Did we ever figure out the designers' intent behind the 2024 hiding mechanics?
Has there been any errata or guidance on what the intended interpretation of these rules are?
No words yet from them on this matter, Hiding has been one of the most debated subject on various D&D forums since published.
How i interpret these rules, to try to conceal yourself you must be out of any enemy’s line of sight, so if you hide then move out of cover or obscurement in an enemy's line of sight, it finds you, as these circumstances aren't appropriate for hiding, unless i determine the creature is too distracted somehow.
In such case i could rely on the creature's Passive Perception Score, an active Wisdom (Perception) check or rule it fail to spot you entirely depending of the situation.
For the general topic, I will say the implication you need to be hidden from everyone to be hidden from a specific target part of this discussion makes shadowing someone in a crowd rules problematic.
You can still use stealth to shadow someone in RAW. The hiding rules say you lose the condition if you are found by an "enemy." The people in the crowd are not your enemy, so they can't end your invisible condition regardless of whether they can see you.
Potentially but you are likely making sounds louder than a whisper. You will be at a stall making small talk, pretending to buy products etc. You are trying to blend into the crowd not run around in black pajamas and hiding in shadows. It is removing a more social stealth from the equation. And as a note things that effect or are triggered by enemies, allies etc always seem to cause issues in games.
If you are intentionally making noise, I would rule you aren't using the "hide" action at all. You are doing something entirely different. You might be using the "stealth" skill to prevent someone who recognizes you from noticing you are following them. You might be using the "deception" skill to dress differently so they don't recognize it's you. Or even "perform" to act like you are a customer at the stall when you're actively trying to listen to them. But you aren't taking the "hide" action.
That's the way I would see it anyway.
You are trying to be invisible or hidden from them. That seems hide action to me, as you are trying to blend into your surroundings so you can follow a target unseen. You have to keep them in sight as well so it would be unlikely you can maintain 3/4 cover the entire time(see the main discussion in this thread for that issue). I can see using a different attribute, but it seems like hiding to me. Things like disguises can help in that they wont recognize you, but many times they don't know you in the first place. Its more if they keep seeing you in multiple places they may figure out they are being followed, or they notice some strange dude seems to be staring at them.
You are trying to be invisible or hidden from them. That seems hide action to me.
It's really an out-of-combat skill check -- it doesn't follow the rules of the hide action, but it's not done in combat or at the pacing of combat, and thus is not required to follow the rules for combat.
I’ve never seen a single thing in the DMG2014 that stated in plain English every creature in D&D has 360 degree omnidirectional sight at all times.
No, just in combat. "In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around".
The 2014 surprise rules, while frequently misused, were not actually unclear. They just had a problem, which they share with the 2024 rules, of the action that supposedly initiated combat... not being the first action in the combat.
It's really an out-of-combat skill check -- it doesn't follow the rules of the hide action, but it's not done in combat or at the pacing of combat, and thus is not required to follow the rules for combat.
I will say that the language of the new PHB does seem like it wants to categorize checks into actions, both in combat and out.
"When you do something other than moving or communicating, you typically take an action. The Action table lists the game’s main actions, which are defined in more detail in the rules glossary."
This entry doesn't specify combat, and in fact gives an out-of-combat example just below the table:
"in a social interaction, you can try to Influence a creature or use the Search action to read the creature’s body language, but you can’t do both at the same time."
I actually dislike this push toward the formalization of checks to a set of prescribed actions. The book does still mention that the DM adjudicates events and narrates results, and that they may ask for checks and allow actions not on the list, but I fear it may give new players a very "in the box" sort of mentality toward the sorts of things they can do.
When players start thinking less about the things they can try to do and more about the checks/actions the rules suggest they can take, they tend to become less creative and more frustrated.
That's the part that causes a problem. It specifies that you are invisible until somebody uses the Search action to find you.
No it doesn't. It specifies that you are invisible until someone finds you and does not specify what 'find' means.
Are you sure about this?
Unfortunately so. The entire text reads:
"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."
That's the part that causes a problem. It specifies that you are invisible until somebody uses the Search action to find you.
No it doesn't. It specifies that you are invisible until someone finds you and does not specify what 'find' means.
Are you sure about this?
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."
To find you they have to perform the Search Action.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
That's the part that causes a problem. It specifies that you are invisible until somebody uses the Search action to find you.
