As written, we have absolutely no information about what behaviors, other than the ones specifically mentioned in the hide action, cause you to no longer be hidden.
The action states how it ends: "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." If you don't do any of those three things (and the DM doesn't just fiat rule that you can't hide), you stay hidden.
I honestly do not understand why this argument continues to be made in this thread.
The Hide action makes it clear that "hiding" is an ongoing activity. As such, if you stop doing that activity then you are no longer doing that activity. That shouldn't need to be written anywhere. That is already a generally understood mechanic which appears all over the place in the game.
If you stop swimming, then you are no longer swimming.
If you stop climbing, then you are no longer climbing.
If you stop flying, then you are no longer flying.
If you stop concentrating on a spell, then you are no longer concentrating on that spell.
If you stop resting, then you are no longer resting.
and so on.
. . . If you stop hiding, then you are no longer hiding.
The Hide action makes it clear that "hiding" is an ongoing activity.
Not at all.
Swimming/climbing/flying are types of movement. Concentrating and resting are ongoing activities. Hiding is just an action (capital-A Action, even). Once you've made your stealth roll and whatnot, you are done hiding, and are now hidden. This is tied to a condition and several riders. "Come out of cover" is not in the list of things that stop you from being hidden. They literally issued an errata for that very sentence and did not add that as a condition; its omission is pretty clearly deliberate.
Also, they don't say "you stop hiding when you [do anything else]..." they say "You stop being hidden immediately after..." It's not an ongoing activity at all.
. . . If you stop hiding, then you are no longer hiding.
And this means... what exactly? Most of your examples are movement modes, not actions, and I assume we aren't expected to take the hide action every turn while hidden. The only example you give of an ongoing effect that is an action to start is concentration, and that has very specific mechanics for what ends it.
Leaning on the notion that there is wiggle room for the DM to rule Stealth invalid isn't a strong argument. There's such wiggle room for everything in D&D.
The real question is whether you're a good DM or a bad DM.
A good DM is one that tells players in session zero "magic doesn't work in this world". A bad DM is one who lets a player roll up a Wizard and then only informs them when they decide to cast a spell that it doesn't work because it's a non-magical world.
The same is true of skills like Stealth. If you're going to make your world a no-Stealth world, that's fine. But tell your players up front and don't expect them to guess that you're going to use DM fiat every time they use the skill. Bear in mind that we already have explicit game mechanics to deal with virtually every objection people have made about Stealth - Advantage and Disadvantage on the roll. Ruling Stealth impossible outside of the explicit conditions for its use should be extremely rare.
The Hide action makes it clear that "hiding" is an ongoing activity.
Not at all.
Swimming/climbing/flying are types of movement. Concentrating and resting are ongoing activities. Hiding is just an action (capital-A Action, even). Once you've made your stealth roll and whatnot, you are done hiding, and are now hidden. This is tied to a condition and several riders. "Come out of cover" is not in the list of things that stop you from being hidden. They literally issued an errata for that very sentence and did not add that as a condition; its omission is pretty clearly deliberate.
Also, they don't say "you stop hiding when you [do anything else]..." they say "You stop being hidden immediately after..." It's not an ongoing activity at all.
Hiding is an ongoing activity. This is clear from the text for the Hide action:
Mostly this:
Make note of your check’s total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.
You stop being hidden immediately after any of the following occurs
To go from not hiding to hidden is an action (the Hide action). To maintain the state of being hidden is an ongoing activity, as evidenced by the fact that the text requires you to save the value of your Stealth check for later use. The check isn't just for determining if you are able to transition from not hiding to hidden. It is also explicitly used to determine if you are able to remain hidden in the future.
. . . If you stop hiding, then you are no longer hiding.
And this means... what exactly? Most of your examples are movement modes, not actions, and I assume we aren't expected to take the hide action every turn while hidden. The only example you give of an ongoing effect that is an action to start is concentration, and that has very specific mechanics for what ends it.
Let me just give a quick example.
Imagine that some kids are playing Hide-and-Seek. A child decides to Hide in some bushes in order to avoid being found. As the game continues onward, he continues to make an effort to carefully remain hidden in these bushes on an ongoing basis.
Eventually, the child hears the dinner bell and some parents calling out to the children. The child emerges from the bushes, "strolls" across the lawn of his backyard, and "wanders" into his house along with the other children from the game. They all gather around the dinner table, sit down in their chairs and enjoy some spaghetti and meatballs.
At this point, it is safe to say that the child has stopped hiding and therefore he is no longer hidden.
It's common sense.
When he stopped hiding, he was no longer hidden.
This same logic applies to all ongoing activities in life and in the game, whether explicitly written into the rules or not.
Okay, so as long as the player says "I'm still hiding!", he remains hidden? Or is the DM expected to declare "You're no longer hiding"? Or are there supposed to be standards for what it means to no longer be hiding, and if so, what are those standards?
