Stealth rules in Dnd 5e were never published!
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2022
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Why does it say this comment is 1 mo old, but it also says the video is only 2 hours old (at the time of posting this comment)?
@@MatthewSmith-pv6gd He keeps his video privet and just keeps working on it until he is sure it is ready to be released to a computer screen near you.
I remember 3.5 grappling rules was a mess
What do you _mean_ I can't hide in the middle of an empty plain in broad daylight, with a spotlight shining directly down on me!?
I rolled a 17 on stealth, didn't I!? That should count for something _riiiiiight!?_
-Karen K. Karenson III Esq., with Honors and Then Some, on her first attempt at being a stealthy Plate Mail Enthusiast.
the Stealth rules rolled a nat 20 to hide in unpublished content
Or whomever didn't include it rolled a nat 1, but wasn't a Halfling.
I thought Stealth rolls would be the rogue of the party, and so got a 2 on the roll, but with natural talent and Pass Without a Trace shenanigans was still looking at a 31
The joke is even funnier when you know there is now Crit Success on Ability checks RAW nor RAI but everyone homebrews that there are no stealth missions no matter what. Pass without trace and experties for +17 to stealth? You rolled 1 and everyone noticed you. RIP all stealth. That is 17 encounters with 0 success fully stealth because 5% chance to fail any roll 😂
I have been saying for years that the stealth rules in 5E are the most unhelpful stealth rules I have seen in any game ever, and I've played White Wolf games.
5E sucks, but sometimes I get players who want to give it a try. So I am glad there is a cute little blue cave lizard to help me learn what I can't from getting a book.
Maybe I'd be able to afford one if the spades would stop breaking when I try to use them.
@@rachdarastrix5251 I'm with you there. I enjoy playing 5e purely in spite of the rules. My players make it an enjoyable experience but that's it.
@@ArvelDreth I am going to let you know right now that you are appreciated.
I am letting you know now because I understand what it is like to be willing to allow one's self so much humiliation for the cause of other's enjoyment.
And I have spent enough time studying human brains to come up with the theory that the ones who have the ability to appreciate it are a product of a genetic mutation rather than this being a normal trait.
Which is why I always make sure only to play with those who have this mutation.
@@rachdarastrix5251 You make it sound like I'm humiliating myself for the enjoyment of my friends when I play 5e. I play 5e with my friends because they're good players who I enjoy spending time with, even if the rules of 5e frustrate me somewhat. Not because they enjoy it while I myself am hating it.
@@ArvelDreth No, I don't remember what I was thinking at the time, I was tired.
But I call 5E the "You keep taking a hit and can't do anything about it edition."
I typed it out for everyone. You are welcome.
Conditions for Stealth
In order to avoid detection, you need some way to remain out of sight, either something to hide behind or an area of poor visibility to locate yourself in.
Stay out of sight. You can’t just stand in the middle of an empty, lit room and hope to avoid notice. Something must conceal you, perhaps a large object, a piece of terrain, or an immobile creature of a sufficient size, such as a slumbering dragon. Regardless of what stands between you and a viewer, it must cover at least half your body for you to hide behind it.
An environmental phenomenon that obscures you from view can also provide a means to hide.
A Heavily obscured area typically contains darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage. A creature in a heavily obscured area is out of sight, just as if it were hiding behind an obstruction, and thus can try to hide. A lightly obscured area typically contains dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage. Monsters and characters have special abilities that enable them to try to hide even in areas that are only lightly obscured.
Stay quiet. It’s assumed that you try to avoid making noise while hiding, and your Dexterity (Stealth) check also represents your ability to keep quiet. If you make a noise, such as yelling a warning to an ally or knocking over a vase, you give away your position and are thus no longer hidden.
That sounds better than... Well... The published Stealth Rule, from what I here.
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 yeah the published rule on it is roughly "you must be heavily obscured or have total concealment". Meaning that according to the rules as written, if you're not heavily obscured as you try to walk behind someone, they immediately know you are there.
Yelling or making noise from a hidden position doesn't reveal you, it would only give you a disadvantage when moving from that location or allow enemies to make assumptions. (Cast fire ball or shoot an arrow trying to hit someone.)
