I have a copy of PHB from Gen-Con (actually it's my friend's book, he went to the Gen-Con and brought one back, very lucky of him).
After thoroughly reading it through, I've found that the "Sneaking Rule" actually breaks into five parts. We need to see it all before we can understand how it works. I agree that the current sneak rules isn't the best we could have. It could be better worded, but it's still surely playable and much easier to use than 5e2014. It also allows many cool scenarios to happen that 5e2014 forbids. Me and my friends have tested it during playtest in a similar way, and it turns out to be fine from our experiences.
After we got our PHB, I'm more convinced that many "unsolvable" problems during UA were actually solvable by RAW once we had the whole book, and players were interpreting the rules too radical which made it seemed absurd. Though this is understandable and unavoidable, since we couldn't get the full picture of the whole rules back then. We only had half of the informations from Youtubers chatting.
So, I'll be copying and typing all the rules about "Sneaking", exactly as how they're worded in the book, and explain it how it works, and why some of the current rulings among players would be make Hide completely unusable.
What Are the Rules for Sneaking?
The "Sneak rule" breaks into five parts:
Hide [Action](from rules glossary)
Invisible [Condition](from rules glossary)
Stealth(from skills)
Hiding(from the exploration section)
Passive Perception(from rules glossary)
The specific wording is:
Hide [Action]
With the Hide action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check while you're Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, and you must be out of any enemy's line of sight; if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you.On a successful check, you have the Invisible condition. Make note of your check's total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurs: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component.
and
Invisible [Condition]
When you have the Invisible condition, you experience the following effects.Surprise. If you're Invisible when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.Concealed. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed.Attacks Affected. Attack rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your attack rolls have Advantage. If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature.
This Invisible condition do make you "Invisible", it is the same condition when Invisibility is casted on someone. But instead of being "Transparent", this condition only means you are "Unseen", which "Unseen" is also a valid, commonly used definition of the word "Invisible" that I checked in the dictionaries. It's just games nowadays often make Invisible=Transparent (though they could've just named it "Unseen" and everything would be fine).
But no worries about the sound, cuz Escaping Notice and move silently has always been the part of the description of Stealth Check instead of the Action, just same as 2014 (Hide Action in 2014 also won't make you "unnoticed").
The description of 5e2024 version of Stealth is:
Stealth: Escape notice by moving quietly and hiding behind things.
Once you're hidden, the enemy has to find you with a Search action, or directly finds you with Passive Percepion. Yes, Passive Perception is still in 5e2024.
Passive Perception
Passive Perception is a score that reflects a creature's general awareness of its surroundings. The DM uses this score when determing whether a creature notices something without consciously making a Wisdom (Perception) check. A creature's Passive Perception equals 10 plus the creature's Wisdom (Perception) check bonus. If the creature has Advantage on such checks, increase the score by 5. If the creature has Disadvantage on them, decrease the score by 5. For example, a level 1 character with a Wisdom of 15 and proficiency in Perception has a Passive Perception of 14 (10+2+2). If that character has Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks, the score becomes 19.
If the player beat both of the DC and Passive Perception, then the character would be totally unnoticed.
Though if players are doing something that's easy to be found or heard, like sneaking up to a foe's back in a quiet place, DMs could give enemies Advantages in Perception, thus make their Passive Perception much higher by ganting a +5, by RAW. DMs also still can decide whether is the current situation appropriate for players to take the Hide, as stated in the Exploration section:
Hiding Adventurers and monsters often hide, whether to spy on one another, speak past a guardian, or set an ambush.The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. When you try to hide, you take the Hide action.
Additionally, 5e2024 is just simply making "line of sight" more abstract than 5e2014. There's no rules that tell players that creatures have a 360° of vision anymore. Yes, they have deleted that. Though I can't type it out since it's just simply not there.
This makes when you try to Hide in 5e2024, basically means "try to move silently and escaping notice, by being outside of sight,", and succeeding in the check means you've found your chance that they're not directly looking at you. Maybe enemies were concentrating on a spell currently, so they didn't pay enough attention on you, and providing you a chance to sneak up on them or escape away. Or maybe they were too busy trying to live under your Fighter friend's sword, or just happened to be looking at elsewhere or having a yawn. Anyway, they do not have a 360° of vision for all the time now.
Though, if DMs and players still find the circumstances are too absurd to Hide, then DMs could just declare "you can't Hide currrently", which is RAW.
Or DMs also could just give monsters' Passive Perception a plus five, through granting adavantages to their Perception checks, judging by the situation, which is also RAW. When a player is doing things that "more likely to be found", let the monsters have advantages on their Perception check, even if they weren't specifically looking.
As a result, passing through both of the DC and beating every monster's Passive Perception with their PP potentially raise up 5, isn't an easy thing to do for a character (and all above is based on it's not too absurd to Hide).
But if the character managed to pass it stably, then it does mean the character is a master of stealth who is good at sneaking, there's nothing wrong with them often finding the chance (like a Rogue with RT or a Ranger with PWT).
But if a character at lower levels or lower Stealth somehow luckily passed it, then just narrate it luckily, as it actually happened in the reality. It could be the enemies were distracted by a bird or simply having a yawn.