The same is true of skills like Stealth. If you're going to make your world a no-Stealth world, that's fine. But tell your players up front and don't expect them to guess that you're going to use DM fiat every time they use the skill. Bear in mind that we already have explicit game mechanics to deal with virtually every objection people have made about Stealth - Advantage and Disadvantage on the roll. Ruling Stealth impossible outside of the explicit conditions for its use should be extremely rare.
First of all, nobody has been saying anything about making Stealth impossible in general so I'm not sure why you keep saying that.
But more importantly, you don't just "use the skill" whenever you feel like doing something easily that should be virtually impossible. A player doesn't just say something like "I use my stealth skill, so I can walk around without being noticed by anybody". A character doesn't get to just select from a list of superpowers.
This seems like a simple misunderstanding of the role that skills play in the game.
A skill is just a proficiency that makes you "a little bit better" at certain kinds of tasks than other characters are:
Most ability checks involve using a skill, which represents a category of things creatures try to do with an ability check.
. . .
The DM has the ultimate say on whether a skill is relevant in a situation.
. . .
If a creature is proficient in a skill, the creature applies its Proficiency Bonus to ability checks involving that skill. Without proficiency in a skill, a creature can still make ability checks involving that skill but doesn’t add its Proficiency Bonus.
So, mechanically, a skill is just a modifier that gets added to an ability check.
But remember, a DM does not always ask for an ability check. Instead, a DM may ask for a check when the outcome is uncertain. When the outcome is certain, the DM can just declare the situation to be an auto-success or an auto-fail with no roll required:
You roll a d20 whenever your character tries to do something that the DM decides has a chance of both success and failure.
When the outcome of an action is uncertain, the game uses a d20 roll to determine success or failure. These rolls are called D20 Tests, and they come in three kinds: ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls
An ability check represents a creature using talent and training to try to overcome a challenge . . . The DM and the rules often call for an ability check when a creature attempts something other than an attack that has a chance of meaningful failure. When the outcome is uncertain and narratively interesting, the dice determine the result.
Add your Proficiency Bonus to an ability check when the DM determines that a skill or tool proficiency is relevant to the check and you have that proficiency.
You, the player, do not get to decide that you will be automatically successful at a task because you have decided to "use your skill". The DM makes these determinations.
The player informs the DM what activity his character wishes to attempt. The player doesn't ask to roll a die, and he doesn't ask to make a check. He describes what his character is attempting to do. The DM then determines if that activity will be automatically successful or will automatically fail or if the outcome will be uncertain. If the DM decides that the outcome is uncertain, he might ask the player to make a particular ability check to determine the outcome. The DM will inform the player which skills are applicable to such a roll.
The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. If the DM decides that you cannot hide, then you cannot hide. In no way whatsoever does that mean that the player should then erase the Stealth skill from his character sheet because he is playing in a no-Stealth world. That would be ridiculous.
Okay, so as long as the player says "I'm still hiding!", he remains hidden? Or is the DM expected to declare "You're no longer hiding"? Or are there supposed to be standards for what it means to no longer be hiding, and if so, what are those standards?
I agree with you that there should be more explicit guidance for such things.
The point that I was making is that as a starting point at least we should recognize that the list which reads: "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" is not an exhaustive list of things that will cause you to stop being hidden because of the simple fact that when you stop hiding you will obviously stop being hidden.
What exactly it means to stop hiding seems to have been left up to the DM to adjudicate, and more guidance on that topic would certainly be helpful.
Okay, so as long as the player says "I'm still hiding!", he remains hidden? Or is the DM expected to declare "You're no longer hiding"? Or are there supposed to be standards for what it means to no longer be hiding, and if so, what are those standards?
I agree with you that there should be more explicit guidance for such things.
The point that I was making is that as a starting point at least we should recognize that the list which reads: "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" is not an exhaustive list of things that will cause you to stop being hidden because of the simple fact that when you stop hiding you will obviously stop being hidden.
What exactly it means to stop hiding seems to have been left up to the DM to adjudicate, and more guidance on that topic would certainly be helpful.
"an enemy finds you" also has no definition and is left up to DM interpretation. Does an enemy "find you" if the walk near/around your hiding place? Does an enemy "find you" when you pop out of cover to make an attack? Does it require the enemy to use their Action to search?
If it is the last, then a Rogue near a column becomes invincible. Attack, duck behind column, BA hide, repeat. The enemy can never attack you (unless it has some BA way of attacking) because it can never find you without spending its action and with Reliable Talent and Expertise in Stealth, you will never roll less than the 15 DC.
I think that's what truly annoys me with Stealth in this game. The DC to hide should not be 15 no matter what. I think it should be up to the DM to decide it. Like hiding while invisible and wearing the boots of elvenkind should have a very low DC. Meanwhile, hiding from 10ft away behind a tree in dim light should have a DC near 20. It just doesn't make any sense that hiding would have the same DC no matter the circumstances.
