The rules for hiding and invisibility in D&D 5th Edition have always been a mess. There’s lots of reasons for this — ranging from the designers of the game having a deeply held belief that being invisible is the same as standing outside on a moonlit night to the weirdly contradictory hardcoding of being blind, being heavily obscured, and being invisible — but the end result are rules that are difficult to use, in large part because they so frequently produce a result that’s completely counterintuitive to how we expect human eyes to work.
The 2024 edition of the rules tried to clean all of this up, but mostly just made a different mess. For example, Hide makes you Invisible. You can Hide if you’re Heavily Obscured, but Heavily Obscured means people are considered Blind when looking at you, and the only effect of that is identical to being Invisible except Invisibility also gives you advantage on Initiative rolls. Also, neither Hiding nor Invisibility prevent enemies from knowing your location.
This only scratches the surface, and I’m not really going to belabor or attempt to breakdown all the problems here. I think it would only distract from the real purpose of this post: To provide a comprehensive fix for the mess.
The house rules below are designed to slot into the existing D&D 2024 rules as cleanly as possible, while being built around a simple mental-mechanical model in which characters are either:
- Not Hidden
- Pinpointed (observers know where they are, but can’t clearly see them)
- Hidden (observers don’t know where they are)
This model makes it easier for DMs to run stealthy situations both in and out of combat with great clarity and confidence, while other elements of these rules simultaneously make them far more useful for making flexible rulings to cover unusual situations and cool ideas that your players might cook up.
REVISED HIDING & INVISIBILITY RULES
These entries completely replace the matching entries in the 2024 Player’s Handbook rules glossary.
HIDE [ACTION]
With the Hide action, you try to prevent people from knowing where you are (or possibly that you are there at all). To do so, you must be in a Concealable Location, such as being Heavily Obscured, behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, or otherwise out of an observer’s line of sight.
When attempting to Hide, you make a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check. On a successful check, you gain the Hidden condition against all observers with a passive Wisdom (Perception) score lower than your check. If any new observers enter the area, you also gain the Hidden condition against them if their passive Wisdom (Perception) score is lower than your check.
When an observer takes the Search action, they can immediately attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the DC set by the Hidden character’s Dexterity (Stealth) check. You lose the benefits of the Hidden condition against any creature who succeeds at the Wisdom (Perception) check or who can otherwise see you (because they’re on the same side of the wall you’re hiding behind or due to a magical effect, for example).
Observers remain aware of where they last saw you or detected you.
HIDDEN [CONDITION]
When you have the Hidden condition, you experience the following effects.
- When you’re Hidden from a creature, they don’t know your location.
- If you are no longer in a Concealable Location or benefiting from another condition that allows you to take the Hide action, you immediately lose the Hidden condition.
- Concealed. You can’t be affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen if you are Hidden from the effect’s creator.
- Surprise. If you are Hidden from all enemies when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.
- Combat Advantage. Attack rolls against a Hidden opponent have Disadvantage, and a Hidden opponent’s attack rolls have Advantage.
- Detectable Actions. If you make an attack or take some other loud or overt action (such as talking louder than a whisper, kicking open a door, or casting a spell with a Verbal component), other creatures will pinpoint your current location, allowing them to, for example, aim attacks at you (although you would still benefit from your Combat Advantage). In addition, taking a detectable action allows any observer you’re currently Hidden from to make a Wisdom (Perception) check to spot you (removing the benefits of the Hidden condition). Observers can use a reaction to gain advantage on this check.
- Leaving Concealment. If you are no longer in a Concealable Location or benefiting from another condition or effect that allows you to take the Hide action, you lose the Hidden condition. If this happens on your turn in combat, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your turn. (If, after being revealed, you take the Hide action again, you can immediately regain the Hidden condition after losing it, but observers will remain aware of where they last saw or detected you.) If you Ready an action triggered by something that would reveal your location, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your Readied action. (For example, you could Hide behind a closed door and then stab someone opening the door, while still gaining the benefits of Hidden on your attack.)
INVISIBLE [CONDITION]
When you have the Invisible condition, you experience the following effects.
- You cannot be seen. Any equipment you’re carrying or wearing is also invisible.
- You can take the Hide action without needing to be in a Concealable Position.
- You gain Advantage on checks that would benefit from not being seen, including Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
- Attack rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your attack rolls have Advantage.
- You do not gain the benefits of Invisible against any creature who can somehow see you. (For example, due to a see invisibility )
Thanks to piccamo, Hillsy, Grimmash, Lerris, Eshie, Yalim, Kobars Gnomies, zonerhunt, Angon, Noah, Alberek, and other members of the Alexandrian Discord for their feedback and immense help in refining these rules.
