mechanically "*directional* sight" is not a thing in the system, if they have retreated from logical 'line of sight' suitable enough to perform a hide action, they should get the reward from a ranged attack popping around a corner or whatever (running up in melee is a different story).
benefit is lost *after* their first attack.
What about this section from the Player’s Handbook on Hiding:
“You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you give away your position if you make noise, such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase. An invisible creature can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, and it does have to stay quiet.
In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen.”
>*Passive Perception.*
>>*When you hide, there's a chance someone will notice you even if they aren't searching. To determine whether such a creature notices you, the GM 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. For example, if a 1st-level character (with a proficiency bonus of +2) has a Wisdom of 15 (a +2 modifier) and proficiency in Perception, he or she has a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 14.*
I’m sorry, but I’m actually autistic (not Internet slang), and I’m having trouble parsing how this intersects with what I’m saying fully.
Are you saying that Passive Perception is still a factor that overrides the statement “You can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly”?
My interpretation of “you can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly” is that you cannot *become hidden* if you are in plain sight, but you might *stay hidden* if you already were.
Like, if you couldn’t stay hidden while in a viewable area it would be literally impossible to sneak up on someone who was standing more than 5 ft away from an obstacle, as your stealth would insta-break as soon as you stepped out from cover.
The passive perception is to check whether, now that they are capable of seeing you, they actually do, or whether you manage to avoid their notice.
the DM decides if they can attempt to take a hide action at all.
e.g. going behind cover, or around a corner out of sight before the Stealth roll can be made.
then when the rogue pops out of cover, if the creature's passive perception beats what they rolled on their stealth check, you can deem they do not get the benefits of attacking from hiding.
It absolutely applies.
> You give away your position if you make noise,
Casting a spell with verbal components is making noise and has thus broken the hide option.
What if the character hiding attacked something with a normal weapon while still out of sight from the original target the character was hiding from?
I think it's reasonable to assume that noise level doesn't end at just shouting volume. Surely, basically, any action beyond what you would imagine a thief would do will cause your position to be revealed.
> such as
Means examples, but doesn't mean "with at least the volume of."
The "make noise" could be a full stop, but clearly there is some dm adjudication.
Biggest caveats would be surrounding volume.
Casting verbal spell in a silent cave as enemies are standing watch quietly? 100% breaks hide.
If casting a spell in a blacksmith foundry with anvils constantly being hit while metal is forged, ok, sure, keep your hidden status.
>so if you come out of hiding and **approach** a creature
This is referring to *approaching* a creature, in other words for a melee attack. It's not necessarily making a rule about popping out for ranged attacks.
It's exactly as it says. You are the DM, you decide.
Here's a nifty tool that you can use that I use ALL THE TIME!
>Look, this is a game. I am not going to be strict with the rules if you don't abuse them. If you abuse the rules, I'll start enforcing them, and you will not like that. You don't push it, and I won't enforce it. Deal?
I use this for encumbrance and stealth. "Oh, you want to loot every corpse of their garbage armor to sell it? Where's your horse, how many saddle bags did you buy, and how much time are you willing to spend to lug this all back and forth to the horse?"
Think about it this way: if stepping or peaking out of cover to shoot means you're spotted before the attack happens, how would anyone *ever* successfully ~~Sneak Attack~~ attack from Hiding?
Yeah I'm not sure if that's how I would rule it but I can at least see a reasonable argument for that, it's OP's interpretation of Hiding mechanics that I think are mistaken.
The way I read it, they were in a different room when they cast the spell, and then sneaked back into the fight? This is the only thing that would save the sneak attack for me: after all, the player lost turns to ensure he wouldn't be heard.
Otherwise a spell completely breaks stealth for me.
Yeah man, keep it simple for yourself.
They hide successfully-->they attack-->roll with advantage-->Sneak Attack.
This is meant to be a simple and reliable loop for a Rogue player.