Okay, so as long as the player says "I'm still hiding!", he remains hidden? Or is the DM expected to declare "You're no longer hiding"? Or are there supposed to be standards for what it means to no longer be hiding, and if so, what are those standards?
I agree with you that there should be more explicit guidance for such things.
The point that I was making is that as a starting point at least we should recognize that the list which reads: "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" is not an exhaustive list of things that will cause you to stop being hidden because of the simple fact that when you stop hiding you will obviously stop being hidden.
What exactly it means to stop hiding seems to have been left up to the DM to adjudicate, and more guidance on that topic would certainly be helpful.
"an enemy finds you" also has no definition and is left up to DM interpretation. Does an enemy "find you" if the walk near/around your hiding place? Does an enemy "find you" when you pop out of cover to make an attack? Does it require the enemy to use their Action to search?
If it is the last, then a Rogue near a column becomes invincible. Attack, duck behind column, BA hide, repeat. The enemy can never attack you (unless it has some BA way of attacking) because it can never find you without spending its action and with Reliable Talent and Expertise in Stealth, you will never roll less than the 15 DC.
enemy finds you is defined in the preceding text as with a wisdom perception check. (which also mean passive perception)
passive perception can be used in the place of wisdom check to find things, if the Dm believes they would do so without actively trying. Also, dms can call for checks whenever they think there is anything with an unknown outcome with interesting consequences. So its not an issue for DMs
The search action is the way a player can say they choose to search, the dm decides when to use passive perception, call for rolls, or when narrative trumps rules.
If a DM wants to extend 'finds you' beyond that, the dm could do that, But DMs can already trump rules with narrative, so that wouldnt really need to be explicitly allowed.
also hide alone does not make you immune to attack, or spells, it doesnt even guarantee they are not aware of your location. It gives the invisible condition, which means they cant see you, (they may here you) they have advantage attacking people who dont see them, disadvantage being attacked by those who dont see them, and cant be targeted by spells that require sight.
in order for them to be completely unaware of your location, you need to be unseen and unheard, which requires you to be out of hearing range, or be silent by some other means, (spells, effects, or stealth skill)
point being the rogue isnt untouchable because they can hide. Aoes, save effects, and spells that dont need sight work on them, attacks work on them though at disadvantage.
I think that's what truly annoys me with Stealth in this game. The DC to hide should not be 15 no matter what. I think it should be up to the DM to decide it. Like hiding while invisible and wearing the boots of elvenkind should have a very low DC. Meanwhile, hiding from 10ft away behind a tree in dim light should have a DC near 20. It just doesn't make any sense that hiding would have the same DC no matter the circumstances.
the dm can already tell you that you can make any roll at advantage or disadvantage if they feel that applies (that includes your stealth check), that said, being invisible shouldnt offer any additional stats to your stealth check, because you already can't be seen whenever you make a stealth check to hide. It requires you to be heavily obscurree or behind 3/4 to total cover. Also hide and invisible are redundant in 2024, you might want to make stealth check to be silent, but that isnt what hide does.
in addition to that, people get bonuses to find you, or penalties. The DM can decide the situation causes people looking for you to roll at disadvantage. Dim light actually already makes most creatures have disadvantage attacking people who perception checks.
So the stuff you are talking about is already considered in the design
The Hide action makes it clear that "hiding" is an ongoing activity.
Not at all.
Swimming/climbing/flying are types of movement. Concentrating and resting are ongoing activities. Hiding is just an action (capital-A Action, even). Once you've made your stealth roll and whatnot, you are done hiding, and are now hidden. This is tied to a condition and several riders. "Come out of cover" is not in the list of things that stop you from being hidden. They literally issued an errata for that very sentence and did not add that as a condition; its omission is pretty clearly deliberate.
Coming out of cover is not synonymous with stopping to be hiding. It's perfectly possible to come out of cover and remain hiding when there isn't an enemy around, or all the enemies are blind, or you are still obscured by fog, or the enemies are asleep/unconscious, or the enemies are sufficiently distracted, etc...
A Grapple is also a capital A Action, but it is also an on going activity which you can choose to end whenever you wish.
If you're going to make your world a no-Stealth world, that's fine. But tell your players up front and don't expect them to guess that you're going to use DM fiat every time they use the skill.
Why is this any different from any other skill? A DM can make it impossible to track anyone at all, can make a world where there is no food in the wilderness and make Survival irrelevant. They can make a world of zealots and robotic NPCs that will never be persuaded or deceived. They can make a world with super high gravity where jumping is impossible and even climbing stairs requires at Athletic's check. They can make a world with no friction where Acrobatics always fails. They could make a world filled with mist and fog so Perception is all but impossible. Etc.. etc... All of those other examples would be deemed the fault of the DM and bad DMing, why is Stealth the only skill where such rulings are deemed the fault of the rules and the game designers?
Also hide and invisible are redundant in 2024, you might want to make stealth check to be silent, but that isnt what hide does.
This isn't a very good reading of the Hide action in my opinion.
