The game does have line of sight (and facing, for that matter) so why do people say it doesn’t?
weird.
stealth, as a whole, is all kinds of screwy in 5e.
invisible
unseen
unnoticed
seen
these are the four I need to look more closely at. I really want a fifth in there, but that’s mostly my preference for fives…
there is no facing rules in 5e.
its assumed that everyone can see 360 degrees in all directions, for 2 miles, or the limit of their dark vision.
there is "line of sight" within that concept, being people cant see things if you are in front of them, but that isn't what line of sight represents in other contexts, because it would include a cone of vision.
Except there are, factually, facing rules in 5e. In the book, no less. There's even flanking rules. for both hex and grid.
those are, factually, optional rules, the system should be functional with baseline rules, and as i edited, they still make hiding mostly useless, as you already gain the advantages of hiding/stealth by just being outside of their vision.
the only valid usecase for hiding in combat, is to obscure yourself from other senses, or lose someone. However, losing someone can only work if you can hide, and then move far enough away while still obscured that they cant obviously guess your location. The times where this will be the case are almost nil, and the cost of hiding is one action or BA if you are a thief. Its almost never going to be a good idea to hide with either set of rules.
Well, odd thing there...
The rules being optional doesn't make them less baseline. That's an opinion call that is determined on a table by table basis, not as a general rule. You edited to correct while I responded, but it still doesn't change the reality that there are, as a fact, facing rules in 5e.
Or that those facing rules are built into every major VTT that is in use, and so having a considerable impact and broad adoption (de facto, but still). SO to argue there is no facing is inaccurate, incorrect, and disingenuous.
While I have zero doubt that there are folks out there who operate in the manner that you describe (you can see behind you), I sure as hell haven't ever played with any of them in the last 40 plus years, and
SACRED PLANTS AND WOOD
A Shaman holds certain plants to be sacred, particularly alder, ash, birch, elder, hazel, holly, juniper, mistletoe, oak, rowan, willow, and yew. Shamans often use such plants as part of a spellcasting focus, incorporating lengths of oak or yew or sprigs of mistletoe.
Similarly, a Shaman uses such woods to make other objects, such as weapons and shields. Yew is associated with death and rebirth, so weapon handles for scimitars or sickles might be fashioned from it. Ash is associated with life and oak with strength. These woods make excellent hafts or whole weapons, such as clubs or quarterstaffs, as well as shields. Alder is associated with air, and it might be used for thrown weapons, such as darts or javelins.
Shamans from regions that lack the plants described here have chosen other plants to take on similar uses. For instance, a Shaman of a desert region might value the yucca tree and cactus plants. suspect the argument is predicated on an abstract absis that essentially is little more than a mental exercise for most people, rather than actual play issues. And that's despite the fact a lot of folks don't intentionally use the facing rules -- they just don't think people can see behind them.
Taking an aspect that is perceived to be a lack of clarity and making an argument with it is a weakness, especially when one has to rely on denial of an actual element to do so.
Your example, in actual play, has never once happened to me throughout the 5e lifecycle. And I don't use facing. I just don't think people have eyes in the back of their head because I'm not trying to create a problem where there isn't really one.
You have also said you have rarely ever played by 5e rules, and almost always use some combination of all the versions you have played and your own homebrew.
So in order to get what people are talking about, place yourself in a position of not being a GM who has played for 40 years. If you are a player, you have limited control over what the GM chooses, and probably are not even aware of the optional rules in the DMG. If you are a new DM, you are likely not use optional rules, and rules that require more book keeping as you are new and inexperienced, and tracking a lot of things at one time.
I specifically remember the beginning times of playing 5e, and the high difficulty of piecing together the stealth/hiding rules (which takes place over 3 or 4 different places, not all labeled) And incredulousness once after much debate with the DM, came to the conclusion that rules make it impossible for my rogue to melee sneak up on someone and attack. And i am not alone, there are many records of people trying to understand and debate the hiding rules in early 5e days. Multiple blog posts with different takes, and different ways to fix it.