@@Buglin_Burger7878
Minor Illusion would be great for the iconic video game type of stealth where you throw rocks or bottles at locations during undetected movement.
Ty
Speaking of hiding in open fields... Minor illusion cantrips.
Solid snake your way into hiding, or just make a big illusory rock to block line of sight.
For open field stealth I would have the roll done for how effective ghillie is done given that we have real world examples of ghillie hiding people from all but being stepped on
To add to it a bush full of metal would be more attention grabbing so it still works with armor disadvantage
( ! )
Favorite tactic of mine. Minor illusion a stature of my character poised ready to strike, hide in the illusion, then strike from within the statue.
@@williammeek4078 why is there a statue in this field in the middle of nowhere? -a very confused traveller
@@rodrigonoffs1369 exactly! The confusion buys time to attack!
Seems to me that it was deliberately removed. In the game now, you must have total cover or be heavily obscured to Hide. Anything else such as 3/4 cover or 1/2 cover is up to the individual DM and the circumstances that the player is dealing with. EDIT: The stealth rule could certainly have been written better, for sure.
Yeah, it feels like the playtest rule would make more sense if it referred to a level of cover than it does now.
I haven't seen anything in the books regarding regarding obscurement, other than the woodelves "mask of the wild" trait.
@@golett0331 The top level rules are laid out in the PHB section titled; 'The Environment.' I think that is what you are looking for.
@@golett0331 The Mask of the Wild trait and the Skulker feat both indicate that Lightly Obscured is not enough for Hide while being heavily obscured is the equivalent of the blinded condition (they cannot see you and thus you can hide). But that's one big reason why the stealth/hide rules are poorly written. You have to jump around from feats to racial features to the Stealth skill to the Environment: Vision and Light rules. It needed to be all in one place with a consistent explanation. So I agree with the vid in that respect. I don't necessarily agree that 1/2 and 3/4 cover should allow for a hide. After all, if someone's head is sticking up above a wall or their cloak extends beyond their 3/4 cover, you can see that.
@@fortunatus1 you receive cover benefits passively though, meaning the character isn’t necessarily taking action to cover their whole body, it’s just in the way of someone else. Hiding means taking action to cover your whole body, and since the smallest specified type of cover is 1/2, it’s essentially the same as the unpublished rule mentioned in the video.
I literally never understood stealth properly, it was always, "Can I hide by doing X" and if it made sense I could hide.
Honestly I think that's what they were going for, but I would much rather have a baseline than if "if they see you"
Not only are your videos extremely entertaining - but they are also informative and are immensely helpful to a new DM trying to be more solid in adjudication/understanding of the game/mechanics. Thanks, Kobold.
Absolutely, it's the same case for me.
As a first time DM of an entirely newbie group this short precice vids are perfect,
especially to clarify uncertanties ☺️👍🏼
Oh PLEASE god people NEED it. No one KNOWS the rules here. Makes rouge’s SEEM op
Nah, rogues are trash with this cause you need the entire party for suprise, Rangers tho...
rgouoe's's
idk rogues can also seem useless without this rule. have had DMs say I can't hide behind a carriage because the enemy saw me running there, or even if they didn't see me yet you get disadvantage if they are looking for you.
problem is people skim the rules and then make assumptions about what they mean. if you know what line of sight means in d&d then you probably won't have any issues. if you try to use the "common sense" meaning then you're gonna have problems and thats for like everything. the real problem is people trying to apply real world logic to their make believe game.