The Hide action causes you to conceal yourself:
you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must succeed . . .
One common English language definition for concealing something is to make knowledge of it or its location "unknown". The Hide action then goes on to use the term "hidden" as a synonym for "concealed". In this game, as a default, this happens by becoming both Unseen and Unheard. The evidence for this concept is found within the general rules for "Unseen Attackers and Targets:
Unseen Attackers and Targets
When you make an attack roll against a target you can’t see, you have Disadvantage on the roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s locationor targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn’t in the location you targeted, you miss.
When a creature can’t see you, you have Advantage on attack rolls against it.
If you are hidden when you make an attack roll, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
Within the Hide action itself there are several references to becoming Unheard. Some of the events that can explicitly happen to cause you to "stop being hidden" are purely auditory in nature:
you make a sound louder than a whisper
. . .
you cast a spell with a Verbal component
In addition, "an enemy finds you" refers to an enemy making a Perception check, which is performed by using:
a combination of senses
a.k.a. both visual and auditory.
So, "on a successful check", the thing that actually happens is that you successfully conceal yourself. This means that you become Unseen and Unheard to your enemies.
The Hide action then goes on to explain what the mechanical benefits of being Unseen and Unheard actually are beyond those benefits that are already mentioned in the general rules in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" section.
In the Unseen category, those benefits are summarized by having the Invisible condition. The "Unseen Attackers and Targets" section covers benefits for being Unseen specifically when you are an Attacker or when you are the Target of an Attack. But the Invisible condition describes the benefits of being Unseen in general. Meaning, also including times when you are NOT an Attacker or a Target of an Attack. So, this has to be explicitly listed here in the Hide action since there is no general rule which fully explains all of the benefits of being generally Unseen.
For example, it is possible to be simply Unseen without actually being "hidden" or Invisible. Perhaps when simply walking normally (loudly) through a dark space. Or, if your enemy is Blinded. The benefits of this are fully described within the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules (and also appear within the Blinded condition and these benefits also comprise 1/3 of the effects experienced when having the Invisible condition). Being "hidden" or Invisible confers more mechanical benefits than just being Unseen. These are listed within the Invisible condition -- 1/3 of these benefits have already been listed within the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules, but the other 2/3 of these benefits are unique to having the Invisible condition.
However, in the Unheard category, there are no additional benefits to being generally Unheard in the game which are not already mentioned in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules. Therefore, even though the Hide action DOES cause you to become generally Unheard, there are no mechanical benefits specifically related to being generally Unheard that must be explicitly stated within the Hide action.
For example, it is possible to be generally Unheard by your enemy if your enemy has the Deafened condition. However, if you look up the Deafened condition, there are really no mechanical benefits to you that are associated with an enemy having this condition. In the special case of being an Unheard Attacker or an Unheard Target of an Attack, the rules and mechanics for that situation are already listed in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules. They do not have to be repeated within the Hide action.
to hide; withdraw or remove from observation; cover or keep from sight: (He concealed the gun under his coat.)
to keep secret; to prevent or avoid disclosing or divulging: (to conceal one's identity by using a false name.)
It's pretty clear that 'remove from sight' is a common definition, and given that the context is consistent with 'make unseen', we can assume, absent other evidence, that 'remove from sight' is accurate.
It's pretty clear that 'remove from sight' is a common definition, and given that the context is consistent with 'make unseen', we can assume, absent other evidence, that 'remove from sight' is accurate.
The context of what? The Hide action? It's quite obvious that the context of the Hide action is to "make unseen and unheard":
Within the Hide action itself there are several references to becoming Unheard. Some of the events that can explicitly happen to cause you to "stop being hidden" are purely auditory in nature:
you make a sound louder than a whisper
. . .
you cast a spell with a Verbal component
In addition, "an enemy finds you" refers to an enemy making a Perception check, which is performed by using:
a combination of senses
a.k.a. both visual and auditory.
There is also the additional context provided by the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rule:
When you make an attack roll against a target you can’t see, you have Disadvantage on the roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s locationor targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn’t in the location you targeted, you miss.
When a creature can’t see you, you have Advantage on attack rolls against it.
If you are hidden when you make an attack roll, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
when i DM, i make hide also double as a stealth check to be silent, however thats not a part of the rules mechanically. They could have said it had that effect, they chose not to. Mechanically it makes you invisible, they never mention any mechanics about hearing.
you say there is no mechanical benefit to being unheard, but you literally pointed to a mechanical benefit of being unheard, hving your location unknown,
Its theoretically possible they intended hide to make you unheard, but its a bit of a glaring ommission. It would have been cery simple to say, you have are hidden and have the invisible condition and people are unaware of your location until they percieve you with a check
there is no clear connection to being unheard in the rule
mechanical rules in 5e don't rely on assumption or context, they would have just said that your location becomes unknown, or you become invisible and unheard. they have a bunch of features and things which interact with sound, like the silent spell, or boots of elvenkind. They are totally capable of being explicit here if that was the intention.
to be clear, hide also counting as a stealth check to be unheard does make sense, but there is nothing in the text to suggest thats what it actually does. You pointing out that speaking louder than a whisper cancels hide isnt really relevent, as you can still be heard without making sounds louder than a whisper. I hear the cat moving all the time, and she isnt louder than a whisper. The hearing rules in the dmg exploration also have people being able to hear you while you are generally silent (below a whisper) at 2d6*5 feet.
so being beneath a whisper is not supposed to represent people can't hear your location in 2024
and The fact that the passage on how being unseen and unheard says you give away your location if you attack makes sense, since the passage is specifically about having an unknown location.