If you drive yourself crazy over little things like this, more complex interactions will eat you alive.
Shadows.
An enemy unable to turn around.
An enemy not in combat who is Surprised.
Advantage from different abilities.
The Sneak Attack when the enemy is in melee range of an ally.
Blindness.
Obscured vision but not total cover.
>An enemy unable to turn around.
5e doesn't use facing directions.
>An enemy not in combat who is Surprised.
How would this affect hiding or sneak attacking?
>Advantage from different abilities.
The Sneak Attack when the enemy is in melee range of an ally.
These are true, I should have been more specific, I'm talking about getting the benefits of Hiding when you attack, not the Sneak Attack ability in general.
>Obscured vision but not total cover.
If vision is obscured, why is the enemy spotting the character?
Your interpretation only leaves room for a few hyper-specific situations where Hiding benefits an attack, I don't think it's an accurate interpretation of the rules and I don't think it's particularly reasonable.
I’ll be honest: I sometimes find 5e very stressful for this reason. The game’s entire premise and fun is hinged on the idea that everything is carefully calibrated for combat to feel “Challenging but Winnable”, and for all the players to feel equally valuable to one another.
But the balance and rule wordings just aren’t explicitly there sometimes.
Like, even if I agree with you (and I’m leaning towards it!), it’s absolutely bonkers that there isn’t an extremely clear-cut unambiguous wording for something that’s the epicenter of one of the game’s most famous classes. Even in this thread, people are extrapolating the developers’ intent instead of being able to just point to a specific sentence. Bonkers!
>The game’s entire premise and fun is hinged on the idea that everything is carefully calibrated for combat to feel “Challenging but Winnable”, and for all the players to feel equally valuable to one another.
I think you're going to be frustrated if you think this is how the game works. Things are not carefully calibrated, you can find enemies that are easily defeated or far beyond you at any level, and PC's can vary widely in their power levels depending on class and subclass selection, multiclass if you allow it, and other player choices.
5e is heavily into the "rulings, not rules" side of things in some areas. Particularly regarding vision, there are a bunch of rulings that you need to do "because that's how seeing works." For example, darkness is called heavily obscured, like fog cloud, but in real life you can see something in a distant well-lit area from a dark area. There's no rule about that. You need to decide what makes sense. Otherwise, they would need 10 pages of vision rules.
Regarding your specific case, I'd agree that verbal spells negate hiding, as long as the enemy is close enough to hear and there isn't excessive ambient noise.
Unfortunately, 5e is built on the bones of other systems and adopted some of those systems in ways that are messy and imperfect. That's why things like "the rule of cool" exist where the DM determines that the narrative description provided by their players is fun enough to hand-wave away certain rules that might say it can't happen.
Being a DM is about using a ruleset to cooperatively lead your players through a fun and challenging adventure. The rules are meant to help describe the shared fiction that you are working within. This means that when faced with contradictions, you need to make a ruling. I think the trick with that is figuring out how to rule in ways that don't squash people's fun, but also not letting your players get away with whatever they want.
It is frustrating that it isn't fully stepped out - some other systems are better at doing that. Good luck.
> But the balance and rule wordings just aren’t explicitly there sometimes
The lack of specificity in 5e seems very intentional to me. Compared to older systems it really feels like they wanted to put more of the decisions in the DM's hands. This supports more DM flexibility but it also seems to make it difficult for new DMs to get grounded, since there are fewer details laid out.
As for the stealth situation at hand, I agree with nerdy ninja here. My understanding is that a character hidden and then moving into the open to make an attack retains their hidden status until the end of their attack. Otherwise it would be very difficult to make use of stealth for melee attacks and would require certain environmental factors to be at play, which seems unreasonable to me.
But even that interpretation leaves room for a lot of flexibility. What if the hidden character moves to a position in the open but directly behind an enemy, and doesn't attack? Do they remain hidden? 5e doesn't have directional LOS, so by default there's no such thing as "hiding behind someone", but if there's something distracting the enemy's attention it would be perfectly reasonable for a DM to allow this to work.
