The 1st paragraph or 2 suggests you are hidden until someone actively searches for you on their turn and beats your stealth roll.
There is also a section about passive perception that seems to indicate you are hidden but might still be noticed by someone not even actively looking, again a contest but this time against their passive perception check and the passive perception has to beat your stealth.
In both cases they have to beat your stealth? This suggests to me you are hidden the moment you make your stealth check (providing you meet all the other requirements to even attempt to hide). And whether it is an active search to find you or passive perception, they are both made to find or detect a creature that is already hiding?
So when exactly are you considered to be hidden?
Is it when you 1st roll your stealth check? Before any contests to detect you? And then being contests they have to beat your score, not merely tie it?
HIDING
The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence.
You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you give away your position if you make noise, such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase. An invisible creature can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, and it does have to stay quiet.
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 you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen.
Passive Perception. When you hide, there's a chance someone will notice you even if they aren't searching. To determine whether such a creature notices you, the DM compares your Dexterity (Stealth) check with that creature's passive Wisdom (Perception) score, which equals 10 + the creature's Wisdom modifier, as well as any other bonuses or penalties. If the creature has advantage, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5.
For example, if a 1st-level character (with a proficiency bonus of +2) has a Wisdom of 15 (a +2 modifier) and proficiency in Perception, he or she has a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 14.
What Can You See? One of the main factors in determining whether you can find a hidden creature or object is how well you can see in an area, which might be lightly or heavily obscured as explained in chapter 8, “Adventuring.”
"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.”
Technically, you aren't hiding unless you declare you are and make the stealth check to start hiding. However, out of combat, it could functionally be the same as deciding to moving stealthily since you aren't counting rounds and actions usually (usually when moving at a slow pace, with the check when called for by the DM). Thats really up to the DM to decide though.
In combat, you have to try to hide using your action, and the DM will tell you if that is possible.
As a general rule, it works something like this, assuming circumstances are suitable for you to hide:
You roll your Stealth check as part of the Hide action.
Until further notice, anyone whose passive perception beats your check perceives you (you are not hidden from them), anyone who loses to it does not (you are hidden from them). As a general rule, the RAW on a draw is very strange and will get into weird weeds, because a draw is supposed to preserve the state of affairs before the contest happened. It boils down to, were you perceived when you hid?
Yes, but you don't have a special rule letting you hide in those circumstances: you couldn't have hidden anyway, so you're perceived without a need for a check.
Yes, but you have such a special rule, such as lightfoot halflings, wood elves, and anyone with the skulker feat has: on a draw, you are perceived.
No: On a draw, you are not perceived.
At any point, any creature can declare an active perception check as an action - the Search action. The specifics here are very loose, but more or less, the creature rolls Perception or Investigation (how to tell which is appropriate is mysterious, so most DMs default to Perception). Since this presupposes it can't already see you, on a draw or worse it loses, and you remain hidden. If it beats your stealth check, it can see you.
There is functionally no guidance on you being allowed to re-roll the Stealth check to "hide better" and then keep the better result, if you're in a circumstance where you have the time to do that. So, DM fiat (in fact, what little guidance the DMG offers is an explicit call-out for DM fiat).
But the perception and stealth rules are often self-contradictory and also often missing critical information. Here's an excellent post someone else wrote trying to present all of the weeds to consider when deciding how you want it to work in your campaign; something everyone has to deal with in 5E is that the stealth rules are radically different at every DM's table.
Technically, you aren't hiding unless you declare you are and make the stealth check to start hiding. However, out of combat, it could functionally be the same as deciding to moving stealthily since you aren't counting rounds and actions usually (usually when moving at a slow pace, with the check when called for by the DM). Thats really up to the DM to decide though.
In combat, you have to try to hide using your action, and the DM will tell you if that is possible.
Exactly, you are hidden when the DM tells you you are, nothing more, nothing less. But, as a DM, I will never tell the player "your character is hidden", I will always tell him "your character thinks he is hidden", because even when I allow a stealth check, it is rolled with a result hidden from the player.
Also, "hidden" is not a condition or a status. You might be hidden from some creatures and not from others. Only your DM will know and just tell you what happens when others are looking for you.
I agree with what you are saying. However, it is difficult for the DM to avoid telling the player if they are hidden or not. I was playing a Rogue last night. I attempted to Hide. I think I rolled a modified 14. DM says "You think you are hidden." But due to the mechanic of Advantage when attacking from a hidden position (which automatically destroys that condition), he had to tell me if I was attacking at Advantage or not, which tells me exactly what the situation was.
And question: Are you saying you made the Stealth roll for the player's attempt to Hide?
You are hiding when you take the hide action. The DM may not even ask you to roll stealth yet, but nonetheless that is when it starts. It ends when you stop hiding or are detected.
