One thing I'm going to ask is why your looking for a reliable way to hide? I'm not saying that it's not useful in some way. I'm just curious to know what your looking to do with it.
That's a good question.
What I'm going for is finding a reliable way to increase my character's survivability. The character I'm talking about is a Warlock (hexblade, chain pact) Rogue (Swashbuckler). He has various combos at his disposal (mainly Thousand Faces+ Actor) and a decent output of damage (thanks to the Blast which scales on proficiency) but lacks in the defence sector. ovously Rogue 5 would help, but being hidden would grand even greater advantages in my opinion (if you are hidden you cannot be targeted even by spells). Furthermore, if I start my casting action hidden I would benefit from Advantage for all the rays of the blast.
Why not use darkness+ devil's sight then? Various reasons. Mostly it's because it is a so abused combo that it is a little boring in my opinion. But it is also because I would very much try to keep concentration on Hex all day long for support and damage reasons. Even more, the problem is that darkness creates a bubble of gloominess that is very much individuable by an exterior onlooker making easier to be targeted by AoE Spells.
The Hexblade and the swashbuckler rogue actually have some of the best survivability by moving in and out of the fight if they can. They shine by switching tactics from turn to turn as necessary but being able to move into and out of battle is very strong and probably the primary thing that helps keep them alive with the increased mobility of bonus action dashing. Swashbuckler will definitely help but Hexblades have quite a bit of survivability already. The issue is getting to the level where it comes fully online. Because the 50% chance to just miss them is actually the strongest survivability feature there is.
Also Targetting by spells is only a somewhat limited advantage. it helps against single targets but once you get into the levels where AoE's start happening regularly it becomes very easy to hit the places that you would run to and hide or get caught in them even by circumstance. the more these spells get used the more you kind of end up a target without specifically being targeted. This is one of the reasons that evasion is so strong. But it's a heavy cost to go that far into rogue to get it. You also either get it so late or put off much of what makes the hexblade tanky for so long that it loses quite a bit of it's viability as a leveling up tactic.
Something to also Remember about Hiding is that it in no way makes an enemy forget about you. They do have a chance to detect you and can help that by doing things like move into positions to find you if you remain still, Simply target where you are at, Or make guesses about where you might go. Even if not all DM's play enemies this way. NPC's are often capable of these kind of tactics just like players use them all the time so it should be kept in mind unless you know for a fact it won't come up with your DM. But then they might surprise you if they change that.
Hmmm. That's right. Sure, Armor of Hexes is limited to only one attack per Round and only when you target your Hexblade-cursed enemy, but this is indubitably one of the most efficient defensive features in the game... and I think that your analysis on the chance of being targeted by a Spell or a Monster in combat are absolutely correct.
Keeping this in mind, in your opinion a feat like Skulker is worthy of consideration or would be better not invest an advancement in this direction?
Skulker is very solid.
While it does help you to hide in more situations since it's first ability to some extent is the whole "disappearing into the smoke" type of mechanic. That's not really the true strength of the power. People get a little too hung up on the idea of hiding repeatedly to try and get constant advantage from stealth like their enemies are idiots that can't move or think... some of that is laid squarely on the shoulders of DM's that just toss out meat grinders and forget challenges can be increased simply by having a group that thinks and/or uses various tactics of their own which force the Party to react to them and reprioritize just standing there and beating on things like the stereotypical muscle wizard meme.
What it does that is two fold and much more important. It helps you to stay hidden in several circumstances that would otherwise give you away, meaning that it can actually improve action economy and lead to more tactical ability. By keeping you hidden when you miss a shot. This makes potentially moving around the battlefield to keep from getting found important. It's also important because there are plenty of times that making somebody aware of where you are might mean they are in a position that once they know to watch out for you they can make your attempts to hide that much harder or even fail. Which is something often ignored, most particularly by players just hoping that it won't get used against them while they sit behind a single pillar "sniping" or something else of that type.