FURTHER READING
Random GM Tips: Stealthy Thoughts
I think I’m printing this out and sliding it in my player’s guide!
This rule set may be missing a scenario:
Currently a hidden character is immediately revealed upon leaving a concealable location. This creates a strange situation, where a hidden character wants to move across an open area stealthily, moving from one concealable location to the other. But per these rules the guards in the area would immediately be aware they moved through the space. Even if they were hidden afterwards per a new hide action.
Additionally, always having to roll a new stealth (dexterity) check after moving between conceable checks (particularly outside combat) will almost inevitably doom a player to being caught, instead of using the general idea of letting it ride.
I suspect some clarification for in and out of combat may benefit these rules.
Otherwise this is basically how I’ve always run stealth, so solid rule update.
> But per these rules the guards in the area would immediately be aware they moved through the space.
Correct.
If you walk out into the open (i.e., into an area where you cannot hide) directly in front of someone looking at you, you will be seen.
Concealable Location is capitalized, is it reasonable to define that within the article too, or is that just meant to be a ‘common sense DM ruling’ (not being sarcastic, legit asking haha). Thanks! These are already an improvement on what I had done since swapping to 2024. which was just making “hiding without magic works how stealth used to” very hamfisted. This is clearer. Thanks Justin!
It’s not clear to me how being Pinpointed is meant to work in these rules. You started by defining it as a state distinct from being Hidden, but then “Detectable Actions” lists situations that allow others to pinpoint your location, but implies that you still keep the Hidden condition unless they succeed at a Wisdom (Perception) check. There’s also no guidance on how to get rid of the Pinpointed condition.
> But per these rules the guards in the area would immediately be aware they moved through the space. Even if they were hidden afterwards per a new hide action.
Justin can correct me if I’m misunderstanding, but it seems that you’re envisioning a scenario where a sneaking character dashes from one concealable location to another over open ground, hopefully without being spotted. Using these rules, I’d say that out of combat if the guards who might see you have their backs turned and you perhaps succeed at a check to move silently then you never stop being hidden, because they couldn’t see you when you were behind them. (We could say that behind their backs counts as a Concealable Location, though one that can be denied easily if they turn around.) In combat, this wouldn’t apply because the game doesn’t typically account for facing and assumes that in a combat situation every character is making an effort to be aware of their surroundings, but in an infiltration type situation I think it would be reasonable to allow this kind of movement.
I use homebrew rules very similar to these, but I also look at Pathfinder 2e’s homework a little bit by adding its rules for vague, imprecise, and precise senses. Precise sense in a normal human would be sight, imprecise is hearing, and vague is everything else. Basically, observing someone with a precise sense makes them not hidden, with an imprecise sense makes them pinpointed, and with a vague sense makes them hidden, with the benefit of a vague sense being that you are at least aware that there’s someone in the area, though you have no idea where. I found that thinking about senses like this makes it easy to use these rules for creatures with an unusual sensory profile, like a creature that has precise scent but is completely blind for example. You can still use these rules, but hiding behind a wall is no longer a concealable location while hiding in the cloud of overpowering perfume in the opera house mezzanine is.
Exactly right, Wesley.
@Wyvern: Pinpointed is not a condition. It’s just a verb meaning they’ve identified your current location. That information would remain useful until you moved away from that location, at which point it would become less useful.
I’ve added the word “current” to these rules in the hope that it might make this a little clearer.
@Dan: The definition of Concealable Location is “such as being Heavily Obscured, behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, or otherwise out of an observer’s line of sight.” You’re right that, beyond that, it’s intentionally a flexible term of art that the GM can use to make rulings.
RE: Pinpointed – that’s what I figured you meant, but there’s a slight contradiction in what you wrote. You define Hidden as “observers don’t know where they are” and pinpointed as “observers know where they are”, which are mutually exclusive, and yet it’s possible to be pinpointed while still remaining Hidden (if you perform a Detectable Action).
I can think of two possible solutions. One would be to change the definition of Hidden. The other would be to have two different conditions, like Pathfinder 2e does: “Undetected” means observers don’t know where you are, and “Hidden” means they know what space you’re in but can’t tell precisely where you are. (You might prefer different terms, of course.)
These are great, thank you.
When you say “Wisdom (Perception) score” in the Hide action, do you mean Passive Perception? Or do all potential observers immediately roll checks? (You also have a stray “is” in that sentence).
@Wyvern: Just focus on the rules.