Hidden is not a condition. It is more like a relationship between 2 creatures. You can be hidden from some creatures while not being hidden from others.
Yes. The reason some people think the contrary (and it was my time a while ago) is that they interpret too much of the discussions on the forums or JC's podcast on stealth. That being said, except in particular circumstances, when you hide, you are trying to hide from everyone, it's just that some creatures might see you, and some might see you automatically if you are in plain sight from them. Too many edge cases for rules to track.
That's interesting af. Does the DM then tell the player how confident they feel they performed the task well? That could be a truly excellent way to handle e.g. Perception - 1-4 and 17-20 both result in high confidence.
The DM sometimes gives and indication of confidence, but it can be misleading, the player might have rolled a 1 and be extremely confident. :)
The main advantage of this method is that it almost completely negates metagaming about taking risks or not based on a roll, but promotes careful play to judge the level of vigilance of sentries for example.
Yeah, I like it. A lot more work for the DM, and some players will whine about you "taking their fun away", but I think it adds more realism and suspense to the game. I believe this can be applied to many many different skill checks.
The DM sometimes gives and indication of confidence, but it can be misleading, the player might have rolled a 1 and be extremely confident. :)
The main advantage of this method is that it almost completely negates metagaming about taking risks or not based on a roll, but promotes careful play to judge the level of vigilance of sentries for example.
Yeah, I like it. A lot more work for the DM
Not that much, actually, especially with a VTT.
and some players will whine about you "taking their fun away", but I think it adds more realism and suspense to the game. I believe this can be applied to many many different skill checks.
It can, although honestly we are generally using passives as well in particular for perception / insight, and sometimes for investigation (when it is routine).
Hmmmm....passive thresholds. Trying to get my head around that one. Definitely see that working for Perception. Insight.....I can visualize you as the DM actively rolls a Deception Check, and then compare that number to the passive of each player, which would be the same concept as Hide and Passive Perception.
How do you handle Survival, or maybe Nature? While I can see some skill checks a "always active rolls", like Sleight of Hand, or Acrobatics, I can see Survival, Nature, maybe others, in some kind of grey area. What percentage of checks at your table are "active" versus "passive"?
The DM sometimes gives and indication of confidence, but it can be misleading, the player might have rolled a 1 and be extremely confident. :)
The main advantage of this method is that it almost completely negates metagaming about taking risks or not based on a roll, but promotes careful play to judge the level of vigilance of sentries for example.
Yes, this is great if the DM is willing to work out in what contexts a poor roll is low confidence or not - with Perception you may not be able to notice what you haven't noticed, for sure, but for Stealth, you'll probably notice if you step on a twig, so check-specific thresholds seem appropriate. And for some checks, knowing how you rolled may be the whole point - e.g. if you're rolling Persuasion, you probably expect feedback on how difficult this person was to persuade. Succeeding with a low check and failing with a high one convey important information that the DM would want to convert to narrative. "You pull out all the stops, but this person just isn't having it." vs. "You half-ass it and this person is nodding so enthusiastically you suspect you have a new ride-or-die buddy, whether you want one or not."
Hmmmm....passive thresholds. Trying to get my head around that one. Definitely see that working for Perception. Insight.....I can visualize you as the DM actively rolls a Deception Check, and then compare that number to the passive of each player, which would be the same concept as Hide and Passive Perception.
Exactly.
How do you handle Survival, or maybe Nature? While I can see some skill checks a "always active rolls", like Sleight of Hand, or Acrobatics, I can see Survival, Nature, maybe others, in some kind of grey area. What percentage of checks at your table are "active" versus "passive"?
It's a bit hard to know, because it really depends on the situation but we almost never use perception checks anymore. It's still an important skill, but no player ever request one, the same with insight for example, unless they describe something really out of the ordinary.
As for survival and nature, unless it's something individual, the group usually knows quickly enough what happened, so secrecy is not that important. Although I remember doing it secretely when running Tomb of Annihilation, which got the party really lost on the map a number of times. Sometimes, because they expected to reach a landmark, they knew they were lost, but really had little idea where they actually were (which seemed a fairly good simulation).
I would think in most games I run or play in, there would indeed be still a lot of active checks, but overall, I think that passive thresholds are something that should be used more often. That in and of itself makes proficiency in skills far more important.
Extra suspense around stealth can be quite fun, but in actual combat it might not be worth the trouble. (Obviously that depends on the table and the DM.) This procedure streamlines things for complex fights:
find suitable hiding location --- usually anything worth 3/4 cover or better, as long as it's good against the entire field of enemies, plus all those other feature-based ways to do it, like Skulker in dim light, Invisibility...
Roll Stealth with the Hide action. Roll at disadvantage if you've already hidden in that same place that combat.
DM compares against the enemy group's highest passive Perception, tells you if you made it or not.
This reduces state/number tracking and excess table talk.
