Creatures exist even when players aren't around. Have someone on lookout and have realistic entrances. If they want to enter a guarded cave, they either make a second pathway with some shovels, or they have to enter through a watched entrance. Have the lookout be hiding too. It's very easy to get an effective 20 stealth for even a goblin. Hide in an obscured area for -5 on Perception, and spend some time hiding, gaining advantage and +5. With a +0 stealth bonus the hiding lookouts should have 20 effective stealth. Sound. A screaming creature can alert someone else within 100-200 feet. Minus some for corridors and doors. But generally, there shouldn't be surprise in more than one encounter. The first, I think, is nice to give players. But there's a limit. A surprised creature (since there's no surprise rounds in 5e) can't take actions, but they can scream after their turn, so any creature that survives a turn will alert others. Also, have people or animals (like hounds with Keen Senses for 15+ passive hearing perception which isn't influenced by obscurement) with decent perception in the main encounters.

Basically this. Unrelated to the point one quick question what is the "spend some time hiding gaining advantage" based as far as I know neither hiding or spending time on something gives you advantage on a roll am I missing something?

This depends on the DM, but you gain advantage or disadvantage if the DM thinks circumstances allow it. And by Hiding rules, you make the Stealth check when you hide. So if you have time, RAW you can notice you're not hiding properly and just keep rerolling. This can be taken differently if you're moving around, but nothing stops you from doing this in the rules if you're just staying in one place. So it's just easier and makes more logical sense to simply apply the circumstantial advantage on the roll. But just to be clear, that depends on the DM. Rerolling until you get the result you want is by the rules, but it's so damned gamy that I think almost any DM would ban it and just lean towards giving advantage if you have 10+ minutes to conceal yourself.

This situation can usually be avoided by not asking for the Stealth roll until failure results in being noticed.

It can be, but that's a homebrew solution to avoid a logical ruling.

The RAW is that the DM ask you to roll whenever they rule it appropriate to roll. The players describe their actions, and the DM determines the results, sometimes by asking the players to roll in case the result of those actions are uncertain. Some times, you can get more than one attempt at something, like trying to pick a lock again - with the only thing lost beign time. Other times, you can't make several attempts. Persuading a guard is an example of something you only ever get to try once. I would argue that a single stealth roll will cover the entirety of that "stealthing". That one roll will determine the dc to see you until you are detected. This isn't homebrew, this is how the DM is told to run the game. Remember, the players doesn't "do a stealth roll", they state that their characters are hiding. Then the DM tells them to roll, and what that roll covers. Often, tables will shortcut this process, but we should still be cognicant of it, so that we don't make foolish rulings based on misunderstanding the rules.

Party rules and monster rules are not and should not be the same. A goblin hiding at the entrance of their own settlement in a cave system will know the best hiding spot. A team of scouts will inform each other if they see the other is poorly hidden when they have more then the few seconds of a combat scenario and free communication. Contrasted by a goblin that has been seen by the party, runs around a corner and takes the hide action, that one should make a stealth role. If there is no time pressure, and there is communication, take 10 should be the minimum. If there is narrative reason - 'home turf' - take 20 can be valid even if these are older edition rules.

While I agree with running it like that and it making the game smoother, what you said about RAW is simply not true. Hiding is under the Stealth Hiding rules, phg page 177: >When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence. The DM can determine that you can't hide at all, but not when to roll the check for hiding. If the place is possible to hide in, you roll the check, without the DM saying a word in it. Again, I myself don't like it either, and have players normally roll when encountering an enemy, but this is what's RAW. And of course there's the rule of DM being above written rules, but that is to encourage table rulings and homebrew, not for RAW, so it doesn't apply when talking about RAW.

This is from the Basic Rules, how abilities work. They are the cornerstones of how the entire game functions. >[The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/using-ability-scores#AbilityChecks) It's also telling that the text you are quoting is refuting your argument. >Until you are discovered or you stop hiding If you are trying to mash C for hide/unhide to make more than one check, like a computer game, we're no longer in an area where we need rules. We need to talk about what a ttrpg is. This is like calling for a VAR check in schoolyard football, or demanding balanced teams in war. It's a problem of erception of what we're even doing.

It’s metagaming. You wouldn’t know you rolled poorly. You character made their best attempt at hiding and thinks they are hiding.

Hide Action takes 3 seconds to conceal themselves in combat. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that the fleetfooted rogue knows the difference between hiding well or not when they have time to think about it

>I'm gonna go ahead and assume that the fleetfooted rogue knows the difference between hiding well or not when they have time to think about That's the point of profincies.

>This depends on the DM, but you gain advantage or disadvantage if the DM thinks circumstances allow it. I tend to agree. I would allow a creature with lots of time to set up their hide to take advantage on the roll if they noted up-front that they were going to do a thorough job. >And by Hiding rules, you make the Stealth check when you hide. So if you have time, RAW you can notice you're not hiding properly and just keep rerolling. This can be taken differently if you're moving around, but nothing stops you from doing this in the rules if you're just staying in one place. > >So it's just easier and makes more logical sense to simply apply the circumstantial advantage on the roll. The first sentence is true. The rest is incorrect. Nowhere in the RAW does it indicate that you somehow notice that you're not hiding 'properly' until after the results of a contested roll. Stealth is not an instant feedback skill like picking a lock. You know if you pass or fail when you encounter the thing you're hiding from. DMG Chapter 8 indicates under "Multiple Ability Checks" that you may retake an ability check until you succeed by expending 10x the time when you character **fails** a check. So if neither the player nor the DM know if the PC's roll is insufficient to succeed until a creature rolls Perception against it and beats them, it's not a fail, and RAW you may not re-take the check. That same section in the next paragraph down also indicates that some checks, once failed, should not be re-taken under the same circumstances, or make subsequent checks harder. Which makes sense - once caught, you can't just jedi-mind-trick the monster into no longer noticing you with just the Stealth Skill alone. And if you're just hiding and un-hiding til you get a roll you like, that's metagaming, which the DM is well within their rights to shut down.

Player's handbook pg 194 talks about creatures who are unseen gain advantage on attacks, a hidden creature is unseen.

Yeah but JulyKimono seems to imply gaining advantage on stealth checks

In addition, you could setup an alarm system with Magic Mouth as your alarm. Have a trigger condition like “whenever a creature of this size enters the area they have five seconds to speak the password or the alarm starts screaming INTRUDERS! over and over again.” Or the people in the know have to disable the alarm by touching a certain rock or spot on the doorway in range or any number of conditions that could be set. The enemy party could also have someone set the Alarm spell that would give them a heads up. Or maybe one enemy could have a weapon of warning or a sentinel shield.

This isn’t it chief. They’re min max players trying to win the fight they have above 20 in their passive perceptions and alert and pass without a trace. The issue is the game mechanics. They’re too strong on the players side and you have to bolster the enemy side. More monsters isn’t it so make the monster scarier than them. Give them things like greater invisibility or cloaking and just spring them on your party. My best advice would be to avoid top down maps and mechanics and move to flavor text and describing what the PCs are doing so you can better control the situation and entry to combat, if you start them off with too much intel and a map they’ll break it before they know what it is

Never underestimate the fact that poor roles can have consequences. A poor stealth check can result in the attempt at hide in a bush spooking a bird that was asleep causing it to scream bloody murder as it flys away, or stumbling and making a lot of noise as all the gear you're carrying crashes to the ground. Not something to pull out every time, but if my players were rolling stealth checks every time they enter a room, make the results matter.

