You nornally notice other creatures that are within the limit of your perception. The DM establish those limits. If walls or distance limit perception somehow, you do not notice anyone, wether invisible or not.
If I cast invisibility, nobody can see me but know where he is until he moves.
If I move the players can make a perception check if they have some senses like hearing/smell/environment and depending on the role I give an area of 4,9,16 squares of the location. (usually, if the roll difference is less than 5 then 16 squares, if between 5-10 then 9 squares, if it's more than 10 then 4 squares). If the players don't have any senses they don't roll on my movement but can roll a perception check as their action with disadvantage.
If the NPC uses hide with invisibility then even with the senses they have a disadvantage and if you use perception as an action with no extra sense you do it with a disadvantage and a - 5
If you use an AOE and it hits then you are shown the location of the NPC until its turn but the NPC still keeps its invisibility status giving a disadvantage to attacks.
As long as you and your players understand that everything you've said there is homebrew then that's fine of course, and it seems like in your case you all are aware of this.
As far as the rules go, when an invisible creature moves their location remains known. It's particularly harsh if you require a perception check to try to find a hidden invisible creature and then even if they succeed they still only have certainty to within 4 - 16 squares. By rule, a successful perception check should find a hidden creature which reveals their exact location. There is also nothing in the rules about perception checks happening at disadvantage (AND a penalty of -5??) to find a hidden creature -- it's just a contest of stealth vs perception. Of course, if there is some situational reason for it the DM can always apply disadvantage to any roll. There is also no general rule about being hit by an AOE attack that reveals the location of a hidden creature.
You do not automatically know the position of invisible creatures. This has been covered.
Your DM decides if the invisible creatures may have created noise or left tracks. If they have, then they'll tell you if you know where the creature is or not.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A invisible creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves so as DM to determine if it isn't the case i use Hiding rules.
Exactly. The default is that the location is known unless the invisible creature makes an effort to remain silent. This effort is determined by the rules for hiding.
Being silent requires no effort. Objects are typically really silent. Rocks? Not making a whole lot of noise.
No.
As usual, the DM makes common sense ruling for what makes a lot of noise and what doesn't.
If you have a vendetta against the invisibility condition, and you're the DM, you're totally free to say people make an absurd amount of noise while they're invisible. That sonehow being invisible is like having an amplifier for every sound you make.
That is your prerogative.
But if you don't have a vendetta against the invisibility condition, and you're the DM, you're well within your rights to use common sense for how much noise things make. This is the expected behaviour as described within the 5e guidance to DMs.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
If the creature is invisible but not hidden I'll just leave the mini/token on the map in its actual location since everyone still knows roughly where it is (enough to attack and know they at least have a chance of hitting).
However, if a creature is invisible and then hides, I'll leave the mini in the location where they disappeared as an indicator of last known location, then track the actual location in secret (assuming a map of squares I usually just take a note of their offset relative to the "last known" mini) or some other landmark in the area and score it out for new coordinates whenever they move. This is a pain in the ass though so depending on context I might just use a second "invisible" (transparent) mini for the actual location, and trust the players to act as their characters would; this usually works fine when the invisible enemy isn't the only one, as the players have something else to attack instead, but when you need the tension of the thing truly being invisible to them you have to do it the hard way.
A big advantage of digital maps is you can just use two tokens, one visible and one hidden, which makes running it "properly" a lot easier.
Where things get even more complicated is if you have some players that can see the enemy and some that can't, e.g- if one casts true seeing, or that rolls high enough on Perception etc.; in this case I prefer to give that player character a chance to communicate their knowledge but there's no guarantee it's good enough to give up the actual location. Or they can just move over to it and yell "it's here!", but even that isn't guaranteed depending upon timing.
Basically I try to run it as "correctly" as possible because that's part of the challenge/fun of something being invisible, otherwise you make it too easy. I think most players will generally try not to metagame too much, but it always feels weird when you're trying to behave correctly when you know something the character wouldn't, so the more a DM can avoid that, the better.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
No vendetta against the invisible condition, just logical rules interpretation here, which is also supported by the Dev in different outlets such as Twitter or DragonTalk podcast.