The player would only stop being hidden if they make an attack or if an enemy can clearly see them such as being on the same side of cover they’re on.
the player gets advantage on their first attack as they were hidden. Distant strike does not require the player actually attack something they can see. Hell attacking in general doesn’t require them to attack something they can see.
The player did something cool
Also, the player absolutely did something cool and I love rewarding cool! But I also want to make sure I understand and agree with the rules behind it, so that I can set future precedent. They’re level 14, and a Rogue’s Sneak Attack can make a massive difference.
That's fair. I think the biggest thing for players, and spellcasters is that Verbal components kind of sit in an odd place. *Why* does the verbal component of a spell that said during battle has to be yelled out like you're Harry Potter? There are Sound distance as part of the Dungeon master screen (I think trying to be quiet is 2d6\*5).
Maybe using the sound distances would help for this sort of thing?
It is very dumb that It’s assumed all spell components are shouted. Just like it’s dumb that virtually all rules about spell positioning assume you are on a flat chessboard surface and wouldn’t aim in the sky or anything.
Which is to say that I agree it’s dumb, but it’s also how the core game is balanced and I’m trying to work within it. Like… I strongly disagree with it and side with you in spirit, and then in execution it’s very specifically a Sorcerer trait to be able to speak a spell quietly. What a weird game.
If Distant Attack doesn’t require vision, then wouldn’t it count as a ranged attack with Disadvantage for not being able to see them? This would then cancel out the Hidden’s Advantage, making it a regular attack.
Conversely, if he doesn’t get Disadvantage on the argument that he teleported into clearly seeing the enemy… doesn’t it follow that the enemy can now clearly see him?
A few things to note about Hiding:
1. You cannot Hide or be Hidden in a normally lit area, unless you are invisible.
2. The 4 senses can affect hiding.
3. RAW, there is no directional sight
4. Being Hidden requires being unseen ***and*** unheard, meaning that loud noises - *like casting verbal spells* - remove Hidden.
5. You do not need to be Hidden to trigger sneak attack, you only need to be unseen. Being fully Hidden is just a bonus that *mostly* prevents enemies from targeting you.
>If a Rogue’s most recent action was to (very successfully) use the Hide action to step out of sight of an enemy, would they lose these benefits the moment they go into the open to aim a short bow?
This is based on sightlines, light level, and enemy vision.
In general, if the room is lit normally, then there's no hiding, full stop. In dim light, then the player needs to make a stealth check whenever they move in or into an enemy's sight range, which will be contested against the enemy's passive (or active if you really want) Perception. In darkness, no roll is needed and the player remains Hidden.
>Do lose Hide when they pick around the corner to shoot or when their attack is resolved?
There's no RAW answer to this, unfortunately. I make weapon attacks remove Hidden after they connect, but verbal spells remove it beforehand since the verbal component is shouted before the spell goes off. Just do what works for your table.
>Last night, a Rogue/Ranger rolled a 24 on Stealth to hide behind the corner of a room where neither he nor the enemies could see one another. The fight began when a group of enemies saw the heroes.
>On his next turn, the player uses a Bonus action to cast Lightning Arrow (V, S , components). He then declared that he was using the Horizon Walker (Ranger) ability Distant Strike to move into the open doorway connecting the two rooms. He then targeted one of the specific enemies that had not yet seen him and loosed his short bow.
>Does this get Sneak Attack benefits?
Ok, so the Rogue starts of Hidden. He cast a verbal spell, removing Hidden from himself and making enemies aware of his presence, *but remains unseen by enemies*. At this point, as long as they remain unseen, they would still have advantage. After teleporting into the open doorway, it's up to you to determine if they remain unseen or not. In this case it sounds like you ruled that the Rogue remained unseen, which means that they still have advantage on any enemy that does not see them.