I mean, rogues do alright damage, but they aren't that OP honestly. At least in combat.
the only mildly reasonable suggestion here is that they either
a) forgot to include the rule, and then once they realized their mistake they did not want to add it in as an rule in a future book like xanatar's or tasha's, perhaps as to not upset people already using some homebrew rule for it or to avoid looking dumb or whatever
b) deliberately wanted it to be up to DM adjucation with the only caveat being that you are supposed to understand "heavily obscured = can hide" and "lightly obscured = can hide if a feature says so" from context clues or whatever
as for the whole "just remove whole page art" well if you pay close attention, you might notice that least some of the art matches up with other art from the same book or with art between the PHB and DMG, and in Xanatar's each of the chapter artpieces also fit together
I've personally come to the conclusion that (B) is the correct answer. Stealth/Hide/surprise as written should happen ~95% of the time if you run it as written. You roll an 18, or higher, and almost nothing is going to see you with its passive perception. Honestly I just recently realized most (ok, all) DM's run Perception Checks during a long rest incorrectly. We should be using the PC's passive perception and not an active roll. But hey, old habits die hard.
My best guess is that they didn't want to overload DMs by forcing them to decide hevily/lightly obs. Terrain for every map they made.
Tho in that case it could have been an optional rule
@@andreataccone2564 Plus it gets kind of annoying when the players need to constantly ask if there is somewhere they can hide, when they could just make up some sort of cover from the DM's description of the surroundings. Rogues especially understand that it is sometimes better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
@@peterwhitcomb8315 Debatable, right? If the PCs are using active perception on watch, should they roll? If I use a guard NPC, I usually use a skill check as they are "using their actions to perceive," as opposed to walking through a dungeon and noticing an irregularity on the floor (a trap, perhaps?) that they are not looking for. Rules seem vague at best.
@@happy911
The language isn't vague at all.
"To determine whether such a creature notices you, the DM compares your Dexterity (Stealth) check with that creature's passive Wisdom (Perception) score, which equals 10 + the creature's Wisdom modifier, as well as any other bonuses or penalties. If the creature has advantage, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5."
It's very clear. You use the passive perception score. There is no roll. But again, old habits, and editions, are very hard to break.
"Bonus action wasn't even a thing. That's how ancient this is."
Me, still spending Wednesday nights calculating whether my players hit based on their THAC0: : |
As someone with base attack bonus charts memorized... I had the same feeling ;-)
I guess you could say the stealth rules were... *hidden?* 😎
I feel like recreating stealth rules is the first real challenge for any new DM.
someone on reddit recently made another important discovery. depending on how you read it, being heavily obscured is only necessary to take the Hide action. in order to remain hidden, you only need to be lightly obscured.
its really not clearly written, more like an interpretation of natural language…
but it would explain how you can make attacks from being hidden, especially if we add that part you found about something covering half your body (which i would consider only lightly obscured).
Cool find! I didn't know about this. Having made a video on stealth myself, I can say there is massive rules precedent for the relationship between lightly and heavily obscured for stealth. Seeing it illustrated so clearly there is a relief, at least it confirms that relationship is RAI and not just speculation.
As to the half your body part, I feel like that could have been worded slightly differently. The way it's written there makes it seem like you can hide so long as just half your body is obscured, but I feel like the intention is your typically able to duck behind something that's at least half your size. Also, as written, it's seems like a human could hide behind a halfling lol.
The rule requiring half-cover is part of the Hide action, it was just omitted and "streamlined" as part of the sentence "you need cover or concealment to hide" The minimum amount of cover in the rules is 1/2 cover, therefore it is implicit you need to have at least enough cover to hide half your body, which should be very advantageous to small creatures but is often overlooked. And yes, you are right, I agree, it is much better written and less ambiguous.
I always thought it was weird that you can cast a spell from stealth and still surprise the enemy in 5E, just reading the rules for spell casting, it's about the least stealthy thing a character can do, more so with vocal components. Given you need to stay quiet for stealth in these rules, it does question if you're really taking an action from stealth, unless you have silent spell meta magic or something similar.
The wizard pulls a pinch of sulfur from a pouch, one hand drawing magical symbols in the air in front of him before rising from his hiding place and shouting the verbal component, catching the enemy by surprise as they turn towards the source of the noise only to have a fireball detonate in their midst a split second later.
@@WombatDave ya but rules as written only breaks stealth if it's a "targeted" spell fireball is fine, charm is debatable but MM is ng.
Hey Kobold, just letting you know you forgot to add the l to stealth in the title of the vid. Keep up the good work
Yeah. Thank you! My bad.