But even more than that, something that is overlooked because it's ignored way too often. It's one of the only ways to remove disadvantage to perception checks caused by Dim light. This is something that really should come up much more often than it does. Like for anybody and anything relying on darkvision to see in the dark. DM's and players alike forget this penalty because too many only think that darkvision means that it's basically daytime as long as they have it. But they often forget that daytime comes with a variety of light levels. Parking Garages even when above ground can actually get fairly dark and be well within the dim light category. As can inside various buildings. And pretty much everything underground that isn't illuminated by a full on light source is usually in dim light. This includes most dungeons, forbidden temples, and many lost ruins that Adventurer's tend to like to go deep into to explore and pull up ancient wealth and treasures. If you want a real world sense of this. Go into a large building that tend to light heavily with skylights and watch how dark it gets around you when clouds block the light from them. Usually some kind of internal lighting is on to help or kicks on. But you still get that moment where things are rather dim. That moment of dimness before the electric lights compensate used to be extremely common internal lighting and should be experienced in a lot of places in a midevil fantasy setting and it's only in these above ground type scenario's where darkvision negates the issue. Which makes this an invaluable asset not only to anybody hiding. But anybody looking for others and Any Rogues looking to get advantage on their shots. Because Dim Light could and should actually affect a lot of "sniping" which is the primarily repeatedly hiding playstyle that is often advocated for. Meaning Sneak Attack wouldn't work.
I'm a fan of Skulker, but only for when it will come up a lot:
You have darkvision, but not devil sight, so the upgrade to Perception in full darkness matters, and one of your jobs in the party is being good at Perception (i.e. you're a party scout, however you built it).
You want to hide all the damn time, so being able to hide at will in darkness when fighting darkvision or worse enemies is clutch. This doesn't have to be a rogue, since e.g. Goblins can do it, but by and large it means you need access to bonus action Hide, and you need to thrive on being hidden, which rogues do.
As above, but also what you do from hiding is make attacks rather than casting any sort of V spell, so staying hidden when you miss is a real possibility - if you can't miss it can't come up, and if you break stealth for other reasons, it can't help you.
The rules for breaking stealth aren't the clearest in the world, so I'm assuming while hidden your S and M components are also hidden and won't auto-break stealth at all, but a V component announces your position with no allowance for muffling the cast with a stealth check.
Technically a Somatic component should break stealth too. Because they are noticable and deliberate hand gestures. The guide sitting behind the barrel waving his hands in various arcane patterns are kind of drawing attention to themselves. There is some argument for grey area and nuance based on line of sight. But if we got with the general simplicity that most of 5e goes for. Then we kind of end up with them being obvious. Remember Subtle Spell is all about making those gestures not noticeable and actually trying to hide the spell, While Silent Spell just makes it so the words aren't needed to be spoken aloud. But it's both the gestures and/or the words that makes most spell casting almost stupidly obvious in many general situations without them.
That being said. I personally prefer to go with a bit of homebrew edge to the whole thing and the matter of the Somatic Component be partly up to the DM based upon the situation to allow for much more nuanced possibilities like spell casters hiding in Alcoves where most can't see them unless really looking. Both to benefit players looking to use smart tactics but also to help facilitate interesting details for DM's to use that players might manage to pick up on if they are willing to do more than just smack things as hard as they can.
Your post is an excellent example of what I meant about the Stealth rules. Anyone planning to play an Arcane Trickster needs to build around the assumption that while they can't know how their DM will rule, odds are very good spells are the only thing in the game they'll be flat-banned from applying the Stealth rules to, and all spells will break hiding without a roll.
In your opinion, could Skulker make possible for a character to hide behind another person\character?
No. That's another special effect mostly found in certain Racials. A person in front of you is not the same as being lightly obscured.
A person is effectively cover, which while it can hide you it's a bit different. It's a physical solid object that things, including usually sight, cannot pass through.