@MrPatient: Correct. I’ve edited for clarity.
So, under these rules: On his turn the Mouser Hides (bonus action) in an area of darkness from two goblin guards (he is now Hidden). He then (action) attacks one of them with his hand crossbow. As I read it, he remains Hidden after the attack, but is pinpointed. Is this correct? If he moves after the attack, remaining in the darkness, does he remain hidden? remain pinpointed?
Second scenario: Conan is hiding around the corner from two goblin guards out of their line of sight (Hidden). On his turn, he bursts from hiding (Leaving Concealment), runs 30 feet toward the goblins (Move) drinking a healing potion on the way (Bonus action). He then takes two swings at the goblins with his greatsword, each at advantage since he doesn’t lose the benefit of the hidden condition until the end of his turn. Moreover, if one of the goblins had readied an attack to attack an approaching enemy, they would be unable to trigger that Reaction until the end of Conan’s turn as that is when he stops being Hidden. Is that correct?
@Patrick:
“As I read it, he remains Hidden after the attack, but is pinpointed. Is this correct?”
Yes, although observers would also be able to make a check to spot him.
“If he moves after the attack, remaining in the darkness, does he remain hidden?”
If he’s still Hidden, he’s still Hidden.
“…remain pinpointed?”
Bad guys who didn’t spot him would still be aware of where the attack came from.
Re: Conan. Yes, that’s correct.
If you don’t want to treat “Pinpointed” as a formal condition, maybe it would be clearer instead to say that those nearby get a *pointer* at the hidden character’s current location (and any other information that makes sense in context). It’s not that the hidden character *is pinpointed*, it’s that the observer *has information*. The information does not directly reveal the hidden character, but it makes it possible to take actions against them.
@colin: Right. It could say something like “other creatures will pinpoint your current location.”
(/s)
This has the same problem that the 4e stealth rules had. Which is tied to this clause:
“Leaving Concealment. If you are no longer in a Concealable Location or benefiting from another condition or effect that allows you to take the Hide action, you lose the Hidden condition. If this happens on your turn in combat, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your turn.”
First, there’s something absurd about a hidden fighter charging an enemy, attacking twice, using Action surge, and then swinging two more times. All with the benefits of being “hidden.”
Second, it prevents the very cinematic use of Stealth where you sneak up behind someone, while otherwise in plain sight. Following along behind a patrolling guard until you strike or pick their pocket. The thief dangling from a rope above a watchful guard who just doesn’t look up.
Very often you want to sneak or not be “observed” when not in combat and not dashing between cover. This makes that impossible.
It’s clear that the Invisible condition is both magically invisible AND hidden/ unseen. But they’re just avoiding having two overlapping conditions while trying to keep some backwards compatibility.
Why set a DC 15 of the Stealth check AND compare with individual opponents’ Passive Perception scores? (This rule basically sets a floor of 15 for enemy Passive Perception, even in scenarios where dim light or other circumstances would give them disadvantage or a -5 passive penalty. Is that intentional?)
Gotta ask because it is unclear to me – what is the reason for keeping the DC 15 check if you are going to compare the Stealth result to Passive Perception anyway?
Seems like keeping it adds an unnecessary extra step.
Do you think adding in a bonus for using cover is warranted here? PF2e grants a Circumstance Bonus if using cover to the Hide check.
I’m pretty sure I know the intent, but the wording could be improved. The first sentence describing Hidden is “When you’re Hidden from a creature, they don’t know your location”, but then a few sentences later it says “If you … take some loud or overt action …, other creatures will pinpoint your current location.” You can see how someone might think that means “hidden” must be cancelled. If you’re Hidden they don’t know your location, so if they know your location you can’t be Hidden.
This is one of those situations that makes me prefer OSR style to 5e (or anything since 2e, for that matter). I’ve never had trouble with an explanation that boils down to “jeez, you know what ‘hidden’ means, just do what makes sense”, but turning it into a formal war-game style rule is surprisingly hard, for very little gain. I mean, if it leads to that Conan example above, I’d say that’s actually worse than the common sense version.
Regarding sneaking up behind someone and/or dangling on a rope above them — I’d rule both of those as “out of the enemy’s line of site” so still a Concealable Location for that specific enemy. Let the Stealth roll ride to see if you can control your shadow and keep your armor from clanking.
Kinda similar to the Conan example — I can get on board with the Move out of a Concealable Location not instantly negating combat advantage even if the goblins are looking that way because HOLY CRAP A BARBARIAN JUST CAME OUT OF NOWHERE AND RAN AT ME FROM 12 YARDS AWAY. Both attacks seem like they should be at advantage.