Invisible is different than unseen. In fact, you can see an invisible creature in some cases. So you're saying you can see something while it is unseen. Which is false.
Again, I know this really trips people up because they want a more concrete answer, but, your DM determines what you see and don't see. They determine what you hear and don't hear.
Blindsense is not a default character ability or assumption. You can't automatically hear all creatures in existence. Which is what you're claiming.
Hiding is "a" way to be unseen and unheard. Sure. But it isn't "the only" way. Which is what is being claimed here despite being obviously false on the face of the claim. Eg. A creature on the other side of the plant is both unseen and unheard. Hiding or not.
Again, that's because your DM makes this call. Not you. Not me. Your DM decides who and what you see and hear.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
What you are saying just doesn't line up with 5e rules. This is closer to how invisibility used to work in some previous versions, but not 5e. In 5e, there is an Invisible condition listed in Appendix A and it says what it says. There is no reference to hearing being affected by a creature being invisible, so by default another creature can hear an invisible creature just the same as they can hear a visible creature. When a visible creature ducks behind full cover, by default in 5e they can still be heard until they attempt to hide -- making an effort to become unheard. That's the whole purpose of the rules for hiding.
Just assume that creatures in the D&D universe have super hearing such that they can hear each other breathing. A creature must make a conscious effort to hold their breath or substantially quiet their own breathing to become undetectable. Obviously don't take this paragraph that I'm writing literally -- the rules do not say these exact things -- I'm providing a way of thinking about how the rules actually work as written. Creatures make noise unless they successfully try not to make noise.
The default is that creatures can hear each other unless there are other environmental factors involved which might cause the deafened condition to creatures in the area or at least enough other background noise that will make creature noises indistinguishable or undetectable. And since you keep bringing up the creature on the other side of the planet as if it's relevant to the conversation, we can consider distance or range to be one of those environmental factors. The core books do not provide much in the way of guidance or rules for the range or distance from which creatures can hear each other so yes in that sense you are correct that this particular thing will have to be determined by the DM.
Invisible is different than unseen. In fact, you can see an invisible creature in some cases. So you're saying you can see something while it is unseen. Which is false.
If you see an invisible or hidden creature it's not unseen. But normally an invisible creature is impossible to see, so it is unseen until perceived somehow. Just like a hidden creature is both unseen and unheard until perceived.
Hiding is "a" way to be unseen and unheard. Sure. But it isn't "the only" way. Which is what is being claimed here despite being obviously false on the face of the claim. Eg. A creature on the other side of the plant is both unseen and unheard. Hiding or not.
RAW being hidden - both unseen and unheard - lies in Stealth rules. What other rules as written specifically do so?
Strictly going by rules if you go on the other side of a rock or plant does not makes you hidden - both unseen and unheard - unless you take Hide action, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check and have a score that can be contested by other creature's Wisdom (Perception) check score to have a chance to find you. Rules typically have such visual or physical obstruction grant some level of cover or obscurement but a DM can certainly make different ruling with or without rules support.
One problem with a DM ruling you are automatically silent when not seen behind total cover or in heavily obscured area is that its free action that has no score to contest and be possibly heard.
When a visible creature ducks behind full cover, by default in 5e they can still be heard until they attempt to hide -- making an effort to become unheard. That's the whole purpose of the rules for hiding.
I'm not sure that's quite right; if you saw/heard a creature go behind a rock and it then hides, you still know it's behind the rock, it hiding doesn't mean you suddenly forget it's there just because it's being extra quiet.
The benefit of hiding from something that already knows you're in the area is more about moving than staying still; once behind the rock, a creature that hides can then (so long as it remains unseen) move somewhere else. If it just stays behind the rock it's only "hidden" in the sense that it might have moved, but all it takes is for a creature to go over to the rock and look to reveal that it didn't.
But that's part of the benefit of being invisible, because you can't (normally) be automatically revealed by being spotted in that way, and you have more freedom in where you move to. So unless the creature has reason to suspect you're invisible behind the rock, it has no reason to attack that space; but if it does suspect you might be invisible, and didn't hear you move away, it is free to attack that space (with disadvantage) just to be sure, in which case it may well hit you if you didn't move away, or it will automatically miss if you did.