Wait there’s an i in steaith
@@soup-flavored-soup6613 no, but there is an L
So can we call this a stealth edit...
There is an "i" in stealth it's just heavily obscured
I love it! We will spread this knowledge far and wide in the name of our kind and generous, Great King-Kobold, Gator, and all the various Crocodilians!
Seriously though I play a rouge like 90% of the time, this is great.
I've never had problems with the official rulebook but that may also just be because my DMs generally had common sense and basically did exactly this.
Though one thing that you really should have pointed out is that 'dim light' bit. Hey.
What does darkvision treat total darkness as?
That's right, dim light! Time to start buying torches, ya goddamn elves!
I rather use the Light cantrips. It's cheaper and it comes in two sizes which the smaller Lights can be casted multiple times while staying active. And the larger Light can take the form of anything to mimick its shape.
As for darkness... Blind Weapon Fighting Style has omni sight up to 10ft around the Fighter. Despite the 10ft, it's the only thing which can detect every NPC/Player while Invisible characters must perform a dice roll to stay undetected.
The generic Dark Vision, Blind Sight, and True Sight does not have the same capabilities as Blind Weapon Fighting Style, even if those three things have very long ranges of detection.
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Invisible creatures don't get a pass from Blind Fighting auto-detection unless they're behind total cover in that 10ft Radius.
In that event they roll as normal for stealth to stay 'quiet'
"You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you."
You can "see" invisible creatures which means you're not benefiting from invisibilities total cover unless you move behind a wall to stay quiet.
It's always been ran this way for players using invisibility against monsters with blind sight.
@@PH03NIX96
That's true... Just don't walk into the 10ft of Blind Fighter after exiting its range if you're invisible. Otherwise, you'll have to roll again while being in half cover for Stealth or full cover for general detection avoidance.
If they succeed the roll, then they just have to avoid leaving the Blind Fighter's 10ft radius to avoid reactivating the forced dice roll.
Its crazy how feats like Skulker which nobody talks about or takes suddenly seem very very good (Stealth Checks in Dim Light allowed)
Congrats on 100 videos!
Thank you! I didn't even notice it was 100 videos!
XptoLevel3 did a GREAT video about this. He discovered you have to use the Skulker feat description to deduce the rules of hiding and it just comes to something near to what's written in the demo. Awesome.
I saw that while researching if people have found this Dnd next rule. I wonder how he would react to this. He sounded so frustrated in that video from what I remember.
This is very useful, but I think most of the confusion in stealth comes from what to do after you're hidden than getting hidden. I've seen a lot of discussion about at which point the hidden rogue who moved from his cover to do a melee sneak attack is not hidden anymore. Which is a valid concern.
The rules assume creatures are meatballs with 360 vision, but it also assumes no one is looking at the rogue after he did his stealth check, until after he strikes. It is a mess.
Nice work on the video!
Amazing find!
4:28
Illustrations were a lot of kid's introductions into this game. But yeah; even if the next DiTerlizzi is thumbing through the books, a mechanic as central to the game, especially for Rogues, Rangers and PCs who just don't want to wake the sleeping dragon should take priority. I wouldn't want 5e's core stealth rules to be someone's introduction to Rogues.
i love this video so much. thank you
On the subject of Pass Without Trace, this is a bit of a home ruling, but the description of the spell says that is grants a +10 stealth checks *and* you leave behind no tracks or trace of movement. Sound is a trace of movement, and you know what other item causes you to move silently? The boots of elvenkind which do not require attunement and grant advantage on stealth rolls due to their effect. This would imply that because Pass Without Trace also completely muffles and masks your movement, it would grant advantage on your stealth checks *as well as* the +10 that’s listed in the spell description.
THANK YOU FOR THIS!!! I’m planning a high level heist one shot And the unclear rules for hiding has been one of the most stressful parts of planning. I am even more excited for it now!
Thanks for pointing this out. I was unaware of D&D Next.
I forget how he worded it but Jacob from Xp to level 3 did a stealth rules video over a year ago. Maybe 2 years.
To stealth you need 2 things.