Obscuring is more like more flimsy or insubstantial things getting in the way. A hazing effect of a sort that kind of blurs what your seeing such as smoke, fog, or the way darkness kind of covers and envelopes things. Usually with little to no substance. So leaves would obscure more than be cover because they don't have a lot of substance to them and they tend to hide things by kind of blurring the lines of what's behind them with their small, numerous, and overlapping nature.
However the physical body of a person doesn't usually give that same obscuring quality. It's more like seeing something that is partly behind a fence or a wall with it's more substantial sight blocking but it does nothing to blur or hide the parts that it's not physical in front of to help hide what's behind it.
I hope that makes some sense. I'm doing my best to write this kind of quick while doing some repairs around my home which are taking a fair bit of my effort.
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Hi guys, I'm triyng to find a way to reliably hide during combat. The obvious answer would be the Lightfoot Halfling, but I'm searching something for an Human character. I's possible to use some spells, better if from the Warlock class, but obviously would be better if concentration would be not needed.
In your opinion there would be any trick, class feature or object useful to gain cover in this context?
You can always hide when invisible, so invisibility is one way. A variant human can choose a feat at level 1, so you could Shadow Touched, for example.
The feat Skulker also lets you hide when lightly obscured, so that would allow hiding in dim light, for example.
More Interesting Lock Picking Rules
To take something account256 said, the Skulker feat allows you to attempt to hide when only lightly obscured... and dim light is one of the most common examples of being lightly obscured.
One way to assure you have more chances to hide in dim light is to buy everyone in your party lamps for a gift. A lamp sheds 15 feet of bright light and then 30 feet more of dim light. So a ring starting 15 feet from whoever has a lit lamp and extending 30 more feet to a total of 45 feet from the lamp bearer.
A 30 foot ring of dim light for your Skulker to work with. And always ask what time of day, or what the light source is underground. If any are bright and can be nullified somehow then probably dim light or darkness will be left.
I haven't theory crafted or optimized the ultimate hider or anything but if I were to do so I might look into multiclassing into a caster that had Pass without Trace and the Skulker feat.
I am currently playing a Thief rogue/sorcerer with mold earth. you can move a 5ft cube of earth. that leaves 2 possible hiding places "in the hole" or "behind the mound". since I'm a sorcerer I can bonus action cast mold earth if absolutely necessary.
Skulker's been mentioned already. If you have Skulker and a way to see in the dark, like Warlock provides, you can reliably hide unless someone shows up with a light source - darkvision treats darkness as dim light, so skulker will let you hide from others unless they have upgraded darkvision (which skulker gives you, although it's not as good as warlock vision).
Be careful with trying this because it is completely DM Fiat on if it will work or not. Mold Earth says that it moves "loose earth" which can be subjective. Had a DM decide that it basically worked on stone, while another said it only worked on things like garden soil, etc. After all if you've ever tried to dig a hole, after about 12 to 18 inches it is quite compacted and would not be considered "loose".
Some other ways to reliably use the hide bonus action of the rogue: Get behind full cover, Become Invisible somehow (spell, item, etc.), Skulker Feat and using anything to be lightly obscured, Darkness Spell.
Stone? Like, solid stone? That's not even earth, let alone loose earth. People are weird.
Friendly reminder of the contextual definition of "lose" (not for you, you're completely right, just for anyone in this thread contemplating the spell:
"not close, compact, or tight in structure or arrangement"
And earth literally means "soil", although here I'll grant I think any reasonable DM would let the spell work on sand, even though by definition sand is not earth.
Speaking of spells, I don't think anyone's pointed out yet that Shape Water and Minor Illusion can both make portable cover - Minor Illusion is a lot more portable, but Shape Water gets you genuinely opaque ice. My Arcane Trickster carries both cantrips.
Also find someone (if you can't) to cast the Pass without Trace spell.