Assume the enemies are communicating, and if one or more sees you, they yell and point "watch out for the gnome in the bushes!" or whatever, which covers for the metagaming.
The DM can still track "hidden" individually for special circumstances, like surprise-telepathic enemies, or loner assassins counter-sniping you...
Hmmmm....passive thresholds. Trying to get my head around that one. Definitely see that working for Perception. Insight.....I can visualize you as the DM actively rolls a Deception Check, and then compare that number to the passive of each player, which would be the same concept as Hide and Passive Perception.
Exactly.
How do you handle Survival, or maybe Nature? While I can see some skill checks a "always active rolls", like Sleight of Hand, or Acrobatics, I can see Survival, Nature, maybe others, in some kind of grey area. What percentage of checks at your table are "active" versus "passive"?
It's a bit hard to know, because it really depends on the situation but we almost never use perception checks anymore. It's still an important skill, but no player ever request one, the same with insight for example, unless they describe something really out of the ordinary.
As for survival and nature, unless it's something individual, the group usually knows quickly enough what happened, so secrecy is not that important. Although I remember doing it secretely when running Tomb of Annihilation, which got the party really lost on the map a number of times. Sometimes, because they expected to reach a landmark, they knew they were lost, but really had little idea where they actually were (which seemed a fairly good simulation).
I would think in most games I run or play in, there would indeed be still a lot of active checks, but overall, I think that passive thresholds are something that should be used more often. That in and of itself makes proficiency in skills far more important.
It also speeds up game quite a bit, as well as making the actual actions of the PCs more significant.
I will see how I can incorporate more of these thresholds into the game that I run. Don't think I am going to change other DM's minds.
This got some really good replies and gave me a lot of good ideas.
And I'm somewhat satisfied that active or passive checks (contests) to detect/find the hiding character need to beat their Stealth roll, any ties and the character is not detected and remains hidden.
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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.”
As a general rule, the RAW on a draw is very strange and will get into weird weeds, because a draw is supposed to preserve the state of affairs before the contest happened. It boils down to, were you perceived when you hid?
Yes, but you don't have a special rule letting you hide in those circumstances: you couldn't have hidden anyway, so you're perceived without a need for a check.
Yes, but you have such a special rule, such as lightfoot halflings, wood elves, and anyone with the skulker feat has: on a draw, you are perceived.
No: On a draw, you are not perceived.
My rule of thumb for Stealth contest ties is based on DC. The active check must meet or exceed the passive one, so whoever is rolling (Stealth or Perception check) must meet or exceed the set score ( Passive Perception or Stealth DC). That falls in line with DC checks and Jeremy Crawford's ruling on twitter saying "When hiding, you want to meet or exceed another creature's passive Perception score."
Right... when hiding you want to meet or beat the passive perception... so tie goes to the hiding character.
Just a different way of saying it really.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"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.”
find suitable hiding location --- usually anything worth 3/4 cover or better, as long as it's good against the entire field of enemies, plus all those other feature-based ways to do it, like Skulker in dim light, Invisibility...
<snip>
It's not always a question of cover and percentage, the only thing the rule says is that what it matters is not to be seen clearly, which can be a matter of obscurement as well as actual cover, or a combination of both. This is (like many things in stealth) completely up to the DM, sorry players, no arguments and rules lawyering here.
Generally true, yes. Using cover like that is just a quick-and-dirty guideline for determining what terrain is and isn't good for combat-time hiding.
Really, the whole writeup is pulling together some disparate stuff, and codifying a few bits, to make life a little easier on both DMs and Rogues.
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The 1st paragraph or 2 suggests you are hidden until someone actively searches for you on their turn and beats your stealth roll.
There is also a section about passive perception that seems to indicate you are hidden but might still be noticed by someone not even actively looking, again a contest but this time against their passive perception check and the passive perception has to beat your stealth.
In both cases they have to beat your stealth? This suggests to me you are hidden the moment you make your stealth check (providing you meet all the other requirements to even attempt to hide). And whether it is an active search to find you or passive perception, they are both made to find or detect a creature that is already hiding?
So when exactly are you considered to be hidden?
Is it when you 1st roll your stealth check? Before any contests to detect you? And then being contests they have to beat your score, not merely tie it?
HIDING
The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence.
You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you give away your position if you make noise, such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase. An invisible creature can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, and it does have to stay quiet.
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 you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen.
Passive Perception. When you hide, there's a chance someone will notice you even if they aren't searching. To determine whether such a creature notices you, the DM compares your Dexterity (Stealth) check with that creature's passive Wisdom (Perception) score, which equals 10 + the creature's Wisdom modifier, as well as any other bonuses or penalties. If the creature has advantage, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5.
For example, if a 1st-level character (with a proficiency bonus of +2) has a Wisdom of 15 (a +2 modifier) and proficiency in Perception, he or she has a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 14.