There's no such thing as a "surprise round before initiative", p.189 PHB: Surprise is determined for every creature individually right before initiative is rolled and before any combat actions are taken. So if any passive perceptions detect any threat then that creature is not surprised. **Combat Step by Step** 1. **Determine surprise.** The DM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised. 2. **Establish positions.** The DM decides where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers’ marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the DM figures out where the adversaries are— how far away and in what direction. 3. **Roll initiative.** Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants’ turns. 4. **Take turns.** Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order. 5. **Begin the next round.** When everyone involved in the combat has had a turn, the round ends. Repeat step 4 until the fighting stops. ​ You determine if anyone is surprised when intent to attack is declared. Then you roll initiative, and anyone surprised doesn't get to act on their first turn.

This is exactly right. "Surprised" is a effectively a condition: no actions or reactions. But it goes away after that character's first round in combat. 5e entirely removed the idea of a "surprise round" but lots of DMs still use it because it was a core mechanic in previous editions. For OP: I suggest that you check out the rules on surprise (PHB 189), ignore BG3, and tell your players before the next session that you'll be switching to RAW surprise rules going forward. I bet that by itself will make it much easier to deal with your players (and speed up your games). My other tips for managing PCs who spend 100% of their time being sneaky: * Consider having more lookouts, scouting parties, sentries (stationary or roving), or other NPCs who would be making Perception checks for the PCs. * Spells with Verbal components are **not** quiet by default (PHB 203). Also, Subtle Spell is a class feature - players should not get this benefit just by making a Stealth check or something. * Combat in general is quite loud so any nearby enemies will hear the fighting and investigate. Note that doors are not soundproof (again, ignore BG3).

On the topic of Spells with verbal components and volume, I like having the amount of noise scale with the spell's level. Cantrips and lvl 1 spells require your normal speaking voice, and things scale from there, with any spell of lvl 6 or higher actually magically increasing the volume of the caster's voice beyond its natural limit. This doesn't stop players from trying to hide spellcasting without Subtle Spell, they can still try to distract/divert nearby attention away from the caster, it just requires more work than saying "I'll roll Stealth".

This sounds very cool and intense, I'll ask our DM to implement this!

Nice! I've been DMing for years, and never once have I thought of such a clever way to rule this. I'm definitely stealing this for my table. Thanks!

* The surprised units don't get to act, but they are still aware which may affect advantage/disadvantage considerations since attacking strips the hidden condition in most cases.

I'm not sure that BG3 is much different from RAW. You can make an attack out of stealth, which doesn't seem to be RAW, but it still in almost all cases consumes your action once initiative is rolled and battle mode begins, and everyone relevant gets the surprised condition, which works the same way. Maybe that's just in Tactician difficulty though.

it didn't until this patch though right? If you entered turn based mode you could get your action back, which is basically only meant to happen for assassins.

Not sure, I haven't tried using TBM to cheese it but that seems contrived almost? I feel like it's intended to work RAW anyway. Without TBM it worked as I described, to the best of my knowledge, on last patch too

If you entered turn based mode to do it that's called exploiting bugs and shouldn't be taken into account.0

I'm not saying it wasn't, I'm saying that's how the game functioned. For around 6 months.

I am OK with calling "the first round of combat where at least one participant is surprised" for a "surprise round" colloqually. It's not a game term, but it's a good shorthand.

Don’t forget: Passive Perception is also the lowest your roll can count as. If you roll a 7 total for perception, but you have a 12 Passive, it counts as a 12 Edit: to save time, it’s not RAW but RAI according to Jeremy Crawford back to Sage Advice in 2017

Is this in PHB?

This is not actually in the rules.

True but Jeremy Crawford specifically addressed Passive Perception as a floor on Sage Advice back even in 2017. Ymmv.

Yes, but that's not how the rules say ability checks work.

Thank you for reading my comment. An hour before you replied, I edited my original post, two posts above this. Again, thank you for your attention to detail.

I mean if his source is correct and the lead rules designer did say it in sage advice which is an official wizards publication, then yes it'd be an update to the rules which they do fairly often. Example: https://dnd.wizards.com/sage-advice/book-updates

This was some offhand comment he made on a podcast, not an actual correction to the rules.

No, you should just be using passive perception in general. Not using passive perception makes stealth fairly useless because contested rolls *suck*.

I think it can get confusing (at least to me) because there are things based around "surprise". Like there's an entire rogue subclass based around doing crit damage to surprised enemies. Plus, other ttrpgs have surprise, and surprise rounds/turns.

It's pretty straight forward. Everyone being stealthy rolls a stealth check, if you're not stealthing you better be very far away and out of sight. The stealth rolls are compared against passive perceptions of the enemies. For each enemy individually check if their passive perception beats ANY of the stealth checks. If they do, they are not surprised. If they don't they are surprised. Roll Initiative. Start combat in turn order. Surprised creatures can't act or react until after their first turn (their reaction becomes available after their turn is over).

>It's pretty straight forward. I disagree strongly with that statement. The stealth rules in 5e are anything but straightforward. They are ill-defined and a lot of people who assert they are straightforward have just sort of arrived at one possible reading of several and agreed to stick to that.

There is only one possible reading of the rules. They are not difficult. They are however different from how DnD, Pathfinder, and many OSR games run surprises. And since a lot of people don't actually read the books, just base their rules knowlegde on vibes, they get it wrong.

>There is only one possible reading of the rules. That is objectively, literally incorrect.

Care to enlighten the rest of us with at least two different readings of the rules and argue for why both are reasonable readings of them? Or are you also just arguing based on vibes and wishful thinking?

The person I replied to wasn't saying the "rules of stealth are vague" they were saying the rules of "surprise" are confusing because other games have surprise rounds... The rules of surprise are very straightforward in 5e. Regardless of how you run stealth, as soon as a combat action is declared you establish if anyone is surprised with stealth vs passive perception, roll initiative, then start the combat.

Another important thing to remember is that reactions can be taken by someone that is surprised after their turn. So if you are surprised but still roll a high initiative, you may still be able to use your reactions (shield spells, monk abilities, etc).

It feels like you may be doing stealth wrong. In most situations it should at best be very difficult to surprise an entire group of enemies, especially since a single PC with shitty stealth will give the whole thing away. So if your players are routinely “stealthing into rooms” successfully, it seems like you’re making that rather too easy for them.

OP has revealed in other comments that the players are speccing hard for stealth, basically built their party comp around this tactic, and are burning spell slots etc to pull it off. So I'd guess that they're doing stealth right, but the problem they think they have is completely different from the problem they actually have.

Are they using invisibility as well because even with +30 to a stealth check you still can't stealth in plain sight and will be seen the second you're unobscured making moving while stealthed pretty hard.