1. Something to break line of sight with the thing you're hiding from.
2. Your stealth roll needs to beat their perception or passive perception roll.
Was everyone not doing this already? How screwed up were the munchkins and the rules as written purists doing it that they needed this video to set them straight?
Seeing this gives me a weird feeling of both joy and anger. I've spent so much time trying to figure out the hiding rules, so many debates and arguments. This is so much more clear. I am running this from now on.
4:33 Which in fact, they did. In Lost Mines of Phandelver!
That same art piece. You picked the best example without realizing it lol
I don't have Lost Mines hard copy so I had no idea lol.
The way I rule it is if your moving while hidden in dark or dim light the enemy gets to roll to hear you. If your standing still in dim light and are hidden they get to roll with disadvantage. If in comple darkness and not moving the enemy automatically fails but may use an action on its turn to try and hear you with disadvantage.
This is a great find. It's what I've been doing anyway but now I can justify it better :)
That's the most straightforward summary of stealth I have ever seen. Sure the core books still need to go on to elaborate on cover and obscurement, but this guide to Steal is so... concise.
According to the developers (I believe there's an old podcast floating around where Crawford explains it directly), this was a deliberate change to make the stealth rules vague so that GMs could change it to their liking.
Personally I think this is terrible design, but it seems to be the guiding principle behind much of 5e.
It's still my favourite edition, but my god the rules were not designed to be played as written.
I think I did read this while the playtest was going on and for some reason imagined this was still how it worked in my head
The worst for me is people assume they are hidden when they go invisible in combat. I am like unless you take the hide action they know where you are they just are under the blinded condition so they have disadvantage on attacks
Thanks, I'm writing this out to use from now on! crazy its not in the core rulebooks..... crazy.
I thought this was a given. I had no idea this was in dispute. Wow!
Comment for algorithm love your channel dude.
Watched the ads, because this video is actually useful. Thank you!
Check out Skulker Feat, if Skulker gives it to you then that means by default you don't get it and need to do it for stealth without the feat.
They don't even need to remove the art, just adjust it a bit (scale it down, cover some of the edges, cut off some of the less important bits, etc.) to make room for text. They do that all over the place in the books already, so if they need a little more space, why not do it to a few of the full page art pieces?
Alternatively, they really could scale back the text in other places. I've been able to reduce the word count on a lot of things while making reference cards for myself, without omitting any information. I think they could eliminate 5-10% from each book without losing anything (which they could then use to improve clarity on topics like this).
Yeah, I'm adding this rule entry to my DM binder!
Well, that _does_ clear things up.
After a while, my understanding of stealth rules developed until it was only partially distinguishable from this. I've been of a mind that you could only roll to hide if you "weren't in any way obviously perceivable to the creature you were hiding from", but it never got as granular as needing half cover at minimum to hide behind. This allows us to even more accurately place props and such to give obvious cover and/or concealment points for players to utilise, and I think that's good for the game, design-wise. Arigato, Koborudo!
The reminds of the moldvay basic set missing the description for the See Invisible spell.
Awesome
I still want to know how keen senses (smell/hearing) works with stealth. Like can you roll high enough on stealth that you don't have a scent anymore? And does Blindsight and tremorsense just beat stealth?
What people always overlook when it comes to stealth is the attention of those we seek to avoid being detected by. I’ve lived a life that has given me a lot of opportunities to learn about being stealthy. You can cross through a well lit empty room without being noticed, if no one is looking at that part of the room. You can take that moment when your buddy puts an arrow through your enemy, and he instinctively looks down at the wound, to step back through a door way. Magicians make things disappear all the time, right in plain site. We are but geeky fan boys trying to imagine the abilities of a professional who has trained to be stealthy with an understanding their life depends on it. And they live in a world with wizards and beholders. If the dice say it can be done, foolish is he who contradicts them. Should we extend this demand that something in DND conforms with our lived experience to other characters abilities? Should we say that a Druids shape change can only happen in a way that I could conceptualize in the real world? Of course not! These are fantasy heroes living in a world of magic. Let them be epically sneaky!
You know, I used to argue about how martials should be realistic..