Part of the issue here is that the authors try pretty hard to not put the same rule in more than one place. What being hidden means as well as many of the benefits of being hidden is already written in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rule so they simply aren't going to repeat that here within the text for the Hide action and I don't think that we should expect any errata to do so.
With the recent change to the text of the Hide action, we can see that the author is using the term "concealed" here as a synonym for "hidden". The successful Stealth roll causes the creature to become concealed / hidden, which is already defined elsewhere.
you say there is no mechanical benefit to being unheard, but you literally pointed to a mechanical benefit of being unheard, having your location unknown,
Hmm, it looks like you completely missed what I actually said in my previous post. What I said when it comes to being Unheard was:
However, in the Unheard category, there are no additional benefits to being generally Unheard in the game which are not already mentioned in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules. Therefore, even though the Hide action DOES cause you to become generally Unheard, there are no mechanical benefits specifically related to being generally Unheard that must be explicitly stated within the Hide action.
Again, all of the mechanical benefits related to what it means to be Unheard are already defined elsewhere. That's why those are not listed here.
As for the becoming Unseen portion of becoming hidden, the reason why the Hide action explicitly lists having the Invisible condition while hidden is because the Invisible condition includes some benefits that are NOT already listed within the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules, so this has to be written into the Hide action as one of the things that happens when you successfully conceal yourself.
as you can still be heard without making sounds louder than a whisper. I hear the cat moving all the time, and she isnt louder than a whisper. The hearing rules in the dmg exploration also have people being able to hear you while you are generally silent (below a whisper) at 2d6*5 feet.
so being beneath a whisper is not supposed to represent people can't hear your location in 2024
Well, this is what the Stealth mechanic is attempting to model in a simplified way. Yes, sounds softer than a whisper can be heard -- but that requires a successful Perception check to do that. There is a sliding scale at play here. The quieter and quieter that your cat is moving, the higher the value of the cat's Stealth roll, and the harder it will be for you to hear it with your Perception. Maybe you are listening intently at that moment. Maybe you are passively aware. Maybe there is background noise, or you are currently distracted by being in a conversation with somebody at that moment, and so on. Despite all of that, if your cat suddenly lets out a loud "Meow!" then you will automatically hear that and automatically approximate the location of where that sound came from with no roll required. But at some point, you will no longer automatically hear your cat, it will require some effort to do so.
The Hide action describes all of this if we are willing to read the entirety of its text from beginning to end.
The current iteration of the Hide action actually works pretty well. There are currently two issues which would still benefit from errata:
1. The Invisible condition itself needs to more clearly spell out that a creature with that condition actually is Unseen or cannot be seen. The Hide action is written under the assumption that the Invisible condition functions correctly and currently it does not.
2. The use of the phrase "Line of Sight" needs to be removed and replaced by something more generic such as "must be out of view of all enemies" or "must be currently unseen by all enemies". This would fix the three-quarters cover issue and the ability to actually make an attack from cover while remaining hidden.
and also:
I honestly do not understand why this argument continues to be made in this thread.
The Hide action makes it clear that "hiding" is an ongoing activity. As such, if you stop doing that activity then you are no longer doing that activity. That shouldn't need to be written anywhere. That is already a generally understood mechanic which appears all over the place in the game.
If you stop swimming, then you are no longer swimming.
If you stop climbing, then you are no longer climbing.
If you stop flying, then you are no longer flying.
If you stop concentrating on a spell, then you are no longer concentrating on that spell.
If you stop resting, then you are no longer resting.
and so on.
. . . If you stop hiding, then you are no longer hiding.
This concept is very straightforward.
Not at all.
Swimming/climbing/flying are types of movement. Concentrating and resting are ongoing activities. Hiding is just an action (capital-A Action, even). Once you've made your stealth roll and whatnot, you are done hiding, and are now hidden. This is tied to a condition and several riders. "Come out of cover" is not in the list of things that stop you from being hidden. They literally issued an errata for that very sentence and did not add that as a condition; its omission is pretty clearly deliberate.
Also, they don't say "you stop hiding when you [do anything else]..." they say "You stop being hidden immediately after..." It's not an ongoing activity at all.