No it doesn't. It specifies that you are invisible until someone finds you and does not specify what 'find' means.
Are you sure about this?
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."
To find you they have to perform the Search Action.
Well, right, that's what one half of the internet thinks. But it doesn't ever say that explicitly. "An enemy finds you" is not the same sentence as "an enemy finds you using the search action".
It's a reasonable inference, but like people have said, it creates the instance where a creature can be looking at you in bright light, without cover, and you are not considered "found" until that creature takes the Search action. That makes very little sense.
???? Why are we still debating this???? There has been thread upon thread and page upon page written about this going round and round in cycles by people who apparently need someone else to tell them exactly what to do all the time, or get off on feeling smug that they found an "error" in the rule books.
No, the rules do not specify exactly how hiding works.
No, this isn't "bad game design" or "bad designers" or evidence that the WotC team are incompetent.
Hiding is situational. It is a waste of designer's time, trees being cut down to make paper to print them, and player/dm time to read them if the designers attempted to rigorously lay out every possible situation and precisely how hiding works in that case. The wording is left deliberately vague, because there exists a person at every table who's job it is to adjudicate the rules given the specific situation in the current game.
The 2024 rules are clearly inspired by BG3, and the designers have admitted as much in various interviews / videos. Hiding makes you effectively invisible as long as enemies can't see you (i.e. "find you"), and you don't make noise that would alert them to where you are (i.e. "above a whisper"). Spells/Abilities that make you invisible, make you invisible until the specific conditions of that spell/ability cause it to end.
What is required for an enemy to "find you" depends on the situation thus is deliberately not stated explicitly. It is up to DM interpretation, but it pretty obvious and straight forwards: If you stand in clear view of an enemy who is alert, you are found, if an enemy turns around a corner you are hiding behind, you are found, if an enemy throws open the door to the wardrobe you are hiding in, you are found, if an enemy lights a torch illuminating the shadows you were hiding in, you are found. etc... etc...
What has happened to people that they are so utterly helpless in the face of being expected to think about how stuff works?
That's the part that causes a problem. It specifies that you are invisible until somebody uses the Search action to find you.
No it doesn't. It specifies that you are invisible until someone finds you and does not specify what 'find' means.
Are you sure about this?
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."
To find you they have to perform the Search Action.
Where does it say that specifically? If someone is standing behind a tree relative to me within say 100 ft, and they stealthily move out so they are now between me and the tree, then barring circumstances covered under Heavily Obscured I will find them when my field of vision covers the area they're standing in. I don't need to make an active effort for it. The Search Action explicitly says it is used to "make a Wisdom check to discern something that isn’t obvious". I'd say a person standing with no cover within my field of vision is obvious, even if they're crouch-walking.
???? Why are we still debating this???? There has been thread upon thread and page upon page written about this going round and round in cycles by people who apparently need someone else to tell them exactly what to do all the time, or get off on feeling smug that they found an "error" in the rule books.
No, the rules do not specify exactly how hiding works.
No, this isn't "bad game design" or "bad designers" or evidence that the WotC team are incompetent.
Hiding is situational. It is a waste of designer's time, trees being cut down to make paper to print them, and player/dm time to read them if the designers attempted to rigorously lay out every possible situation and precisely how hiding works in that case. The wording is left deliberately vague, because there exists a person at every table who's job it is to adjudicate the rules given the specific situation in the current game.
The 2024 rules are clearly inspired by BG3, and the designers have admitted as much in various interviews / videos. Hiding makes you effectively invisible as long as enemies can't see you (i.e. "find you"), and you don't make noise that would alert them to where you are (i.e. "above a whisper"). Spells/Abilities that make you invisible, make you invisible until the specific conditions of that spell/ability cause it to end.
What is required for an enemy to "find you" depends on the situation thus is deliberately not stated explicitly. It is up to DM interpretation, but it pretty obvious and straight forwards: If you stand in clear view of an enemy who is alert, you are found, if an enemy turns around a corner you are hiding behind, you are found, if an enemy throws open the door to the wardrobe you are hiding in, you are found, if an enemy lights a torch illuminating the shadows you were hiding in, you are found. etc... etc...
What has happened to people that they are so utterly helpless in the face of being expected to think about how stuff works?
This is a thread about the intent behind the hiding rules. We are all running the game quite well, presumably, a notion you would have encountered if you read some of the posts.