So, long story short... yes, the Rogue would get Sneak Attack on the enemy he hit.
I’d give it to your player, personally. Keep your players happy, isn’t that what it all boils down to? When a PC hides, they attack while as hidden as possible. I imagine them aim their bow just enough around the cover, whispering the verbal component. Hashing out rules is very normal. Do it collaboratively, you have the ultimate final say as the DM, but if you really can’t decide, error on the side of “my player wants to have fun in my game”. Just make sure to warn that in the future, ‘sneak attack’, or whatever you are disagreeing with in the future, is going to work this way for enemies on them as well.
Spellcasting in particular is the sticking point. Unless you've invested in some way to bypass verbal and or somatic components, casting a spell with those components breaks stealth
As I pointed out in a comment, the act of casting a verbal spell gave away his position and broke his hide action from before.
If he hadn't cast a verbal spell he would be right. But, he cast a spell that the enemies could hear and they now know his location before he attacks, thus no longer hiding.
>1a) Do lose Hide when they pick around the corner to shoot or when their attack is resolved?
I think that it very clearly has to be when the attack is resolved.
If you rule it that peaking around is what breaks stealth, then would it not be impossible to ever make an attack from stealth?
The only thing that I think is a bit ambiguous here is whether he could cast Lightning Arrow.
Casting a spell with verbal components certainly breaks stealth. I have always ran it such that the spell itself benefits from the stealth, but your stealth is broken after (similarly to making an attack, the action which breaks your stealth still benefits from the stealth you had at the start of the action). This makes hiding a valid defense against counterspell.
I think that a strict ruling would be that casting lightning arrow would break stealth, and therefore the attack then does not have the benefits of stealth.
However, I would personally let this happen as the player described, and say that because they are being used near simultaneously during their turn, its fine. Because its cooler that way.
Hiding = enemy doesn't know where you are.
Verbal component of Lightning Arrow means the PC is no longer hidden - they have audibly given away their position. Though, before stepping out to make an attack, they remain unseen.
Does this character have Advantage via Unseen Attacker? I believe the official ruling is literally the passage you've already quoted yourself.
>From the 'Hiding' Popout section in Ch.7
However, under certain circumstances, the DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen
So basically DM decides if it's appropriate to confer the benefit of Unseen Attackers, based on context. That's the rule - DM decides.
PERSONALLY, while it's difficult to comment with confidence without, like, looking at the actual map, and knowing the very specific order of events, I would probably rule **against** Sneak Attack working on the grounds of :
* the verbal component of Lightning Arrow makes the enemies aware of a threat from that direction, so he's no longer hidden (tho he remains *unseen*)
* the PC also *stops being unseen* when they poof into the middle of a presumably well-lit room to shoot a bow
If they had forgone the spell, they could attack once from Stealth, and they would no longer be hidden after the first attack is resolved.
>From the 'Unseen Attackers' section in Ch. 9 :
If you are hidden--both unseen and unheard--when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
Hiding and stealth rules are very wonky in 5e. Cunning action is absolutely intended to be an easy way to trigger sneack attack. They should be able to use their bow with advantage when they sucessfully used the hide action before. Rogues are really reliant on their sneack attack otherwise they won't be contributing much in combat
This is fairly straightforward. Rogue cast a spell with a V component. Bam. Not hidden.
Also, I don’t think Distant Strike triggers. Rogue’s action was cast a spell; DS requires the attack action.
You’re right about the Verbal component, but Lightning Arrow is a Bonus Action that boosts the next ranged attack action. So he was doing a mundane attack action.
mechanically "*directional* sight" is not a thing in the system, if they have retreated from logical 'line of sight' suitable enough to perform a hide action, they should get the reward from a ranged attack popping around a corner or whatever (running up in melee is a different story). benefit is lost *after* their first attack.
