Stealth in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

We cover the basics rules for stealth and hiding, the benefits of being hidden, how to remain undetected, as well as the many ways foes can locate you despite your best efforts. We’ll also talk about a few class features, spells, and feats you can use to greatly enhance your chances for a successful infiltration.

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[DungeonDudes]

Which class do you think has the best tools and abilities for stealth and infiltration?

[revelationmd]

I think the point with ''a stealth kill'' is that the rolls dictate the action not the other way round. Or put it another way, if you sneak up behind someone and attack them (getting advantage for being unseen) and you hit, and then roll enough damage to kill them straight out then yes - you slit their throat. If you didn't roll enough to kill them out right, then you tried to slit their throat but they twisted their head earning themselves a nasty gash but ultimately surviving the attempt.

[FluffyTrainz]

Group Stealth: If half the members of a party succeed, everybody does. PHB P.175

[RegalRegex]

A few sessions back, the ranger in my game managed to sneak into, and subsequently get locked inside a warehouse without alerting any enemies, AND without telling any of his party members; he spent the session enacting hair-brained ideas to try and get out.
The best attempt was when he decided "hey [DM], you said there are lots of cats walking around, right? I'm going to cast Speak With Animals and convince one to help me get out." He also decided to lie to this cat and pretend he was a cat too.
The Ranger didn't know anything about the area though, so the person he managed to convince the cat to fetch to help him was just a local cook who didn't have any means of unlocking the warehouse. My Ranger bud didn't know this, but he was fully committed to pretending he was a cat and, he didn't ask, he *said* "I use Disguise Self to make myself look like a cat!"
Being a dutiful DM, I obliged.
"Your body seems to completely cover itself in brown cat hair with white stripes. Your face appears a bit wider, and your eyes turn green with black slit pupils. Your hair disappears into the rest of your head, except for two tufts that fashion themselves into faux-ears.
[pause]
You are now a 5ft tall elf-shaped cat person with no tail. You're essentially a mediocre furry in a mediocre fursuit hiding alone in a warehouse." [raucous laughter from the group]
[in response to his confusion] "Read your spell, dude. You can't turn into a cat-sized cat. But it's an inspired idea! Who knows, this might work out for you."
Unfortunately since the random cook couldn't open the warehouse, no one got to see him as...this thing. But we all know. We all know. And thanks to his stealth, so far as his party knows, he simply did an excellent stealthy reconnaissance job!

[macbain]

"Stealth kills are actually really hard to do." Almost as though he's tried it before in the real world.

[christophercorbin]

I had a player try to stealth their way around an enemy camp, but they rolled a 1. So I decided they tripped. On a Dexterity saving throw they rolled another 1, so.... instead of sneaking around the camp they tripped, fell down the hill toward the camp and stopped rolling prone at the enemy’s feet.

[Ironfisthu]

No one yet? Ok, i have to tell the obvious joke:
-Why the rogue is the sneakiest of them all?
-Because his armor is literally made of hide.

[Celebrintal]

My players did this. They cast silence to the door and killed the guards while everyone was sleeping, successfully infiltrate to the barracks and trap all the soldiers that where sleeping inside with the Stone Shape spell just after they light the room on fire of course. In that way they killed most of the guards without even droping a single Hit Point.

Really nice...

[alicebrown]

There's always the classic of grabbing a guard and strangling them. Basically becomes a grapple, until they die, which is covered under the rules of choking (which takes awhile) and you, as a DM, can always have enemies come to check on them (change of guards, overlapping patrol routes, they notice the guy in the watchtower isn't there anymore) so your party can't really get away with strangling out every guard, but it can get them into a stronghold without raising the alarm.

[mrpowershield]

"i sneak behind them"
*Roll 1*
"You fart"

[robertrolls]

The end of Conan the barbarian, Schwarzenegger sneaks up behind the main villain, thulsa doom, and chops off his head. He does turn around, but is still felled in 2 hits. This guy became a giant snake.