What Can You See? One of the main factors in determining whether you can find a hidden creature or object is how well you can see in an area, which might be lightly or heavily obscured as explained in chapter 8, “Adventuring.”
Technically, you aren't hiding unless you declare you are and make the stealth check to start hiding. However, out of combat, it could functionally be the same as deciding to moving stealthily since you aren't counting rounds and actions usually (usually when moving at a slow pace, with the check when called for by the DM). Thats really up to the DM to decide though.
In combat, you have to try to hide using your action, and the DM will tell you if that is possible.
As a general rule, it works something like this, assuming circumstances are suitable for you to hide:
But the perception and stealth rules are often self-contradictory and also often missing critical information. Here's an excellent post someone else wrote trying to present all of the weeds to consider when deciding how you want it to work in your campaign; something everyone has to deal with in 5E is that the stealth rules are radically different at every DM's table.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/102520-if-at-disadvantage-always-fight-blind#c13
Surely the answer is: Right after you tell the GM 'my character is trying to hide'?
You are hiding when you are unseen and unheard.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I agree with what you are saying. However, it is difficult for the DM to avoid telling the player if they are hidden or not. I was playing a Rogue last night. I attempted to Hide. I think I rolled a modified 14. DM says "You think you are hidden." But due to the mechanic of Advantage when attacking from a hidden position (which automatically destroys that condition), he had to tell me if I was attacking at Advantage or not, which tells me exactly what the situation was.
And question: Are you saying you made the Stealth roll for the player's attempt to Hide?
You are hiding when you take the hide action. The DM may not even ask you to roll stealth yet, but nonetheless that is when it starts. It ends when you stop hiding or are detected.
Hidden is not a condition. It is more like a relationship between 2 creatures. You can be hidden from some creatures while not being hidden from others.
Careful - this way lies madness, if you press too hard on that particular piece of RAW. I don't recommend obsessing over it.
That's interesting af. Does the DM then tell the player how confident they feel they performed the task well? That could be a truly excellent way to handle e.g. Perception - 1-4 and 17-20 both result in high confidence.
Yeah, I like it. A lot more work for the DM, and some players will whine about you "taking their fun away", but I think it adds more realism and suspense to the game. I believe this can be applied to many many different skill checks.
Hmmmm....passive thresholds. Trying to get my head around that one. Definitely see that working for Perception. Insight.....I can visualize you as the DM actively rolls a Deception Check, and then compare that number to the passive of each player, which would be the same concept as Hide and Passive Perception.
How do you handle Survival, or maybe Nature? While I can see some skill checks a "always active rolls", like Sleight of Hand, or Acrobatics, I can see Survival, Nature, maybe others, in some kind of grey area. What percentage of checks at your table are "active" versus "passive"?
Yes, this is great if the DM is willing to work out in what contexts a poor roll is low confidence or not - with Perception you may not be able to notice what you haven't noticed, for sure, but for Stealth, you'll probably notice if you step on a twig, so check-specific thresholds seem appropriate. And for some checks, knowing how you rolled may be the whole point - e.g. if you're rolling Persuasion, you probably expect feedback on how difficult this person was to persuade. Succeeding with a low check and failing with a high one convey important information that the DM would want to convert to narrative. "You pull out all the stops, but this person just isn't having it." vs. "You half-ass it and this person is nodding so enthusiastically you suspect you have a new ride-or-die buddy, whether you want one or not."
I would think in most games I run or play in, there would indeed be still a lot of active checks, but overall, I think that passive thresholds are something that should be used more often. That in and of itself makes proficiency in skills far more important.
Extra suspense around stealth can be quite fun, but in actual combat it might not be worth the trouble. (Obviously that depends on the table and the DM.) This procedure streamlines things for complex fights:
I will see how I can incorporate more of these thresholds into the game that I run. Don't think I am going to change other DM's minds.
This got some really good replies and gave me a lot of good ideas.
And I'm somewhat satisfied that active or passive checks (contests) to detect/find the hiding character need to beat their Stealth roll, any ties and the character is not detected and remains hidden.
My rule of thumb for Stealth contest ties is based on DC. The active check must meet or exceed the passive one, so whoever is rolling (Stealth or Perception check) must meet or exceed the set score ( Passive Perception or Stealth DC). That falls in line with DC checks and Jeremy Crawford's ruling on twitter saying "When hiding, you want to meet or exceed another creature's passive Perception score."
Right... when hiding you want to meet or beat the passive perception... so tie goes to the hiding character.
Just a different way of saying it really.
No need to obsess. It's one of the most straightforward and concise rules in the game. Only four words.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Generally true, yes. Using cover like that is just a quick-and-dirty guideline for determining what terrain is and isn't good for combat-time hiding.
Really, the whole writeup is pulling together some disparate stuff, and codifying a few bits, to make life a little easier on both DMs and Rogues.