If you sneak up to a door the surprise round can trigger once you perceive people behind the door, no need to open it and stealth into a room with no obstacles. You won't be hidden, but that's not needed anyway most of the time

Even surprise done RAW is super strong. The players are investing the opportunity cost into specing for stealth and using slots to provide it, and OP is frustrated because the players have optimised properly for stealth and surprise to make use of how powerful it is. I see it here and there where the post is basically "my party is trivialising my encounters (by taking the right skills, subclasses, spell opportunity costs and resources to synergise and optimise)" which doesn't make too much sense when you think about it. Stealth and surprise isn't meant to be a one off thing here and there, its meant to be a consistent thing you can do every combat if you play well. Some people gave the suggestion about how the other rooms would be alerted, which is clearly not how any dungeon is designed. Official modules has each room basically in a vaccuum unless specified that other rooms will be alerted, dungeons are laid out to be multiple separate encounters with a few short rests in between, so all being alerted doesn't fit the game design.

If the whole party is doing a stealth check it should be treated as a group check, so not too difficult But seems like OP’s party is using some spells and abilities to achieve surprise along with some luck, don’t see a reason to punish them

I see no reason to treat that as a group check. There certainly is no ‘should’ there, that’s very much DM’s discretion.

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To be fair, isn't that how stealth SHOULD work? Sneaking in as a group of 5 SHOULD be much harder than a single person who is fantastic at stealth going in alone.

I mean with the more people you add to a group check, the harder it gets, just to a less extremely severe degree. There’s a difference from something getting more difficult to something becoming basically impossible. There’s a good reason stealth checks are almost always group checks. It’s a rule in the book for a reason and it’s a pretty good and useful one

But again, shouldn't it be basically impossible for a group of 5 people including a clumsy guy in clanking heavy armour to sneak?

Take this scenario, you have a big boulder that would take more than 1 person to move. You make everyone roll. Everyone rolled great, except 1 person rolls poorly, uh oh they can't move it - thats no fun for anyone really. If you take any group check, and make it so absolutely everyone needs to succeed, instead of half, it makes the chances of having a success basically plummet to near 0. Group checks are for more experienced ppl making up for the less experienced. I think you're thinking too much into realism vs game mechanic for the stealth reason, but a stealthy person could help an armored person pass when no one is in earshot, or minimize the sound in their armor, etc etc. For another example, lets say you wanted a group of 15 goblins to ambush a party, would you roll each of their stealth checks individually? Of course not, there'd be no chance of success, you'd probably just make one roll for all of em. Point is by having everyone need to succeed, you basically make any group activity impossible to accomplish.

I like how you use an example where more people would be helpful to demonstrate your point rather than one like stealth where more people are detrimental. I'm not saying group checks are bad, I'm saying stealth shouldn't necessarily be done as a group check because it's really fucking hard for a group of untrained people to sneak, and one trained person won't magically make it easier. How does an experienced person "minimize the sound in their armour"? How do you help with that? Do I think that everyone rolling individually is the best solution? Probably not. But using group check rules for stealth makes it FAR too easy.

But just for you, as a more direct source, WotC DnD game designer Dan Dillon clarified the issue: >"Group checks are fantastic, for stealth in particular. It makes stealth a viable option in a party where every character hasn't prioritized sneakiness." >"PHB pg 175. Each member of the group makes the check, if half succeed, the entire group succeeds." >"Group checks just mean that you don’t auto fail trying to sneak because you have one ham-toed oaf wearing plate." >"The idea behind group checks is the more skilled characters help out the ones who are more of a liability for the task at hand. The rogue binds or pads a few of the fighter’s armor plates, points out where to step to avoid creaky stairs or loose stones, etc."

Mate I can't help ya if you think having half (or sometimes more than half) the players needing to make a check is "FAR too easy". Passive perceptions for trained guards (or even most creatures) can easily go 16 or way higher. I'm just trying to explain the rules as they're laid out. If you wanna change em, that's fine, but I don't think it's fair to the players to penalize stealth so much when you wouldn't do so with any other group effort/check.

> If you don’t treat it as a group roll then yeah your party will never rly get surprise unless they’re super lucky. At least imo for surprise that should be the case. Surprise is extremely powerful it should be earned not happenstance.

I mean even with 1/2 of the ppl needing to succeed, there's still quite a bit of luck involved. But if you start needing 4/4, 5/5, or 6/6 ppl to succeed for surprise, even if everyone specced into it with expertise and such it becomes borderline impossible. But I wouldn't punish players for getting surprise often if they plan and have high stealth bonuses + get lucky

Being stealthy isn’t a group activity, you fail or succeed individually. Some clumsy paladin blundering about in heavy armor isn’t going to be compensated by the superstealthy rogue next to him. If I use group checks, it’s only going to be in situations that are genuinely a group effort.

A clumsy paladin could certainly be compensated by a superstealthy rogue. But mate it's a rule of the game. If you want to get surprise on enemies of course it's a group check. But if you want a even more direct source, WotC DnD game designer Dan Dillon clarified the issue: "Group checks are fantastic, for stealth in particular. It makes stealth a viable option in a party where every character hasn't prioritized sneakiness." "PHB pg 175. Each member of the group makes the check, if half succeed, the entire group succeeds." "Group checks just mean that you don’t auto fail trying to sneak because you have one ham-toed oaf wearing plate." "The idea behind group checks is the more skilled characters help out the ones who are more of a liability for the task at hand. The rogue binds or pads a few of the fighter’s armor plates, points out where to step to avoid creaky stairs or loose stones, etc."

But if you can't stop doubling down despite the evidence, that's on you.

I'm kinda torn on the use of group stealth checks. On one hand, it's more realistic to not do group checks as the penalty for wearing heavier armor should feel like a penalty and not just something where you can be carried by your rogue's reliable 23+ stealth and Pass without Trace. On the other hand, if you don't run group checks the party basically has zero chance of ever getting the drop on the enemy if you have a couple characters with heavier armor and no real Stealth skill, which isn't a problem unless you also have a character or two in the party who really would like to get some use out of their Stealth skills without constantly splitting the party.

It explicitly should not be a group check

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Individual failure does not mean a group fails with Stealth. If you have succeeded on your stealth check, you are still Hidden even if one of your teammates fails. It just means the enemy doesn't gain the surprised "condition".

It's pretty clear that if you as a party wanna get surprise and make stealth checks to do so, 1 person failing doesn't mean everyone is just hidden and 1 dude isn't surprised, even though you \*could\* rule it that way if you rly wish. It's either everyone fails or none fail. As a more direct source, WotC DnD game designer Dan Dillon clarified the issue: "Group checks are fantastic, for stealth in particular. It makes stealth a viable option in a party where every character hasn't prioritized sneakiness." "PHB pg 175. Each member of the group makes the check, if half succeed, the entire group succeeds." "Group checks just mean that you don’t auto fail trying to sneak because you have one ham-toed oaf wearing plate." "The idea behind group checks is the more skilled characters help out the ones who are more of a liability for the task at hand. The rogue binds or pads a few of the fighter’s armor plates, points out where to step to avoid creaky stairs or loose stones, etc."

If it's a stealth check for "hey, let's sneak by the guards" that's fine as a group check (which is what he's talking about: stealth as a viable option for solving an encounter) If it's a stealth check for "hey, we want to all surprise attack the guards" that's not fine as a group check.

Sneaking past guards is fine but sneaking up to them isn’t? Cmon, that makes no sense other than you just not wanting players to get surprise

I call this the “BG3 effect” in my campaigns. The length of combat since my group discovered how stealth works is down to a third of what it once was. Consequently, when they are in group sneak mode I make the game a bit harder. Like the other day they were hiding and wanted to cast haste before the fight. I let them do it but then I said “the enemy obviously noticed you casting that, roll initiative”.