On the other hand if a creature isn't aware of you yet, then hiding behind a rock and staying still is perfectly reasonable (it has no idea you're there, so has no reason to look unless it's already searching around for something).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
One problem with a DM ruling you are automatically silent when not seen behind total cover or in heavily obscured area is that its free action that has no score to contest and be possibly heard.
I think the DM is still free to interpret it as a hiding attempt, since they're the one that decides when/if checks are necessary?
But during combat there definitely isn't a free action to become hidden, the Hide action exists specifically to make it harder to do if you also want to do other things in the same turn (and is why getting it as a bonus action is useful), otherwise that action would be completely redundant.
You could certainly argue that once you're in cover and not moving that you're now quiet, but the act of getting into that cover is going to be noisy by default, so everybody that can hear knows you're there already, so being both unseen and "unheard" in that case is of absolutely no benefit to you. The purpose of hiding isn't simply be unheard, it's to remain unheard which is the important bit, because unless you're unheard the entire time you're moving, your position is still known.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
One problem with a DM ruling you are automatically silent when not seen behind total cover or in heavily obscured area is that its free action that has no score to contest and be possibly heard.
I agree with this in principle, but I'm not sure that it makes much difference in the grand scheme of things. Outside of initiative, I would expect the lack of a stealth roll just means that searching would be extremely easy. Within initiative, a creature behind cover who is "passively hidden" (and I acknowledge that not all parties accept that this is possible, but for the sake of argument...) doesn't seem to be any more or any less of a viable target than a creature who is behind total cover, and you can hear them.
When a visible creature ducks behind full cover, by default in 5e they can still be heard until they attempt to hide -- making an effort to become unheard. That's the whole purpose of the rules for hiding.
I'm not sure that's quite right; if you saw/heard a creature go behind a rock and it then hides, you still know it's behind the rock, it hiding doesn't mean you suddenly forget it's there just because it's being extra quiet.
. . .
On the other hand if a creature isn't aware of you yet, then hiding behind a rock and staying still is perfectly reasonable (it has no idea you're there, so has no reason to look unless it's already searching around for something).
Great point Haravikk! I agree with this. If there is a small area behind full cover but no where else to move from there then that situation should fall under this section of the rules for Hiding:
The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.
The DM should simply explain that this rock will provide full cover but that a creature cannot attempt to Hide there during the battle since the creature's location would still be known.
Within initiative, a creature behind cover who is "passively hidden" (and I acknowledge that not all parties accept that this is possible, but for the sake of argument...) doesn't seem to be any more or any less of a viable target than a creature who is behind total cover, and you can hear them.
This is another really good point. Being Hidden does not actually provide much benefit. In terms of direct benefits, it only makes it so that you cannot be directly targeted by an attack -- the attacker must "guess the square" instead. But you are already "untargetable" while behind full cover.
Of course, the indirect benefit is that your location is unknown, which can provide some longer term tactical advantages. For example, if an enemy knows that you are at a specific location behind full cover, he can plan out and then execute movement such that he can get into a better position to make an attack that bypasses the cover. On the other hand, if you were hidden, then that enemy might make this same movement only to discover that you are not actually there and now he has wasted his movement and is not any closer to being able to target you with an attack.
To me outside combat even though a creature has all the time to hide, i'd still use Stealth check to produce a score, even more so in combat where time and action is more tightly tracked.
To me outside combat even though a creature has all the time to hide, i'd still use Stealth check to produce a score, even more so in combat where time and action is more tightly tracked.
Out of initiative, yeah, I would say they tried to hide. And if they had enough time to prepare, they got a 20 on their stealth check, for whatever that works out to because why not? They had the time to get it right.
In initiative, they get what they get, but as Haravikk pointed out above, if you're in the middle of combat and a gnoll runs behind a big rock and remains perfectly still and quiet and out of sight without attempting to hide, you might no longer be able to detect its presence, but you just watched a gnoll run behind a rock, so you know it's most likely behind that rock at least in the short term and whether or not we want to consider it to be passively hidden, it has already negated the one benefit that hiding has over invisibility/cover, which is that you don't know where it is.
So again, I'm agreeing with you on the details. I just don't think it really matters.