And this means... what exactly? Most of your examples are movement modes, not actions, and I assume we aren't expected to take the hide action every turn while hidden. The only example you give of an ongoing effect that is an action to start is concentration, and that has very specific mechanics for what ends it.
Leaning on the notion that there is wiggle room for the DM to rule Stealth invalid isn't a strong argument. There's such wiggle room for everything in D&D.
The real question is whether you're a good DM or a bad DM.
A good DM is one that tells players in session zero "magic doesn't work in this world". A bad DM is one who lets a player roll up a Wizard and then only informs them when they decide to cast a spell that it doesn't work because it's a non-magical world.
The same is true of skills like Stealth. If you're going to make your world a no-Stealth world, that's fine. But tell your players up front and don't expect them to guess that you're going to use DM fiat every time they use the skill. Bear in mind that we already have explicit game mechanics to deal with virtually every objection people have made about Stealth - Advantage and Disadvantage on the roll. Ruling Stealth impossible outside of the explicit conditions for its use should be extremely rare.
Hiding is an ongoing activity. This is clear from the text for the Hide action:
Mostly this:
But also:
and:
To go from not hiding to hidden is an action (the Hide action). To maintain the state of being hidden is an ongoing activity, as evidenced by the fact that the text requires you to save the value of your Stealth check for later use. The check isn't just for determining if you are able to transition from not hiding to hidden. It is also explicitly used to determine if you are able to remain hidden in the future.
Let me just give a quick example.
Imagine that some kids are playing Hide-and-Seek. A child decides to Hide in some bushes in order to avoid being found. As the game continues onward, he continues to make an effort to carefully remain hidden in these bushes on an ongoing basis.
Eventually, the child hears the dinner bell and some parents calling out to the children. The child emerges from the bushes, "strolls" across the lawn of his backyard, and "wanders" into his house along with the other children from the game. They all gather around the dinner table, sit down in their chairs and enjoy some spaghetti and meatballs.
At this point, it is safe to say that the child has stopped hiding and therefore he is no longer hidden.
It's common sense.
When he stopped hiding, he was no longer hidden.
This same logic applies to all ongoing activities in life and in the game, whether explicitly written into the rules or not.
Okay, so as long as the player says "I'm still hiding!", he remains hidden? Or is the DM expected to declare "You're no longer hiding"? Or are there supposed to be standards for what it means to no longer be hiding, and if so, what are those standards?
First of all, nobody has been saying anything about making Stealth impossible in general so I'm not sure why you keep saying that.
But more importantly, you don't just "use the skill" whenever you feel like doing something easily that should be virtually impossible. A player doesn't just say something like "I use my stealth skill, so I can walk around without being noticed by anybody". A character doesn't get to just select from a list of superpowers.
This seems like a simple misunderstanding of the role that skills play in the game.
A skill is just a proficiency that makes you "a little bit better" at certain kinds of tasks than other characters are:
So, mechanically, a skill is just a modifier that gets added to an ability check.
But remember, a DM does not always ask for an ability check. Instead, a DM may ask for a check when the outcome is uncertain. When the outcome is certain, the DM can just declare the situation to be an auto-success or an auto-fail with no roll required:
You, the player, do not get to decide that you will be automatically successful at a task because you have decided to "use your skill". The DM makes these determinations.
The player informs the DM what activity his character wishes to attempt. The player doesn't ask to roll a die, and he doesn't ask to make a check. He describes what his character is attempting to do. The DM then determines if that activity will be automatically successful or will automatically fail or if the outcome will be uncertain. If the DM decides that the outcome is uncertain, he might ask the player to make a particular ability check to determine the outcome. The DM will inform the player which skills are applicable to such a roll.
The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. If the DM decides that you cannot hide, then you cannot hide. In no way whatsoever does that mean that the player should then erase the Stealth skill from his character sheet because he is playing in a no-Stealth world. That would be ridiculous.
I agree with you that there should be more explicit guidance for such things.
The point that I was making is that as a starting point at least we should recognize that the list which reads: "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" is not an exhaustive list of things that will cause you to stop being hidden because of the simple fact that when you stop hiding you will obviously stop being hidden.
What exactly it means to stop hiding seems to have been left up to the DM to adjudicate, and more guidance on that topic would certainly be helpful.
"an enemy finds you" also has no definition and is left up to DM interpretation. Does an enemy "find you" if the walk near/around your hiding place? Does an enemy "find you" when you pop out of cover to make an attack? Does it require the enemy to use their Action to search?
If it is the last, then a Rogue near a column becomes invincible. Attack, duck behind column, BA hide, repeat. The enemy can never attack you (unless it has some BA way of attacking) because it can never find you without spending its action and with Reliable Talent and Expertise in Stealth, you will never roll less than the 15 DC.