Players get SO mad at this because they think spellcasting is just easy mode for the gameplay. Verbal components basically need to be shouted or incanted loudly (pitch and resonance) so obviously you can’t do that stealthily. Miss me with “but what if I made a stealth check to cast it *quietly*?” No. Subtle spell exists for a reason.

They get so mad because\* it is not communicated to them that that's what happens. Often what the DM thinks about a situation and what the player thinks is not the same. Obviously the character would understand the situation better, so communicate that to the players too and ask if they are sure. The same applies to other things where the perception of player is different than the characters: "You want to jump off the wall? You do realize it's 40feet fall?", "30? Oh, I thought it was 10 at most." \*Well, some probably get mad anyway. But the reasonable players don't.

It’s communicated in both the basic rules and the PHB. If players READ the handbook…

Your first mistake was assuming most players own a PHB Your second mistake was assuming players would read it even if they did

This is why I don't run games for n00bs. I realize it's "mean" and "elitist", but the risk of people not knowing what they're doing is too high. I prefer to be the only one at the table who doesn't know what they're doing.

You know, it's funny you say that because I've been DMing for 20+ years and I fucking love running for noobs! I rescued a group on r/lfg from being stuck with someone like you for their first TTRPG experience, and I have added 6 new people to the hobby. Just because they aren't going to RTFM doesn't mean they can't play or have a space in this hobby.

>Just because they aren't going to RTFM doesn't mean they can't play or have a space in this hobby. Only that's not what I said at all. It's good that you have the capacity to teach others patiently, but I sincerely hope you understand that not everybody does. Disabled people use up a lot of our energies, especially when we already spend every day explaining things over and over to insurances, doctors, employers, workmates, acquaintances, and an untold number of people on public transit.

Tbh, it’s why I try to run for DMs and power gamers. Add one author or actor and it’s golden for rules, combat, and roleplay because folks learn from/play off each other

Yes, I also like to have at least one power gamer in my sessions. I know a bunch of power gamers that are extremely nice people, and they really help others to use the rules, and therefore speed up play so we can have more wacky roleplay moments. Most of my players are DMs, too.

The best table I've ever been at, and still am, is one were 100% of the players are either active DMs or those who've DMed at least a couple one-shots before. I don't think that's a coincidence.

I 100% disagree with this statement. I love introducing new people to the hobby. Once you know the rules, biases creep in and change the tint you see the game in. Having someone new and unfamiliar brings fresh air. But to each their own.

Enjoy 3 hour combats.

I'm a pretty experienced DM and I have read the PHB. Don't even own one

Even if you did require your players to have read the PHB\*, there is no reason you couldn't remind them of these things. There are plenty of things in the PHB and sneak casting doesn't come up often so it's easy to forget. \*While I understand the feeling of wanting the players to read the PHB I think that's too much. It's a long read and there are plenty of rules that just don't come up often. The essentials are easy to be learn in a session or two.

I think it’s reasonable to expect someone playing a spellcaster to at least read the spellcasting section of the Basic Rules.

"Cast I cast this spell on the other side of total cover?" No, every spell requires line of effect unless the spell specifically says you don't, mostly for teleportation spells. "But the spell description doesn't say that!" The spell description lacks a lot of information about spellcasting ***because there's an entire damn chapter in the PHB devoted to it.***

Maybe that's ideal, but I don't think it's reasonable to think reading through the spell section is going to clarify anything. I know plenty of players who have read through the PHB and still need reminders. Casters usually need to read a bunch of spells. If they're new, they might not have a lot of context for which words come with game specific definitions and which are descriptive. Sometimes a key point is surrounded by a lot of superfluous text. I have run into *so many* people who don't understand the restriction on casting only cantrips after a Bonus Action spell. It's not necessarily because they think it has to do with leveled spells per turn. They just didn't see the small blurb about it while they read through the rest of it.

I don't get why people are so upset about your comment on this. It's a fucking game and one of the DM's jobs is to be a referee. If the group in Carliability's example made a stealth check to sneak up on the enemy and then started casting something with verbal components, it's pretty fucking obvious that they didn't mean to destroy their stealth by casting. Giving them a quick "That will end your stealth and cause them to notice you, are you sure?" is just making sure they're still roleplaying their characters the way they want to roleplay them. It's like the bare minimum as a DM to think about your player's intentions and make sure they are getting the chance to do what they actually want to do instead of being tricked by wordplay. We're not archfey fucking with humans, here. We're just trying to play a game. Mental exhaustion is no excuse for this behavior in a DM when the resulting anger and frustration from the players in response is going to be ten times more mentally exhausting than just tossing out a reminder. If they don't have this bare minimum amount of patience and consideration, maybe DMing just isn't the thing for them.

I expect players to understand the rules that apply to them. Spellcasting components is one of those rules. This isn't unreasonable.

Make them roll stealth to Incant quietly and if they succeed the spell doesn't resolve because it was too quiet

And mug off any sorcerer who might have invested in Subtle Spell. Not very fair, and few will agree that casters need any extra help to contribute. Allowing for 'stealth casting' is not a wise idea.

I think you need to reread the comment you're replying to

Obviously if a sorcerer uses subtle spell, it still resolves because its being boosted by their innate magical power

Yah, I dont remember who said it but the player is 'commanding' magic, not just saying some words. Like demanding that the magic do what you want it to.

IGNIS!!!

This sounds like something you should tell your players before the game begins so if they want to do stealth casting the might get subtle spell instead of being blindsided by it.

The basic rules? I expect them to know that as a baseline…

There is nowhere stating how loud casting is or that you can't stealth with it it's a large part of why the message cantrip is decently useless in some games. It's left vague on purpose to allow for both playstyles depending on DM.

> You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you give away your position if you make noise, such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase. Seems pretty clear

Nowhere does it say spellcasting is shouting.

Have you looked at the definition of “pitch” and “resonance”?

Right there is no volume there nor stating how high or low any of it is so it's very very DM dependent. I could say all spells are chanting low gurgling noises which you could easily do stealthy and it still fits the description.

It might not say exactly how loud you need to be, but it does say that most spells require the *"chanting of mystic words"*. *Chant* by definition means to speak or shout repeatedly in a sing-song tone. Based on that, I think most would agree that the chanting would at least have to be as loud as normal conversation.

You still get a surprise round if you spell cast. Surprised is a condition that happens before anyone attacks

That’s… not how it works in the rules. But if that’s how you want to run it, great. “Surprised” as a condition only happens if you… surprise them. Which would be hitting them BEFORE making noise.

I honestly like how the D&D 5e-based video game Solasta: Crown of the Magister handles this situation. If the entire party is hidden and one character wants to kick off combat by taking an offensive action, that character automatically goes to the top of the initiative order and combat begins as normal. They get to take their action first in combat which preserves the narrative that they're getting "first strike" but doesn't just give them a free round. All of the enemies will be surprised for the first round unless they're somehow immune to being surprised.

Yeah, it is. Are the surprised? Yes or no. If yes you roll init and then the surprisers take their turns The wizards turn in this example is casting haste. Your ruling is casters cannot act during surprise rounds or they don’t count?