What is getting glossed over is that there are millions or even billions of creatures in the world. They're not all in the act if taking the hide action. Yet you do not automatically know where they are.
But somehow you argue that is the case? That while in combat you automatically know all creatures locations in existence? Unless they take the hide action?
So you wanna track down the evil BBEG. All you need to do is spar with the fighter in your party and as soon as you roll initiative you gain cosmic awareness of the exact location of all creatures?
Nothing about that is supported in the rules of 5e.
No. The DM determines who and what you might be aware of. Nothing is automatic. If he determines they're not visible to you then they're not. If he determines you can't hear them then you can't.
If he decides there is a chance you might? Perception. Heck he can even determine no roll is necessary and you automatically detect them, that's an option too.
Again, what you see and hear is absolutely determined by the DM. And that's 100% RAW.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
You nornally notice other creatures that are within the limit of your perception. The DM establish those limits. If walls or distance limit perception somehow, you do not notice anyone, wether invisible or not.
I use these rules for my campaign.
If I cast invisibility, nobody can see me but know where he is until he moves.
If I move the players can make a perception check if they have some senses like hearing/smell/environment and depending on the role I give an area of 4,9,16 squares of the location. (usually, if the roll difference is less than 5 then 16 squares, if between 5-10 then 9 squares, if it's more than 10 then 4 squares). If the players don't have any senses they don't roll on my movement but can roll a perception check as their action with disadvantage.
If the NPC uses hide with invisibility then even with the senses they have a disadvantage and if you use perception as an action with no extra sense you do it with a disadvantage and a - 5
If you use an AOE and it hits then you are shown the location of the NPC until its turn but the NPC still keeps its invisibility status giving a disadvantage to attacks.
As long as you and your players understand that everything you've said there is homebrew then that's fine of course, and it seems like in your case you all are aware of this.
As far as the rules go, when an invisible creature moves their location remains known. It's particularly harsh if you require a perception check to try to find a hidden invisible creature and then even if they succeed they still only have certainty to within 4 - 16 squares. By rule, a successful perception check should find a hidden creature which reveals their exact location. There is also nothing in the rules about perception checks happening at disadvantage (AND a penalty of -5??) to find a hidden creature -- it's just a contest of stealth vs perception. Of course, if there is some situational reason for it the DM can always apply disadvantage to any roll. There is also no general rule about being hit by an AOE attack that reveals the location of a hidden creature.
You do not automatically know the position of invisible creatures. This has been covered.
Your DM decides if the invisible creatures may have created noise or left tracks. If they have, then they'll tell you if you know where the creature is or not.
Blindsense is not default.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A invisible creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves so as DM to determine if it isn't the case i use Hiding rules.
Exactly. The default is that the location is known unless the invisible creature makes an effort to remain silent. This effort is determined by the rules for hiding.
Being silent requires no effort. Objects are typically really silent. Rocks? Not making a whole lot of noise.
No.
As usual, the DM makes common sense ruling for what makes a lot of noise and what doesn't.
If you have a vendetta against the invisibility condition, and you're the DM, you're totally free to say people make an absurd amount of noise while they're invisible. That sonehow being invisible is like having an amplifier for every sound you make.
That is your prerogative.
But if you don't have a vendetta against the invisibility condition, and you're the DM, you're well within your rights to use common sense for how much noise things make. This is the expected behaviour as described within the 5e guidance to DMs.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
If the creature is invisible but not hidden I'll just leave the mini/token on the map in its actual location since everyone still knows roughly where it is (enough to attack and know they at least have a chance of hitting).
However, if a creature is invisible and then hides, I'll leave the mini in the location where they disappeared as an indicator of last known location, then track the actual location in secret (assuming a map of squares I usually just take a note of their offset relative to the "last known" mini) or some other landmark in the area and score it out for new coordinates whenever they move. This is a pain in the ass though so depending on context I might just use a second "invisible" (transparent) mini for the actual location, and trust the players to act as their characters would; this usually works fine when the invisible enemy isn't the only one, as the players have something else to attack instead, but when you need the tension of the thing truly being invisible to them you have to do it the hard way.
