My intent, here, is not to argue about how stealth is supposed to work, it's to make it so all the other rules do what they're apparently intended to do. To this end, we add a few new concepts to the glossary
Unseen (new)
An unseen target can not, or has not, been seen by a particular observer.
Attack rolls against an unseen target are at disadvantage.
Attack rolls from an unseen target are at advantage.
Effects that require seeing the target cannot be used.
In a surprise situation, a creature that is Unseen by all of its foes may use a Stealth check for its initiative.
If a condition or effect makes a target unseen, immunity to that condition or effect means that effect does not render the target unseen.
I replaced advantage on initiative with a Stealth check because it avoids counterintuitive results where you successfully sneak up on someone and still go after them -- if you roll a low stealth it's now completely obvious why you went after them.
Blinded
All other creatures, effects, and targets are unseen.
Automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
Blindsight
Within its radius, immune to Blinded, Invisible.
Within its radius, immune to Lightly or Heavily Obscured by unless caused by cover.
Means it's possible to be lightly obscured against blindsight.
Cover
A creature behind 3/4 cover is lightly obscured, unless the observer is able to see through the cover (e.g. glass)
A creature behind full cover is heavily obscured, unless the observer is able to see through the cover.
It should be obvious that being behind cover makes you harder to see.
Darkness and Dim Light
Creatures in darkness are Heavily Obscured.
Creatures in dim light are Lightly Obscured.
Non-magical darkness is not opaque.
The point here is to add 'not opaque'.
Heavily Obscured
A heavily obscured target is Unseen.
Any ability check that requires sight automatically fails against a heavily obscured target.
Unless specified otherwise, heavily obscured areas are also opaque.
The intent is that immunity to the Blinded condition does not imply being able to see through obscurement.
Hidden (new)
Unseen.
Removed when found. Details of what causes the subject to be found are beyond the scope of this discussion.
Not the same as invisible, because it's still possible to see a hidden creature with a sufficiently good roll. Also means that abilities that see invisible don't invalidated stealth.
Invisible
Unseen
Any ability check that requires sight automatically fails against an invisible target.
This means spells such as invisibility actually mean the target cannot be seen.
Opaque (new)
Blocks vision through it.
An target that is totally within or behind an opaque object or effect is heavily obscured.
An target that is mostly within or behind an opaque object or effect is lightly obscured.
Mostly to allow distinguishing mundane darkness from, say, fog.
Much better than what's written but what is the difference between being unseen and hidden? And how does a creature become Hidden? The current and future rules imply you must be unseen to attempt to hide, thus hidden would be something beyond simply being unseen. It would be nice to also include hearing-rules to clarify the difference between Unseen and Hidden.
Also I dislike using "Heavily Obscured" for Cover. They are not synonymous. It is possible to have cover without being unseen / heavily obscured - e.g. Wall of Force provides cover but not obscurement, same with glass windows. Cover should be defined separately since it does many additional things.
Also what's the point of Unseen and Heavily Obscured being different terms? Unseen already covers everything in Heavily Obscured, except for Opacity which you've already had to define separately and include exceptions for. It would be cleaner to have "Unseen" and "Opaque" and "Cover" as three distinct terms that can be used in different combinations for different spell or environmental effects - e.g. Fog Cloud creates an area of Opaque fog that makes all creatures within it Unseen. Wall of Ice creates an Opaque wall that provides full Cover to creatures behind it. Shadow of Moil makes the target Unseen. Darkness creates an area of Opaque darkness, creatures within the area are Unseen. Everything within non-magical darkness is Unseen to creatures that don't have Darkvision.
Plus all those terms are (hopefully) well known and understood thus self-explanatory. Whereas "Heavily Obscured" is vague and subjective.
Also I dislike using "Heavily Obscured" for Cover. They are not synonymous. It is possible to have cover without being unseen / heavily obscured - e.g. Wall of Force provides cover but not obscurement, same with glass windows. Cover should be defined separately since it does many additional things.
I should add "in addition to existing rules". All I'm saying is that if you're behind opaque cover, you're also heavily obscured.
But what does that gain me? If I'm unseen already is there any point to taking the Hide action?
