How to Run Stealth

[strangebloke]

Okay, new campaign starting up here soon and I want to do stealth better than I have been.

I'm collecting my thoughts in one place to see if they make sense to people. This isn't a 'guide' since I'm not an expert or anything, but I would like your input.

To my mind, there are roughly three types of (stealth) checks.

Narrative Stealth: The party are in a city ruled by an enemy wizard, and they're trying to keep a low profile as they move through the city.

I call this sort of thing an 'abstract check' because its not completely clear what the party is doing to 'lay low,' merely that they are. This kind of check comes up when you try to use DND to simulate a situation that DND is not designed to simulate.

I'd probably make this a Wisdom(stealth) check or maybe a Charisma(Stealth) check, and Pass Without Trace would not apply to it. I would probably also call for a 'Stealth Leader' to roll, with assistance, on behalf of the party. The DC would be set based on what the characters are trying to do and by how well-organized I think that this city is. If they get a failure, the party might have to roll a series of checks to talk down a city guard or something.

Dungeoneering Stealth: The party rogue, under cover of a invisibility spell, sneaks forward to scout out the next room.

This is probably the most important kind of stealth check, since its the sort that is used to determine surprise, which is an incredibly debilitating condition to inflict on an enemy.

I'd walk through this process:

• determine enemies, locations, and senses. Which of the bad guys can reasonably be expected to perceive our heroes? This is where things like darkvision, blindsense and everything else become very important. Also, sleeping creatures can only hear.
• determine if any enemies can just immediately see the party. If the party is visible, stealth is impossible. This isn't quite as strict as when the party is in combat. An enemy might be able to see a party member, but depending on the situation it could be very reasonable for the party member to wait until the guy's back is turned. There's also a fun thing you can throw in here, which I call the 'discovered watchmen.' Basically sometimes an enemy will have a guy on watch who is himself hidden. In that case both groups roll stealth and perception and things flow naturally from there. If they both see each other, roll initiative. If one sees the other but not vice versa, surprise! If neither see each other... nothing happens.
• Assign advantage/disadvantage. Lycanthropes get advantage to perception because their sense of smell is relevant. Rogue with Elvenkind boots and cloak doesn't get advantage to stealth because you go off of best sense available to an enemy. I also usually give out disadvantage for enemies that aren't on watch, like a pair of hobgoblins who are sparring with each other.
• Call for checks. All members of the party roll stealth. All enemies roll perception. In a scenario where two groups are trying to ambush each other, they both roll both.
• Arbitrate success or failure. Success usually means that the party can proceed to the edge of whatever obscurement they're using without being discovered. Failure usually mean a normal rolling of initiative.

Combat Stealth: A rogue shoots an arrow before disappearing back into the mists.

This is the most common sort of stealth, the kind covered by the 'Hide' action in combat. Hiding requires heavy obscurement or a blinded opponent and is contested by the passive perception of everyone in the room. They can roll to find you, but that takes an action. All very good, but the million-dollar question is: what does hiding actually do? We know a lot about things that break a hiding spot. Loud noises, moving out into the open, making attacks, etc. etc. We know almost nothing about what this accomplishes. Even pretty standard rules like 'first attack after coming out of of being hidden has advantage' are strictly the domain of DM discretion. At an absolute baseline, it seems like you can use it to render yourself unseen for a defensive buff, and that sometimes it can give you advantage on an attack if its plausible that no one would see you coming.

So in principle, how I think I'm going to rule this is: you can hide in any heavy obscurement, any time, and attacks against you (that are made by people who can't outright see you) will have disadvantage. You can move around at half speed within the obscurement without breaking your hide, and if you're able to circle around you might get a attack with advantage off. But you get no offensive bonus if enemies know your general location, since they'll know to watch for attacks from that quarter.

...and that's it! Now, everyone obviously has a different reading from RAW and prioritizes different things in their games, but is there anything obviously wrong with what I've done here?

[Expected]

For accurate Perception checks, don't forget to impose disadvantage in dim light. That way, the Skulker feat is worth taking for your stealthier PC's.

[holywhippet]

My thoughts on combat stealth are as follows:
- In order to hide at all you need to have broken line of sight with your enemies. Whether that means going behind a wall or a tree or moving into darkness you can't hide while you can be seen.
- If at any time you move closer to an enemy while hiding and there is nothing blocking line of sight then you are automatically revealed, otherwise you can move around freely in combat.
- The opposite isn't true. An enemy can move closer to you and won't be noticed automatically
- Any kind of offensive action immediately gives away your location.
- If you move into an enemies line of sight or an enemy moves into line of sight with you it is your stealth roll vs. their passive perception to be noticed
- Any condition that prevents or counters invisibility (eg. faerie fire) also prevents hiding
- Realistically if you moved out of darkness and into a better lit area there should be some extra chance of your being detected but this would be hard to implement since generally speaking light levels aren't considered during a D&D game in combat.