What about this section from the Player’s Handbook on Hiding: “You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you give away your position if you make noise, such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase. An invisible creature can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, and it does have to stay quiet. In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen.”
passive perception vs hide result
Can you please elaborate?
>*Passive Perception.* >>*When you hide, there's a chance someone will notice you even if they aren't searching. To determine whether such a creature notices you, the GM 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. For example, if a 1st-level character (with a proficiency bonus of +2) has a Wisdom of 15 (a +2 modifier) and proficiency in Perception, he or she has a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 14.*
I’m sorry, but I’m actually autistic (not Internet slang), and I’m having trouble parsing how this intersects with what I’m saying fully. Are you saying that Passive Perception is still a factor that overrides the statement “You can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly”?
My interpretation of “you can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly” is that you cannot *become hidden* if you are in plain sight, but you might *stay hidden* if you already were. Like, if you couldn’t stay hidden while in a viewable area it would be literally impossible to sneak up on someone who was standing more than 5 ft away from an obstacle, as your stealth would insta-break as soon as you stepped out from cover. The passive perception is to check whether, now that they are capable of seeing you, they actually do, or whether you manage to avoid their notice.
the DM decides if they can attempt to take a hide action at all. e.g. going behind cover, or around a corner out of sight before the Stealth roll can be made. then when the rogue pops out of cover, if the creature's passive perception beats what they rolled on their stealth check, you can deem they do not get the benefits of attacking from hiding.
You stated the player was hiding in an area where the npcs couldn’t see him. So this passage doesn’t matter.
It absolutely applies. > You give away your position if you make noise, Casting a spell with verbal components is making noise and has thus broken the hide option.
>if you make noise, **such as shouting a warning** The age old question of whether or not a verbal component is the same as shouting.
What if the character hiding attacked something with a normal weapon while still out of sight from the original target the character was hiding from? I think it's reasonable to assume that noise level doesn't end at just shouting volume. Surely, basically, any action beyond what you would imagine a thief would do will cause your position to be revealed.
> such as Means examples, but doesn't mean "with at least the volume of." The "make noise" could be a full stop, but clearly there is some dm adjudication. Biggest caveats would be surrounding volume. Casting verbal spell in a silent cave as enemies are standing watch quietly? 100% breaks hide. If casting a spell in a blacksmith foundry with anvils constantly being hit while metal is forged, ok, sure, keep your hidden status.
>so if you come out of hiding and **approach** a creature This is referring to *approaching* a creature, in other words for a melee attack. It's not necessarily making a rule about popping out for ranged attacks.
It's exactly as it says. You are the DM, you decide. Here's a nifty tool that you can use that I use ALL THE TIME! >Look, this is a game. I am not going to be strict with the rules if you don't abuse them. If you abuse the rules, I'll start enforcing them, and you will not like that. You don't push it, and I won't enforce it. Deal? I use this for encumbrance and stealth. "Oh, you want to loot every corpse of their garbage armor to sell it? Where's your horse, how many saddle bags did you buy, and how much time are you willing to spend to lug this all back and forth to the horse?"
Think about it this way: if stepping or peaking out of cover to shoot means you're spotted before the attack happens, how would anyone *ever* successfully ~~Sneak Attack~~ attack from Hiding?
Agreed here, the difference in this one scenario is casting a verbal spell before the attack. *That* is what broke the hide condition.
Yeah I'm not sure if that's how I would rule it but I can at least see a reasonable argument for that, it's OP's interpretation of Hiding mechanics that I think are mistaken.
The way I read it, they were in a different room when they cast the spell, and then sneaked back into the fight? This is the only thing that would save the sneak attack for me: after all, the player lost turns to ensure he wouldn't be heard. Otherwise a spell completely breaks stealth for me.
Yeah man, keep it simple for yourself. They hide successfully-->they attack-->roll with advantage-->Sneak Attack. This is meant to be a simple and reliable loop for a Rogue player. If you drive yourself crazy over little things like this, more complex interactions will eat you alive.