What people are talking about are the 5e baseline rules. A rule being optional means there is no strong chance that it will be in play, at the tables you play. Regardless, the baseline rules shouldnt be flawed.
you say you have not used facing rules, but then talk about eyes in the back of their head.. that means whether formally or not, you have facing as a concept built into your conception of the game, at least some of the time.
and yes line of sight is not optional, however it is not what is normally meant by line of sight in other context. Line of sight in 5e means whether you are behind objects or not behind objects. When people outside of the game say the car was out of my line of sight, it includes the concept of facing. IE something behind me, is out of my line of sight, that is not the case in 5e
Some interesting suppositions, there.
Chief among them is that I don't get what people are talking about. Or that I haven't considered the "new player/new DM" thing.
None of that changes the reality that most folks will still say "oh, you can't see behind you".
Yeah, sure, folks are arguing about it. They are arguing about stealth in the same way they argued about it in 1e/2e when it was a percentile die roll. And I don't doubt that there are ten thousand different interpretations on how to do it in part because of the perceived lack of clarity on the part of some.
That is a feature of the game, though.
I mentioned the VTT's on purpose: as a whole, a large part of the game is shifting towards that -- and it will get even worse. All VTTs incorporate facing (and line of sight) into the functionality, by default (because you have to, just like you have to when you use physical miniatures).
If a rule is in the book, it is a baseline rule. SOrry, that's fact. You could make that argument and I would buy it if it was something other than a core book, but not when it is a core book. If you are having a problem with line of sight and facing and you want to complain that everyone can see in all directions, well, That Is Why The Option Is There. For precisely that problem.
However, in 2014, there were not a lot of VTt's and most folks were still doing stuff by TotM, and in those cases, it doesn't matter. They did it right.
And that all matters because if you are a new DM, today, you are probably going to use either Theater of the Mind (TotM), where it doesn't ******* matter, or you are going to use a VTT, where it's already built into the basics. You are probably not going to be doing involved miniatures use when you can use a freaking VTT that's way easier, but if you are using minatures, it doesn't take long for someone to say "oh, facing, ok" -- and that's been true for probably 60 years, if not longer.
now, to make it even more interesting, what's the official line on it in Adventurer's League? what? Facing?
Lastly, you note that when I say "people don't have eyes in the back of their head" that I am including facing rules of some sort. Forgetting, when I said that, that I was referencing how that's how most people approach the issue.
So, by your own estimation, most people use facing rules. In 5e. Which are optional and in the book, and exist as rules in 5e.
I get that you don't like it, and I do understand your abstract, personal dislike of the current structure. But that does not mean that facing doesn't exist in the game (even without the use of facing rules, which are predicated on a grid or hex basis, and are distinct because the game presumes that most people don't see out the back of their skulls as a function of presumption to the point that when something can see out the back of its head, they explicitly note it, making it an implied rule), nor does it mean that you are wrong to be upset about the way they screwed the pooch on how they structure stealth in the game.
Because they did. I swear, one of the first complaints I had about 5e was "dayum, they ****ed thieves". Because they did. Don't forget, I came to 5e after turning away from 3.5 to go back to 2 (despit ethe brief look at 4e), so I had almost 15 years of play before I stepped into 5e and had to learn it like everyone else did.
Just like the other six DMs in my group did.
And all the other DMs I know.
I won't argue they didn't screw up stealth. All that crap that I was muttering about around senses is all about the stuff I am looking at in order to "fix" it for my game. Which, yes, is a bit more crunchy and highly brewed, lol. Distilled, even.
But I play TotM with a rare break out of a hastily scribbled map on graph paper and either custom printed figs or coins or even dice. I don't use facing because I don't pay attention tot he rules about how many grid squares a person is looking at or how many hexes face a person. that doesn't mean that people aren't mostly focused on what's going on, or dealing with teh distraction of all the danger around them, and so suddenly a person can't sneak up behind someone and backstab them under the baseline rules.