That helps everyone in the party (including familiars and beast companions etc.).
One thing I'm going to ask is why your looking for a reliable way to hide? I'm not saying that it's not useful in some way. I'm just curious to know what your looking to do with it.
That's a good question.
What I'm going for is finding a reliable way to increase my character's survivability. The character I'm talking about is a Warlock (hexblade, chain pact) Rogue (Swashbuckler). He has various combos at his disposal (mainly Thousand Faces+ Actor) and a decent output of damage (thanks to the Blast which scales on proficiency) but lacks in the defence sector. ovously Rogue 5 would help, but being hidden would grand even greater advantages in my opinion (if you are hidden you cannot be targeted even by spells). Furthermore, if I start my casting action hidden I would benefit from Advantage for all the rays of the blast.
Why not use darkness+ devil's sight then? Various reasons. Mostly it's because it is a so abused combo that it is a little boring in my opinion. But it is also because I would very much try to keep concentration on Hex all day long for support and damage reasons. Even more, the problem is that darkness creates a bubble of gloominess that is very much individuable by an exterior onlooker making easier to be targeted by AoE Spells.
The Hexblade and the swashbuckler rogue actually have some of the best survivability by moving in and out of the fight if they can. They shine by switching tactics from turn to turn as necessary but being able to move into and out of battle is very strong and probably the primary thing that helps keep them alive with the increased mobility of bonus action dashing. Swashbuckler will definitely help but Hexblades have quite a bit of survivability already. The issue is getting to the level where it comes fully online. Because the 50% chance to just miss them is actually the strongest survivability feature there is.
Also Targetting by spells is only a somewhat limited advantage. it helps against single targets but once you get into the levels where AoE's start happening regularly it becomes very easy to hit the places that you would run to and hide or get caught in them even by circumstance. the more these spells get used the more you kind of end up a target without specifically being targeted. This is one of the reasons that evasion is so strong. But it's a heavy cost to go that far into rogue to get it. You also either get it so late or put off much of what makes the hexblade tanky for so long that it loses quite a bit of it's viability as a leveling up tactic.
Something to also Remember about Hiding is that it in no way makes an enemy forget about you. They do have a chance to detect you and can help that by doing things like move into positions to find you if you remain still, Simply target where you are at, Or make guesses about where you might go. Even if not all DM's play enemies this way. NPC's are often capable of these kind of tactics just like players use them all the time so it should be kept in mind unless you know for a fact it won't come up with your DM. But then they might surprise you if they change that.
Hmmm. That's right. Sure, Armor of Hexes is limited to only one attack per Round and only when you target your Hexblade-cursed enemy, but this is indubitably one of the most efficient defensive features in the game... and I think that your analysis on the chance of being targeted by a Spell or a Monster in combat are absolutely correct.
Keeping this in mind, in your opinion a feat like Skulker is worthy of consideration or would be better not invest an advancement in this direction?
I'm a fan of Skulker, but only for when it will come up a lot:
Skulker is very solid.
While it does help you to hide in more situations since it's first ability to some extent is the whole "disappearing into the smoke" type of mechanic. That's not really the true strength of the power. People get a little too hung up on the idea of hiding repeatedly to try and get constant advantage from stealth like their enemies are idiots that can't move or think... some of that is laid squarely on the shoulders of DM's that just toss out meat grinders and forget challenges can be increased simply by having a group that thinks and/or uses various tactics of their own which force the Party to react to them and reprioritize just standing there and beating on things like the stereotypical muscle wizard meme.
What it does that is two fold and much more important. It helps you to stay hidden in several circumstances that would otherwise give you away, meaning that it can actually improve action economy and lead to more tactical ability. By keeping you hidden when you miss a shot. This makes potentially moving around the battlefield to keep from getting found important. It's also important because there are plenty of times that making somebody aware of where you are might mean they are in a position that once they know to watch out for you they can make your attempts to hide that much harder or even fail. Which is something often ignored, most particularly by players just hoping that it won't get used against them while they sit behind a single pillar "sniping" or something else of that type.