I should add "in addition to existing rules". All I'm saying is that if you're behind opaque cover, you're also heavily obscured.
But am I? I'm unseen by those on the otherside of the opaque cover, but I would argue I am not heavily obscured because anyone looking at me from a different direction can see me just fine.
But what does that gain me? If I'm unseen already is there any point to taking the Hide action?
What terminates the hidden condition is explicitly not addressed here. There are a variety of options, but I wasn't trying to change things, I was trying to make existing things work as expected.
But am I? I'm unseen by those on the otherside of the opaque cover, but I would argue I am not heavily obscured because anyone looking at me from a different direction can see me just fine.
Obscurement is not a condition, it's a statement about how visible a creature or object is to a particular observer (which could be stated more clearly). In your case, yes, you don't have obscurement against a person who walks around the cover -- but you don't have cover either.
Obscurement is not a condition, it's a statement about how visible a creature or object is to a particular observer
Why do you say that? As far as I can tell, in the base rules obscurement is a condition that affects you or an area, regardless of the observer. The examples of obscurement are all things that fill space and affect vision in all directions.
Why do you say that? As far as I can tell, in the base rules obscurement is a condition that affects you or an area, regardless of the observer. The examples of obscurement are all things that fill space and affect vision in all directions.
It's not a condition because it's not listed in conditions. That said, it's mostly a case of needing some word to describe a target that can't be seen because line of sight is blocked.
Why do you say that? As far as I can tell, in the base rules obscurement is a condition that affects you or an area, regardless of the observer. The examples of obscurement are all things that fill space and affect vision in all directions.
It's not a condition because it's not listed in conditions. That said, it's mostly a case of needing some word to describe a target that can't be seen because line of sight is blocked.
But you introduced the word "Unseen" why can't you use that? You are describing being Hidden as being unseen, which I presume includes e.g. squatting behind a barrel. So is that not also how being behind cover should be described? Whereas "Heavily Obscured" is (almost - damn you Shadow of Moil) always used to describe an area where being within it makes you Unseen to all creatures regardless of their position.
Likewise I'm still unclear how hiding behind a wall (i.e. rolling a stealth check) is different from just being behind a wall under your proposed rules. Don't both of those cases just make me "Unseen"?
e.g. Jumping in a hedge and crouching within it makes you heavily obscured (or lightly obscured? I'm never sure what counts as heavy vs light obscurement) but lying down behind a wall makes you unseen to a person on the other side only. But in either case other creatures still know where you are because of the noise you make - which annoyingly has no range limit so someone 100 ft away knows where you are just as much as someone 10 ft away RAW - unless you also succeed on a Stealth check to be also "Unheard" and thus the combination of being "Unseen" and "Unheard" makes you "Undetected".
i.e. May I propose some additions:
Unheard (new)
An unheard target cannot be heard by an observer.
Any effect that require the target to hear - e.g. Suggestion/Command - cannot affect the target.
The target cannot communicate with the observer
Ends if you make a noise louder than a whisper.
Hide
Roll a Stealth check
You become Unheard to creatures with a Passive Perception or who's active Perception check is lower than the result of your Stealth check, if you are also Unseen to these observers, you are Undetected by them.
Deafened (new)
All creatures, effects, and targets are unheard.
Disadvantage on ability checks that require verbal communication.
Undetected (new)
A target that is both Unseen and Unheard by an observer is Undetected to that observer.
The observer does not know the location of the target, thus cannot target them with any effect that targets a single creature.
If the observer has never seen or heard the target they are not aware the target is present.
For, effects that target an area that only partially overlap an undetected creature, roll a d20 on an 11 or higher the undetected creature is not targeted by the effect.
My intent, here, is not to argue about how stealth is supposed to work, it's to make it so all the other rules do what they're apparently intended to do. To this end, we add a few new concepts to the glossary
Unseen (new)
I replaced advantage on initiative with a Stealth check because it avoids counterintuitive results where you successfully sneak up on someone and still go after them -- if you roll a low stealth it's now completely obvious why you went after them.
Blinded
Blindsight
Means it's possible to be lightly obscured against blindsight.
Cover
It should be obvious that being behind cover makes you harder to see.
