The amount of rules changes in DnD 2024 (or One D&D or 5.5E or what have you) sit somewhere in between new edition or slight update. Whatever one calls it, any change in DnD rules will spark online debate. One of the most heated topics of discourse for the 2024 DnD Player’s Handbook is stealth.
I happened to get an early copy of the 2024 Player's Handbook at GenCon, so I can shed some light on the subject. So here’s how the Hide Action, the Stealth skill, and the Invisibility condition work together in the 2024 rules.
The Hide Action In DnD 2024
The official text of the Hide Action states that you “must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check) while you’re Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover.” It also goes on to say that you must be out of an enemy’s line of sight to hide.
“On a successful check,” the PHB later says, “you have the Invisible condition. Make note of the check’s total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.”
This differs from the standard 5E 2014 rules by giving a clearly stated goal to meet (DC 15) and establishing exactly what visual conditions are required. No longer do you have to wait for the DM to tell you if you’re hidden. Whether or not a player was hidden, and how they could be found, can often be a topic of debate especially in the middle of combat.
Now, the 2024 PHB states that the Hide Action’s Invisibility ends immediately after the player makes a sound louder than a whisper, is found by the enemy, makes an attack roll, or casts a spell with a Verbal component.
Seems pretty straightforward: reveal yourself or make noise, and you give away your hiding spot. But why does hiding now make you invisible? To answer that, we have to look at the Invisibility condition.
The Invisible Condition In DnD 2024
A lot of the online back-and-forth comes from this major change to invisibility: the Invisible condition is no longer only bestowed by magic.
In the 2014 rules, the Invisible condition was granted by invisibility spells and magic items and its wording reflected that. You became impossible to see except by special senses like truesight or blindsight, and had advantage on attacking targets that couldn’t see you. However, you still left behind footprints and made noise. It’s easy to imagine this as a magic veil obscuring you but not silencing you, like Frodo wearing the One Ring.
The 2024 Invisible condition is broken down into three properties:
- Surprise. If you're Invisible when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.
- Concealed. You aren't affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect's creator can somehow see you. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed.
- Attacks Affected. Attack rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your attack rolls have Advantage. If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature.
Notice that sound is no longer mentioned. This is because the 2024 Invisible condition seems to stand for the general state of being unseen rather than magically veiled. So is an Invisible creature assumed to be silent when they take the Hide action? Are they constantly making little sounds by bumping into things like Harry and Ron in the invisibility cloak? Or is it up to DMs and players to argue about?
There’s one final piece of the puzzle to consider: Stealth.
Stealth In DnD 2024
The DnD 2024 Stealth skill reads that you “escape notice by moving quietly and hiding behind things.”
It’s straightforward but adds one crucial aspect to all of this: it decides how quietly you move. So while the Invisible condition decides sight, Stealth governs silence. They can work together, and often do but they are two separate things. It’s when they’re brought together under the Hide Action that debates happen.
Putting Hide, Stealth, And Invisible Together
When you take the Hide Action in DnD 2024, you roll a DC 15 Stealth check. If you succeed, you gain the Invisible condition until you reveal yourself by taking aggressive action or making a lot of noise. Also, an enemy could find you with a successful Perception check.
By combining all of our definitions above, here is the picture we can paint: the rogue sneaks around a castle looking for the ambassador’s office to steal documents. They hear a guard coming around the corner. Thinking fast, the rogue ducks under a table. The DM calls for a Hide Action, and the rogue easily beats the DC 15 Stealth check. The rogue gains the Invisible condition to be unseen and doesn’t make a sound as they passed the Stealth check. If the rogue doesn’t attempt any other action, the guard should just walk by as they don’t hear or see anything suspicious.
If, however, the rogue had the invisibility spell cast on them, they could walk around unseen but they’d still potentially make noise due to only having the Invisible condition. Their footsteps could give them away or a guard could run right into them since they’re not behind cover. Of course, a smart rouge player would still attempt to use their Stealth skill to move quietly. In this case the DM could reasonably let them roll Stealth just by standing still, not even requiring a table to duck under.
It all seems like common sense, right? And not too different from how it was in the 2014 rules. So why the online discourse?
Debate Over 2024 Hide And Stealth Rules
One major point of debate is what “find” means in these rules. The Hide Action uses this word in two instances. First, there’s what happens on a successful Hide. The total of your Stealth roll becomes “the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.” Second, the Invisible condition granted by Hide ends when “an enemy finds you.”
Going back to our rogue example, the guard could be on watch for a particularly tricky group of adventurers. He searches every room thoroughly and the DM makes a Perception check every time. The guard happens to roll high as the rogue is ducking under the table. He beats the rogue’s Stealth roll and thus hears the rogue’s shallow breathing. The rogue is found.
But what if combat breaks out before the guard does his check? The barbarian gets tired of waiting and decides to just charge into the castle. Initiative is rolled, minis are placed, and the rogue is still Invisible under the table. The room becomes a battlefield as more guards rush in to subdue the raging barbarian. The rogue keeps taking stealthy ankle shots from their hiding place, rolling new successful Stealth checks every turn with their bonus action Hide. The guard sees his fellows constantly collapsing around the table. He rushes over and looks under. Does he see the rogue?
This is the central premise of the “find” debate. Some argue that discovering a creature under the effects of a Hide Action requires that successful Perception check. Others would say that the basic concept of line of sight wins as the guard is looking directly into the rogue’s hiding place. After all, being out of sight is needed to Hide in the first place.
The “real” answer, like many things in DnD 5E, is that it depends on the situation. The lack of specific line of sight rules is on purpose as you’re meant to hash it out in the moment based on the narrative. It’s a game of imagination as much as rules. DnD 5E has always tried to split the difference between tactical combat and silly social improv.
The other guidance we get is “The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.” As always, the DM has the final say. In this case, DMs seem meant to consider the scenery of the room, the mood of the guard in question, how carefully the rogue planned this infiltration, what’s fun for the table, and many other factors in the moment. I'd personally rule that the guard would find the rogue by looking under the table. But getting low enough to look is basically going prone, so the barbarian would have advantage on his next attack on that guard.
Deciding in the moment can be a major mental load for DMs, and is bound to aggravate players who don’t want their rogue being found. These rules are definitely not perfect, but most of the time come down to common sense and clear communication. You could establish more exact line of sight rules at your table, of course. Just make that known in session zero.
Overall, using the 2024 Hiding, Stealth, and Invisibility rules isn’t too different from using the 2014 version. The broader use of the word “invisible” is sure to confuse some, but it still comes down to a case-by-case ruling. The ideal still seems to be imagining the location, establishing the scenario, communicating what’s possible, and rolling for what’s uncertain.