But even more than that, something that is overlooked because it's ignored way too often. It's one of the only ways to remove disadvantage to perception checks caused by Dim light. This is something that really should come up much more often than it does. Like for anybody and anything relying on darkvision to see in the dark. DM's and players alike forget this penalty because too many only think that darkvision means that it's basically daytime as long as they have it. But they often forget that daytime comes with a variety of light levels. Parking Garages even when above ground can actually get fairly dark and be well within the dim light category. As can inside various buildings. And pretty much everything underground that isn't illuminated by a full on light source is usually in dim light. This includes most dungeons, forbidden temples, and many lost ruins that Adventurer's tend to like to go deep into to explore and pull up ancient wealth and treasures. If you want a real world sense of this. Go into a large building that tend to light heavily with skylights and watch how dark it gets around you when clouds block the light from them. Usually some kind of internal lighting is on to help or kicks on. But you still get that moment where things are rather dim. That moment of dimness before the electric lights compensate used to be extremely common internal lighting and should be experienced in a lot of places in a midevil fantasy setting and it's only in these above ground type scenario's where darkvision negates the issue. Which makes this an invaluable asset not only to anybody hiding. But anybody looking for others and Any Rogues looking to get advantage on their shots. Because Dim Light could and should actually affect a lot of "sniping" which is the primarily repeatedly hiding playstyle that is often advocated for. Meaning Sneak Attack wouldn't work.
Technically a Somatic component should break stealth too. Because they are noticable and deliberate hand gestures. The guide sitting behind the barrel waving his hands in various arcane patterns are kind of drawing attention to themselves. There is some argument for grey area and nuance based on line of sight. But if we got with the general simplicity that most of 5e goes for. Then we kind of end up with them being obvious. Remember Subtle Spell is all about making those gestures not noticeable and actually trying to hide the spell, While Silent Spell just makes it so the words aren't needed to be spoken aloud. But it's both the gestures and/or the words that makes most spell casting almost stupidly obvious in many general situations without them.
That being said. I personally prefer to go with a bit of homebrew edge to the whole thing and the matter of the Somatic Component be partly up to the DM based upon the situation to allow for much more nuanced possibilities like spell casters hiding in Alcoves where most can't see them unless really looking. Both to benefit players looking to use smart tactics but also to help facilitate interesting details for DM's to use that players might manage to pick up on if they are willing to do more than just smack things as hard as they can.
Your post is an excellent example of what I meant about the Stealth rules. Anyone planning to play an Arcane Trickster needs to build around the assumption that while they can't know how their DM will rule, odds are very good spells are the only thing in the game they'll be flat-banned from applying the Stealth rules to, and all spells will break hiding without a roll.
çFateless
In your opinion, could Skulker make possible for a character to hide behind another person\character?
No. That's another special effect mostly found in certain Racials. A person in front of you is not the same as being lightly obscured.
A person is effectively cover, which while it can hide you it's a bit different. It's a physical solid object that things, including usually sight, cannot pass through.
Obscuring is more like more flimsy or insubstantial things getting in the way. A hazing effect of a sort that kind of blurs what your seeing such as smoke, fog, or the way darkness kind of covers and envelopes things. Usually with little to no substance. So leaves would obscure more than be cover because they don't have a lot of substance to them and they tend to hide things by kind of blurring the lines of what's behind them with their small, numerous, and overlapping nature.
However the physical body of a person doesn't usually give that same obscuring quality. It's more like seeing something that is partly behind a fence or a wall with it's more substantial sight blocking but it does nothing to blur or hide the parts that it's not physical in front of to help hide what's behind it.
I hope that makes some sense. I'm doing my best to write this kind of quick while doing some repairs around my home which are taking a fair bit of my effort.