Darkness and Dim Light
The point here is to add 'not opaque'.
Heavily Obscured
The intent is that immunity to the Blinded condition does not imply being able to see through obscurement.
Hidden (new)
Not the same as invisible, because it's still possible to see a hidden creature with a sufficiently good roll. Also means that abilities that see invisible don't invalidated stealth.
Invisible
This means spells such as invisibility actually mean the target cannot be seen.
Opaque (new)
Mostly to allow distinguishing mundane darkness from, say, fog.
Much better than what's written but what is the difference between being unseen and hidden? And how does a creature become Hidden? The current and future rules imply you must be unseen to attempt to hide, thus hidden would be something beyond simply being unseen. It would be nice to also include hearing-rules to clarify the difference between Unseen and Hidden.
Also I dislike using "Heavily Obscured" for Cover. They are not synonymous. It is possible to have cover without being unseen / heavily obscured - e.g. Wall of Force provides cover but not obscurement, same with glass windows. Cover should be defined separately since it does many additional things.
Also what's the point of Unseen and Heavily Obscured being different terms? Unseen already covers everything in Heavily Obscured, except for Opacity which you've already had to define separately and include exceptions for. It would be cleaner to have "Unseen" and "Opaque" and "Cover" as three distinct terms that can be used in different combinations for different spell or environmental effects - e.g. Fog Cloud creates an area of Opaque fog that makes all creatures within it Unseen. Wall of Ice creates an Opaque wall that provides full Cover to creatures behind it. Shadow of Moil makes the target Unseen. Darkness creates an area of Opaque darkness, creatures within the area are Unseen. Everything within non-magical darkness is Unseen to creatures that don't have Darkvision.
Plus all those terms are (hopefully) well known and understood thus self-explanatory. Whereas "Heavily Obscured" is vague and subjective.
Unseen is a generic "you cannot or have not been seen" -- it's intended to cover hidden, invisible, heavily obscured, blind observer, etc.
Hidden is 'you took the hide action'.
I should add "in addition to existing rules". All I'm saying is that if you're behind opaque cover, you're also heavily obscured.
Heavily obscured is a way of becoming unseen. I include it because a ton of spells and effects use 'heavily obscured' as a term of art.
But what does that gain me? If I'm unseen already is there any point to taking the Hide action?
But am I? I'm unseen by those on the otherside of the opaque cover, but I would argue I am not heavily obscured because anyone looking at me from a different direction can see me just fine.
What terminates the hidden condition is explicitly not addressed here. There are a variety of options, but I wasn't trying to change things, I was trying to make existing things work as expected.
Obscurement is not a condition, it's a statement about how visible a creature or object is to a particular observer (which could be stated more clearly). In your case, yes, you don't have obscurement against a person who walks around the cover -- but you don't have cover either.
Why do you say that? As far as I can tell, in the base rules obscurement is a condition that affects you or an area, regardless of the observer. The examples of obscurement are all things that fill space and affect vision in all directions.
It's not a condition because it's not listed in conditions. That said, it's mostly a case of needing some word to describe a target that can't be seen because line of sight is blocked.
But you introduced the word "Unseen" why can't you use that? You are describing being Hidden as being unseen, which I presume includes e.g. squatting behind a barrel. So is that not also how being behind cover should be described? Whereas "Heavily Obscured" is (almost - damn you Shadow of Moil) always used to describe an area where being within it makes you Unseen to all creatures regardless of their position.
Likewise I'm still unclear how hiding behind a wall (i.e. rolling a stealth check) is different from just being behind a wall under your proposed rules. Don't both of those cases just make me "Unseen"?
e.g. Jumping in a hedge and crouching within it makes you heavily obscured (or lightly obscured? I'm never sure what counts as heavy vs light obscurement) but lying down behind a wall makes you unseen to a person on the other side only. But in either case other creatures still know where you are because of the noise you make - which annoyingly has no range limit so someone 100 ft away knows where you are just as much as someone 10 ft away RAW - unless you also succeed on a Stealth check to be also "Unheard" and thus the combination of being "Unseen" and "Unheard" makes you "Undetected".
i.e. May I propose some additions:
Unheard (new)
Hide
Deafened (new)
Undetected (new)