Examples from Our Playtests
We used this ruling multiple times in the playtests since PP was there (and still there). The best one was the Rogue the in my team dueling a corrupted evil Knight in a quiet sanctuary, but messy enough for Hiding (we had a battle map), and it works well both mechanically and narratively.
The Knight had advantages in Perception checks and +5 to Passive Perception, since it's quiet. But our Elf Trickster picked up Skulker (granting adv in Hide) and Expertised in Stealth.
She was found twice but she lived. Then she began tricking the evil knight with spells, backstabbing, then disappearing, until she followed him behind his back and made an OA while he's looking for her. The Knight was terrified and thought he was fighting with a ghost, and instantly surrendered in scares )
The whole scene was cool, exciting and movie-like, which we've never experienced in 5e, since the rules simply forbidden us back then. There weren't many "absurd" situation happening that make us couldn't accept. Our DM would just say no if we tried to do something absurd, things like trying to Hide behind a busket in an empty room then walk out of the only exit that two guards are watching (of course we didn't try that!).
Why Enemies Immediately "Finds You" After Moving Out of Covers Makes Hide Completely Unusable, If We Rule Like That?
Then, I'll be explaining why the RAW definitely not works like the subtitle writes.
Some players thought that the "enemy finds you" does not require enemies to take the Search action or the Passive Perception, but they can just "see" you and find you as you walk out of the Cover or the Heavily Obscured Areas. Even though Invisibility is using the same condition.
Here, I'd like to quote another comment I've seen before:
"The problem with this is that by being outside of an enemy's field of view or in a heavily obscured area, you can't be seen/the enemy is blind to you anyway. So why ever take the hide action? Why would the hide action give you invisibility that only works when nobody's looking at you?"
Though some still argues the Invisible condition will gets you Advantages to Initiative and to hit others, and enemies get disadvantage to hit you--which is almost impossible. Hide would be literally useless if we rule like that, except Advantage in Initiative.
Simple reasons:
Disadvantages in Attacks: Enemies already had disadvantages when attacking you if you were in Heavily Obscured. Escaping notice won't be useful either in most cases. If everything didn't happen in pitch black, players would have no where to go but that small area.
Behind a Cover: Even you if Hided behind a Total Cover, the Invisible condition still breaks immediately when the enemies move around the Total Cover in order to attack you. And the enemy would definitely know where to "find" you since you can't walk out of the cover and move your place. This basically means enemies never attack you in disadvantage from your "hiding".
Three-Quaters Cover:Three-Quaters Cover can't block your enemies' sight completely, hiding behind a Three-Quaters Cover immediately breaks your condition as the second you succeed in Hide.
Advantages with Ranged Attacks: A player can't attack enemies with advantages in Heavily Obscured areas or behind a Total Cover, without moving to a place where the player can see and aim the enemy? If you had Blindsense, then staying in Heavily Obscured has already granted you Advantages. Blindsense also can't fix the Total Cover problem.
Advantages with Melee Attacks: Players can NEVER attack an enemy with advantage in Melee after hiding in 5e2024 if we rule it like this. Since you have to walk out of the cover or the obscured areas to reach the enemy.
Actually, ruling like that negates almost every benefit of hiding, and completely blocks Melee Attacks from the benefit of Hide. The enemies also won't be having Disadvantage attacking you in almost every situation. And this is literally making Hiding more useless and even much worse than 5e, which I consider it impossible since designers are clearly trying to make everything more useful than it was in 5e.
To pvove this point, there's an interesting thing during the playtest:
5e2024 Playtest had a version of Stealth rule works exactly like it in the UA (Check UA2). One step out of the Cover and you're spotted, then designers deleted it. They figured it out that Hide would be completely useless if rules are like that, so they deleted it afterwards. As for current version, try to comprehend the word "Invisible" another way. It's more like "Unseen", which is also a valid definition of Invisible in dictionaries. Invisible is not "Transparent". It hasn't to be magical.
There's also a solid proof to prove moving out of Cover wouldn't make you spotted instantly. The Thief Rogue ability, Supreme Sneak. If being in line of sight (without a high enough passive perception) was sufficient to reveal you, this ability wouldn't work.
Supreme Attack You gain the following Cunning Strike options. Stealth Attack (Cost: 1d6). If you have the Hide action's Invisible condition, this attack doesn't end that condition on you if you end the turn behind Three-Quaters Cover or Total Cover.
Conclusion
Designers, in my perspective, intend to make the Hide action more useful like any other Actions and fix the Action-Economy.
Players are very likely to gain benefits from other Actions simply just by taking it. But in 5e2014, players were using their Action to hide, and there'd still be a great chance for that benefit somehow vanishes immediately just by you or the enemies moving, basically without a cost to be countered, and the designers don't seem to want that anymore.
I think they just want players to have a greater chance benefiting from their Action when they take the Hide. They also want enemies to have a bigger chance to be forced into taking an Action as well for countering the players who spent their Action, thus making the Action-Economy more even.
Another point is, there's been a whole bunch of spells and other features that were written in a "not very making sense" way, but players always can find the way that make it sounds reasonable for their stories. This is DnD after all, a super fantasy world with super-natural forces and dragons, not a realistic Medieval simulator. Adventurers doing something that looks like a bit super-human isn't a big thing.
