Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Beating the dead Horse makes you stop being hidden immediately after you make an attack roll. 😋
This is not accurate. The Hide Action allows you to transition from being unhidden to being hidden by making specific efforts which have certain explicit requirements in order to conceal your location. The process of concealing your location is spelled out. The ability check portion of the requirements for concealing yourself that's made as part of this action represents an ongoing effort (trying to remain silent, etc.) -- you are not required to make the check every round. But that ongoing effort must actually be made. Meaning, the assumption is that you are continuing to try to be stealthy and as long as you are you are automatically successful. But there are still other requirements besides the ability check (to essentially remain silent) for what it means to have your location be concealed which must be met. Otherwise, you simply aren't concealed. A successful ability check no longer means anything if you aren't concealed. Such ongoing efforts do not require additional action economy expenditure, but they cannot be ignored while enjoying the benefits of having a concealed location. You only enjoy the benefits of such efforts "while hidden". You are hidden because your location is concealed. If you are no longer concealing your location, then this no longer applies.
This is correct.
The important point here is that this is not the only way that a creature can be found in general. This text is saying that IF a creature decides to use this particular method to try to find someone, then it works in the manner described when you otherwise have a concealed location. In other words, you've successfully concealed your location, so your location is now totally unknown to all enemies because you are currently unseen and unheard by them -- their senses are currently not detecting you. In THAT circumstance, you can STILL be found via the Perception check mechanic. Alternatively, an enemy might just walk around the corner, see you hiding there and automatically find you because in that circumstance your location is not concealed -- you only have the Invisible condition "while hidden" after all. Once your location is no longer concealed (the requirements for which are spelled out in the text), you don't have it.
This is incorrect. The text says that you stop being hidden immediately after one of those things happens. It doesn't say that you are hidden until then.
Instead, you only enjoy the benefits of a successful ability check "while hidden". If you aren't hidden, you don't. While you are hidden and currently enjoying the benefits of being hidden, you stop being hidden immediately if certain specific things happen.
This is false.
Again, this text is stating that IF a creature decides to use this particular method to try to find someone, then it works in the manner described when you otherwise have a concealed location. In other words, you've successfully concealed your location, so your location is now totally unknown to all enemies because you are currently unseen and unheard by them -- their senses are currently not detecting you. In THAT circumstance, you can STILL be found via the Perception check mechanic. Alternatively, an enemy might just walk around the corner, see you hiding there and automatically find you because in that circumstance your location is not concealed.
This method also includes the possibility that a creature can find another hidden creature via the Passive Perception mechanic although it is somewhat uncommon for a creature to have a good enough Passive Perception score to be successful doing it that way.
There are also a handful of special senses, class features and creature / monster abilities which allow a creature to be able to find another hidden creature.
In this case, that creature has found you. See the above Sage Advice entry from a previous post which discusses this fact.
This is wrong. As soon as a creature sees you it has found you automatically. No ability check required.
A general rule for ability checks is:
You don't roll dice when the outcome is certain. When you are looking at something, you can't miss it.
In the case of the Perception skill, the concept for that skill is described as: "Using a combination of senses, notice something that’s easy to miss."
A main action that is associated with using your Perception skill is the Search action:
So, the idea here is that a Search action can be taken to make a Perception check to find a concealed creature whose location isn't obvious.
For example:
If you are standing in an open hallway which turns 90 degrees up ahead of you and another creature is currently hiding in that portion of the open hallway that is around the corner from you . . . and then you walk around the corner . . . you are now looking right at the creature who was hiding. At this time, you see that creature and therefore you automatically found that creature, which means that that creature stops hiding immediately which also means that it no longer has the Invisible condition. The reason why that creature's Invisible condition didn't prevent you from seeing it was because its location is no longer concealed -- it only has the Invisible condition "while hidden". Note that you used a method for finding the creature that did not involve taking the Search action to make a Perception check. You used a different method -- the method of just seeing a creature whose location is obvious.
First of all, that doesn't make you hidden. That only makes you potentially unseen.
