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 Wisdom (Perception) score is lower than your check. If any new observers enter the area, you also gain the Hidden condition against them if their 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 observes 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.