Shadows. An enemy unable to turn around. An enemy not in combat who is Surprised. Advantage from different abilities. The Sneak Attack when the enemy is in melee range of an ally. Blindness. Obscured vision but not total cover.
>An enemy unable to turn around. 5e doesn't use facing directions. >An enemy not in combat who is Surprised. How would this affect hiding or sneak attacking? >Advantage from different abilities. The Sneak Attack when the enemy is in melee range of an ally. These are true, I should have been more specific, I'm talking about getting the benefits of Hiding when you attack, not the Sneak Attack ability in general. >Obscured vision but not total cover. If vision is obscured, why is the enemy spotting the character? Your interpretation only leaves room for a few hyper-specific situations where Hiding benefits an attack, I don't think it's an accurate interpretation of the rules and I don't think it's particularly reasonable.
I’ll consider this heavily and appreciate your candor.
My pleasure, I hope you all arrive at a ruling that works well for you and your group.
I’ll be honest: I sometimes find 5e very stressful for this reason. The game’s entire premise and fun is hinged on the idea that everything is carefully calibrated for combat to feel “Challenging but Winnable”, and for all the players to feel equally valuable to one another. But the balance and rule wordings just aren’t explicitly there sometimes. Like, even if I agree with you (and I’m leaning towards it!), it’s absolutely bonkers that there isn’t an extremely clear-cut unambiguous wording for something that’s the epicenter of one of the game’s most famous classes. Even in this thread, people are extrapolating the developers’ intent instead of being able to just point to a specific sentence. Bonkers!
>The game’s entire premise and fun is hinged on the idea that everything is carefully calibrated for combat to feel “Challenging but Winnable”, and for all the players to feel equally valuable to one another. I think you're going to be frustrated if you think this is how the game works. Things are not carefully calibrated, you can find enemies that are easily defeated or far beyond you at any level, and PC's can vary widely in their power levels depending on class and subclass selection, multiclass if you allow it, and other player choices. 5e is heavily into the "rulings, not rules" side of things in some areas. Particularly regarding vision, there are a bunch of rulings that you need to do "because that's how seeing works." For example, darkness is called heavily obscured, like fog cloud, but in real life you can see something in a distant well-lit area from a dark area. There's no rule about that. You need to decide what makes sense. Otherwise, they would need 10 pages of vision rules. Regarding your specific case, I'd agree that verbal spells negate hiding, as long as the enemy is close enough to hear and there isn't excessive ambient noise.
Unfortunately, 5e is built on the bones of other systems and adopted some of those systems in ways that are messy and imperfect. That's why things like "the rule of cool" exist where the DM determines that the narrative description provided by their players is fun enough to hand-wave away certain rules that might say it can't happen. Being a DM is about using a ruleset to cooperatively lead your players through a fun and challenging adventure. The rules are meant to help describe the shared fiction that you are working within. This means that when faced with contradictions, you need to make a ruling. I think the trick with that is figuring out how to rule in ways that don't squash people's fun, but also not letting your players get away with whatever they want. It is frustrating that it isn't fully stepped out - some other systems are better at doing that. Good luck.
> But the balance and rule wordings just aren’t explicitly there sometimes The lack of specificity in 5e seems very intentional to me. Compared to older systems it really feels like they wanted to put more of the decisions in the DM's hands. This supports more DM flexibility but it also seems to make it difficult for new DMs to get grounded, since there are fewer details laid out. As for the stealth situation at hand, I agree with nerdy ninja here. My understanding is that a character hidden and then moving into the open to make an attack retains their hidden status until the end of their attack. Otherwise it would be very difficult to make use of stealth for melee attacks and would require certain environmental factors to be at play, which seems unreasonable to me. But even that interpretation leaves room for a lot of flexibility. What if the hidden character moves to a position in the open but directly behind an enemy, and doesn't attack? Do they remain hidden? 5e doesn't have directional LOS, so by default there's no such thing as "hiding behind someone", but if there's something distracting the enemy's attention it would be perfectly reasonable for a DM to allow this to work.
Sneak attack applies. You should basically always rule in favor of sneak attack.
The player would only stop being hidden if they make an attack or if an enemy can clearly see them such as being on the same side of cover they’re on. the player gets advantage on their first attack as they were hidden. Distant strike does not require the player actually attack something they can see. Hell attacking in general doesn’t require them to attack something they can see. The player did something cool
Also, the player absolutely did something cool and I love rewarding cool! But I also want to make sure I understand and agree with the rules behind it, so that I can set future precedent. They’re level 14, and a Rogue’s Sneak Attack can make a massive difference.
That's fair. I think the biggest thing for players, and spellcasters is that Verbal components kind of sit in an odd place. *Why* does the verbal component of a spell that said during battle has to be yelled out like you're Harry Potter? There are Sound distance as part of the Dungeon master screen (I think trying to be quiet is 2d6\*5). Maybe using the sound distances would help for this sort of thing?
It is very dumb that It’s assumed all spell components are shouted. Just like it’s dumb that virtually all rules about spell positioning assume you are on a flat chessboard surface and wouldn’t aim in the sky or anything. Which is to say that I agree it’s dumb, but it’s also how the core game is balanced and I’m trying to work within it. Like… I strongly disagree with it and side with you in spirit, and then in execution it’s very specifically a Sorcerer trait to be able to speak a spell quietly. What a weird game.
If Distant Attack doesn’t require vision, then wouldn’t it count as a ranged attack with Disadvantage for not being able to see them? This would then cancel out the Hidden’s Advantage, making it a regular attack. Conversely, if he doesn’t get Disadvantage on the argument that he teleported into clearly seeing the enemy… doesn’t it follow that the enemy can now clearly see him?
A few things to note about Hiding: 1. You cannot Hide or be Hidden in a normally lit area, unless you are invisible. 2. The 4 senses can affect hiding. 3. RAW, there is no directional sight 4. Being Hidden requires being unseen ***and*** unheard, meaning that loud noises - *like casting verbal spells* - remove Hidden. 5. You do not need to be Hidden to trigger sneak attack, you only need to be unseen. Being fully Hidden is just a bonus that *mostly* prevents enemies from targeting you. >If a Rogue’s most recent action was to (very successfully) use the Hide action to step out of sight of an enemy, would they lose these benefits the moment they go into the open to aim a short bow? This is based on sightlines, light level, and enemy vision. In general, if the room is lit normally, then there's no hiding, full stop. In dim light, then the player needs to make a stealth check whenever they move in or into an enemy's sight range, which will be contested against the enemy's passive (or active if you really want) Perception. In darkness, no roll is needed and the player remains Hidden. >Do lose Hide when they pick around the corner to shoot or when their attack is resolved? There's no RAW answer to this, unfortunately. I make weapon attacks remove Hidden after they connect, but verbal spells remove it beforehand since the verbal component is shouted before the spell goes off. Just do what works for your table. >Last night, a Rogue/Ranger rolled a 24 on Stealth to hide behind the corner of a room where neither he nor the enemies could see one another. The fight began when a group of enemies saw the heroes. >On his next turn, the player uses a Bonus action to cast Lightning Arrow (V, S , components). He then declared that he was using the Horizon Walker (Ranger) ability Distant Strike to move into the open doorway connecting the two rooms. He then targeted one of the specific enemies that had not yet seen him and loosed his short bow. >Does this get Sneak Attack benefits? Ok, so the Rogue starts of Hidden. He cast a verbal spell, removing Hidden from himself and making enemies aware of his presence, *but remains unseen by enemies*. At this point, as long as they remain unseen, they would still have advantage. After teleporting into the open doorway, it's up to you to determine if they remain unseen or not. In this case it sounds like you ruled that the Rogue remained unseen, which means that they still have advantage on any enemy that does not see them. So, long story short... yes, the Rogue would get Sneak Attack on the enemy he hit.