Ugh, sight not site. Facepalm.
The whole thing is a bit over-engineered and conflates knowing someone’s location with seeing them — these are two separate but equally fatal problems:
First, the author seeks to improve the existing 5e24 rules, arguing that they’re messy, but then offers house rules that are even more convoluted and messier. Not only is this writeup more difficult to use in a session, but virtually nobody will have heard of it or used it prior to its introduction at a game. It has a high barrier to clear just by not being ubiquitous like the published rules, and it’s not there yet.
Second, other senses exist; a bloodhound might know exactly where you’re hiding despite having no way of seeing you. There’s a very good reason why the 5e24 rules focus explicitly on sight, obscurement/cover, and visibility, even if the author hasn’t discovered it yet. It should be obvious to anyone who’s ever been snuck up on that it’s perfectly possible for someone to escape notice while not being obscured or covered up by something. We don’t have eyes on the back of our heads, and we can often even miss things that are in our peripheral vision if they’re not moving. This happens all the time, every day, and yet we’re still somehow scratching our heads over how someone can maintain the Invisible condition granted by Hide while outside of obscurement/cover?
This is a solution (and not a particularly straightforward one) searching for a problem.
@Alex:
Re: “These house rules will only be used if people know about them.” I mean… you’re not wrong. Tautologies are tautological, after all.
Re: Sneaking behind someone’s back. If you’re sneaking behind someone’s back you would be “otherwise out of an observer’s line of sight,” which would mean you’re in a concealable location.
Re: Bloodhounds. You’re not wrong that 5e24 has some real issues with scent-based Perception being distinct from sight-based Perception, but fixing that problem is well beyond the scope of these house rules. The core problem is that 5e24 took all the 5e14 monsters with Keen Smell and just modeled that as an unexplained +3 bonus to Perception in their stat blocks.
If you wanted to reverse engineer the Keen Smell trait (or something equivalent) out of the 5e24 stat blocks, then it wouldn’t be hard to implement it here.
Re: Difficulty to use. Nah. The basic structure is very easy to understand (are you in a situation or position that would let you hide from someone? have you successfully concealed yourself? has your location been detected?), and if some specific issue crops up, the rules have been stress-tested to answer the common cruxes with clarity and consistency.
I have quite a bit of feedback on this, as I don’t think it’s nearly as clean or consistent as intended. My issues with this:
1) Hide begins with: “When attempting to Hide, you make a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check.” But from there it seems it’s opposed checks, because “you gain the Hidden condition against all observers with a passive Wisdom (Perception) score lower than your check.” Um, so WTF is the DC 15 defining? If it’s stealth roll vs passive perception and you roll a 14 stealth and their passive perception was 14 why would it not be successful? The DC is meaningless if the intent is an opposed check.
2) When you have hidden condition: “Combat Advantage. Attack rolls against a Hidden opponent have Disadvantage, and a Hidden opponent’s attack rolls have Advantage.” How are they even attacking (targeting)? Given the necessary condition of “in a Concealable Location” I think disadvantage is extremely generous. I question if they should be able to attack at all.
3) “Surprise. If you are Hidden from all enemies when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.” Hide action can occur during combat, so it shouldn’t be tied to whether or not the hidden condition applied when initiative was rolled. Furthermore, “Advantage on the roll” should NOT require being hidden “from all enemies…” but rather it only matters if you’re hidden from the one you attack. Perhaps one enemy had a higher perception to notice you, but they were engaged with someone else and may not know another enemy didn’t spot you. Maybe they said something, maybe they didn’t. But when one in the party sees something, others don’t know unless we say something. So why do monsters get an auto-share of what’s perceived?
4) The middle condition of “Pinpointed” isn’t fleshed out very well. So I’m hidden behind some boxes, pop up to shoot and then duck back down. They’ve poinpointed me [older rules were just that this ended Stealth]. Here this says “allows any observer you’re currently Hidden from to make a Wisdom (Perception) check to spot you (removing the benefits of the Hidden condition).” Does that require an action or is it a free roll for them? It does say they “can use a reaction to gain advantage on this check.” What if they roll (with or without the advantage) and fail, do you actually still have the hidden condition? If not what specifically does the pinpointed condition then mean mechanically? Also, if a rogue, what if you’ve attacked then used your cunning action to re-take the Hide action? This isn’t talked about in “Detectable Actions”, tho re-stealthing is talked about in the ‘Leaving Concealment’ clause after that. It seems like those sections need to be combined as differentiating the 2 potential losses of stealth is messier than they intended.