But honestly, yeah, let's just be super heroes! As in, even martials should be supernatural. Monks and barbarians already have that in their class features, so you gotta get creative with rogues and fighters. Maybe it's unseen innate magic that isn't flashy at all and just feels natural. The action hero type of magic, where people do things that SHOULD not be possible, but who cares, this is an action movie!
Welcome to Pack Tactics, where Kobols still have advantage
the removal was most likely deliberate after Halflings were given the ability to hide behind creatures one size category above them. The wording "Regardless of what stands between you and a viewer..." includes creatures so they likely removed it in order to keep hiding behind creatures in addition to objects restricted to lightfoot halflings
I also allow a creature that is ingaged in melee combat with two or more to be distracted enough for players with stealth to be able to sneak up behind them without cover when one of the melee creatures uses an action to assist the stealth player, it makes a fun way to allow those rogue attacks during combat in the open
I'm actually laughing because I run stealth just like this, and this is my first time hearing of these rules.
I like Kobold a lot. He's brisk and to the point, which I value. He's tactically elite, which I respect. He's kooky and amusing, which I enjoy. And he's a straight shooter unafraid to speak his mind, which is incredibly rare in this day and age.
So let’s say when Rogues “hide” as their bonus action, they do a “Ninja Vanish” smoke bomb of some kind? Make it a standard part of the Thieves’ Tools, so burglars can make a quick getaway or get out of sight quickly if caught.
Couterpoint about the art; they could keep it, but shrink it down to a sidebox and add more text beside and under it.
True.
The main reason I think they changed the rules from D&D Next to 5e is due to a shift on the design. D&D Next was more geared towards 3.5, something that it is more "rules as written" and specific, trying to create rulings for most situations. 5e, on the other hand, tried a more "precedents" approach. The rules in it are purposefully a bit vague, so that people can come up with solutions referencing other things from different rules. For example, the at least half covered for stealth was designed so that some people may deduce just staying out of the sight of a foe is enough, no need for cover; while others would rule it in tangent with the cover rules, you can only hide yourself if no one is looking and you have at least half cover. The design on 5e is more free-flow, more "the DM solves the problem with its interpretation".
Is that a good design or bad design? I won't touch this with a 10 foot pole. But the intention was there.
Yeah and 5e vague language is fucking stupid when it comes to a game. For example
"You can as a bonus action" Why the fuck is the work " You can" put in there? Just put down "This ability allows you as a bonus".
Reminder: cover this again and put it in your OneD&D feedback!
Arora would EARN my money if they gave me ANY details concerning all these improvements. I have seen a LOT of commentary on this but not even a cool example to intice me... Just "We improved the Pillar!" Clearly, I'm interested in the DM stuff to see if I can incorporate that into my own game.
Also, I admit I went a little crazy on Kickstarters earlier this year and I have to wait about a year until any of these books start showing up. Did Arora mention a "base" delivery date (ie. no stretch goals date for review PDFs - we know book production isn't under your control, but PDF output should be)?
Oddly enough... after reading and playing the RAW, this is more or less how I understood it anyway... "you are attempting to hide... like fucking hide and seek... not fucking hide and invisible"
In my last session, the monk attempted to walk quietly and stealthily from the dark hallway into a lit room. the occupants saw him, there was no dispute. it simply "makes sense"
Yep, nothing wrong with the current rules. Infact, those playtest rules are awful.
Funnily enough, these rules are directly referenced in other parts of the printed rules.
From the wood elf subrace:
"Mask of the Wild
You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena."
I've been playing dnd for years so I always took the rule for granted as that was how it was in older addition. When ever someone asked about hiding in lightly obscured areas I intrestingly enough just pointed them to the skulker feat which is a specific feature of it. It never even occurred to me it wasnt in the book till I saw this video.
I think the main points of ambiguity in the published rules are "what counts as enough to hide behind." Like RAW a waist high wall isn't enough but with this unpublished rule it would be.
Oddly enough that is how I ran stealth before
I dont know what the "official rules" here are, have to read it - never had problems with stealth.