Indeed, the baseline rules say it is possible, provide bonuses for it, and more, so it has to be possible, and your insistence that it is not indicates that there is something about your perception that is incorrect, and as a lot of folks play rogues of all sorts and backstab is a really popular attack option, I cannot accept that notion that there is no facing by default in the game.
I get that you don't like it, but it is not a broader problem, nor a n actua design flaw.
But invisibility and sneaking do need to be looked at more seriously and more deeply, and those comments should be raised in the playtest responses. Because they do need to put more effort into stealth and its affects.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Nah, that’s a separate sensory-perceptual group (stench/smell/scent/odorless).
unseen is a “no see me”, unnoticed is like “camouflaged”, seen is really “visible and noticeable”, invisible is not seen. All visual-perceptual
loud/silent/whispered/ is The auditory-perceptual, feathery/soft/firm/hard is the tactile-perceptual.
still muddling through it —- working towards some way of clearing all five of them.
still haven’t figured out my sixth sense -feel-perceptual bit, but also kinda leaning into including that in the perceptual aspect.
"unease" or similar? the sense that you're being watched. the feeling that pattern recognition in your animal brain registered something your conscious mind hasn't caught up to yet.
Oh, I like that! Yes!
THank you!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
The rules were dumb and they still are. you can attempt to hide when you are already hidden is such a failure in concept it hurts my soul. Look, make hide tiered with multiple degrees of success or something if the on off nature of it is too good. But no if you are heavily obscured people should not just automatically know where you are like everyone has freaking radar. Oh you can hear them, blah blah, yes at like 10 feet you can hear them to know their square, but no you are not hearing most people walking 40 feet out unless its hard soles on stone in the right conditions etc, you are not hearing a dude in armor, with jangly crap on him 20 feet out in a bustling marketplace. If 50 year old fat man me can hide in real life better than your rules you are failing at creating a class fantasy. I am not a ninja, I do not have special training and I can hide and sneak up on people with far less than 3/4 cover or full concealment. Your rules should make the PCs cooler than we are in real life not lamer.
you're not wrong, but I'm not sure you're headed somewhere 5e wants to go. for things like standing behind 3/4 cover and not really trying to hide but not being obvious, that's passive stealth isn't it? but do we really want to go down that rabbit hole? after that, passive animal handling to measure bug bite frequency and passive athletics for walking while chewing gum?
first let's tackle how to explain to a fifth-grade audience on-purpose save-or-suck hiding, maybe without using the invisible condition. then we can go back and work on how to make tippy-toeing between shadows seem most plausible. 5e is about the simple framework and us bringing our own plausibility... right up until someone realizes they could sell a new $40 book for each class: "come get your Rogue book! now with expanded stealth rules! dm's hate this one weird trick!"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
3.5e PHB, page 79 Hide had some nice language, and even discussed moving at half speed without breaking concealment page 80 discusses moving silently, again at half speed.
Every DM I've played with in 5e has allowed this unwritten rule. If you start your round hidden (an unseen attacker) you can move 1/2 your speed to keep this condition, and then make melee or ranged attack(s)
Moving beyond 1/2 speed would require a new stealth check
Some interesting suppositions, there.
Chief among them is that I don't get what people are talking about. Or that I haven't considered the "new player/new DM" thing.
None of that changes the reality that most folks will still say "oh, you can't see behind you".
Yeah, sure, folks are arguing about it. They are arguing about stealth in the same way they argued about it in 1e/2e when it was a percentile die roll. And I don't doubt that there are ten thousand different interpretations on how to do it in part because of the perceived lack of clarity on the part of some.
That is a feature of the game, though.
I mentioned the VTT's on purpose: as a whole, a large part of the game is shifting towards that -- and it will get even worse. All VTTs incorporate facing (and line of sight) into the functionality, by default (because you have to, just like you have to when you use physical miniatures).
If a rule is in the book, it is a baseline rule. SOrry, that's fact. You could make that argument and I would buy it if it was something other than a core book, but not when it is a core book. If you are having a problem with line of sight and facing and you want to complain that everyone can see in all directions, well, That Is Why The Option Is There. For precisely that problem.
