How does the Hide action interact with attacking?

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Okay, but how do you determine what’s possible mid-game? Stopping to hash it out would be tedious for the rest of the group if nothing else, and likely would get frustrating if it recurs. End of the day the group largely needs to trust/accept the DM’s rulings for what rolls they can make, and if the DM squeezes too tight it’s probably time to bounce.

I'm not sure how this relates to anything I said. While you could try to come up with specific rules for computing the target number, that seems antithetic to the 5e design philosophy, so it's probably just "roll and the DM will tell you if it worked".

 
The point is that it’s entirely within a DM’s brief to decide something that is still nominally plausible doesn’t deserve a 1-in-20 shot to succeed and so simply disallow the roll without getting into the rabbit hole of whether there’s some theoretical chance X action could produce Y outcome.

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Quote from kenclary >>

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Melee sneak attacks were already quite possible- you either buddy up with another PC- already quite common- or use Aimed Strike for advantage. This claim sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Doing them from Hide is a different situation, but the fact that "sneak attack every round is easy" means that "you can sneak into melee in combat" really isn't a big deal, balance-wise --- it involves a bonus action, high Stealth, target being within Move (or maybe half Move if you want to repeat), maybe taking an AoO, etc.

But then, I'm not the one who keeps saying you shouldn't be able to do this. I'm just pointing out that the new Hide rules mean you can. The "problem" is "Invisible Condition doesn't make sense" and the solution is "actually, it does make sense."

 
Sure- it makes sense when people accept it’s not the equivalent of activating the character’s personal invisibility field and that players don’t get to dictate the situational awareness of NPCs mid-combat.

 The players get to dictate whether the NPC can hit them or not with an attack roll by their armor class.  I don't see a difference in kind here.  They want to hit me, I don't want to be hit, we use a roll to decide.  They want to find me, I don't want to be found, we use a roll to decide.

Quote from Squirrelloid >>

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Quote from kenclary >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Melee sneak attacks were already quite possible- you either buddy up with another PC- already quite common- or use Aimed Strike for advantage. This claim sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Doing them from Hide is a different situation, but the fact that "sneak attack every round is easy" means that "you can sneak into melee in combat" really isn't a big deal, balance-wise --- it involves a bonus action, high Stealth, target being within Move (or maybe half Move if you want to repeat), maybe taking an AoO, etc.

But then, I'm not the one who keeps saying you shouldn't be able to do this. I'm just pointing out that the new Hide rules mean you can. The "problem" is "Invisible Condition doesn't make sense" and the solution is "actually, it does make sense."

 
Sure- it makes sense when people accept it’s not the equivalent of activating the character’s personal invisibility field and that players don’t get to dictate the situational awareness of NPCs mid-combat.

 The players get to dictate whether the NPC can hit them or not with an attack roll by their armor class.  I don't see a difference in kind here.  They want to hit me, I don't want to be hit, we use a roll to decide.  They want to find me, I don't want to be found, we use a roll to decide.

 
If you don’t see the difference between an attack roll and a skill roll, there’s really nothing left to be said on the subject.

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Quote from Squirrelloid >>

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Quote from kenclary >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Melee sneak attacks were already quite possible- you either buddy up with another PC- already quite common- or use Aimed Strike for advantage. This claim sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Doing them from Hide is a different situation, but the fact that "sneak attack every round is easy" means that "you can sneak into melee in combat" really isn't a big deal, balance-wise --- it involves a bonus action, high Stealth, target being within Move (or maybe half Move if you want to repeat), maybe taking an AoO, etc.

But then, I'm not the one who keeps saying you shouldn't be able to do this. I'm just pointing out that the new Hide rules mean you can. The "problem" is "Invisible Condition doesn't make sense" and the solution is "actually, it does make sense."

 
Sure- it makes sense when people accept it’s not the equivalent of activating the character’s personal invisibility field and that players don’t get to dictate the situational awareness of NPCs mid-combat.

 The players get to dictate whether the NPC can hit them or not with an attack roll by their armor class.  I don't see a difference in kind here.  They want to hit me, I don't want to be hit, we use a roll to decide.  They want to find me, I don't want to be found, we use a roll to decide.

 
If you don’t see the difference between an attack roll and a skill roll, there’s really nothing left to be said on the subject.

 I don't see a difference between rolls which are contested by well-defined difficulty numbers.  The game defines how hard it is for an enemy to notice you with a precise DC, just like the game defines how hard it is to hit you with a precise DC.  The only normal DM intervention in such a situation is whether advantage or disadvantage applies.

Quote from Squirrelloid >>

 I don't see a difference between rolls which are contested by well-defined difficulty numbers. 

The problem is that the difficulty number should not be well-defined, it just has too many possible variables.

Quote from Squirrelloid >>

 I don't see a difference between rolls which are contested by well-defined difficulty numbers.  The game defines how hard it is for an enemy to notice you with a precise DC, just like the game defines how hard it is to hit you with a precise DC.  The only normal DM intervention in such a situation is whether advantage or disadvantage applies.

The rules very clearly state otherwise in the case of ability checks:

"The Difficulty Class of an ability check represents the task’s difficulty. The more difficult the task, the higher its DC. The rules provide DCs for certain checks, but the DM ultimately sets them. The Typical Difficulty Classes table presents a range of possible DCs for ability checks."

This RULE explicitly states that although other rules may provide DCs for certain checks - it is ultimately the DM who sets them. You will note that in the case of attack rolls, the rules do not state this explicitly. For attack rolls, the DM decides whether 1/2, 3/4 or total cover is appropriate in the circumstances and whether the attack has advantage, disadvantage or is a straight roll.

However, in the case of ability check DCs, the rules are explicit that the DM can set them (RAW) even when a formula is specified elsewhere in the rules. 

You may not like this, you may disagree with it, you perhaps want it to be played a certain way - but RAW, the DC for whether a character is noticed while hidden is entirely at the discretion of the DM and can be based on specific circumstances. 

I'd suggest asking a DM that you plan to play with how they intend to run stealth in the game and how DCs to notice a character will be determined, perhaps discuss some examples, then decide if that is a DM you want to play with. However, I can guarantee that it will never work to go into a game as a player insisting on your interpretation of how a rule (any rule) should be played. Especially one that is open to as much potential misuse as the stealth rules.