If DMs and players find the circumstances are too absurd to Hide, then just say "you can't Hide currrently". This is also RAW after all.
Or, DMs could just give monsters Adavantages to their Perception checks when a player is doing things that "more likely to be found", thus making their Passive Perception +5 and raise the DC, which is also RAW.
As for "walk right to their face", well, you're not walking to their faces if you took and passed the Stealth check, since the check itself literally means you try to "move unnoticed", and you are unnoticed in a stealthy way when you succeed, as the Stealth's skill description explained. Unless somehow your player or your DM wanna piss you off, just don't roleplay like that (except both the players and DM happily feel it a good time for some humor).
To my opinion, designers just try to let players use Hide action as something simple and easy that tells you "Okay, if you're not forbidden to Hide, and succeed it, beat everyone's Passive Perception, then you must have found the moment when enemies got distracted or simply not looking at you", which I think it's not that hard for DMs and Players to work together make up a little cool, narratively reasonable sneaking scenario.
Especially at lower levels, players might not be able to find the moment that easily and walk out of the wall unnoticed, since DC15+Passive Check+Potential Plus Five is still quite high. But at higher levels when a Rogue or a Ranger has become a Thief Master or a Elite Hunter? Why not?
Try to imagine how Batman disappears. Especially, technically speaking, everything in a round happens together in that 6 seconds. You are finding a place to Hide and sneak up to a foe's back while your Caster friends glittering and your Warrior friends roaring and charging to the enemies' face, simultaneosly in that 6 seconds, even if you rolled a highest Initiative. I'm sure in most of the cases, there'd be enough chaos on the battlefield for a Adventurer to have the chance to go "disappear", and could be fixed narratively.
Ending
I'm writing a lot today, which I haven't for a long time. Cuz I really like the new edition and the new Hiding. It brought me and my friends lots of joys without causing too much troubles. I just feel the new rule has been overly criticized before, due to many players haven't got the chance to see the whole picture of it yet before, which is understandable and unavoidable.
Though, sure it is definitely not the best. It still has issues like "does grappling break the Hide" or "can teammate see you" etc., but I think these are minor issues that could be easily fixed by DMs and future Sage Advice. Grappling was a Attack Roll during UA, but they changed it when the playtest was almost over. I guess they forget to change the Hide rule accordingly.
Back to the topic, I just want to share all the rules, the "history" of the rules, and my understandings to other players who haven't seen the whole book yet, and it'd be nice if this post helped some people in trying the new edition. I certainly believe and support that players are encouraged to houserule things they don't like at their table. But interpreting the RAW in possible wrong ways is something different, though this is due to objective reasons for many of us only have the parts of the rules before.
I really hope this post could help people have a better understanding of the new rule. I'm also not 100% sure I'm right tho, but it'd be great if this leads to a new commonly supported understanding of the RAW. Especially we've finally have a (almost?) playable RAW that allows us to do cool things here.
Thanks for reading!
Edit: These are rules about Search action and Pereception skill,
and here they are:
Search [Action] When you take the Search action, you make a Wisdom check to discern something that isn't obvious. The Search table suggests which skills are applicable when you take this action, depending on what you're trying to detect.
Skill
Thing to Detect
Insight
Creature's state of mind
Medicine
Creature's ailment of cause of death
Perception
Concealed creature of object
Survival
Tracks or food
and
Perception: Using a combination of senses, notice something that's easy to miss.
[...] Additionally, 5e2024 is just simply making "line of sight" more abstract than 5e2014. There's no rules that tell players that creatures have a 360° of vision anymore. Yes, they have deleted that. Though I can't type it out since it's just simply not there.
This makes when you try to Hide in 5e2024, basically means "try to move silently and escaping notice, by being outside of sight,", and succeeding in the check means you've found your chance that they're not directly looking at you. [...]
Where is the term "line of sight" or 360° of vision defined in the 2014 PHB? The text "line of sight" is used throughout the book in some feats and spells, but not properly defined, or am I wrong?
We do have this in the paragraph on Hiding, though: "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."
AFAIK, "line of sight" is defined in the DMG (chapter 8) when playing on a grid.
I'm mentioning this because the 2024 DMG might provide more details or guidance about hiding, line of sight, etc.
If to conceal yourself, you must be out of any enemy's line of sight, i expect there will be ways to determine line of sight in grid play, like DMG 2014 and perhaps more guidance on how to handle the Hide action.
Designers, in my perspective, intend to make the Hide action more useful like any other Actions and fix the Action-Economy.
Well, they failed horribly in that case, the action cost for detecting hidden targets is far too high.
Also, as a side effect, they actually made hiding worse for actually hiding, as opposed to gaining combat advantage, because it no longer has any effect on whether your enemies know your position, and it is automatically penetrated by any sense that can see invisible.
Which is it? Or do you have to roll a 15+ and beat all the enemies' perception checks?
You have to roll a 15+. If your opponents take the search action, they need to beat your total. Whether it's possible to find you without a search action, and what, if any, roll is required, is undefined.