5) In “Leaving Concealment”, “…you lose the Hidden condition. If this happens on your turn in combat, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your turn. (If, after being revealed, you take the Hide action again, you can immediately regain the Hidden condition after losing it, but observers will remain aware of where they last saw or detected you.)” So you re-hide. They know where you last were, but don’t necessarily know if you’ve moved or not. If they guess about movement and are wrong, are they “just” disadvantaged or do they plain miss you? This goes back to the previous one of pop up from behind cover, shoot, duck, hide. What exactly is the mechanism for guessing location of someone hidden, when that guess is right and when it’s wrong?
6) Invisible. Mentions Hide Action can be taken, but not that you’re automatically hidden. And that you have Advantage to a Stealth check but again not automatic. This implies that the weird ‘Pinpointed’ thing can happen. But again, what’s the mechanic for Pinpointing someone invisible, whether they’ve taken a Hide action, made a stell roll, or neither? Is it a non-action passive vs passive?
Anyway this is still a mess, I don’t think the pinpointed helped anything and there’s not mechanical clarity about passive vs active rolls in several of these situations.
#1. These rules are designed to be compatible with the rest of the D&D 2024 rule set. You can drop the DC 15 check threshold if you want, but it may cause compatibility issues that you’ll need to deal with. (That’s, personally, what I would do.)
#2. There are multiple ways you could make an attack against a Hidden foe. You actually go on to discuss some of them later in your comment.
#3. I’m not really clear on why the ability to make Hide checks during combat means that you shouldn’t gain advantage on Initiative checks at the start of combat. Could you explain what you mean?
#4. There is no Pinpointed condition in these rules.
#5. “If they guess about movement and are wrong, are they “just” disadvantaged or do they plain miss you?” Are you asking if they can hit you if they shoot at a location you’re not at? Of course not. I can’t even begin to understand why you would think that would be possible.
#6. “Mentions Hide Action can be taken, but not that you’re automatically hidden.” Because you’re not automatically Hidden.
“Anyway this is still a mess…”
Nope.
Hey Justin, appreciate your quick reply. I was not expecting that. I’m not sure what ‘compatibility issues’ you mean, but for #1 it seems you’re in agreement that’s it’s more about opposed rolls with your stealth and their passives.
#2 was more about what prompts one to be able to atteack at a particular targeted square if they have zero knowledge (no active or passive success) to suggest targeting that location. Not an issue I expect to really come up in gameplay, so can ignore that one I guess.
#3 Different scenarios. Hiding to setup an ambush is perhaps the only scenario I can think of where you’d be hidden BEFORE initiative to get advantage there: on the initiative roll. My focus overall is more the rogue bonus action to hide, which is ideally often taken AFTER your attack action. Most common example: Hide behind what you call “a Concealable Location” popping up / around that to attack, you gain advantage on that attack. BUT you broke stealth and/or, by your terms, are “Pinpointed”. However your remaining movment and bonus action allows you to re-Stealth. So what exactly in the mechanisms you’re suggesting for that next Hide (bonus) action? Is it again, your stealth roll vs thier active and/or passive Perceptions? If you win those opposed rolls, are you gaining with them being disadvantaged in addition to their normal cover penalties? Or are you suggesting that having been ‘pinpointed’ you can no longer re-stealth behind said cover? That is the practical, post-initiative scenario I think isn’t fleshed out very well in your guidelines overall.
#4 So what was the point of listing poinponted as one of 3 states, if “There is no Pinpointed condition in these rules.” Again comments above in #3 address the practical situation that needs the clarity of game mechanics proposed.
#5 This is the same as #2 really. Again your own doc starts with 3 possible states:
“Not Hidden
Pinpointed (observers know where they are, but can’t clearly see them)
Hidden (observers don’t know where they are)”
So my question in both 2 and 5 is Do you need to be pinpointed for them to target an attack in your location, if to use YOUR words they DON’T [even] KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?
#6 I’m still not understanding in game terms what you are saying ‘invisibility’ does or does not grant or require in terms of a Hide Action and or Hidden condition. The active and passive parts should be clarified.
Apologies for calling your guide “still a mess”. If you can clarify particularly the #3 condition of PC having stealth behind, say, 3/4 cover and then attacking out of it, then using a bonus action to re-stealth I think it would answer most of my issues here. Also given 3 possible states of enemies knowing or not where you are, reconsiling “pinpointed” as one but then saying there is no actual condition or mechanics around that is … if not messy still something you should resolve.
Do appreciate the response, and look forward to your clarifications. Cheers!