I think that's what truly annoys me with Stealth in this game. The DC to hide should not be 15 no matter what. I think it should be up to the DM to decide it. Like hiding while invisible and wearing the boots of elvenkind should have a very low DC. Meanwhile, hiding from 10ft away behind a tree in dim light should have a DC near 20. It just doesn't make any sense that hiding would have the same DC no matter the circumstances.
enemy finds you is defined in the preceding text as with a wisdom perception check. (which also mean passive perception)
passive perception can be used in the place of wisdom check to find things, if the Dm believes they would do so without actively trying. Also, dms can call for checks whenever they think there is anything with an unknown outcome with interesting consequences. So its not an issue for DMs
The search action is the way a player can say they choose to search, the dm decides when to use passive perception, call for rolls, or when narrative trumps rules.
If a DM wants to extend 'finds you' beyond that, the dm could do that, But DMs can already trump rules with narrative, so that wouldnt really need to be explicitly allowed.
also hide alone does not make you immune to attack, or spells, it doesnt even guarantee they are not aware of your location. It gives the invisible condition, which means they cant see you, (they may here you) they have advantage attacking people who dont see them, disadvantage being attacked by those who dont see them, and cant be targeted by spells that require sight.
in order for them to be completely unaware of your location, you need to be unseen and unheard, which requires you to be out of hearing range, or be silent by some other means, (spells, effects, or stealth skill)
point being the rogue isnt untouchable because they can hide. Aoes, save effects, and spells that dont need sight work on them, attacks work on them though at disadvantage.
the dm can already tell you that you can make any roll at advantage or disadvantage if they feel that applies (that includes your stealth check), that said, being invisible shouldnt offer any additional stats to your stealth check, because you already can't be seen whenever you make a stealth check to hide. It requires you to be heavily obscurree or behind 3/4 to total cover. Also hide and invisible are redundant in 2024, you might want to make stealth check to be silent, but that isnt what hide does.
in addition to that, people get bonuses to find you, or penalties. The DM can decide the situation causes people looking for you to roll at disadvantage. Dim light actually already makes most creatures have disadvantage attacking people who perception checks.
So the stuff you are talking about is already considered in the design
Coming out of cover is not synonymous with stopping to be hiding. It's perfectly possible to come out of cover and remain hiding when there isn't an enemy around, or all the enemies are blind, or you are still obscured by fog, or the enemies are asleep/unconscious, or the enemies are sufficiently distracted, etc...
A Grapple is also a capital A Action, but it is also an on going activity which you can choose to end whenever you wish.
Why is this any different from any other skill? A DM can make it impossible to track anyone at all, can make a world where there is no food in the wilderness and make Survival irrelevant. They can make a world of zealots and robotic NPCs that will never be persuaded or deceived. They can make a world with super high gravity where jumping is impossible and even climbing stairs requires at Athletic's check. They can make a world with no friction where Acrobatics always fails. They could make a world filled with mist and fog so Perception is all but impossible. Etc.. etc... All of those other examples would be deemed the fault of the DM and bad DMing, why is Stealth the only skill where such rulings are deemed the fault of the rules and the game designers?
This isn't a very good reading of the Hide action in my opinion.
The Hide action causes you to conceal yourself:
One common English language definition for concealing something is to make knowledge of it or its location "unknown". The Hide action then goes on to use the term "hidden" as a synonym for "concealed". In this game, as a default, this happens by becoming both Unseen and Unheard. The evidence for this concept is found within the general rules for "Unseen Attackers and Targets:
Within the Hide action itself there are several references to becoming Unheard. Some of the events that can explicitly happen to cause you to "stop being hidden" are purely auditory in nature:
In addition, "an enemy finds you" refers to an enemy making a Perception check, which is performed by using:
a.k.a. both visual and auditory.
So, "on a successful check", the thing that actually happens is that you successfully conceal yourself. This means that you become Unseen and Unheard to your enemies.
The Hide action then goes on to explain what the mechanical benefits of being Unseen and Unheard actually are beyond those benefits that are already mentioned in the general rules in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" section.
In the Unseen category, those benefits are summarized by having the Invisible condition. The "Unseen Attackers and Targets" section covers benefits for being Unseen specifically when you are an Attacker or when you are the Target of an Attack. But the Invisible condition describes the benefits of being Unseen in general. Meaning, also including times when you are NOT an Attacker or a Target of an Attack. So, this has to be explicitly listed here in the Hide action since there is no general rule which fully explains all of the benefits of being generally Unseen.
For example, it is possible to be simply Unseen without actually being "hidden" or Invisible. Perhaps when simply walking normally (loudly) through a dark space. Or, if your enemy is Blinded. The benefits of this are fully described within the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules (and also appear within the Blinded condition and these benefits also comprise 1/3 of the effects experienced when having the Invisible condition). Being "hidden" or Invisible confers more mechanical benefits than just being Unseen. These are listed within the Invisible condition -- 1/3 of these benefits have already been listed within the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules, but the other 2/3 of these benefits are unique to having the Invisible condition.