Which is it? Or do you have to roll a 15+ and beat all the enemies' perception checks?
You have to roll a 15+. If your opponents take the search action, they need to beat your total. Whether it's possible to find you without a search action, and what, if any, roll is required, is undefined.
Ah, that makes sense. Does the search action require an entire main action?
Let's say Goon 1 does the search action and sees you. Does that give you away to everyone? Can Goon 1 shout "there she blows!" and your position is compromised to everyone?
We do have this in the paragraph on Hiding, though: "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."
Yes, this is the part that I was referring to. Back in 5e, it simply became 360° of vision in the end. Many players interpreted it like that, and nothing seemed to be wrong.
Yes, this is the part that I was referring to. Back in 5e, it simply became 360° of vision in the end. Many players interpreted it like that, and nothing seemed to be wrong.
That's because you don't need stealth to backstab in melee combat -- you just need an ally adjacent to the target -- and by and large if you don't have that prerequisite it isn't appropriate to sneak up on someone to start with.
We do have this in the paragraph on Hiding, though: "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."
Yes, this is the part that I was referring to. [...]
I don't think the Devs intended you to be able to Hide, move anywhere in enemy's line of sight and remain Invisible. Either the Passive Perception score or a free Wisdom (Perception) check will be used, this if the enemy doesn't automatically finds you.
If it's not the case, i expect it will be in the first batch of errata.
Which is it? Or do you have to roll a 15+ and beat all the enemies' perception checks?
You have to roll a 15+. If your opponents take the search action, they need to beat your total. Whether it's possible to find you without a search action, and what, if any, roll is required, is undefined.
I'm not sure about that ...
"Make note of your check's total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check."
The hide check defines the required DC for a perception check to find you.
"Passive Perception
Passive Perception is a score that reflects a creature's general awareness of its surroundings. The DM uses this score when determing whether a creature notices something without consciously making a Wisdom (Perception) check."
Passive perception still exists and is used to determine whether a creature notices something without explicitly making a Perception check.
In this case, I would think that if the Passive Perception exceeds the DC set by the creature making the hide check then the hidden creature is noticed without needing to take a search action. (Which is much like the 2014 rules except worded differently - the main difference is the addition of the DC15 requirement to successfully hide at all. A creature needs to roll at least 15 on stealth to hide - if the number rolled is lower than a creature's passive perception then they will be noticed as soon as they are no longer behind cover or heavily obscured).
This makes sense to me since it seemed ludicrous that a level 1 character could successfully hide from an Ancient Dragon with a roll of 15+ on a stealth check. Retaining passive perception means that this situation won't come up.
However, I don't have the 2024 rule book yet so I can't tell for sure ... and, as always, rules are open to interpretation.
Adventurers and monsters often hide, whether to spy on one another, speak past a guardian, or set an ambush.The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. When you try to hide, you take the Hide action.
Additionally, 5e2024 is just simply making "line of sight" more abstract than 5e2014. There's no rules that tell players that creatures have a 360° of vision anymore. Yes, they have deleted that. Though I can't type it out since it's just simply not there.
This makes when you try to Hide in 5e2024, basically means "try to move silently and escaping notice, by being outside of sight,", and succeeding in the check means you've found your chance that they're not directly looking at you. Maybe enemies were concentrating on a spell currently, so they didn't pay enough attention on you, and providing you a chance to sneak up on them or escape away. Or maybe they were too busy trying to live under your Fighter friend's sword, or just happened to be looking at elsewhere or having a yawn. Anyway, they do not have a 360° of vision for all the time now.
I disagree. I don't see anything in these rules that would allow a creature to sneak up behind another creature that is alert, paying attention for threats and looking around them. I also don't see anything that would allow a creature that makes a stealth check to walk across in front of another creature that was looking at them.
From the invisible condition: "Concealed. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you." and "If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature."
If you are just hiding and you are no longer behind something that provides three-quarters cover, full cover, or heavy obscurement then you are visible as soon as you walk out from behind whatever cover you were using (assuming that the creature is alert and looking around as would be the case in combat) to hide so you are not considered invisible because the creature can see you.
Examples from Our Playtests
We used this ruling multiple times in the playtests since PP was there (and still there). The best one was the Rogue the in my team dueling a corrupted evil Knight in a quiet sanctuary, but messy enough for Hiding (we had a battle map), and it works well both mechanically and narratively.
The Knight had advantages in Perception checks and +5 to Passive Perception, since it's quiet. But our Elf Trickster picked up Skulker (granting adv in Hide) and Expertised in Stealth.
She was found twice but she lived. Then she began tricking the evil knight with spells, backstabbing, then disappearing, until she followed him behind his back and made an OA while he's looking for her. The Knight was terrified and thought he was fighting with a ghost, and instantly surrendered in scares )
The whole scene was cool, exciting and movie-like, which we've never experienced in 5e, since the rules simply forbidden us back then. There weren't many "absurd" situation happening that make us couldn't accept. Our DM would just say no if we tried to do something absurd, things like trying to Hide behind a busket in an empty room then walk out of the only exit that two guards are watching (of course we didn't try that!).
Nope. Might have been fun and is completely up to DM discretion but it wouldn't work in a game I was running since it makes no sense that an alert, aware creature looking all around them can't see the rogue standing right there. Why bother having invisibility spells if stealth lets you be completely unnoticeable standing in full sight of a creature? I think you had lots of fun but both misread and misinterpreted the rules you have cited above.
P.S. If your DM is playing with optional facing rules for creatures then there might be circumstances where you could sneak up behind another creature but in general it would not occur whether or not the comment about looking in all directions is explicitly included in the 2024 rules or not.
So, you can pop behind a pillar, take the hide action, and then just waltz away from the pillar completely invisible?? Shouldn't reentering the creature's line of sight end this condition?
This would allow a Rogue who was being watched by an enemy to go behind a pillar, BA Hide, then walk out, invisible, and stab the enemy who watched them walk behind a pillar at advantage and trigger sneak attack.
This seems like horrible wording and should/will likely get errata'd pretty quickly.
So, you can pop behind a pillar, take the hide action, and then just waltz away from the pillar completely invisible?? Shouldn't reentering the creature's line of sight end this condition?
This would allow a Rogue who was being watched by an enemy to go behind a pillar, BA Hide, then walk out, invisible, and stab the enemy who watched them walk behind a pillar at advantage and trigger sneak attack.
This seems like horrible wording and should/will likely get errata'd pretty quickly.
The invisible condition (which you get when you hide) states:
"If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature."
"You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you."
So if a creature with the invisible condition walks somewhere where they are seen then they lose the benefits (the only one they might retain is advantage on initiative and if you are in combat already it doesn't matter). So a rogue hiding behind a tree and walking out from behind it, loses the benefits of the invisible condition as soon as they are seen.
Having the invisible condition doesn't make the creature actually "invisible" in terms of being unable to be seen. It just gives you certain benefits against creatures that can't see you.
So, you can pop behind a pillar, take the hide action, and then just waltz away from the pillar completely invisible?? Shouldn't reentering the creature's line of sight end this condition?
This would allow a Rogue who was being watched by an enemy to go behind a pillar, BA Hide, then walk out, invisible, and stab the enemy who watched them walk behind a pillar at advantage and trigger sneak attack.
This seems like horrible wording and should/will likely get errata'd pretty quickly.
The invisible condition (which you get when you hide) states:
"If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature."
"You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you."
So if a creature with the invisible condition walks somewhere where they are seen then they lose the benefits (the only one they might retain is advantage on initiative and if you are in combat already it doesn't matter). So a rogue hiding behind a tree and walking out from behind it, loses the benefits of the invisible condition as soon as they are seen.
Having the invisible condition doesn't make the creature actually "invisible" in terms of being unable to be seen. It just gives you certain benefits against creatures that can't see you.
So is the 5.5e version of Invisibility useless or worded differently?
The invisibility spell grants the invisible condition, nothing else. There are a couple ways of interpreting what the hide rules mean, but all of them are kind of bad.
Since hide requires heavy obscurement or 3/4 cover, your opponent can 'see' you when you no longer have one of those things. That makes hide almost totally useless.
Your opponent can 'see' you if they have an ability that sees invisible. This means hide is completely useless against anything with see invisibility, blindsense, or truesight, but you can otherwise walk through the middle of a room and remain unseen.
They expect the DM to figure this out on the fly, and give absolutely no guidelines for what it means. This means it will be the subject of perennial disputes.
What, if anything, passive score does is undefined.
It will all be defined in a book just not released yet. Rules for the Hide action, Passive Perception score are defined in the PHB and guidelines to adjudicate various rules, in the DMG.
It will all be defined in a book just not released yet. Rules for the Hide action, Passive Perception score are defined in the PHB and guidelines to adjudicate various rules, in the DMG.
I would not bet on that, and it's bad design -- a player should be able to read the rules in the PHB and actually figure out how their abilities will normally work (though even a statement along the lines of "The DM will decide whether a situation permits you to become or remain hidden" would make the rules better).
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I have a copy of PHB from Gen-Con (actually it's my friend's book, he went to the Gen-Con and brought one back, very lucky of him).
After thoroughly reading it through, I've found that the "Sneaking Rule" actually breaks into five parts. We need to see it all before we can understand how it works. I agree that the current sneak rules isn't the best we could have. It could be better worded, but it's still surely playable and much easier to use than 5e2014. It also allows many cool scenarios to happen that 5e2014 forbids. Me and my friends have tested it during playtest in a similar way, and it turns out to be fine from our experiences.
After we got our PHB, I'm more convinced that many "unsolvable" problems during UA were actually solvable by RAW once we had the whole book, and players were interpreting the rules too radical which made it seemed absurd. Though this is understandable and unavoidable, since we couldn't get the full picture of the whole rules back then. We only had half of the informations from Youtubers chatting.
So, I'll be copying and typing all the rules about "Sneaking", exactly as how they're worded in the book, and explain it how it works, and why some of the current rulings among players would be make Hide completely unusable.
What Are the Rules for Sneaking?
The "Sneak rule" breaks into five parts:
The specific wording is:
and
This Invisible condition do make you "Invisible", it is the same condition when Invisibility is casted on someone. But instead of being "Transparent", this condition only means you are "Unseen", which "Unseen" is also a valid, commonly used definition of the word "Invisible" that I checked in the dictionaries. It's just games nowadays often make Invisible=Transparent (though they could've just named it "Unseen" and everything would be fine).
But no worries about the sound, cuz Escaping Notice and move silently has always been the part of the description of Stealth Check instead of the Action, just same as 2014 (Hide Action in 2014 also won't make you "unnoticed").
The description of 5e2024 version of Stealth is:
Once you're hidden, the enemy has to find you with a Search action, or directly finds you with Passive Percepion. Yes, Passive Perception is still in 5e2024.
If the player beat both of the DC and Passive Perception, then the character would be totally unnoticed.
Though if players are doing something that's easy to be found or heard, like sneaking up to a foe's back in a quiet place, DMs could give enemies Advantages in Perception, thus make their Passive Perception much higher by ganting a +5, by RAW. DMs also still can decide whether is the current situation appropriate for players to take the Hide, as stated in the Exploration section:
Additionally, 5e2024 is just simply making "line of sight" more abstract than 5e2014. There's no rules that tell players that creatures have a 360° of vision anymore. Yes, they have deleted that. Though I can't type it out since it's just simply not there.
This makes when you try to Hide in 5e2024, basically means "try to move silently and escaping notice, by being outside of sight,", and succeeding in the check means you've found your chance that they're not directly looking at you. Maybe enemies were concentrating on a spell currently, so they didn't pay enough attention on you, and providing you a chance to sneak up on them or escape away. Or maybe they were too busy trying to live under your Fighter friend's sword, or just happened to be looking at elsewhere or having a yawn. Anyway, they do not have a 360° of vision for all the time now.
Though, if DMs and players still find the circumstances are too absurd to Hide, then DMs could just declare "you can't Hide currrently", which is RAW.
Or DMs also could just give monsters' Passive Perception a plus five, through granting adavantages to their Perception checks, judging by the situation, which is also RAW. When a player is doing things that "more likely to be found", let the monsters have advantages on their Perception check, even if they weren't specifically looking.
As a result, passing through both of the DC and beating every monster's Passive Perception with their PP potentially raise up 5, isn't an easy thing to do for a character (and all above is based on it's not too absurd to Hide).
But if the character managed to pass it stably, then it does mean the character is a master of stealth who is good at sneaking, there's nothing wrong with them often finding the chance (like a Rogue with RT or a Ranger with PWT).
But if a character at lower levels or lower Stealth somehow luckily passed it, then just narrate it luckily, as it actually happened in the reality. It could be the enemies were distracted by a bird or simply having a yawn.
Examples from Our Playtests
We used this ruling multiple times in the playtests since PP was there (and still there). The best one was the Rogue the in my team dueling a corrupted evil Knight in a quiet sanctuary, but messy enough for Hiding (we had a battle map), and it works well both mechanically and narratively.
The Knight had advantages in Perception checks and +5 to Passive Perception, since it's quiet. But our Elf Trickster picked up Skulker (granting adv in Hide) and Expertised in Stealth.
She was found twice but she lived. Then she began tricking the evil knight with spells, backstabbing, then disappearing, until she followed him behind his back and made an OA while he's looking for her. The Knight was terrified and thought he was fighting with a ghost, and instantly surrendered in scares )
The whole scene was cool, exciting and movie-like, which we've never experienced in 5e, since the rules simply forbidden us back then. There weren't many "absurd" situation happening that make us couldn't accept. Our DM would just say no if we tried to do something absurd, things like trying to Hide behind a busket in an empty room then walk out of the only exit that two guards are watching (of course we didn't try that!).
Why Enemies Immediately "Finds You" After Moving Out of Covers Makes Hide Completely Unusable, If We Rule Like That?
Then, I'll be explaining why the RAW definitely not works like the subtitle writes.
Some players thought that the "enemy finds you" does not require enemies to take the Search action or the Passive Perception, but they can just "see" you and find you as you walk out of the Cover or the Heavily Obscured Areas. Even though Invisibility is using the same condition.
Here, I'd like to quote another comment I've seen before:
"The problem with this is that by being outside of an enemy's field of view or in a heavily obscured area, you can't be seen/the enemy is blind to you anyway. So why ever take the hide action? Why would the hide action give you invisibility that only works when nobody's looking at you?"
Though some still argues the Invisible condition will gets you Advantages to Initiative and to hit others, and enemies get disadvantage to hit you--which is almost impossible. Hide would be literally useless if we rule like that, except Advantage in Initiative.
Simple reasons:
Actually, ruling like that negates almost every benefit of hiding, and completely blocks Melee Attacks from the benefit of Hide. The enemies also won't be having Disadvantage attacking you in almost every situation. And this is literally making Hiding more useless and even much worse than 5e, which I consider it impossible since designers are clearly trying to make everything more useful than it was in 5e.
To pvove this point, there's an interesting thing during the playtest:
5e2024 Playtest had a version of Stealth rule works exactly like it in the UA (Check UA2). One step out of the Cover and you're spotted, then designers deleted it. They figured it out that Hide would be completely useless if rules are like that, so they deleted it afterwards. As for current version, try to comprehend the word "Invisible" another way. It's more like "Unseen", which is also a valid definition of Invisible in dictionaries. Invisible is not "Transparent". It hasn't to be magical.
