D&D (2024) New stealth rules.

[mamba]

Physical books with watermarks showed up on camera.

the only one with one I am aware of was DnDShorts, and that was not physical. Which ones were?

 

[GMMichael]

Has a single person in this 123-page thread actually written up what their preferred Stealth rules are, or is this thread only to repeat again and again that the current rules are mid?

I'll take a stab at it.

2018 Stealth Rules (Closed-Book / Light-Rules)

Since heads are spinning over in this thread . . . https://www.enworld.org/threads/new-stealth-rules.705814 . . . I thought some perspective on stealth would be nice. I'll use the Modos 2 rulebook as my example of what stealth could (should?) look like. The TL;DR is that there is one primary...

www.enworld.org

 

[Chaosmancer]

Doesn’t the PC in this scenario have at least partial cover from the guards in the courtyard? The floor can provide cover too, not just walls.

The more salient point I was making is that walking through the hall (without cover) should not automatically end the condition.

 

[Chaosmancer]

no, 0 is also acceptable, the second you leave cover, the condition ends

I disagree, because then you can't hide then sneak attack.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Perhaps the 2024 DMG will also contain guidelines for using ability scores like 2014, letting DM opt to not do any Wisdom (Perception) check in some case where someone instead finds you automatically without rolling or using passive perception if judging it's justified for example.

Using Ability Score: (2014) Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure. When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:

• Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
• Is a task so inappropriate or impossible — such as hitting the moon with an arrow — that it can’t work?

If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate

 

[Chaosmancer]

Obviously players doing silly things like that isn’t going to be a real problem in play. But what might be a real problem in play is players and DMs having different opinions about how obvious the thing the character is doing should be to the enemies. This rule provides no default way to determine if an enemy should spot a PC, short of a successful Perception check, so any time a DM thinks a players character should be spotted without need for a check, they must use fiat to rule as much. This puts the DM in the position of always needing to rule more restrictively than the book, which is a recipe for hard feelings, and hard feelings are not something I think the rules should set groups up to have to deal with. The PC mooning the enemies while “invisible” is not meant to be a serious example of something that would realistically happen in play, but as a point of commonality - something we can all agree the rules should not allow, yet the rules as written don’t provide a clear mechanism to prevent. From that point of common ground, we can imagine incrementally less egregious examples of cases where the DM might reasonably think the PC should be spotted, but the rules as written still don’t provide a mechanism for the DM to rule that they are, other than fiat, which may cause the player to feel unfairly treated.

In actual play, no one is taking a magnifying glass to the rules to see if the DM is ruling permissively or strictly per RAW.
If your main concern is DM rulings, then I don't see this as an issue, because I think it is less likely for a DM who would have read the previous rules permissively, to suddenly become unreasonable in their reading of these rules. And honestly, more important than "what does exact RAW say" is "what is the common answer people will get when they go on reddit and ask what the rules are" which is why I don't think the insistance of strict RAW, no exceptions or human understanding, is helpful here.

 

[Charlaquin]

The more salient point I was making is that walking through the hall (without cover) should not automatically end the condition.

Cover is relative to other creatures’ positions. If there are no other creatures in the hall, there are no creatures from which you lack cover. Or in other words, you could say you have total cover from every creature that isn’t in the hall (due to the hall blocking their line of sight to you).

 

[Pauln6]

OK so I think I get most of it. The issues they seem to be trying to fix are:

• people having line of sight automatically breaking stealth/invisible/hidden condition
• making noise while cloaked by invisibility spell does not mean enemies know which square you are in.

I'm fine using Common sense and just because you CAN hear or potentially see someone, doesn't mean you do. I'm accidentally stealthy and I'm always giving people a fright despite being in plain sight.

Mechanically though I'm still not sure I get it.

Rogue spies a ruffian in plain sight but ducks behind corner of the wall. Rolls 18 to hide and now has the invisible condition. The ruffian didn't see them.

Dm Decides ruffian is bored.

So, mechanically, is the ruffian not actively searching? Ruffian doesn't know rogue is there so has no reason to search actively for the rogue, so is he using his action for passive perception? If it's free, is he effectively holding his action until something happens? So a distraction causes him to use his reaction and held action, freeing up the rogue to sneak past? Or was he making an active check with disadvantage for being bored?

Does sneaking past count as initiating the encounter so the rogue goes first? If the ruffians passive perception is high enough to detect the Rogue's attempt to pass then what? Roll for initiative? At what point? When the Rogue's action is over, so stealth grants invisibility to the end of the Rogue's turn?

I think I'd prefer it if passive perception was not usable to detect someone using stealth but if they get one free round maybe it will work. I would just blag it but it would be nice to have some step by step examples.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Cover is relative to other creatures’ positions. If there are no other creatures in the hall, there are no creatures from which you lack cover. Or in other words, you could say you have total cover from every creature that isn’t in the hall (due to the hall blocking their line of sight to you).

Yes, you could say that. I wanted to be explicit with my idea.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, you could say that. I wanted to be explicit with my idea.

But you said your more salient point was that walking through the hall without cover shouldn’t break stealth. My counter argument is that it doesn’t break stealth, because you don’t actually lack cover.