The purpose of this discussion is not to figure out how to run hiding or stealth scenarios, it is to present interpretations in order to clarify the sequence of play the designers had in mind then they wrote the rules.
Knowing the intention behind the rules is worthwhile even if you plan on disregarding them altogether.
The Hide action is changed, the Invisible condition is new, and the interactions between them are not "obvious", as is made clear by the multiple valid, yet contradictory, interpretations of the text in question.
You have given examples of rulings. We are discussing the rules. That is an important distinction.
If you are interested in discussing the rules as written and theorizing about the design intent that drove them, you are welcome to participate in the thread.
If you are, however, interested in spreading discord and voicing disdain for those of us that enjoy such an investigation, I invite you to do so elsewhere.
That's the part that causes a problem. It specifies that you are invisible until somebody uses the Search action to find you.
No it doesn't. It specifies that you are invisible until someone finds you and does not specify what 'find' means.
Are you sure about this?
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."
To find you they have to perform the Search Action.
Well, right, that's what one half of the internet thinks. But it doesn't ever say that explicitly. "An enemy finds you" is not the same sentence as "an enemy finds you using the search action".
It's a reasonable inference, but like people have said, it creates the instance where a creature can be looking at you in bright light, without cover, and you are not considered "found" until that creature takes the Search action. That makes very little sense.
That is my point exactly. It doesn't make sense.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
That's why the other half of the Internet thinks you are found as soon as you are seen. The search action clarifies that you do not need to search for something that is obvious, like a PC standing in your line of sight.
This seems like an obvious solution at first glance, but as others have mentioned, having the Invisible condition makes you concealed. If you are Invisible, yet you stand in an enemy's line of sight, are you found?
If so, the condition ends. But this scenario suggests that players who gain the Invisible condition from the Invisibility spell can still be seen, since the game makes no distinction between the magical and mundane iterations of the condition.
If not, this implies that hiding behind a rock for a few moments renders you unable to be seen by the naked eye, even once you have stepped out from behind it.
Thank you all for your input! To summarize, this is what I currently think the design team had in mind:
The primary use of the Hide action is to conceal the player from view. It represents ducking behind cover and remaining silent to escape notice while behind cover.
Losing the conditions required to Hide ends the Invisible condition, but does not (necessarily) break stealth.
If the player moves out from behind cover and is able to successfully sneak to another suitable hiding location, they can attempt the Hide action again to become Invisible once more.
The Invisible condition ends after the player is found, makes an attack roll, makes a sound louder than a whisper, or casts a spell with a verbal component.
Being found while Invisible(hidden) requires the search action.
The second bullet is the one that seems to be missing explicit text, but I believe it is the intent of the Hide action and the resulting condition.
Nope, the design team did not intend for it to be required to use the Search action to find a Hidden creature. If they did they would have specified that: "The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurs: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy uses the Search Action to find you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component."
They did not do that, they intentionally left it vague, so that DMs can rule what constitutes "find you" based on the situation. Just as they intentionally left "you must be out of any enemy’s line of sight" vague and undefined so that DMs can rule what constitutes an enemy's line of sight depending on the situation. If they had intended the Hiding rules to be completely unambiguous and rigorously defined that would have left both those clauses out.
As I said above the design of Hiding is intentionally vague because Hiding is situational and it is a waste of everyone's time to try to define how it works in every possible situation, because it is generally very obvious how hiding works in any given situation. i.e. yes, you can move behind a big set of curtains to hide from an enemy, and that enemy can either use the Search Action to notice the curtains don't look right or to spot your toes poking out from the bottom, but also if the enemy pulls the curtain aside for any other reason - e.g. to open the window - that also constitutes them finding you and you are no longer hidden. It doesn't even have to be the enemy that does it, if one of your friends throws a fireball that incinerates the curtains you are also found by the enemies.
The intention of the designers is for DMs and Players to use their brains to determine when it is / isn't possible to Hide and when a hiding character is / isn't found in any given situation.
------------
Similarly obviously the intent of the design team is that spells that make you invisible make you invisible [note the lack of capitalization thus I am referring to not the Invisible condition]. They would not have wasted space printing spells that don't do anything at all. You can waste your time arguing all you like about whether some pedantic reading of the rule text does or doesn't grammatically support that. But obviously, a spell that is called "Invisibility" is intended to make you invisible until the spell ends.
A Wisdom (Perception) check or Passive Perception is used to notice something that’s easy to miss.