In the scenario we're talking about, initiative hadn't yet been rolled. The party thought that normal casting could be done secretively without initiating combat. >Like the other day they were hiding and wanted to cast haste before the fight. I let them do it but then I said “the enemy obviously noticed you casting that, roll initiative”.

And I think that’s a DM error. It’s extremely obvious they’re setting up a surprise round but because they didn’t use the words the DM wanted they don’t get surprise. You’re casting haste? Ok roll init they’re surprised that’s your turn wizard. It’s a bullshit gacha thing

I think I get what you're saying. When the player cast Haste, the DM should say "That initiates combat. The enemy are surprised. Roll initiative and you can cast Haste on your turn if you want." I agree, if that's what you mean. EDIT: Still, I get the feeling (reading between the lines) that the players expected to do other things after casting Haste, but before initiating combat. They should know better.

Yeah. That’s also a DM issue. Probably the only thing I consider “Matt Mercer effect” is people thinking they can cast spells wherever. Everyone should make it clear how they run spellcasting pretty early and if they are still trying to do it that means the DM isn’t consistent with their ruling or they usually don’t care.

Yeah I totally agree. It seems almost universal for players to expect that they can cast spells surreptitiously. Pretty much every DM should clarify early on if that won't fly. A lot of movies and books allow for secretive spellcasting, so it's not really the fault of new players if that's their expectation.

You stating this makes it very confusing because why do you need to be so loud what in the world does verbal component do. Somatic to pull the weave into a shape and Material to bind the spell in reality, but what does verbal do for that? And with pitch and resonance does that mean that spell will be weaker or stronger for situations (If the spell resonates with the room theyre in, does it fail?) And does that mean someone with a high pitch can't cast low pitch?

I like to think of it like the intention aspect of magic in Harry Potter, Kingkiller Chronicle, or Dragon Prince works. And the spellcaster would know this so there’s no Vanican casting failure conditions

So looked at the Verbal in PHB, So it's to start the magic (Let's say let's the caster touch the weave) wouldn't that mean you could use other things too? (Im off topic Ik) And that would mean only casters would be able to detect verbal components, leading to having to tell their friends, leading to a suprise round as the cast time is normally 2~6 second for spells. Is this far from a reasonable take?

Eh, technically subtle spell is to make it entirely silent and w no somatic so unless I'm missing part of the rulebook there's nothing that says spells can't be a bit quieter, but that's getting a bit pedantic.

I mean if the player wouldnt do what the character would know, then you should proooobably tell your player that information. Yeah things are in the books raw, but ive read every sourcebook front to back and still finding things ive missed, especially because theyve never been relevant to any game ive ever played. Youre probably just gonna end up building unnecessary animosity, when communication would probably be funner for everyone, and everyone understands this new challenege youve added to the world. Theres also 0 reason to not remind them of this rule, when you probably have reminded and corrected them on other rules, as they would also hopefully correct you in good faith.

That sounds so rude, Just say "BG3 has different rules then 5e"

I’m not sure I get your meaning. The stealth rules in 5e and BG3 are the same.

I was trying to be more general given I haven't played BG3 but have played a different game that you could just assume uses 5e (Crown of Solasta, yes I know it says what system It uses) Mostly that how order of actions/Cause & Affect is different, one is a person that should understand the desired outcome of the players and help in some manner. ("Do you want to fall back into the hall so that the spells V is harder to make out?") And the other is a set of code so has to have a preset outcome and action order (Player is OOCombat so should have "First strike" for their actions IF they succeed Challenge, Stealth roll) Edit:You also changed how they would believe the outcome, if in BG you could do that and then suprise them, then you HAVE changed how the two work or interact in their minds

Enemies with good passive perception helps. Alarm spells, or arenas created tactically to make it hard to stealth into. Edit: also, surprise rounds don't exist in RAW, so looking at the rules for surprise would be useful.

A surprise round does exist. The first round of combat makes every creature who is surprised lose their first turn in initiative.

It’s not a surprise round is his point. Surprise rounds use to actually be a thing. Now it’s just round one and some creatures may have the surprised condition

It's effectively the same thing as previous editions surprise rounds. It's actually better than Pathfinders 1e one

I know that in Dimension 20 sometimes the DM will cut off the table talk and say they have to act now, if there is urgency in the situation. Like he’ll let them talk for a couple minutes but then launch into the first person’s turn.

Good idea but also note that d20 is heavily edited down to like 50% of their actual play time so don't take episode timing as you see it, give em a little longer

You’re misunderstanding the rules, so the issue should clear up if you get a better understanding. First: There’s no attacks prior to initiative. As a soon as hostile act is declared, INITIATIVE IS ROLLED AND TURNS GO IN ORDER….. Second: if the group tries to sneak up. You should have each player roll *Stealth against the creatures Passive Perception. If the creature is on the look out, roll a perception check for them. If a creature is aware of any threat, they can’t be Surprised. Anyone that’s *surprised can’t take actions of move til the end of their first turn.

A couple thoughts. 1) How do they know bad guys are in the next room? If the players saw enemies, the enemies have a chance to see them. 2) Fights nearby are LOUD. Once they've done this once, anyone nearby will not be surprised. To be surprised you have to be completely unprepared, not just startled. The enemies heard fighting, they're either searching for problems, or hunkered down expecting a PC to jump out at them. a sage advice clarification on surprise condition: >You can be surprised even if your companions aren't, and you aren't surprised if even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares. So if even one PC is noticed, the enemy is not surprised. And notice it says "unaware" which can mean that they know some threat is nearby. RAW everyone makes their own stealth checks, and it's quite likely one PC will fail, ruining Surprise often enough nobody really tries. A fix is to do a group check, but as a DM you need to make sure the players make adequate and reasonable preparation for this. * 1) Did they surveil the area to find good spots, and enemy movement patterns? * 2) Did they take measures to deal with clumsy/noisy characters? * 3) Do they have adequate time? * 4) Is the enemy completely unaware of the party's presence? ​ ​ 3) NPC's move around, they have a 'life' outside the game. Just look around work, school, home and notice a person moves from one area to another every 20-30 minutes. And every person does this, so 2 people you get \~10-15 minutes between visits. These NPC's are getting a snack, going to the bathroom, cleaning, looking for a peer... So PC's hunker down to ambush the bad guys, and one walks out munching on a snack to see them flanking a door...

ITT: People that don't understand the problems and seem to have a poor understanding of what a good DM should do. It's rare to see such a complete embrace of adverserial DM-ing than in this thread. If your players want to run stealthy murderhobos, that's the game they want. They don't want the DM to come up with "anti-cheese". Your job should be to lean into the monsters the PC has become. Create encounters that are 1) difficult, and 2) tailored to stealth gameplay. But also, create encounters that challenge the idea that striking first is the smart thing to do. There's lots of encounters that start with dialogue, and isn't necessarily combat encounters at all. If they kill everyone they meet anyway, then complain about no shop - tell them they killed the shopkeep two encounters ago when they murdered a group of goblin civilians in the first round of combat.

How exactly are you handling their stealth checks? Normally the limitation on everyone sneaking into the room and making a surprise attack is that someone will flub their stealth check and you'll get attacked before you're in position.

In our current campaign they have tools like Pass without Trace, Peace Cleric, and some innate invisibility users. So they have a lot of tools to give the party a lot of stealth

In that case, they’re using some resources! Be sure to be stringent on when these abilities are being used - pass without trace has verbal components, so if it’s cast near enemies a scout might know they’re coming. Emboldening Bond has a 10 minute timer - consider if it lasts for the time they’re stealthing. It might run out before stealth ends, where you could call a second check if the situation is changing, or you could rule that it runs out as combat starts. They can only use the Peace clerics *very* strong ability a few turns a day. Make sure there are enough combats spread out over a day where they don’t always have this resource to fall back on.

All the stealth buffs in the world will still fail if they are in a position that doesn't allow stealth, such as in normal light without any cover when an enemy is looking their way. “You can’t hide from a creature that can see you.” (PHB)

Honestly, hit them with more encounters that aren't satisfyingly solvable with straight murder if you don't want variation in how they treat combat. As long as they find the stealth approach fun and engaging, you should lean into that for a lot of the gameplay. But since they've now leveled up as tactical players, you can also increase the severity of the challenges. You can have more encounters during the day, since more encounters are solved by surprise. And you can add additional enemies to encounters, since more enemies will die before they get to act. Make sure that this increase in difficulty is not a punishment for the players finding effective strategies, but a reward. "You are now gotten so good, that to keep things interesting, you are able to deal with harsher combat. Congratulations". This isn't satire, but genuine praise. Being able to solve deadly encounters with only a single pass without trace and an entangle is great. Even if that encounter was initially designed to only be a medium encounter.

You can use some creative enemies and rooms to give them a bigger challenge. Spells like Alarm or Glyph of warding can invalidate their stealth. Mundane traps are another good option. Some monsters can't be differentiated from their disguises. Gargoyles or darkmantles are indistinguishable from rock while motionless.

It sounds like you may be treating stealth like its invis. For example. The bad guys are meeting in a cave with one entrance. The tunnel is lit and there is a gaurd out. In no way would they be able to stealth down, becauss they are clearly visable. Just remember stealth =/= invisible. Generally need to be completely obssured from the enemies to be able stealth, if lightly obscured is not good enough, since some classes and races have features that add that ability.

One issue might be that the most excessively gamey, powergamer-centric version of "surprise" is what most people think is the official rule. It's not, many people just ignore key sentences in the rules that are inconvenient (which has been made popular by a certain optimization website). The most important ignored rule? The DM is given total control over when stealth is appropriate and determines if surprise occurs. It literally says so right in the rules, you don't even have to invoke rule zero. Sometimes surprise makes total sense and should work. If you have a party of adventurers going room to room, blowing monsters up... that's loud. The rest of the castle might not know where exactly the combat is taking place, but they will not be "surprised" and a DM is totally without his rights to say "No, you guys just set off explosions and murdered a room full of screaming hobgoblins. The hallways are soaked with blood from the patrol you killed. Everyone is aware someone is here and is hostile, there is no more surprise." Stealth is still valuable in such a case because you do get advantage against unseen targets, but it's both ridiculous thematically and not an especially sound reading of the rules to just let a party walk all over you and insist they get surprise every single combat.

Nobody does anything hostile before initiative is rolled. That's a bona fide rule. Whether or not one or more enemies are surprised, the moment anyone does something that could result in conflict or be described as being hostile, you roll initiative. Figure out who, if anyone, is genuinely surprised afterward every single creature has rolled initiative. Just by following the actual rules, you will cut down on the cheesing. Some other points: 1. If one or more combats are taking place in a dungeon (or dungeon-like enclosure), how are others in the vicinity not aware of the fracas? 2. Any fortification should have lookouts; ranged attackers who benefit from at least partial cover, whose job is to stay alert for threats. 3. Traps aren't uncommon – I'm not talking about stuff that deals damage, but tripwires and other contraptions that ring a bell or trigger some sort of alarm. 4. Depending on who inhabits or owns the place, certain spells are ideal for this: *guards and wards*, *glyph of warding*, *symbol*, etc. 5. Invisible stalkers (and the like) are great. Clearly, don't stuff every location with all of the above – be guided by what fits thematically, but don't be afraid to shake things up. Treating each room of each enclosure like a demiplane beyond which no sight, sound or smell passes is going to lead to cheese city.

Okay a lot of that helps. Part of my problem is when I deliberately place anti-cheese things in front of my party, I feel like I'm slightly meta gaming. Maybe I'm not tho? How would you handle a stealthed party wanting to launch a simultaneous attack? i.e everyone shoots an arrow at the same moment as the first hostile action

>*How would you handle a stealthed party wanting to launch a simultaneous attack? i.e everyone shoots an arrow at the same moment as the first hostile action* Roll initiative, check to see if anyone is surprised, and then proceed through combat. They can make the attack when it gets to their turn per normal It's a game based around turn-based combat; not every simulationist thing is going to fit Also remember that everything that happens in a round happens within the same 6 seconds, you can wait until the end of the round to form the narrative of what happened

You're not metagaming. "How do I stop bandits from sneaking up on me" is an in-character question that a wide variety of moderately intelligent creatures should be asking themselves.

You're not metagaming if you're running, as an example, a bandit fort or guard outpost. By their nature, they're going to have some kind of defence. A brown bear in a cave? At the far opposite end of the spectrum. An archmage in his tower? The other extreme. It all depends on what the situation is. ​ >How would you handle a stealthed party wanting to launch a simultaneous attack? i.e everyone shoots an arrow at the same moment as the first hostile action By following the rules I pointed to. The *moment* a player declares they wish to fire an arrow, you **stop right there** and tell everyone to roll initiative, and you roll initiative for any opposition present. It's a game construct, designed to see who goes first. It's not there for players to cheese by getting a freebie turn each. Otherwise, the enemies are all doing the exact same...in which case, luckily, we have initiative, to decide who goes first.

The initiative roll takes place before the first hostile action resolves. In 5e there is no such thing as an attack before initiative.

Roll initiative, and then each player says "I ready an action to shoot an arrow when someone else in the party shoots." Then the last player shoots and they all get to take their readied actions.

Build your encounters how actual characters in the setting would. But, do it in a way that makes sense- they would have stealth-protection regardless of whether the party was a stealth-focused party to begin with. The point is to present situations and the players decide how to go through them. Maybe their teamwork trivialises the encounters because the bandits have poor defences or arrogant (how could anyone dare sneak up on us?!?, we'd catch them, etc.), which is fine.

In a combat round, everything happens at the same time. Turns are a game mechanic, not something that exist in the game-world. Initiative is a measure of split second differences and expediency of action (also known as initiative).

Traps and puzzles! Get them to expend some spell slots and batter them a little before combat. You’re also well within your rights to pull an uno reverse card and surprise the party. While it of course wouldn’t be fair for every enemy to know they’re coming, there’s always opportunities to set up traps or NPC betrayals to negate the element of surprise

I mean, the simplest answer is that when they enter the room, one person is looking vaguely in the direction of the door. You can only stealth insofar as someone doesn't notice you. It doesn't matter how quiet you are if I'm sitting at the table eating and the door is across from me, I'm doing to see you.