[KnightOfV]

For 'narrative stealth', it feels more like a chance for a lot of roleplay and working together rather than one check and move on. I'd make it a big group check with everyone telling the DM what they're doing to accomplish this goal then picking appropriate skills.

I'd let them start out with the barely used Knowledge:Local just to see if they already know of places in the town they can lay low, or who to contact about such things. Anyone who can pass a decent check there, gets a bonus, or maybe advantage to all rolls to stay unnoticed in the city.

If they blow that check, maybe the have to pass a more difficult gather information to sneakily find out where the best places are to stay. What do they do when they leave the hideout? Cloaks and hoods, stick to the shadows? Regular stealth is fine. Try to change their appearance? Perfect time for a disguise check. Do they make new IDs? Forgery. Lie about who they are? Bluff.

[Spiritchaser]

A couple of notes, but the short version is be as clear as you can with your players.

A party member who can be seen may still be entitled to a stealth attempt. The requirement in the PHB is that they not be seen “clearly”. This text is pretty critical, and also confusing. Firstly because it was written differently in early copies of the book and then errata’d to include the “clearly” part, but also because it’s tough to be consistent with what “clearly” actually means. Write yourself a few quick notes, let the players know, and that’ll probably keep things mostly smooth, though there are always a few strange ones...

With regards to advantage; clarify what constitutes advantage for stealth. This will significantly impact how useful stealth is. If the base requirement is “not being seen clearly” for stealth, how much of an additional improvement in conditions is needed for advantage. Make some quick notes and let your players know. I have some very definite ideas about this, and some others here have some eaqually definite different ideas. Just as long as you and your players are on the same page it’ll probably work out.

Find out what your player’s expectations are. Don’t be afraid to be more or less permissive with stealth in a given campaign relative to others as long as you’re consistent within each. The players do, of course, need to be aware that what goes around comes around.

And it does so very VERY quietly...

[Xetheral]

Here's how I run it at my table:

Perception

If I conclude that there is doubt as to whether one can can perceive another character's location, I call for a Perception check (or use Passive Perception) with a difficulty I set. I err on the side of setting lower difficulties. If the check fails, the observer cannot perceive the other character's location.

Hiding

If there is already doubt as to whether or not a character's location can be perceived, that character may elect to take the Hide action and roll stealth. If they do, the difficulty to perceive that character's location becomes the higher of their stealth check or the DM-set difficulty described above.

If a character has a special ability that lets them hide in a particular circumstance, they can always take the hide action when that condition is met, even if there would otherwise be no doubt as to whether their location can be perceived.

Note

Oberservers who are unable to perceive another character's location may still know (or be able to infer) that character's location. If a previously-perceived character moves into an obvious hiding place and can no longer be perceived, the observer is welcome to infer that the character remains in that location.

[guachi]

For Narrative Stealth I'd use some kind of Deception check, either Charisma or Intelligence.

If the approach from the players was something along the lines of "how can we use our knowledge of the area to keep out of sight" I'd probably go with Intelligence (Deception).

[Tanarii]

I think high-level abstract resolution being unnoticed checks (which you're referring to as "narrative" for some weird reason) are usually better run as group checks.

Also it's entirely appropriate for them to still be Dexterity (Stealth) checks as opposed to a variant ability with Stealth proficienty. Although it's definitely a good time to consider variant abilities scores! Depends what they're doing. If they are sneaking around a city at night without drawing the attention of the watch is pretty clearly still Dex. Whereas passing themselves off and not particularly memorable would be Cha. As well as probably requiring some magic or a very high DC, given how memorable the typical group of PCs are.

[Dalebert]

It's been well-established that hiding / using stealth takes your action. It's excessive to say you also have to move at half speed. Technically, you already do move at half speed if you're continually using stealth because you could otherwise be dashing. This is what makes bonus action stealth so useful to a rogue.

Being hidden grants you advantage. I'm not sure how that is considered DM discretion. What is up to discretion is whether any movement would reveal you. You can make one attack while still hidden without moving that then reveals you. the exception is if you have Skulker which specifically says making an attack only reveals you if you actually hit.

It doesn't make sense to use stealth in heavy obscurement to impose disadvantage because they already can't see you and already have disadvantage. However, you can't see the attacker either which grants them advantage. They two cancel out to a normal attack. The point of hiding inside heavy obscurement would be so the enemy loses track of your location, e.g. can't hear your breathing, footsteps, etc. and so they'd have to just guess at what location you're in for even having a chance to hit you at all.