The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding, and may very well determine a hidden creature walking in plain sight is not easy to miss but easily found.
No, this isn't "bad game design" or "bad designers" or evidence that the WotC team are incompetent.
Yes, it is bad game design and evidence of being bad at writing clear rules, because if the rules were written better, these discussions wouldn't exist. These are not people willfully seeking out exploits (while lack of exploits is nice to have, an assumption of good faith by players isn't unreasonable), this is people having no idea what a rule is even supposed to do.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
That's the part that causes a problem. It specifies that you are invisible until somebody uses the Search action to find you.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
No it doesn't. It specifies that you are invisible until someone finds you and does not specify what 'find' means.
You are trying to be invisible or hidden from them. That seems hide action to me, as you are trying to blend into your surroundings so you can follow a target unseen. You have to keep them in sight as well so it would be unlikely you can maintain 3/4 cover the entire time(see the main discussion in this thread for that issue). I can see using a different attribute, but it seems like hiding to me. Things like disguises can help in that they wont recognize you, but many times they don't know you in the first place. Its more if they keep seeing you in multiple places they may figure out they are being followed, or they notice some strange dude seems to be staring at them.
It's really an out-of-combat skill check -- it doesn't follow the rules of the hide action, but it's not done in combat or at the pacing of combat, and thus is not required to follow the rules for combat.
No, just in combat. "In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around".
The 2014 surprise rules, while frequently misused, were not actually unclear. They just had a problem, which they share with the 2024 rules, of the action that supposedly initiated combat... not being the first action in the combat.
I will say that the language of the new PHB does seem like it wants to categorize checks into actions, both in combat and out.
"When you do something other than moving or communicating, you typically take an action. The Action table lists the game’s main actions, which are defined in more detail in the rules glossary."
This entry doesn't specify combat, and in fact gives an out-of-combat example just below the table:
"in a social interaction, you can try to Influence a creature or use the Search action to read the creature’s body language, but you can’t do both at the same time."
I actually dislike this push toward the formalization of checks to a set of prescribed actions. The book does still mention that the DM adjudicates events and narrates results, and that they may ask for checks and allow actions not on the list, but I fear it may give new players a very "in the box" sort of mentality toward the sorts of things they can do.
When players start thinking less about the things they can try to do and more about the checks/actions the rules suggest they can take, they tend to become less creative and more frustrated.
If something says "in combat", it means "in combat", not "in a battle of wits".
Are you sure about this?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Unfortunately so. The entire text reads:
"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."
To find you they have to perform the Search Action.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Well, right, that's what one half of the internet thinks. But it doesn't ever say that explicitly. "An enemy finds you" is not the same sentence as "an enemy finds you using the search action".
It's a reasonable inference, but like people have said, it creates the instance where a creature can be looking at you in bright light, without cover, and you are not considered "found" until that creature takes the Search action. That makes very little sense.
???? Why are we still debating this???? There has been thread upon thread and page upon page written about this going round and round in cycles by people who apparently need someone else to tell them exactly what to do all the time, or get off on feeling smug that they found an "error" in the rule books.
No, the rules do not specify exactly how hiding works.
No, this isn't "bad game design" or "bad designers" or evidence that the WotC team are incompetent.
Hiding is situational. It is a waste of designer's time, trees being cut down to make paper to print them, and player/dm time to read them if the designers attempted to rigorously lay out every possible situation and precisely how hiding works in that case. The wording is left deliberately vague, because there exists a person at every table who's job it is to adjudicate the rules given the specific situation in the current game.
The 2024 rules are clearly inspired by BG3, and the designers have admitted as much in various interviews / videos. Hiding makes you effectively invisible as long as enemies can't see you (i.e. "find you"), and you don't make noise that would alert them to where you are (i.e. "above a whisper"). Spells/Abilities that make you invisible, make you invisible until the specific conditions of that spell/ability cause it to end.
What is required for an enemy to "find you" depends on the situation thus is deliberately not stated explicitly. It is up to DM interpretation, but it pretty obvious and straight forwards: If you stand in clear view of an enemy who is alert, you are found, if an enemy turns around a corner you are hiding behind, you are found, if an enemy throws open the door to the wardrobe you are hiding in, you are found, if an enemy lights a torch illuminating the shadows you were hiding in, you are found. etc... etc...