There's also a solid proof to prove moving out of Cover wouldn't make you spotted instantly. The Thief Rogue ability, Supreme Sneak. If being in line of sight (without a high enough passive perception) was sufficient to reveal you, this ability wouldn't work.
Conclusion
Designers, in my perspective, intend to make the Hide action more useful like any other Actions and fix the Action-Economy.
Players are very likely to gain benefits from other Actions simply just by taking it. But in 5e2014, players were using their Action to hide, and there'd still be a great chance for that benefit somehow vanishes immediately just by you or the enemies moving, basically without a cost to be countered, and the designers don't seem to want that anymore.
I think they just want players to have a greater chance benefiting from their Action when they take the Hide. They also want enemies to have a bigger chance to be forced into taking an Action as well for countering the players who spent their Action, thus making the Action-Economy more even.
Another point is, there's been a whole bunch of spells and other features that were written in a "not very making sense" way, but players always can find the way that make it sounds reasonable for their stories. This is DnD after all, a super fantasy world with super-natural forces and dragons, not a realistic Medieval simulator. Adventurers doing something that looks like a bit super-human isn't a big thing.
If DMs and players find the circumstances are too absurd to Hide, then just say "you can't Hide currrently". This is also RAW after all.
Or, DMs could just give monsters Adavantages to their Perception checks when a player is doing things that "more likely to be found", thus making their Passive Perception +5 and raise the DC, which is also RAW.
As for "walk right to their face", well, you're not walking to their faces if you took and passed the Stealth check, since the check itself literally means you try to "move unnoticed", and you are unnoticed in a stealthy way when you succeed, as the Stealth's skill description explained. Unless somehow your player or your DM wanna piss you off, just don't roleplay like that (except both the players and DM happily feel it a good time for some humor).
To my opinion, designers just try to let players use Hide action as something simple and easy that tells you "Okay, if you're not forbidden to Hide, and succeed it, beat everyone's Passive Perception, then you must have found the moment when enemies got distracted or simply not looking at you", which I think it's not that hard for DMs and Players to work together make up a little cool, narratively reasonable sneaking scenario.
Especially at lower levels, players might not be able to find the moment that easily and walk out of the wall unnoticed, since DC15+Passive Check+Potential Plus Five is still quite high. But at higher levels when a Rogue or a Ranger has become a Thief Master or a Elite Hunter? Why not?
Try to imagine how Batman disappears. Especially, technically speaking, everything in a round happens together in that 6 seconds. You are finding a place to Hide and sneak up to a foe's back while your Caster friends glittering and your Warrior friends roaring and charging to the enemies' face, simultaneosly in that 6 seconds, even if you rolled a highest Initiative. I'm sure in most of the cases, there'd be enough chaos on the battlefield for a Adventurer to have the chance to go "disappear", and could be fixed narratively.
Ending
I'm writing a lot today, which I haven't for a long time. Cuz I really like the new edition and the new Hiding. It brought me and my friends lots of joys without causing too much troubles. I just feel the new rule has been overly criticized before, due to many players haven't got the chance to see the whole picture of it yet before, which is understandable and unavoidable.
Though, sure it is definitely not the best. It still has issues like "does grappling break the Hide" or "can teammate see you" etc., but I think these are minor issues that could be easily fixed by DMs and future Sage Advice. Grappling was a Attack Roll during UA, but they changed it when the playtest was almost over. I guess they forget to change the Hide rule accordingly.
Back to the topic, I just want to share all the rules, the "history" of the rules, and my understandings to other players who haven't seen the whole book yet, and it'd be nice if this post helped some people in trying the new edition. I certainly believe and support that players are encouraged to houserule things they don't like at their table. But interpreting the RAW in possible wrong ways is something different, though this is due to objective reasons for many of us only have the parts of the rules before.
I really hope this post could help people have a better understanding of the new rule. I'm also not 100% sure I'm right tho, but it'd be great if this leads to a new commonly supported understanding of the RAW. Especially we've finally have a (almost?) playable RAW that allows us to do cool things here.
Thanks for reading!
Edit: These are rules about Search action and Pereception skill,
and here they are:
Skill
Thing to Detect
Insight
Creature's state of mind
Medicine
Creature's ailment of cause of death
Perception
Concealed creature of object
Survival
Tracks or food
and
Where is the term "line of sight" or 360° of vision defined in the 2014 PHB? The text "line of sight" is used throughout the book in some feats and spells, but not properly defined, or am I wrong?
We do have this in the paragraph on Hiding, though: "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."
AFAIK, "line of sight" is defined in the DMG (chapter 8) when playing on a grid.
I'm mentioning this because the 2024 DMG might provide more details or guidance about hiding, line of sight, etc.
If to conceal yourself, you must be out of any enemy's line of sight, i expect there will be ways to determine line of sight in grid play, like DMG 2014 and perhaps more guidance on how to handle the Hide action.
Well, they failed horribly in that case, the action cost for detecting hidden targets is far too high.