[holywhippet]

It doesn't make sense to use stealth in heavy obscurement to impose disadvantage because they already can't see you and already have disadvantage. However, you can't see the attacker either which grants them advantage. They two cancel out to a normal attack. The point of hiding inside heavy obscurement would be so the enemy loses track of your location, e.g. can't hear your breathing, footsteps, etc. and so they'd have to just guess at what location you're in for even having a chance to hit you at all.

That can vary depending on who is in the battle. Say you have a party composed entirely of humans. Assume they haven't obtained darkvision from some class ability or spell. If they are fighting something that does have darkvision and they are all in a dark environment then their opponent can keep shooting them at range using stealth with advantage while all of their attacks have disadvantage.

[Dalebert]

That can vary depending on who is in the battle. Say you have a party composed entirely of humans. Assume they haven't obtained darkvision from some class ability or spell. If they are fighting something that does have darkvision and they are all in a dark environment then their opponent can keep shooting them at range using stealth with advantage while all of their attacks have disadvantage.

My point remains. Steatlh is irrelevant in that situation. The humans can't see. The enemies with darkvision can see. The enemies have adv and the humans attack with disadvantage. What does stealth have to do with it?

I disagree with OP on being able to move at half speed and stay hidden. You can do that as a house rule certainly, but I would discourage it because you're screwing rogues. Moving causes you to no longer be hidden. It then takes an action to be hidden again or a bonus action if you're a rogue. The idea is on your turn, you attack with adv, that causes you to no longer be hidden. If you're a rogue, you then hide again with your bonus action. If you're not a rogue, sorry bud.. You attacked. You're no longer hidden.

[strangebloke]

For accurate Perception checks, don't forget to impose disadvantage in dim light. That way, the Skulker feat is worth taking for your stealthier PC's.

Oh of course. Yeah I view that as one of the more basic things tha tyou have to get right.

My thoughts on combat stealth are as follows:
- In order to hide at all you need to have broken line of sight with your enemies. Whether that means going behind a wall or a tree or moving into darkness you can't hide while you can be seen.
- If at any time you move closer to an enemy while hiding and there is nothing blocking line of sight then you are automatically revealed, otherwise you can move around freely in combat.
- The opposite isn't true. An enemy can move closer to you and won't be noticed automatically
- Any kind of offensive action immediately gives away your location.
- If you move into an enemies line of sight or an enemy moves into line of sight with you it is your stealth roll vs. their passive perception to be noticed
- Any condition that prevents or counters invisibility (eg. faerie fire) also prevents hiding
- Realistically if you moved out of darkness and into a better lit area there should be some extra chance of your being detected but this would be hard to implement since generally speaking light levels aren't considered during a D&D game in combat.

- Not neccesarily, although I agree that a broken line of sight is the only time you can be sure that hiding is allowed.
- Without DM intervention, you are revealed. In some cases a DM might allow you to approach.
- At least with regards to stealth rules, I think that players and enemies should operate on the same ruleset
- agreed.
- No, I disagree with this. If an enemy can see you outright, he does. The comparison vs. PP is just there to see if your hide action is successful in the first place. Note that there's no trigger for the contest against PP, it just happens at the DM's discretion.

For 'narrative stealth', it feels more like a chance for a lot of roleplay and working together rather than one check and move on. I'd make it a big group check with everyone telling the DM what they're doing to accomplish this goal then picking appropriate skills.

I'd let them start out with the barely used Knowledge:Local just to see if they already know of places in the town they can lay low, or who to contact about such things. Anyone who can pass a decent check there, gets a bonus, or maybe advantage to all rolls to stay unnoticed in the city.

If they blow that check, maybe the have to pass a more difficult gather information to sneakily find out where the best places are to stay. What do they do when they leave the hideout? Cloaks and hoods, stick to the shadows? Regular stealth is fine. Try to change their appearance? Perfect time for a disguise check. Do they make new IDs? Forgery. Lie about who they are? Bluff.

Eh, sometimes you'd want to roleplay it all out, sometimes you'd just want a check. Sometimes roleplay might include a couple of abstract checks. Even in your proposed situation, you have a pretty abstract stealth check, where they're sticking to the shadows through a whole city.

Also, knowledge:Local isn't a 5e skill. Knowledge skills aren't really a 5e thing at all either.

A couple of notes, but the short version is be as clear as you can with your players.