The first paragraph explains what it means to take an action to hide -- you try to conceal yourself. It then describes how to conceal your location. Essentially, while positioning yourself in an unseen location, you make an effort to become and remain unheard and to avoid drawing attention to yourself in various other ways. The concept of "while unseen, remain quiet" should be a pretty straightforward and obvious meaning of being hidden -- there's not even really a better way to write that without adding significant amounts of additional wordcount to over-clarify everything redundantly.
More importantly, the second paragraph establishes that you have successfully hidden because you have successfully concealed yourself by meeting the requirements for a concealed location that were defined in the first paragraph. It also establishes that the benefits are only enjoyed while this is true and even while it is true there are still certain things that cause you to stop being hidden immediately.
This is false.
The text says that you stop being hidden immediately after one of those things happens. It doesn't say that you are hidden until then.
Instead, you only enjoy the benefits of a successful ability check "while hidden". If you aren't hidden, you don't. While you are hidden and currently enjoying the benefits of being hidden, you stop being hidden immediately if certain specific things happen.
In this context, that's exactly what "while hidden" means. This is precisely the entire reason why the developers went through the trouble of adding this clarification directly to the rules text after initial publication via errata. It's to correct and clarify this exact mechanic. Being hidden involves having a concealed location. While you are doing that, you enjoy certain benefits. Yes, you absolutely have to stay behind cover, otherwise your location is no longer concealed, which means you are no longer hiding.
In this case, the Invisible condition isn't making you unseen (assuming the condition actually does that). Instead, in the case of hiding, the condition is essentially just tagging you after the fact with a label that confirms that you are currently unseen. If you change your circumstances so that you are no longer unseen, you no longer have the condition. Having the condition doesn't prevent this -- in the case of hiding it's the other way around -- you have the condition because you are unseen.
This is also incorrect. It's not the stealth check that does that. It's the stealth check while positioned in an unseen location that does it. The stealth check represents the portion of the process that involves remaining quiet and avoiding drawing other attention (such as making sure to avoid rustling the foliage that you are hiding in, avoid casting shadows on the wall behind you, avoid causing some other disturbance to the environment that would give away your position). The other half of being concealed is being unseen.
As for "conceal your location" vs "conceal yourself", the concept that they are going for becomes more obvious when the rules for Unseen Attackers and Targets are also examined. It is clear that the mechanical concept of a hidden creature is that their location is unknown due to "themselves" being unseen and unheard -- so these concepts go together. If your location is unknown to an enemy, they cannot directly target you because they don't know where you are.
Not really. Unlike most ability check in the game, this one explicitly is ongoing -- it doesn't immediately resolve. It represents an ongoing activity -- your ability to remain quiet and keep your location concealed over time. It's true that the die roll itself happens up front at the time when the action expenditure is required, but hiding is an explicitly ongoing activity. While you continue to hide, you enjoy certain benefits. If you stop hiding (because you've stopped concealing yourself), then you are no longer hidden because the benefits are only in effect "while hidden". You no longer have an existing and ongoing successful Stealth check while in an unseen position. However, if you do continue to hide, some things will cause you to stop being hidden immediately.
That's false. The text doesn't say that. It doesn't even imply that at all.
No, you can't. That's wrong.
However, what you CAN do is you can declare this intent to your DM and ask for advantage. See my previous post for the details, but the DM is allowed to, by RAW, grant advantage to any attack for any reason if he deems that the situation warrants it. If he does grant advantage to your attack, it wouldn't be because you are Hidden -- you aren't -- it would be because you snuck up behind him and attacked him from behind while he was looking the other way while distracted by something else AND the DM deems that such a situation is advantageous enough to grant advantage to your attack.
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This seems like another good time to add another related comment regarding this topic.
The Hide action pretty obviously intends for you to enjoy the benefits of being hidden while you are, you know, hidden. Approaching this portion of the rules while wearing a grammar police hat in an attempt to twist the obvious meaning of the text into something else is against the rules according to the DMG: