D&D 5E Rogue's Cunning Action to Hide: In Combat??

[NotAYakk]

Exactly. To those who say you shouldn't be able to hide and shoot multiple times from the same location, would you allow it if the rogue was hidden behind the monster? How about if the rogue was behind the monster and the monster was engaged in melee with two other PCs? Three?

The trick is that "I pop out from the same location" to me becomes "the monster expects you to pop out there, is watching right there, and sees you before you attack".

On the other hand, if you are popping out at different spots, you can get the attack off before the monster can spot you.

And yes, sufficient distraction would make it possible to do that. How much? I dunno, roll some dice.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think it's that complicated a situation to rule on. I drew some beautiful art to illustrate.

View attachment 142306

In scenario 1, on the left, Dave the rogue is hidden. He pops out from hiding and shoots the big scary monster, getting his sneak attack damage. Then he pops back behind to pillar and uses his cunning action to hide. But I'd say the monster knows he's there now - he's not getting sneak attack next round.

But, generally, there's more than one pillar. There's all sorts of crap around. In option 2, on the right, Dave pops out from behind that bush or whatever the hell I drew, shoots the big scary monster and gets his sneak attack damage. Then, he moves, ducking behind some other cover, and goes back into hiding. If he rolls well enough for stealth, the monster doesn't know where he went and he can do it again next time.

You should make sure to get an NFT for that artwork! Truly ... something.

P.S. I agree.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, I would, as a player, be fine with that. Because I can do it as well. Goblins do this all the time -- hide as a bonus action and attack with advantage. It's baked into their CR. No problems with the concept.

The idea that you're just sitting there watching a PC popping up like a groundhog, going, "now.... now.....now..........now" is ridiculous. You're fighting for your life against someone with something sharp or heavy or both, and you know the PC is over there, but you aren't lasered in. This is one of those rulings that goes along with picturing something first and then finding the rules don't support that, so you fix the rules, rather than looking at what the rules say and then picturing it. I can easily see a situation where a crafty rogue is firing from cover and it's hard to guess from where -- hell, this was something I did quite often back in the 90's when laser tag (Qzar) was a thing.

Any game I've been in, the players could have readied an action to shoot the monster when the portal opened.

If you're fighting for your life against someone trying to stab you, how much time do you really have to react to that sword swing? A second? To me, it's about the same amount of time you have to someone moving out from behind the same cover for the second time to attack you from range.

Maybe it would be more realistic if everyone got advantage if their target is previously engaged in melee but that's not how the game works. Nobody ever said D&D was particularly realistic so if your DM decides you can pop out from exactly the same spot time and time again, have fun. If they say they have to move around, get someplace different between attacks, that's fine too. If they say that your rogue can never attack with advantage gained from hiding? That I'll disagree with.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I didn’t say the vast majority of people will never notice it.

Right, I extrapolated. I've almost never seen it brought up from a "my damage sucks with my rogue PC", unless also coupled with "because my DM actively tries to avoid letting me get sneak attack". It's just not a significant thing outside of white room math analysis (which does not matter on any level unless it reflects and clarifies an at the table phenomenon or experience) and bad DMing. I'm saying that the vast majority never notice it. I'm further saying, "and thus, it does not actually matter."

Fair enough, but significant also doesn’t equate to huge.

Okay. It doesn't need to.

Different people have different evaluations of the rogue’s ass-kicking ability. I personally think they’re pretty well designed to feel powerful, even if their average damage per round is a bit low given their lack of nova capabilities. And I think that’s a mark of good design - how something feels in play is more important than exact numbers. But, the fact that this issue comes up again and again shows that a lot of players don’t feel their rogues are kicking ass in play when their DMs are stingy with the conditions to hide.

That's a DM problem, not a design problem, of course. But it's a problem that exists exactly because so few people actually see any deficiency in rogue efficacy at the table, in play. That is, DMs often think Rogues are very powerful. Hell, suggest giving rogues a damage boost, and someone will inevitably say that rogues can't be given damage buffs because they'd be way OP if they did any more damage.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The problem is not hiding if you are not clearly seen, it's whether you can attack while remaining hidden.

You gain the benefit of being hidden on the attack that breaks stealth, and then become not hidden.

 

[jayoungr]

Let's flip this around. Say you're a PC and a monster keeps temporarily opening a portal, doing a ranged attack and then the portal closes.. For whatever reason you can't get to the portal or prevent it from opening. When the portal is closed, the monster is hidden because you have no way of knowing what they're doing back there.

I can see one major difference between this and the "hiding" situation, namely that there is no way to find the monster when the portal is closed. It is possible, although usually suboptimal, to find a character who's hiding. You can also attack a hiding character with AoE attacks, and I assume that wouldn't work on a monster behind a portal.

 

[Charlaquin]

Right, I extrapolated. I've almost never seen it brought up from a "my damage sucks with my rogue PC", unless also coupled with "because my DM actively tries to avoid letting me get sneak attack".

Given that this is exactly the thing I’m saying causes these problems, I’m not sure what your point is.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I agree, I think it comes from wanting things to be simpler, but it might also come from wanting to limit a player trying to (ab)use the system in a very mechanical way to gain advantage and sneak attack every round. Experienced DMs know that there are better ways of doing this and making the game more exciting by requiring players to think and project themselves in the game, but it's a least a way to counter that.

There's no abuse of the system to allow this every turn -- the system handles it perfectly fine, almost as if it expects it.

We are not talking snipers attacking from a mile away here. Getting in position to fire a "medieval" weapon or to throw a dagger usually requires coming quite a bit out of hiding and making sudden movement, something that the eye is well trained to notice especially in life-threatening situations.

Sure, you've gotten to the first O in the OODA loop pretty easily. Now you need to Orient, Decide, and Act in a way that doesn't grant the opponent, who's already in their Acting, advantage. If someone attacks you from hiding (absent the skulker feat and missing), they're no longer hidden from you after the attack. However, at the beginning of the attack, they are unseen, and so get the unseen attacker advantages.

 

[Charlaquin]

3. "Fool me twice": If you try to hide in the same spot as you just attacked from, and attack from there again, you do not get advantage on the attack roll. You can duck behind a door, hide, then attack once.

The thing is, the only support I see for this in the rules is the statement that the DM decides when circumstances are appropriate to hide. And, yes, the DM can certainly decide to rule this way. But I don’t think it should be listed as a general rule for stealth, because it isn’t in the general rules for stealth. It’s a call a DM may or may not decide to make. Furthermore, not allowing rogues to do this lowers their average damage output below the design expectation, which is exactly why they put Steady Aim in Tasha’s.

 

[Charlaquin]

You can't. Skulker says you remain hidden if you miss a ranged attack. That's the only exception.

Right, you don’t remain hidden after attacking, but you might have advantage on the attack roll due to not having been seen by your target at the time you made the attack.