A party member who can be seen may still be entitled to a stealth attempt. The requirement in the PHB is that they not be seen “clearly”. This text is pretty critical, and also confusing. Firstly because it was written differently in early copies of the book and then errata’d to include the “clearly” part, but also because it’s tough to be consistent with what “clearly” actually means. Write yourself a few quick notes, let the players know, and that’ll probably keep things mostly smooth, though there are always a few strange ones...

With regards to advantage; clarify what constitutes advantage for stealth. This will significantly impact how useful stealth is. If the base requirement is “not being seen clearly” for stealth, how much of an additional improvement in conditions is needed for advantage. Make some quick notes and let your players know. I have some very definite ideas about this, and some others here have some eaqually definite different ideas. Just as long as you and your players are on the same page it’ll probably work out.

Find out what your player’s expectations are. Don’t be afraid to be more or less permissive with stealth in a given campaign relative to others as long as you’re consistent within each. The players do, of course, need to be aware that what goes around comes around.

And it does so very VERY quietly...

Actually I think the rules are pretty clear: The DM decides if hiding is appropriate. So basically, don't count on it until you talk to your DM. My rule of thumb is, heavy obscurement unless they can justify why light obscurement would work.

For advantage/disadvantage, things that grant disadvantage to perception checks are pretty easy to come by, although they're a pain to keep track of. Everything else (Blessing of the Trickster, Cloak of Elvenkind) is simultaneously less common and more consistent.

[Teulisch]

a 4th type of stealth in 5e, is travel stealth. this means slow travel, but you get to surprise the encounters rather than being ambushed yourself. and it is a question of the stealth of the party as a whole.

also, it is important to remember that some characters can use the lightly obscured state to hide. lightfoot halflings hide behind their taller human allies. wood elves hide in any natual phenomenon (including dim light), and anyone with the skulker feat can hide in a lot of ways.

so: darkvision means dim light wont hide things from you, but darkness is dim light for you. and skulker can ignore all dim light penalties. so you cant hide from a skulker with darkvision unless you have something between you and him. and then some creatures and classes have blindsense, so it wont help there either.

[Tanarii]

Actually I think the rules are pretty clear: The DM decides if hiding is appropriate. So basically, don't count on it until you talk to your DM. My rule of thumb is, heavy obscurement unless they can justify why light obscurement would work.

That's my rule of thumb for combat many situations too. But good justifications include things like "he's fifty feet away and doesn't have any idea I'm around until I fail the check!"

On a mechanical note, you can also take the time to set some fixed DCs to spot any small or medium creature that's moving based on range. Same with hearing. Those then become floors for stealth attempts of course. But they also let you handle when people aren't making an attempt to hide, which is useful.

I mean, you can just make them up when something isn't hiding. But it's hardly fair when you set a DC to hear someone moving around at 60ft as DC 10, then later on make someone else who says they're trying to move quietly roll their +2 Dex.

(I love flexible DCs but internal consistency of their own resolution process is something a DM should still consider at their given table. It shouldn't be harder to use Stealth than not use it.)

[Spiritchaser]

Actually I think the rules are pretty clear: The DM decides if hiding is appropriate. So basically, don't count on it until you talk to your DM. My rule of thumb is, heavy obscurement unless they can justify why light obscurement would work.

For advantage/disadvantage, things that grant disadvantage to perception checks are pretty easy to come by, although they're a pain to keep track of. Everything else (Blessing of the Trickster, Cloak of Elvenkind) is simultaneously less common and more consistent.

Would you allow a player to “hide” on a pile of corpses in a sewer before an observer was in play, despite the total lack of obscurement? (But lots of background visual “camouflage”)

At what range would you allow Invisibility to confer advantage on a stealth check against a typical person if at all?

How much background noise is needed to add advantage to stealth checks?

I’m not suggesting any particular answers, just noting that I haven’t found it to be terribly well spelled out in the rules. These examples all came from one session.

[Tanarii]

At what range would you allow Invisibility to confer advantage on a stealth check against a typical person if at all?

How much background noise is needed to add advantage to stealth checks?

Personal opinions:

1) invisibility should never give advantage to stealth checks. It should just make the percievers visual portion of their perception check automatically fail. Hearing them should still be possible. In many cases, this may make stealth possible since it makes visually perceiving the invisible creature go from auto success (can clearly see them) to auto failure (cannot see them), leaving only a stealth check to remain unheard. Assuming hearing them is possible.

2) Background noise should never give advantage to a stealth check. It should affect the percievers perception check. Either it provides disadvantage to their perception check, makes it automatically fail, or sets a seperate fixed DC determined by the DM they must also succeed on to hear anything. The latter effectively gives a floor value to the stealther's Stealth check, since if they roll lower than it the percievers still fail to hear due to background noise.