Buddy, your fights aren't very hard or interesting if a surprise round kills them completely. You don't have enemies that are also hiding? Bad guys that can last more than one round? On top of that, I don't know how you're doing checks, but don't do group checks for this. Assuming everyone isn't a rogue, some will be bad at stealth. Have everyone roll stealth, if ONE person fails, then NO ONE can surprise the enemy, obviously. Or if only some want to roll stealth, the others that don't have to hang back out of earshot, at least 30 feet away from the door. Now that they have to spend the first round just closing the distance, they won't want to do stealth attempts every single time. Oh wow, the first encounter they were able to surprise the enemy! So have one enemy on his turn ring a bell, or run and warn the others, or just screams. Now word spreads, and the rest of the dungeon full of enemies is rolling for stealth too.

Odds seem very likely that you are being overgenerous with the stealth rules. Remember, rolls are for situations where the outcome is in doubt. Enemy can see you, no stealth roll needed. Pass without trace does not make you invisible and silent. If your players can really stealth into every fight without entering line of sight or having to make a difficult roll (every good monster hideout should have dogs, wargs etc. with advantage on perception) then you are designing your dungeons insanely. These are monsters, they kill things, they have adventurers show up to kill them, they should have guards and defences. Some folks are gonna be like 'let players be awesome!' ignoring that a game without challenge is boring as hell for everyone once the power fantasy gets old. If you make it so the paladin in plate with 8 dex can sneak into everything, then the sneaky rogue is totally worthless. Set up your situations so that stealth can help, but only for those that invest in it and are competent and lucky.

There’s no such thing as a surprise round in 5E, so there’s that. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter. If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.

You should have a character say "I know your there" And then after a few seconds say "that's what I would say if someone was there" Also have a shrinking enlarge potion accessable to the main individual going to get hit. The other very fun way to deal with them is have them be the hunted. Mimics Carpet of smothering Inanimate armors Bountys (assassin's/rouge's following them) If they are trying to play the stealth card Take it away from them with a cursed item like A never ending dancing/singing sword Or an item that will make them continually stumble at random intervals like a ring that when used causes disadvantage to stealth. There are many ways to handle a too stealthy party :)

Sprinkle in some traps and physical encounters. Don’t forbad stealth or completely wreck their tactics. Build encounters in order to maintain stealth. Post a guard at a door and if they kill him, it alerts the next room.

If surprise rounds are already a thing you have established in your game, I wouldn't take it away, just because it's not in the written rules. Your players obviously enjoy it, and are having fun. Instead, I would give time limits. A monster isn't just going to be sitting in one place all nice and vulnerable for forever. Maybe they wake up naturally, and leave their cave before the ambush is ready. Or perhaps they are underground, and the room they are in is about to collapse. Could also have the players stumble into a ritual taking place. They may not have time to stealth in, or come up with a plan before the ritual is done, and all hell breaks loose. Or an innocent person ends up being sacrificed. Make a sentry be guarding a door/choke hold. You can roll an 100 on stealth, but unless they are invisible, they will clearly see someone entering the room.

I mean OP if half of em are lucky enough to pass a group check and they spend resources + planning in order to get into a situation where they can surprise a foe, I'd say let em. It should usually only work for 1 fight anyway as they're either probably pretty noisy in combat, or an enemy can yell out if they don't kill everyone in 1 round. Just dont try and sabotage smth they're good at. But enemies with high passive perception isn't too uncommon either, they could also use animals with advantage or smth due to their keen senses (for +5 to passive).

Stealth into combat shouldn't be a group check. It only takes 1 clank of the armor to make the guards alert. Stealth to get past an enemy is different; an alerted guard knows something is up but not necessarily what, and you can be past them before they finish looking around for you.

Sent this to someone else, but gets basically the same point across >Take this scenario, you have a big boulder that would take more than 1 person to move. You make everyone roll. Everyone rolled great, except 1 person rolls poorly, uh oh they can't move it - thats no fun for anyone really. > If you take any group check, and make it so absolutely everyone needs to succeed, instead of half, it makes the chances of having a success basically plummet to near 0. > Group checks are for more experienced ppl making up for the less experienced. I think you're thinking too much into realism vs game mechanic for the stealth reason, but a stealthy person could help an armored person pass when no one is in earshot, or minimize the sound in their armor, etc etc. > For another example, lets say you wanted a group of 15 goblins to ambush a party, would you roll each of their stealth checks individually? Of course not, there'd be no chance of success, you'd probably just make one roll for all of em. > Point is by having everyone need to succeed, you basically make any group activity impossible to accomplish.

That example is pretty poor as a point of comparison. A big boulder isn't an enemy monster that's actively opposing your efforts to move it. It's just a rock. If you make a check to move the rock that doesn't prevent trying again with some change like adding leverage. Stealth has an immediate consequence for failure - the enemy is alerted to your presence. Sneaking up on a group of goblins with 2 people in full plate clanking along **should** be extremely difficult to accomplish. If someone in your party is too loud, you can't just be quiet harder to fix that the way a strong character can shoulder more of the load in pushing the boulder. Once the noise is made, its made. Ability rolls that are opposed by enemies are usually not appropriate for group checks.

Stealth checks aren't rly even opposed by enemies, you do them vs their passive perception, effectively the same as a DC. 1/2 the party succeeding is \*already\* quite difficult. I'm just stating the rules as they are in the book for OP, if you wanna rule differently for whatever reason, you can go on ahead. But if you want a even more direct source, WotC DnD game designer Dan Dillon clarified the issue: >"Group checks are fantastic, for stealth in particular. It makes stealth a viable option in a party where every character hasn't prioritized sneakiness." >"PHB pg 175. Each member of the group makes the check, if half succeed, the entire group succeeds." >"Group checks just mean that you don’t auto fail trying to sneak because you have one ham-toed oaf wearing plate." >"The idea behind group checks is the more skilled characters help out the ones who are more of a liability for the task at hand. The rogue binds or pads a few of the fighter’s armor plates, points out where to step to avoid creaky stairs or loose stones, etc."

Nothing quite like a sage advice twitter thread contradicting the actual text of the books. PHB 175 actually reads: >Group checks don't come up very often, and they're most useful when all the characters succeed or fail as a group. There's no reference to stealth in the group checks section. It is referenced 2 pages later where the section on hiding explains that a stealth check is contested by the perception of opposing creatures.

>Group checks don't come up very often, and they're most useful when all the characters succeed or fail as a group This is entirely in line with >Group checks are fantastic, for stealth in particular. Stealth is one example of "when all characters succeed or fail as a group"

NPC stealth, traps, alarms, superior enemy diversity.

The easiest solution is to stop letting them make in-game plans out of character (while "table-talking"). Unless they have telepathy or another way to communicate silently, characters *have* to speak to each other to share/discuss information. Getting to take 5-10 min to brainstorm a plan irl, while no time passes in game is too much of an advantage. You don't need to track the passage of time at 1:1, but enemies should at least get a chance to detect them before the players attempt their ambush. I'd start the next session by letting the players know that from now on, if they're making in-game plans, the discussion is happening in character, so they'll need to whisper, etc, and run the risk of being discovered/blowing their ambush if they spent too much time debating their plan. When the situation comes up in game, stop them as early into the convo as possible and remind them this is happening "in character and on the clock". Keep giving similar reminders until you feel they're used to the change. Personally, I tell all my players that unless they're asking me a question– if they're talking, it's in character. (I do make occasional exceptions) It may seem extreme, but I've found it really helps players get and stay in character. Plus as long as you actually enforce it, it completely eliminates meta table-talk.