What has happened to people that they are so utterly helpless in the face of being expected to think about how stuff works?
Where does it say that specifically? If someone is standing behind a tree relative to me within say 100 ft, and they stealthily move out so they are now between me and the tree, then barring circumstances covered under Heavily Obscured I will find them when my field of vision covers the area they're standing in. I don't need to make an active effort for it. The Search Action explicitly says it is used to "make a Wisdom check to discern something that isn’t obvious". I'd say a person standing with no cover within my field of vision is obvious, even if they're crouch-walking.
This is a thread about the intent behind the hiding rules. We are all running the game quite well, presumably, a notion you would have encountered if you read some of the posts.
The purpose of this discussion is not to figure out how to run hiding or stealth scenarios, it is to present interpretations in order to clarify the sequence of play the designers had in mind then they wrote the rules.
Knowing the intention behind the rules is worthwhile even if you plan on disregarding them altogether.
The Hide action is changed, the Invisible condition is new, and the interactions between them are not "obvious", as is made clear by the multiple valid, yet contradictory, interpretations of the text in question.
You have given examples of rulings. We are discussing the rules. That is an important distinction.
If you are interested in discussing the rules as written and theorizing about the design intent that drove them, you are welcome to participate in the thread.
If you are, however, interested in spreading discord and voicing disdain for those of us that enjoy such an investigation, I invite you to do so elsewhere.
That is my point exactly. It doesn't make sense.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
That's why the other half of the Internet thinks you are found as soon as you are seen. The search action clarifies that you do not need to search for something that is obvious, like a PC standing in your line of sight.
This seems like an obvious solution at first glance, but as others have mentioned, having the Invisible condition makes you concealed. If you are Invisible, yet you stand in an enemy's line of sight, are you found?
If so, the condition ends. But this scenario suggests that players who gain the Invisible condition from the Invisibility spell can still be seen, since the game makes no distinction between the magical and mundane iterations of the condition.
If not, this implies that hiding behind a rock for a few moments renders you unable to be seen by the naked eye, even once you have stepped out from behind it.
Ticksy stuff.
Thank you all for your input! To summarize, this is what I currently think the design team had in mind:
The second bullet is the one that seems to be missing explicit text, but I believe it is the intent of the Hide action and the resulting condition.
Nope, the design team did not intend for it to be required to use the Search action to find a Hidden creature. If they did they would have specified that: "The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurs: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy uses the Search Action to find you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component."
They did not do that, they intentionally left it vague, so that DMs can rule what constitutes "find you" based on the situation. Just as they intentionally left "you must be out of any enemy’s line of sight" vague and undefined so that DMs can rule what constitutes an enemy's line of sight depending on the situation. If they had intended the Hiding rules to be completely unambiguous and rigorously defined that would have left both those clauses out.
As I said above the design of Hiding is intentionally vague because Hiding is situational and it is a waste of everyone's time to try to define how it works in every possible situation, because it is generally very obvious how hiding works in any given situation. i.e. yes, you can move behind a big set of curtains to hide from an enemy, and that enemy can either use the Search Action to notice the curtains don't look right or to spot your toes poking out from the bottom, but also if the enemy pulls the curtain aside for any other reason - e.g. to open the window - that also constitutes them finding you and you are no longer hidden. It doesn't even have to be the enemy that does it, if one of your friends throws a fireball that incinerates the curtains you are also found by the enemies.
The intention of the designers is for DMs and Players to use their brains to determine when it is / isn't possible to Hide and when a hiding character is / isn't found in any given situation.
------------
Similarly obviously the intent of the design team is that spells that make you invisible make you invisible [note the lack of capitalization thus I am referring to not the Invisible condition]. They would not have wasted space printing spells that don't do anything at all. You can waste your time arguing all you like about whether some pedantic reading of the rule text does or doesn't grammatically support that. But obviously, a spell that is called "Invisibility" is intended to make you invisible until the spell ends.
A Wisdom (Perception) check or Passive Perception is used to notice something that’s easy to miss.
The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding, and may very well determine a hidden creature walking in plain sight is not easy to miss but easily found.
Yes, it is bad game design and evidence of being bad at writing clear rules, because if the rules were written better, these discussions wouldn't exist. These are not people willfully seeking out exploits (while lack of exploits is nice to have, an assumption of good faith by players isn't unreasonable), this is people having no idea what a rule is even supposed to do.