Also, as a side effect, they actually made hiding worse for actually hiding, as opposed to gaining combat advantage, because it no longer has any effect on whether your enemies know your position, and it is automatically penetrated by any sense that can see invisible.
Hide [Action]
To do so, you must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check
and
Make note of your check's total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.
Which is it? Or do you have to roll a 15+ and beat all the enemies' perception checks?
You have to roll a 15+. If your opponents take the search action, they need to beat your total. Whether it's possible to find you without a search action, and what, if any, roll is required, is undefined.
Ah, that makes sense. Does the search action require an entire main action?
Let's say Goon 1 does the search action and sees you. Does that give you away to everyone? Can Goon 1 shout "there she blows!" and your position is compromised to everyone?
Yes, Search action requires a whole action to be used, but DM could also use Passive Perception in certain circumstances.
Yes, this is the part that I was referring to. Back in 5e, it simply became 360° of vision in the end. Many players interpreted it like that, and nothing seemed to be wrong.
That's because you don't need stealth to backstab in melee combat -- you just need an ally adjacent to the target -- and by and large if you don't have that prerequisite it isn't appropriate to sneak up on someone to start with.
Ok, ok, thanks!
I don't think the Devs intended you to be able to Hide, move anywhere in enemy's line of sight and remain Invisible. Either the Passive Perception score or a free Wisdom (Perception) check will be used, this if the enemy doesn't automatically finds you.
If it's not the case, i expect it will be in the first batch of errata.
I'm not sure about that ...
"Make note of your check's total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check."
The hide check defines the required DC for a perception check to find you.
"Passive Perception
Passive Perception is a score that reflects a creature's general awareness of its surroundings. The DM uses this score when determing whether a creature notices something without consciously making a Wisdom (Perception) check."
Passive perception still exists and is used to determine whether a creature notices something without explicitly making a Perception check.
In this case, I would think that if the Passive Perception exceeds the DC set by the creature making the hide check then the hidden creature is noticed without needing to take a search action. (Which is much like the 2014 rules except worded differently - the main difference is the addition of the DC15 requirement to successfully hide at all. A creature needs to roll at least 15 on stealth to hide - if the number rolled is lower than a creature's passive perception then they will be noticed as soon as they are no longer behind cover or heavily obscured).
This makes sense to me since it seemed ludicrous that a level 1 character could successfully hide from an Ancient Dragon with a roll of 15+ on a stealth check. Retaining passive perception means that this situation won't come up.
However, I don't have the 2024 rule book yet so I can't tell for sure ... and, as always, rules are open to interpretation.
I disagree. I don't see anything in these rules that would allow a creature to sneak up behind another creature that is alert, paying attention for threats and looking around them. I also don't see anything that would allow a creature that makes a stealth check to walk across in front of another creature that was looking at them.
From the invisible condition: "Concealed. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you." and "If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature."
If you are just hiding and you are no longer behind something that provides three-quarters cover, full cover, or heavy obscurement then you are visible as soon as you walk out from behind whatever cover you were using (assuming that the creature is alert and looking around as would be the case in combat) to hide so you are not considered invisible because the creature can see you.
Nope. Might have been fun and is completely up to DM discretion but it wouldn't work in a game I was running since it makes no sense that an alert, aware creature looking all around them can't see the rogue standing right there. Why bother having invisibility spells if stealth lets you be completely unnoticeable standing in full sight of a creature? I think you had lots of fun but both misread and misinterpreted the rules you have cited above.
P.S. If your DM is playing with optional facing rules for creatures then there might be circumstances where you could sneak up behind another creature but in general it would not occur whether or not the comment about looking in all directions is explicitly included in the 2024 rules or not.
So, you can pop behind a pillar, take the hide action, and then just waltz away from the pillar completely invisible?? Shouldn't reentering the creature's line of sight end this condition?
This would allow a Rogue who was being watched by an enemy to go behind a pillar, BA Hide, then walk out, invisible, and stab the enemy who watched them walk behind a pillar at advantage and trigger sneak attack.
This seems like horrible wording and should/will likely get errata'd pretty quickly.
The invisible condition (which you get when you hide) states:
"If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature."
"You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you."
So if a creature with the invisible condition walks somewhere where they are seen then they lose the benefits (the only one they might retain is advantage on initiative and if you are in combat already it doesn't matter). So a rogue hiding behind a tree and walking out from behind it, loses the benefits of the invisible condition as soon as they are seen.
Having the invisible condition doesn't make the creature actually "invisible" in terms of being unable to be seen. It just gives you certain benefits against creatures that can't see you.
So is the 5.5e version of Invisibility useless or worded differently?
Or would they need some sort of See Invisibility?
The invisibility spell grants the invisible condition, nothing else. There are a couple ways of interpreting what the hide rules mean, but all of them are kind of bad.
What, if anything, passive score does is undefined.
It will all be defined in a book just not released yet. Rules for the Hide action, Passive Perception score are defined in the PHB and guidelines to adjudicate various rules, in the DMG.
I would not bet on that, and it's bad design -- a player should be able to read the rules in the PHB and actually figure out how their abilities will normally work (though even a statement along the lines of "The DM will decide whether a situation permits you to become or remain hidden" would make the rules better).