My Gms did not even rolled for the enemys perception until they were activly seeking something after a too low roll to be quit or something.
So in that regards, I think I just had good Gamemasters.
He was probably using the enemy’s passive perception, which if you have a build based around hiding should always be lower than your roll.
@@TrueLimeyhoney Well yeah it says so even in the Rulebook. But that wasnt the point really. - I did read the rules now though, they are terrible written XD
I wonder if a little series looking at the demo and comparing it to the current game would be neat
I still want to know how those conditions affect movement. Like, if a character moves while in stealth, does it need to fulfill the conditions at all times, or only at the start and end of its turn?
These are my uh "house rules" now. Hope this makes it into 5.5e
I am all for RAW, but might adopt this in my houserules…,
I've been fortunate enough to have a good DM who runs stealth well. I can see how the ambiguity could frustrate those playing with multiple different DM's though. Over all I think allowing the DM to make the call isn't a bad position to take. I'm content with 5e stealth rules.
This is not just way easier to understand. It is also basically how I've been "homebrewing" stealth because it makes sense.
I think I might write this down and slip it in with my DM screen.
This is now official rules at my table.
Welp, at least the new bugbear rule and flavor text makes sense now. "a fey magic that allows them to hide in spaces seemingly too small for them." and "without squeezing, you can move through and stop in a space large enough for a Small creature" didn't fit together too well otherwise.
Heavily obscured as always been weird in the games I played. People were never sure if it meant you could hide in it or not. So this helps me quite a bit 😅
Heavily obscured means you cannot see. At all. Heavily obscured means complete darkness, or foliage or fog so dense you can hardly see your hand before your own eyes.
Hey DMs how do you rule (magic) flight and stealth? would a PC still only move half speed or would you let them use their full move speed? My thought was while they are moving through space they are essentially static ie no footfalls or clanging armor. it crossed my mind watching The Boys with how Homelander seems to just sneak up on people and also the Sardukar in the lastest Dune movie, what are your thoughts?
Is sound the only risk of detection in that instance? If so I'd still call for a stealth check but with a hefty bonus as a gear-laden adventurer will make all kinds of noises that an observant might pick up on. If they're still at risk of plainly being seen then they've got to slow down to carefully plot their route to avoid plain sight.
If you play solasta they have an amazing stealth system for the game. It isn't official content because baldurs gate came out wotc chose to endorce them instead but it's still a great game
I think the worst part about these rules staying in the play test is that it seems like WotC wrote the stealth rules in the fire rule books with these in mind but never actually printed them. These sound super similar to how I've seen other people try and describe the stealthing rules in 5e by just using the PHB.
I would argue 'half your body' doesn't always make sense like bruh lay down like you're Snake
Stealth is for moving undetected. Let's say that you have a PC with one level of Bard and three of Divination Wizard with the Magic Initiate Feat of Druid for the Guidance cantrip. While hidden, your PC casts the following on a Rogue's Stealth check. They get a magic portent roll of 15, a Bardic inspiration roll of 3 and a Guidance roll of 2, added to the proficiency bonus of 2 and a dexterity modifier of 3. The Stealth for the Rogue is then 25. If the DM says that an attempt to walk by a distracted guard standing under a lit spotlight is Very Hard (25)...then your PC makes it. Also, the PC continues to have a Stealth of 25 until you stop hiding or are detected. So you only have to be hidden to start using Stealth.
Do you lose hidden when you exit the half cover?
Agreed, it's easier. IMO the best run games is where the rules are clear and DMs rarely have to intervene to make rulings that not all players may agree with (and thus are just forced to agree with which strains fun) so they can just focus on running challenges, moving the story forward and mapping each character's character arc. Clear rules which limits if not outright removes "it's up to the DM" makes the game better.
Imagine having the rules for not making sound in stealth from 3.5 still in 5e in the form of an item. Time to pull out the book for it!
Which item would that be?
@@massterbrewer1294 boots of elvenkind
@@alvaroignacioriquelmezamud7417 oh wow. I knew the boots existed and what they did, I never realized that there wasn't actually a rule about making sound for stealthing normally. Huh.
