Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Supreme Sneak doesn't say If you have the Hide action’s Invisible condition, making a sound louder than a whisper doesn’t end that condition on you if you end the turn behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover.
Supreme Sneak doesn't say If you have the Hide action’s Invisible condition, casting a spell with a Verbal component doesn’t end that condition on you if you end the turn behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover.
Supreme Sneak doesn't say If you have the Hide action’s Invisible condition, an enemy finding you doesn’t end that condition on you if you end the turn behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover.
It only apply to the condition for attacking, so since it makes no refererence to other conditions, they still apply.
And I nowhere disagreed.
But 'Is behind 3/4 or total cover' clearly isn't a condition of being hidden, or it would be worded differently, because the text assumes you could very well not be in cover when you make the attack.
That necessarily implies, to the designers, 'find you' really does mean the perception check (and the sage advice errata 'sight that ignores invisible'), and not 'moved out of cover'
@Squirrelloid... I can sum up the problem with this statement you made, "My interpretation is still the only interpretation that makes sense". Now if you had followed that with "to me", that would be different, but you did not.
It is abundantly clear that no matter what anyone says, you have already made up your mind as to what you believe the rules state. Just about everyone replying (here and elsewhere), is saying otherwise.
As has been made absolutely clear (yet I'm saying it again)... You are free to run your table any way you want! The issue here is that you seem to want everyone to use your (imho) very skewed interpretation. Multiple people have tried to explain that RAW, you are factually mistaken, and even provided (also RAW) completely reasonable ways that Rogues can still get the end result you want (DM willing - which is no different than any other part of the game).
I, for one, am done with this thread. It has been explained ad nauseum and it appears that no amount of discussion will alter your interpretation. There's nothing wrong with that, I fully support your right to interpret the rules any way you want at your table, but continuing this thread of discussion is pointless. The Devs have said that when it comes to spells, spells only do what spells say they do, but they have never extended that to any other ability or skill in the game. Your entire argument is that only stuff listed in the Hide Action applies to hiding, no other rule anywhere else applies, which simply isn't true. RAW line of sight unblocked by concealment or cover, or a spell saying otherwise, equals being seen. The idea that a Rogue could make one roll while behind cover and have invisibility forever after so long as they're quiet is utterly ridiculous... but I support your right to do it that way, at YOUR table.
I'm out.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
Supreme Sneak implies nothing, ignoring where the Rogue is, do or move to in between, all it account for is that it end the turn behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover to not end the Hide action’s Invisible condition after it attacked; whatever happen in between is outside the scope of the feature and has no protection against it.
See, this is where you still misunderstand my stance. If circumstances allow (as judged by the DM) for the rogue to remain hidden when they break cover, then they remain hidden when they break cover (Heavy Obscurement like dense foliage, fog, or a large crowd might be some ways I'd allow for at my table, among others... though it would depend on what they wanted to accomplish when they first made their Hide roll). That a handful of DMs might stamp on that isn't a reason to claim that your interpretation is the only one.
Also note that I have never said that your interpretation isn't a way to read the rules. I'm simply saying it isn't the way to read the rules and I'll take the reading with the greater flexibility at the expense of requiring a bit of DM fiat, thank you very much. My motto for ambiguous rules is, "break the least amount of things, verisimilitude included".
If cover is a condition of remaining hidden, why would the ability require you to end the turn there? Obviously, in your interpretation, if you were not in cover at any point in your turn, you would no longer be hidden, so Supreme Sneak wouldn't matter, because you've already lost hidden. And you would also already have to be in cover to still be hidden. The ability would literally just be 'when you make an attack, it does not end Hidden' if your interpretation was correct.
Requiring you to be in cover at the end of your turn means it has no expectation that being out of cover would end hidden at any point in your turn otherwise, and that you could well be out of cover when you made the attack, yet still hidden at the point of making the attack.
I am in no way disputing the other expressly written other ways of ending hidden will still end hidden, just that 'leaving cover' is both not listed as one of them, and Supreme Sneak's wording requires that it cannot be a condition that ends Hidden.
There is only one thing that anyone could say which would change my mind, and that is quoting a rule that expressly said "leaving cover ends hidden". If the rules don't say it, it's not a rule.