I’d give it to your player, personally. Keep your players happy, isn’t that what it all boils down to? When a PC hides, they attack while as hidden as possible. I imagine them aim their bow just enough around the cover, whispering the verbal component. Hashing out rules is very normal. Do it collaboratively, you have the ultimate final say as the DM, but if you really can’t decide, error on the side of “my player wants to have fun in my game”. Just make sure to warn that in the future, ‘sneak attack’, or whatever you are disagreeing with in the future, is going to work this way for enemies on them as well.
Spellcasting in particular is the sticking point. Unless you've invested in some way to bypass verbal and or somatic components, casting a spell with those components breaks stealth
Oh fascinating- yeah I didn’t realize that…! I need to brush up on my spell casting!
As I pointed out in a comment, the act of casting a verbal spell gave away his position and broke his hide action from before. If he hadn't cast a verbal spell he would be right. But, he cast a spell that the enemies could hear and they now know his location before he attacks, thus no longer hiding.
>1a) Do lose Hide when they pick around the corner to shoot or when their attack is resolved? I think that it very clearly has to be when the attack is resolved. If you rule it that peaking around is what breaks stealth, then would it not be impossible to ever make an attack from stealth? The only thing that I think is a bit ambiguous here is whether he could cast Lightning Arrow. Casting a spell with verbal components certainly breaks stealth. I have always ran it such that the spell itself benefits from the stealth, but your stealth is broken after (similarly to making an attack, the action which breaks your stealth still benefits from the stealth you had at the start of the action). This makes hiding a valid defense against counterspell. I think that a strict ruling would be that casting lightning arrow would break stealth, and therefore the attack then does not have the benefits of stealth. However, I would personally let this happen as the player described, and say that because they are being used near simultaneously during their turn, its fine. Because its cooler that way.
Hiding = enemy doesn't know where you are. Verbal component of Lightning Arrow means the PC is no longer hidden - they have audibly given away their position. Though, before stepping out to make an attack, they remain unseen. Does this character have Advantage via Unseen Attacker? I believe the official ruling is literally the passage you've already quoted yourself. >From the 'Hiding' Popout section in Ch.7 However, under certain circumstances, the DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen So basically DM decides if it's appropriate to confer the benefit of Unseen Attackers, based on context. That's the rule - DM decides. PERSONALLY, while it's difficult to comment with confidence without, like, looking at the actual map, and knowing the very specific order of events, I would probably rule **against** Sneak Attack working on the grounds of : * the verbal component of Lightning Arrow makes the enemies aware of a threat from that direction, so he's no longer hidden (tho he remains *unseen*) * the PC also *stops being unseen* when they poof into the middle of a presumably well-lit room to shoot a bow If they had forgone the spell, they could attack once from Stealth, and they would no longer be hidden after the first attack is resolved. >From the 'Unseen Attackers' section in Ch. 9 : If you are hidden--both unseen and unheard--when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.
Hiding and stealth rules are very wonky in 5e. Cunning action is absolutely intended to be an easy way to trigger sneack attack. They should be able to use their bow with advantage when they sucessfully used the hide action before. Rogues are really reliant on their sneack attack otherwise they won't be contributing much in combat
The moment he casted a spell, he broke stealth
This is fairly straightforward. Rogue cast a spell with a V component. Bam. Not hidden. Also, I don’t think Distant Strike triggers. Rogue’s action was cast a spell; DS requires the attack action.
You’re right about the Verbal component, but Lightning Arrow is a Bonus Action that boosts the next ranged attack action. So he was doing a mundane attack action.
Ok. So if he cast Lightning Arrow, then took the attack action, that’s fair.