However, in 2014, there were not a lot of VTt's and most folks were still doing stuff by TotM, and in those cases, it doesn't matter. They did it right.
And that all matters because if you are a new DM, today, you are probably going to use either Theater of the Mind (TotM), where it doesn't ******* matter, or you are going to use a VTT, where it's already built into the basics. You are probably not going to be doing involved miniatures use when you can use a freaking VTT that's way easier, but if you are using minatures, it doesn't take long for someone to say "oh, facing, ok" -- and that's been true for probably 60 years, if not longer.
now, to make it even more interesting, what's the official line on it in Adventurer's League? what? Facing?
Lastly, you note that when I say "people don't have eyes in the back of their head" that I am including facing rules of some sort. Forgetting, when I said that, that I was referencing how that's how most people approach the issue.
So, by your own estimation, most people use facing rules. In 5e. Which are optional and in the book, and exist as rules in 5e.
I get that you don't like it, and I do understand your abstract, personal dislike of the current structure. But that does not mean that facing doesn't exist in the game (even without the use of facing rules, which are predicated on a grid or hex basis, and are distinct because the game presumes that most people don't see out the back of their skulls as a function of presumption to the point that when something can see out the back of its head, they explicitly note it, making it an implied rule), nor does it mean that you are wrong to be upset about the way they screwed the pooch on how they structure stealth in the game.
Because they did. I swear, one of the first complaints I had about 5e was "dayum, they ****ed thieves". Because they did. Don't forget, I came to 5e after turning away from 3.5 to go back to 2 (despit ethe brief look at 4e), so I had almost 15 years of play before I stepped into 5e and had to learn it like everyone else did.
Just like the other six DMs in my group did.
And all the other DMs I know.
I won't argue they didn't screw up stealth. All that crap that I was muttering about around senses is all about the stuff I am looking at in order to "fix" it for my game. Which, yes, is a bit more crunchy and highly brewed, lol. Distilled, even.
But I play TotM with a rare break out of a hastily scribbled map on graph paper and either custom printed figs or coins or even dice. I don't use facing because I don't pay attention tot he rules about how many grid squares a person is looking at or how many hexes face a person. that doesn't mean that people aren't mostly focused on what's going on, or dealing with teh distraction of all the danger around them, and so suddenly a person can't sneak up behind someone and backstab them under the baseline rules.
Indeed, the baseline rules say it is possible, provide bonuses for it, and more, so it has to be possible, and your insistence that it is not indicates that there is something about your perception that is incorrect, and as a lot of folks play rogues of all sorts and backstab is a really popular attack option, I cannot accept that notion that there is no facing by default in the game.
I get that you don't like it, but it is not a broader problem, nor a n actua design flaw.
But invisibility and sneaking do need to be looked at more seriously and more deeply, and those comments should be raised in the playtest responses. Because they do need to put more effort into stealth and its affects.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Oh, I like that! Yes!
THank you!
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
you're not wrong, but I'm not sure you're headed somewhere 5e wants to go. for things like standing behind 3/4 cover and not really trying to hide but not being obvious, that's passive stealth isn't it? but do we really want to go down that rabbit hole? after that, passive animal handling to measure bug bite frequency and passive athletics for walking while chewing gum?
first let's tackle how to explain to a fifth-grade audience on-purpose save-or-suck hiding, maybe without using the invisible condition. then we can go back and work on how to make tippy-toeing between shadows seem most plausible. 5e is about the simple framework and us bringing our own plausibility... right up until someone realizes they could sell a new $40 book for each class: "come get your Rogue book! now with expanded stealth rules! dm's hate this one weird trick!"
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
3.5e PHB, page 79 Hide had some nice language, and even discussed moving at half speed without breaking concealment page 80 discusses moving silently, again at half speed.
Every DM I've played with in 5e has allowed this unwritten rule. If you start your round hidden (an unseen attacker) you can move 1/2 your speed to keep this condition, and then make melee or ranged attack(s)
Moving beyond 1/2 speed would require a new stealth check