Edit: this is what RAW means. If it's written, it's a rule. If it's not written, it's not a rule.
I don't think anyone's disputing that. What I and they are saying is that "leaving cover" usually means that they are found, which ends hidden (because the circumstances to be hidden have changed).
However, in this, as in quite a few other circumstances, there is disagreement as to what the text means, what things are assumed but not written, and so forth.
These are questions that can, in theory, be discussed productively, but it requires everyone involved to be willing to consider that their interpretation is not the only possibly valid one, and in particular to be willing to examine their assumptions, because it is very easy to read one's assumptions into the text and then argue that they are what the text says. And that goes nowhere fast.
And the attitude that RAW is the only thing that matters does not help. It is somewhat useful to identify what is text, but ultimately the question that matters is "how is this to be played?" It's particularly problematic in 5e, because they deliberately wrote it loosely, so RAW oft does not have unambiguous answers, and if RAW is all that matters, it just pushes people to convincing themselves that their interpretations are what the text says. You do it, I do it, everybody does it. (I try not to, and have a particular set of skills that make me better at that than average, but I ain't perfect.)
If the rules don't address an issue, it's a gap in the rules. RAW does not say that leaving cover ends hidden. It also does not say that leaving cover does not end hidden. Thus, whether you stop being hidden when you leave cover is up to the DM, because RAW says that the DM decides how to apply the rules.
It is interesting how you really don't seem to understand what everyone else is trying to say. The DC should depend on the circumstances. It isn't automatically the stealth roll or automatically zero as soon as the character might be seen. It is a DC set by the DM that is usually somewhere between these two values.
In your opinion, the DC to find a hidden creature is the stealth roll, regardless of ANY other conditions or circumstances. They could be behind cover, they could be standing in front of an alert guard, in any of these situations, in your opinion, the DC is already defined.
The alternate opinion being presented (and which is supported by the rules) is that conditions and circumstances DO affect the required DC and it is the DM that will assign the value of the DC appropriately based on those circumstances.
So, in the situation at hand:
A character who is hidden steps out from behind a tree and fires a ranged weapon at a target. The DM decides that the DC to be noticed is the stealth roll since the target isn't likely to be staring at the tree and doesn't know when or if the hidden creature might emerge. Making an attack would normally end the hidden state and the corresponding invisible condition.
However, with Supreme Sneak, the character's location would not be revealed if the character is able to end their turn behind 3/4 or total cover. It could still be revealed if the hidden creature is noticed by the target. (Supreme Sneak only negates losing hidden due to making an attack).
In the above situation, the hidden character emerges from behind a tree and ducks behind a bush 20' away before the end of their turn. The attack doesn't reveal their location and the DM decides that the DC to be noticed might reasonably be the character's stealth roll.
However, perhaps the character decides to sneak up to the target and make a melee attack. Does the character get there without being noticed? Is the character able to get back to some form of cover before the end of the turn without being noticed? The DM then looks at the circumstances involved to decide the appropriate DC for the attacker to be noticed. If they have Supreme Sneak, the attack itself does not reveal them and if they are not noticed before returning to cover by the end of the turn then their location would not be revealed by making the attack itself.
Let's consider circumstances ... all these scenarios are well lit
- the target is a bored guard looking the other way - a perception check could be the stealth DC or even made with disadvantage since the guard isn't alert
- the target is an alert guard who is distracted by something happening in a different direction - a perception check could be the simple stealth DC or perhaps made with advantage if the guard is only partly distracted
- the target is an alert guard facing in the direction of the hidden character but there are either people or terrain/objects providing cover and places to remain concealed as they approach - the stealth DC could be used but the guard would likely have advantage on any perception check. If the cover is sparse, the DM could apply an additional +2 or +5 to the perception check (Or reduce the DC accordingly) depending on how little cover there is to hide behind. If there is no cover, the view is clear and the guard is alert (perhaps looking down a well lit corridor without distraction) then the DM could decide that the DC is zero - basically, the circumstances would make it impossible for the character to remain hidden.