[Spiritchaser]

Personal opinions:

1) invisibility should never give advantage to stealth checks. It should just make the percievers visual portion of their perception check automatically fail. Hearing them should still be possible. In many cases, this may make stealth possible since it makes visually perceiving the invisible creature go from auto success (can clearly see them) to auto failure (cannot see them), leaving only a stealth check to remain unheard. Assuming hearing them is possible.

2) Background noise should never give advantage to a stealth check. It should affect the percievers perception check. Either it provides disadvantage to their perception check, makes it automatically fail, or sets a seperate fixed DC determined by the DM they must also succeed on to hear anything. The latter effectively gives a floor value to the stealther's Stealth check, since if they roll lower than it the percievers still fail to hear due to background noise.

Perhaps if I asked about Invisibility in the context of the way you mention, at what range would you apply advantage to an auditory only stealth check, if at all?

Background noise, be it visual, auditory, olfactory, whatever, could be considered for advantage to stealth (its easier to put my feet down, I don’t need to perfectly avoid all the twigs, I can pay more attention to not standing on the big sticks, and not letting them see motion), or disadvantage to perception (I can’t hear those breaking twigs over this wind). Both work and for whatever it’s worth, are directly relatable in the real world.

If I recall correctly there is at least one published adventure where advantage is suggested, though that’s not an especially strong reason to choose one over the other. I was actually a player at the time, I’ll double check with the DM.

I recall from previous discussions that we assess these things differently, sometimes with the same result, sometimes not, but I also remember that you had an enviably rigorous way of looking at it.

[Tanarii]

Background noise, be it visual, auditory, olfactory, whatever, could be considered for advantage to stealth (its easier to put my feet down, I don’t need to perfectly avoid all the twigs, I can pay more attention to not standing on the big sticks, and not letting them see motion), or disadvantage to perception (I can’t hear those breaking twigs over this wind). Both work and for whatever it’s worth, are directly relatable in the real world.

Yes you can do it either way. I do it as affecting the perciever because I prefer to reserve advantage to the person attempting stealth for things that active assist them, and instead give disadvantage to the perciever for things that actively hinder them. Since it is an opposed roll.

Or, as I mentioned, introduce a parallel and simultaneous check for the perciever against a static DC that must also be passed. Since it is an independent affect that would apply regardless of the attempt to stealth.

I recognize that that is in affect a house rule application of the check rules. But it is one that enables you to not screw over someone because they are suddenly attempting stealth, making things worse for them than if they didn't attempt a check.

It's also not generally necessary if you either rule:
- anyone not attempting stealth is automatically detected at infinite range
- anyone not attempting stealth is automatically not detected at some range dependent on the situation

In other words, for the second one if you just tell the player they automatically succeed on stealth because it's noisy, and they don't have to roll.

I recall from previous discussions that we assess these things differently, sometimes with the same result, sometimes not, but I also remember that you had an enviably rigorous way of looking at it.

For sure. That's why I was careful to state it was a personal opinion. But it lines up with Dim light or light Fog. That gives disadvantage to the perciever, not advantage to the stealther.

The main difference is going to be when another source of advantage or disadvantage applies, since they don't stack and one instance negates all instances of the opposite. In that case, it really matters which roll in an opposed roll you apply the advantage or disadvantage of environment too.

For example, if someone is wearing Boots of Elvenkind they can still benefit from a noisy background if rules to gives disadvantage to the perciever, but not under someone that gives them advantage to stealth.

[Spiritchaser]

For example, if someone is wearing Boots of Elvenkind they can still benefit from a noisy background if rules to gives disadvantage to the perciever, but not under someone that gives them advantage to stealth.

Yes, and this one has always bugged me a bit in general, because there’s a LOT of work in deciding if the likes of boots of Elven kind Should grant more benefit if hearing you is already hard. Not just the boots, but all the possibilities, and which generalization works best for most of them, and that’s just for stealth. Quite frankly I’m just not going to do it.

As a DM who gets overwhelmed if I’m not careful, I like the advantage mechanic for it’s speed and simplicity, I’ll have to suck up its balance issues as an acceptable trade off.

[Tanarii]

That's why I'm (trying to) use a baseline of "who is being directly affected".

Boots of Elvenkind assist the user.
Hard to sneak over terrain hinders the user.
Background noise hinders the listener. IMO.

The weird one to me is Cloak of Elvenkind. It gives advantage to the wearer for Stealth checks made to hide, and disadvantage to the perciever for sight based checks made to see you. In an opposed roll it does double duty. Of course, in a non-opposed roll (ie not hiding, static DC to see you) it still assists, which is nice.