However, in the Unheard category, there are no additional benefits to being generally Unheard in the game which are not already mentioned in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules. Therefore, even though the Hide action DOES cause you to become generally Unheard, there are no mechanical benefits specifically related to being generally Unheard that must be explicitly stated within the Hide action.
For example, it is possible to be generally Unheard by your enemy if your enemy has the Deafened condition. However, if you look up the Deafened condition, there are really no mechanical benefits to you that are associated with an enemy having this condition. In the special case of being an Unheard Attacker or an Unheard Target of an Attack, the rules and mechanics for that situation are already listed in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules. They do not have to be repeated within the Hide action.
Checking https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conceal
Checking https://www.dictionary.com/browse/conceal
It's pretty clear that 'remove from sight' is a common definition, and given that the context is consistent with 'make unseen', we can assume, absent other evidence, that 'remove from sight' is accurate.
The context of what? The Hide action? It's quite obvious that the context of the Hide action is to "make unseen and unheard":
There is also the additional context provided by the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rule:
when i DM, i make hide also double as a stealth check to be silent, however thats not a part of the rules mechanically. They could have said it had that effect, they chose not to. Mechanically it makes you invisible, they never mention any mechanics about hearing.
you say there is no mechanical benefit to being unheard, but you literally pointed to a mechanical benefit of being unheard, hving your location unknown,
Its theoretically possible they intended hide to make you unheard, but its a bit of a glaring ommission. It would have been cery simple to say, you have are hidden and have the invisible condition and people are unaware of your location until they percieve you with a check
there is no clear connection to being unheard in the rule
mechanical rules in 5e don't rely on assumption or context, they would have just said that your location becomes unknown, or you become invisible and unheard. they have a bunch of features and things which interact with sound, like the silent spell, or boots of elvenkind. They are totally capable of being explicit here if that was the intention.
to be clear, hide also counting as a stealth check to be unheard does make sense, but there is nothing in the text to suggest thats what it actually does. You pointing out that speaking louder than a whisper cancels hide isnt really relevent, as you can still be heard without making sounds louder than a whisper. I hear the cat moving all the time, and she isnt louder than a whisper. The hearing rules in the dmg exploration also have people being able to hear you while you are generally silent (below a whisper) at 2d6*5 feet.
so being beneath a whisper is not supposed to represent people can't hear your location in 2024
and The fact that the passage on how being unseen and unheard says you give away your location if you attack makes sense, since the passage is specifically about having an unknown location.
Part of the issue here is that the authors try pretty hard to not put the same rule in more than one place. What being hidden means as well as many of the benefits of being hidden is already written in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rule so they simply aren't going to repeat that here within the text for the Hide action and I don't think that we should expect any errata to do so.
With the recent change to the text of the Hide action, we can see that the author is using the term "concealed" here as a synonym for "hidden". The successful Stealth roll causes the creature to become concealed / hidden, which is already defined elsewhere.
Hmm, it looks like you completely missed what I actually said in my previous post. What I said when it comes to being Unheard was:
However, in the Unheard category, there are no additional benefits to being generally Unheard in the game which are not already mentioned in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules. Therefore, even though the Hide action DOES cause you to become generally Unheard, there are no mechanical benefits specifically related to being generally Unheard that must be explicitly stated within the Hide action.
Again, all of the mechanical benefits related to what it means to be Unheard are already defined elsewhere. That's why those are not listed here.
As for the becoming Unseen portion of becoming hidden, the reason why the Hide action explicitly lists having the Invisible condition while hidden is because the Invisible condition includes some benefits that are NOT already listed within the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" general rules, so this has to be written into the Hide action as one of the things that happens when you successfully conceal yourself.
Well, this is what the Stealth mechanic is attempting to model in a simplified way. Yes, sounds softer than a whisper can be heard -- but that requires a successful Perception check to do that. There is a sliding scale at play here. The quieter and quieter that your cat is moving, the higher the value of the cat's Stealth roll, and the harder it will be for you to hear it with your Perception. Maybe you are listening intently at that moment. Maybe you are passively aware. Maybe there is background noise, or you are currently distracted by being in a conversation with somebody at that moment, and so on. Despite all of that, if your cat suddenly lets out a loud "Meow!" then you will automatically hear that and automatically approximate the location of where that sound came from with no roll required. But at some point, you will no longer automatically hear your cat, it will require some effort to do so.
The Hide action describes all of this if we are willing to read the entirety of its text from beginning to end.
The current iteration of the Hide action actually works pretty well. There are currently two issues which would still benefit from errata:
1. The Invisible condition itself needs to more clearly spell out that a creature with that condition actually is Unseen or cannot be seen. The Hide action is written under the assumption that the Invisible condition functions correctly and currently it does not.
2. The use of the phrase "Line of Sight" needs to be removed and replaced by something more generic such as "must be out of view of all enemies" or "must be currently unseen by all enemies". This would fix the three-quarters cover issue and the ability to actually make an attack from cover while remaining hidden.
The context is "Success gives you the Invisible condition".