It is important to note that the DM SHOULD tell the player this before the character decides their action. The player is role playing their character, the character would see the situation and would recognize conditions where they would have little or no chance of remaining concealed. In my games and in my opinion, it is incumbent on the DM to tell players about aspects of most situations of which their character would be aware (even if the player hasn't realized it). If something is impossible then the DM should usually tell the player that the character would think the action is impossible before the player decides to try it. This is because communication isn't perfect and the player may well not be understanding or interpreting the situation in the same way as the DM.
Anyway, in my opinion, circumstances affect the DC and how easy it is for a hidden character to be detected by an enemy. The DC will often but not always be the stealth roll and there will be circumstances in which it will be virtually impossible to avoid being noticed.
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Anyway, you stated "This is why your interpretation makes no sense. The designers clearly don't understand Hide to end just because you leave cover." ... and I would like to note that YOU are the ONLY person in this thread who has ever said this. You clearly don't understand what everyone else is saying if you think that we believe that "Hiding ends as soon as you leave cover". I've never said that and NONE of the other posts I've read in this thread have said it (though I haven't read them all). This extreme view seems to be your misinterpretation of the comments that everyone else is making.
There ARE circumstances and conditions under which Hide will end - particularly being noticed by an opponent - but being noticed depends on the specifics of the situation - it doesn't happen "just because you leave cover" UNLESS the circumstances are such that it would.
For example, it is daylight, there is a 4' cubic crate 30' away, the target sees a character duck behind it and the character subsequently takes the Hide action, the watching creature does not know where they will emerge, they can't hear the hidden creature and there is no indication of what the creature might do next. If the hidden creature pops out and fires a ranged weapon or casts a targeted spell, they are hidden and will have advantage on the attack roll since the defender doesn't have time to react. However, if the creature emerges from behind the crate and runs towards the target then they WILL be noticed by the enemy as they approach and will no longer be Hidden by the time they reach the target.
Those are the extremes. In a larger melee, the situation can be affected by the placement of creatures, who they are engaging, whether other creatures can see the hidden creature and lots of other complications that the DM adjudicates to determine whether the character using stealth remains hidden and what the appropriate DC might be. It is very rarely as cut and dried as "leave cover, lose hidden".
Except there's no reason for it to 'usually mean they are found', because 'find you' is defined, and doesn't include leaving cover. Again, if the rules don't say it, it's not RAW, and RAW that's not how 'find you' works. So that's already a houserule about what it means to find you.
Again, you have to work with only what the text actually says. So perception or (treating SAC as errata) a vision type which ignores invisible or they are not found. There's no RAW support for any other method of finding someone.
Rules are a constructed thing. It's not a gap to not mention something - that unmentioned thing is simply not part of the rules. Only things in the rules are rules. Things unsaid are just not rules. There's an infinite number of things the rules do not say, and none of them belong in a RAW discussion. (A rules gap only exists when the rules tell you they will cover something that they don't cover - ie, the rules are logically incomplete).
The rules supply a way to become hidden. They give explicit conditions for ending hidden. That's it. There's nothing else in the rules, so only those things in the rules are RAW. There is no 'gap'. It's not like there's an absence of a rule that defines what it means to 'find you', for example. It's perfectly possible to play the Hide Action exactly as written. I've done so. It works fine, mechanically.
Everything is always up to the DM - that does not help with discussing what the rules actually say, especially since the DM need not follow the rules. It is both true that whether you stop being hidden when you leave cover is up to the DM, and that RAW you do not stop being hidden when you leave cover, because the rules do not say you do. There is no contradiction between these two statements - the DM is capable of changing the rules and not running things RAW. And it's certainly not the case that, even if something is explicitly left up to the DM with zero rules guidance (so that 'it's up to the DM' is the only possible RAW position), that does not make 'here's something a DM could do' part of the RAW. Even in the explicit case, the RAW stops at 'it's up to the DM'.
(It is not explicitly 'it's up to the DM' for most of the Hide Action, which only explicitly delegates in the case of 3/4 cover. There are clear conditions for everything else in the Hide Action, and thus a clear RAW conclusion about how it works, even if no table actually plays it like that. And, well, I've played at tables like that and run a table like that).
This is supposed to be a RAW discussion forum. House rules has its own forum. The RAW question is 'how do the rules say this is to be played in the absence of any DM to say otherwise?' I don't play at your table, you don't play at my table. Nobody is the DM here.
There is an unambiguous answer here. It's fine for people to dislike it, but that doesn't change what the RAW actually is.
As far as I can tell, there's little disagreement on the text here, because no one has managed to actually quote text supporting contrary interpretations. Instead, the most common argument is that the text is ridiculous. And... so what? The text is allowed to be ridiculous, and is ridiculous in plenty of other places. Being ridiculous is not an argument against the text. (I also disagree on how ridiculous the text is or is not. I think the 360 degree perfect awareness fiction is far more ridiculous, which is what people are implicitly or even explicitly invoking when they claim leaving cover and staying hidden is ridiculous).
I am open to other interpretations, but those interpretations need text that explicitly justifies them. 'I think that's silly' is not a text-based argument.
From the Hide Action: "Make note of your check's total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check."
I don't see any discretion there.
Further, this is a forum about the RAW. There's no DM here. A DM can change anything they want. So saying the DM could change that is meaningless, because of course he could. That doesn't make it RAW, because what the DM will do is not written. The above is what is written, so that is what the RAW says. That should really be the end of this discussion (I'm sure it will not be). What you would personally do as a DM belongs in homebrew, not the Rules and Game Mechanics forum.
Several people have said exactly that:
I snipped a lot here, because his explanation is super-confusing and has zero to do with the actual text of the Hide Action, but his conclusion is obvious - once you're in the open, you're no longer hidden at all. There is no situation where you could not be in appropriate cover or concealment and be hidden for up2ng. (You can hit the link and try to follow his explanation for how he thinks it works, but I'm pretty sure that bottom line is accurately stating his belief).
That's at least 4 people in this thread that think walking out of cover means you're automatically and immediately found. Doesn't seem like such an extreme interpretation of what other people are saying. I think I've understood them perfectly.
From RAW - d20 Tests - Ability Checks - Difficulty Class - as applied to the DC required for a perception check to discover a Hidden creature.
"The rules provide DCs for certain checks, but the DM ultimately sets them."
This RULE and it is clearly RAW, explicitly states that the DM ultimately sets the DC EVEN when the rules provide DCs for certain checks. This is RAW, this is explicitly stated. This states that the DM assigns the DC appropriate to the circumstances and is not limited to the DC that is suggested in the Hide action. Period. I see all the discretion required in this explicit rule on ability checks.
However, as with other folks, this simply isn't worth discussing any further. As always, individuals can play the game any way they wish but it is pretty clear that most do not agree with your interpretation of hiding and the difficulty of noticing a hidden character under varying circumstances.
RAW support:
1-3/ And all of that is totally useless for a RAW mechanics discussion, because there is no DM. Whatever the DM decides differently than what the rules state is not, itself, RAW. (That he has the power to decide otherwise is RAW, but obviously we don't have a DMs decisions in the text).
Seriously, you were around for 3.x rules discussion. Nobody accepted 'the rules say the DM has final decisions' as a reason to ignore the given text then. This is not how mechanics discussions work.
4/ It doesn't need to state there are no other ways to find someone. The rules only give the ways they explicitly give. That means there are no other ways RAW.
With Stealth you Hide behind things be definition; the Hide action get the Invisible condition while hidden. If you moved out of your hiding place, are you still hidden?
With Deception you wear a disguise convincingly by definition; the Influence action get to impersonate the person or type of person it represents. If you remove your costume and makeup, are you still disguised?
Without distraction, in most situation i think not so others can see you normally.
Incorrect. "The DM decides" is in fact a valid answer to a RAW question.
The DM is not doing that. They are making a decision in a case where the rules are silent.
Alright, you've convinced me: this forum is useless, because everything is up to the DM, so we can't know anything, and there's no point in discussing what any text says.
There is a difference between Rule Zero (DM can change, add, or remove any rules) and specific rules text calling out a DM's discretion to dictate the difficulty or circumstances of a thing happening. I agree that the former, while still RAW, is useless in these forums. The latter is very much not.