[InItForTheParking]

My take:
Hiding and stealth are not the same thing. Hidden just means not visible. Stealth means they don't know where you are. So if you are never seen, you are stealthed. If you are seen and step behind a wall, you are hidden.

Think of it like the game Hide and Go Seek. If you peek and see your friend going into the closet, you know your friend is in the closet and will go look there.

But where it gets really subjective is, like your example, the ranger popping out and taking a shot then hiding again. How far away was the shot and the travel time of the arrow? Sure they know the direction the arrow came from, but did they look quickly enough to see him?

And how about mask of the wild? The guy is looking at me but it's raining so I just disappear?

The bottom line is that stealth is WAY too complicated to set hard rules on. But at the same time I think DMs have to have some leniency on it as it was obviously meant to play a part in the game.

[Smirk]

Getting surprise, but not having advantage is like bursting in on enemies and hitting them before they can react (that doesn't mean that they can't dodge out of the way). Surprise with advantage would be like attacking them from stealth where they don't know they're being attacked.

[elkboy]

I'm not sure I agree with the Halfling lightfoot description made in the video. Naturally Stealthy states : You can attempt to hide even when you are obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you (Halfling is listed as small so most creatures will likely be considered one size larger). I would argue that with the addition of Halfling Nimbleness trait (You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours) and the way Naturally Stealthy is written, that a Halfling should in theory be able to 'travel' through party members to a point at which a foe(s) should lose track of them (so you don't just hide behind your Fighter/ Paladin but actually traverse a couple to several members depending on the Halfling's available movement and the teams positioning. If you're playing with an agreeable group of folks, they will often reorient themselves to aid in the Halflings goal). Considering if that Halfling is a Rogue and using Cunning Action - Hide, I would think that would be debatable grounds for a character that could actually attack (ranged being preferred) and then hide (AoO aside if melee). Yes the foe(s) would technically be aware that there is a Halfling in the fight but I think it's more about the foe(s) being able to actually keep track of the Halfling during a skirmish. If you're constantly moving throughout the fight (using teammates and environment) and popping up in different locations while passing all your checks, I'm of the opinion that this is one of the few types of characters that can actually 'hide' in a battle (aside from adding in additional feats like Skulker or the Stealthy feat in Unearthed Arcana or things like you mentioned in the video like invisibility etc).

[gregbradburn]

I’d love to hear you give an example of how the Rogue’s Cunning Action is used during combat. It’s clearly an in-combat ability and Hide is one of the bonus action ms they can take “after attacking”. There’s a stealth guide up on dndbeyond right now that says this can be done repeatedly.

[louiscrombie]

7:06 is a reminder that adding “5e” to the end of your DnD related Google searches will save you from being put on a watch list

[Mazzyi]

1.Play Barbarian
2. Run in kill all guards
3. Walk through dungeon

[andrewpajak]

Wood elf allows you to hide while only "lightly concealed" such as while wearing a cloak of elvenkind with the hood up. No matter where you go, you're good....apparently.

[SinerAthin]

I always imagined the "Detect Magic" spell would be like the bane of magic-based invisibility spells.

Like an invisibility cloak, but that lights up like a Christmas tree if perceived through an infrared lens.

[Redimus]

I lost my first table top RP character due to over estimating his stealth abilities. I'd cheesed most of the campaign hiding in the shadows and murdering enemies with what must have been maddening ease for my game master. Then a huge siege event took place and he was basically useless. Too many eyes and too much chaos he couldn't control and he was VERY squishy. Desperate to do ANYTHING (and intensely bored as the player) he did sneak out of the city to try and harass the enemy army only to pick a fight with a group of a dozen crossbow men in the middle of an open road surrounded by a field (not my smartest move) they spotted him on his approach and he was promptly a pin cushion. It was very sad. My fellow players offered to burn or bury his character sheet.