A big advantage of digital maps is you can just use two tokens, one visible and one hidden, which makes running it "properly" a lot easier.
Where things get even more complicated is if you have some players that can see the enemy and some that can't, e.g- if one casts true seeing, or that rolls high enough on Perception etc.; in this case I prefer to give that player character a chance to communicate their knowledge but there's no guarantee it's good enough to give up the actual location. Or they can just move over to it and yell "it's here!", but even that isn't guaranteed depending upon timing.
Basically I try to run it as "correctly" as possible because that's part of the challenge/fun of something being invisible, otherwise you make it too easy. I think most players will generally try not to metagame too much, but it always feels weird when you're trying to behave correctly when you know something the character wouldn't, so the more a DM can avoid that, the better.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
No vendetta against the invisible condition, just logical rules interpretation here, which is also supported by the Dev in different outlets such as Twitter or DragonTalk podcast.
Invisible = unseen
Hidden = unseen and unheard
Invisible is different than unseen. In fact, you can see an invisible creature in some cases. So you're saying you can see something while it is unseen. Which is false.
Again, I know this really trips people up because they want a more concrete answer, but, your DM determines what you see and don't see. They determine what you hear and don't hear.
Blindsense is not a default character ability or assumption. You can't automatically hear all creatures in existence. Which is what you're claiming.
Hiding is "a" way to be unseen and unheard. Sure. But it isn't "the only" way. Which is what is being claimed here despite being obviously false on the face of the claim. Eg. A creature on the other side of the plant is both unseen and unheard. Hiding or not.
Again, that's because your DM makes this call. Not you. Not me. Your DM decides who and what you see and hear.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
What you are saying just doesn't line up with 5e rules. This is closer to how invisibility used to work in some previous versions, but not 5e. In 5e, there is an Invisible condition listed in Appendix A and it says what it says. There is no reference to hearing being affected by a creature being invisible, so by default another creature can hear an invisible creature just the same as they can hear a visible creature. When a visible creature ducks behind full cover, by default in 5e they can still be heard until they attempt to hide -- making an effort to become unheard. That's the whole purpose of the rules for hiding.
Just assume that creatures in the D&D universe have super hearing such that they can hear each other breathing. A creature must make a conscious effort to hold their breath or substantially quiet their own breathing to become undetectable. Obviously don't take this paragraph that I'm writing literally -- the rules do not say these exact things -- I'm providing a way of thinking about how the rules actually work as written. Creatures make noise unless they successfully try not to make noise.
The default is that creatures can hear each other unless there are other environmental factors involved which might cause the deafened condition to creatures in the area or at least enough other background noise that will make creature noises indistinguishable or undetectable. And since you keep bringing up the creature on the other side of the planet as if it's relevant to the conversation, we can consider distance or range to be one of those environmental factors. The core books do not provide much in the way of guidance or rules for the range or distance from which creatures can hear each other so yes in that sense you are correct that this particular thing will have to be determined by the DM.
If you see an invisible or hidden creature it's not unseen. But normally an invisible creature is impossible to see, so it is unseen until perceived somehow. Just like a hidden creature is both unseen and unheard until perceived.
RAW being hidden - both unseen and unheard - lies in Stealth rules. What other rules as written specifically do so?
Strictly going by rules if you go on the other side of a rock or plant does not makes you hidden - both unseen and unheard - unless you take Hide action, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check and have a score that can be contested by other creature's Wisdom (Perception) check score to have a chance to find you. Rules typically have such visual or physical obstruction grant some level of cover or obscurement but a DM can certainly make different ruling with or without rules support.
One problem with a DM ruling you are automatically silent when not seen behind total cover or in heavily obscured area is that its free action that has no score to contest and be possibly heard.
I'm not sure that's quite right; if you saw/heard a creature go behind a rock and it then hides, you still know it's behind the rock, it hiding doesn't mean you suddenly forget it's there just because it's being extra quiet.
The benefit of hiding from something that already knows you're in the area is more about moving than staying still; once behind the rock, a creature that hides can then (so long as it remains unseen) move somewhere else. If it just stays behind the rock it's only "hidden" in the sense that it might have moved, but all it takes is for a creature to go over to the rock and look to reveal that it didn't.