@@massterbrewer1294 Boots of Elvenkind and the cloak of elvenkind. The boots in particular don't do much of anything and imply that you can hide if you aren't behind anything in 5e because of how it is designed. Perception covers all things, there is no move silently skill.
I just learned that I have been using the play test rules for stealth for all of 5e because they made sense and I assumed they didn't change between play test and print.
Yes
Did anyone else look at the thumbnail and think who’s that Pokémon, and go guy spinning on his head while doing the splits.
So using halfling rogue assassin to attempt to stealth attack each turn will works right? Like attack than hide behind your friend back for every turn?
If your friend is completely immobile. Note how it gives a *sleeping* dragon as an example, a character in combat is regularly moving around in their 5ft space to attack and defend, and isn't consistent enough cover to properly hide behind.
I feel like there's good reason these never made it to the book. These rules are either incredibly restrictive or highly exploitable. And it starts with this:
"Can I hide behind a bedsheet lifted up to my chest?"
If the answer is no, then it makes no sense for opaque fog to hide you as well, being that it's even less solid and people inherently understand that fog can conceal dangers just because of what it is. Then comes the argument of at what thickness exactly does a substance become usable for hiding. Keep in mind, the harder it is for Rogues to hide, the less useful their class becomes, doubly so if you don't use the optional flanking rules.
If the answer is yes, then we have rogues carrying around blankets and shawls they drape around their shoulders to hide in the middle of the room. Oh wait, that's just a cloak, so cloaks allow them to hide in plain sight.
These rules may be easy to understand, but mechanically, they're a nightmare.
Yeah the current rules are much better. I'm not sure why anyone would say it's badly written. It seems pretty clear to me, much clearer than these playtest rules that leave out a lot of cases.
The DM determines when it's suitable to hide. It's that straight forward.
what is the best non spell casting build one can make
I would like to add to the rules, jf you see someone go behind a rock and he tries to hide, he's behind the rock isn't it obvious? Now, if he tries to sneak vs all passive detection and succeed, then tries to hide, well there you go, now that's different. Depending of the situation the DM can give advantage(much chaos happening) or disadvantage (not much chaos happening to distract the ennemies)
I run rules as written for stealth at my tables and have never ran into any problems. Over complicating the stealth system would just let players do silly things like "I hide under my blanket bc it covers at least half my body" or "I hide behind this glass window bc it covers at least half my body" or "It doesn't matter that the Devil can see through magical darkness, darkness is heavily obscuring and I am allowed to stealth when I'm heavily obscured". No matter what, it'll be up to the dm to decide when a player is actually able to stealth or not.
Yeah I prefer the current rules over these ones that didn't make the cut. It's nothing to do with "saving page space" it's to make it simpler.
Is it suitable to hide right now? Ask the DM. The DM knows more than the player about current circumstances, and can apply common sense from there.
A creature in a heavily obscured area is out of sight...and thus can try to hide. Wood elves can try to hide in lightly obscured areas. So does this mean my wood elf can just stand there in a lightly obscured area as if s/he was in a heavy fog and successfully hide?
Yes, your wood elf can stand in a lightly obscured area and try to hide. I don’t think it makes you “out if sight” so if you fail your stealth check they can target you with spells that require you to see the target, but if you pass your stealth check you are hidden until you do something to reveal yourself like attack
Yeah if that lightly obscured area is one of natural phenomena; but think of it more that, you're not out of sight, just able to avoid notice. Like camouflage.
Didnt even have to remove the art, just shrink the picture down a lil and put the article next to it.
The more I look into the early material for 5e, the more and more I'm convinced that they must've had two or three separate teams working on the game with little to no communication whatsoever, which leads to a jumbled mess of rules and terrible balancing
Keep in mind, they kept the "Stay quiet" part of the text and left everything else out.
That would be in keeping with WotC's established design philosophies
"It made me so angry.... HA HA HA HA" Bruh I'm scared.
“Welcome to pack tactics, where everyone used to have advantage.”
Imma make a stealth centered rpg with zero stealth skills!
*endless evil laughter ensues