But that's part of the benefit of being invisible, because you can't (normally) be automatically revealed by being spotted in that way, and you have more freedom in where you move to. So unless the creature has reason to suspect you're invisible behind the rock, it has no reason to attack that space; but if it does suspect you might be invisible, and didn't hear you move away, it is free to attack that space (with disadvantage) just to be sure, in which case it may well hit you if you didn't move away, or it will automatically miss if you did.
On the other hand if a creature isn't aware of you yet, then hiding behind a rock and staying still is perfectly reasonable (it has no idea you're there, so has no reason to look unless it's already searching around for something).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I think the DM is still free to interpret it as a hiding attempt, since they're the one that decides when/if checks are necessary?
But during combat there definitely isn't a free action to become hidden, the Hide action exists specifically to make it harder to do if you also want to do other things in the same turn (and is why getting it as a bonus action is useful), otherwise that action would be completely redundant.
You could certainly argue that once you're in cover and not moving that you're now quiet, but the act of getting into that cover is going to be noisy by default, so everybody that can hear knows you're there already, so being both unseen and "unheard" in that case is of absolutely no benefit to you. The purpose of hiding isn't simply be unheard, it's to remain unheard which is the important bit, because unless you're unheard the entire time you're moving, your position is still known.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I agree with this in principle, but I'm not sure that it makes much difference in the grand scheme of things. Outside of initiative, I would expect the lack of a stealth roll just means that searching would be extremely easy. Within initiative, a creature behind cover who is "passively hidden" (and I acknowledge that not all parties accept that this is possible, but for the sake of argument...) doesn't seem to be any more or any less of a viable target than a creature who is behind total cover, and you can hear them.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Great point Haravikk! I agree with this. If there is a small area behind full cover but no where else to move from there then that situation should fall under this section of the rules for Hiding:
The DM should simply explain that this rock will provide full cover but that a creature cannot attempt to Hide there during the battle since the creature's location would still be known.
This is another really good point. Being Hidden does not actually provide much benefit. In terms of direct benefits, it only makes it so that you cannot be directly targeted by an attack -- the attacker must "guess the square" instead. But you are already "untargetable" while behind full cover.
Of course, the indirect benefit is that your location is unknown, which can provide some longer term tactical advantages. For example, if an enemy knows that you are at a specific location behind full cover, he can plan out and then execute movement such that he can get into a better position to make an attack that bypasses the cover. On the other hand, if you were hidden, then that enemy might make this same movement only to discover that you are not actually there and now he has wasted his movement and is not any closer to being able to target you with an attack.
To me outside combat even though a creature has all the time to hide, i'd still use Stealth check to produce a score, even more so in combat where time and action is more tightly tracked.
Out of initiative, yeah, I would say they tried to hide. And if they had enough time to prepare, they got a 20 on their stealth check, for whatever that works out to because why not? They had the time to get it right.
In initiative, they get what they get, but as Haravikk pointed out above, if you're in the middle of combat and a gnoll runs behind a big rock and remains perfectly still and quiet and out of sight without attempting to hide, you might no longer be able to detect its presence, but you just watched a gnoll run behind a rock, so you know it's most likely behind that rock at least in the short term and whether or not we want to consider it to be passively hidden, it has already negated the one benefit that hiding has over invisibility/cover, which is that you don't know where it is.
So again, I'm agreeing with you on the details. I just don't think it really matters.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
What is getting glossed over is that there are millions or even billions of creatures in the world. They're not all in the act if taking the hide action. Yet you do not automatically know where they are.
But somehow you argue that is the case? That while in combat you automatically know all creatures locations in existence? Unless they take the hide action?
So you wanna track down the evil BBEG. All you need to do is spar with the fighter in your party and as soon as you roll initiative you gain cosmic awareness of the exact location of all creatures?
Nothing about that is supported in the rules of 5e.
No. The DM determines who and what you might be aware of. Nothing is automatic. If he determines they're not visible to you then they're not. If he determines you can't hear them then you can't.
If he decides there is a chance you might? Perception. Heck he can even determine no roll is necessary and you automatically detect them, that's an option too.
Again, what you see and hear is absolutely determined by the DM. And that's 100% RAW.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.