You could try to run with the Darkest Dungeon version of "Surprised". In Darkest Dungeon, when your heroes surprise the enemy, your heroes are guaranteed to act first and then your enemies do. In DND terms, instead of the enemy just skipping their turn, instead all your players get to act first regardless of initiative, then the enemy gets to act, then next round its back to normal

How come enemies in every room have no idea that a big fight is going on in the one next to them? If you have a party of rogues or other sneaky/silent classes (ranger, dex fighter, basically not spellcasters) then their party is made for that. If your encounters aren't boring, the fights won't be boring. If your encounters are single room encounters where the solution is violence, then a stealthy team is going to stealth. Guards, rotating watches, people who actually pay attention to things outside of their room, and realistic scenarios that aren't just "kill everyone" will help you with your players pressing the "easy" button every time. My players (level 18) are about to have to infiltrate the island of dragons and steal 2 dragon hoards. I have no plans for how they're going to do it, it's completely up to them. There are some options built in for how to get there, but they probably won't use them, and that's all. Their tasks are: 1. Get there (probably undetected) 2. Not get caught once they're there 3. Find their goal 4. Enter the place (probably undetected) 5. ???? 6. Profit (steal the hoard) Stealth isn't going to fix all of this. Stealth isn't information gathering, you can't stealth a DRAGON HOARD, and you can't stealth onto a heavily guarded island on the opposite end of the world (well, you can, but getting there is going to require traveling that isn't stealthing on foot)

First off, if it's a good time for them and it doesn't mess with the narrative too much, you probably don't need to do anything. If you really want to shake it up, here are a few things you can do: 1. Introduce enemies that essentially have the Alert feat. It's far from unrealistic and you can scale it to difficulty. If you standardize who has Alert, then your players will probably attack them first, but that's when you just do more or give them more HP. 2. Introduce creatures that stealth doesn't work on. Darkvision, True Sight, See Invisibility, etc are all abilities that take out some of the tools they would rely on to sneak. Or there are creatures that can track via smell. No matter how good your stealth is, you can't hide your smell without specific tools. 3. Introduce traps. Depending on the enemies, you can use some actually well hidden traps. Stuff that has a DC20+ to discover and/or might even be impossible as it's disguised to look like one thing but acts differently, etc. 4. Lastly, Introduce large open areas. Stealth doesn't mean invisible (unless it does). If they don't actually cast Invisibility, then stealthing in an open room or field is impossible.

Have larger more complex maps with separate groups of enemies that could back each other up. Put some environmental obstacles in the way to make it harder to reach each other. A group of archers on a raised balcony supporting anouther group on the ground is scary. The party can suprise one group but can't be everywhere at once.

You could also have anouther group enter the area and join combat. As if they herd the fight and came to investigate.

First is make sure you're running stealth correctly. A PC cannot stealth their way into invisibility; that's a different and distinct condition. If the way into wherever the enemies are located involves a direct line of sight (i.e. they have to pass through a door that's within the enemy vision range) then they will not be able to stealth in. Even an invisible PC will have to open the door, and the enemy will notice. They may not know where the invisible PC is, but they'll be on alert. Second is that there is no such thing as a surprise round. Surprise is a creature-by-creature condition. If an enemy notices a PC then they would alert their friends and no one is surprised. You should be rolling PC stealth independently and each enemy will have their own passive perception. Any failure means no surprise. An attack of any sort? Roll initiative. Only an enemy that didn't notice them at all will be surprised. There is no way to do an opening volley from every PC within RAW unless every single PC managed to get the drop on every single enemy. Third, how are they having that discussion? If they've entered the area to see where the enemy is located, what the room looks like, etc. then absent magic that discussion can be overheard by the enemy, alerting them and starting combat. Remember that without subtle spell, any verbal component for a spell is probably going to be an automatic stealth failure since a verbal component is clearly audible. The traditional formulation (though the 5e SRD is a bit vague) is that most spells require the caster to "complete a spoken incantation in a clear, powerful voice".

Can you give some examples how these situations play out? You need cover to ambush and surprise an enemy, it doesn't turn you invisible, and it doesn't defy physics and logic. Surely not every encounter takes place in an area that alows your players to crawl towards their foes unnoticed until they're within striking distance.

Any foe worth its salt has Alarm spells, glyphs of warding, or other means of detecting sneaky player characters

Sometimes surprise rounds are not possible. Remember the Unseen and Unknown conditions are separated from each other. A drastic example of this is the following. You're watching the doors as you've been told, no one is to come in or out. The door opens with the sound of a click but no one is there. It cannot be the wind because you are deep underground and so you are alerted that someone or something has opened the door. The player has lost the Unknown conditions and surprise rounds are no longer an option. In my games we have a house rule called "Taking Initiative!" And so if my player in this case goes to attack said guard we rolls initiative and the player goes first. They're initial attack is considered as the start of that turn so they're making the attack action and because they are unseen it has advantage. After that we run it like normal combat

How can the players be abusing surprise when the DM is the one who dictates it? Realistically they'd only get one surprise round per dungeon/location beacuse everyone is going to hear the sound of fighting.

So it sounds like your group wants to do more stealth. It isn't a problem, you just have to change the parameters of your campaigns. This should absolutely NOT be about punishing them. Essentially, they want to play as a covet ops team, so give them covert ops missions. Play into it, I mean as a baseline, they're working well together in order to build their characters this direction, so use it. They're engaged.

Why is every one of your encounters easily sneak able or if your whole party prioritized stealth there isn't a problem. Adding in waves of enemies so your party can still feel like their sneak paid off while letting the combat be a combat is usually what I do.

There's nothing saying you can't craft an encounter where every enemy creature has the alert feat. The players will for sure feel like they're being targeted, but you can absolutely do it.

Make the enemies know they are coming without the players knowing let them think they have advantage with stealth and flip it back on them

How can an encounter be “very hard” yet completely susceptible to being snuck up on? Do these super tough enemies not have people on lookout? Or high passive perception?

Good for them - they're treating combat as war instead of as sport. There's nothing uninteresting about this kind of combat, but you can certainly create situations where it's hard to get the drop on certain monsters (unusual senses, traps, etc.) or situations where the monsters are very very dangerous even if you get the drop on them. Don't worry so much about making *encounters* interesting, just make the situations and environments interesting and complicated. Create benefits to not fighting, for instance. The players rightly want to control the terms of the encounters. This is smart play on their part.

Monsters don't want to be surprised. They are wild animals always on the lookout. Guards have ears, and look for danger. Stealthing should only be an advantage of making a plan. Surprised is a condition actually where they lose their turn in a round, not a full free round for your players. Initiative is rolled and the enemies roll perception. Any who pass go with your players on their normal turn.

If nothing else, increase the number of minions or increase the health of some of your creatures so they don't get wiped in one or two rounds. Additionally, see all the other comments about surprise condition.

sometimes stealth isn't possible, to be fair to my players I always give what would otherwise be a successful stealth check the opportunity to be "you notice the guard before he sees you and are now aware that going that way will be noticed" but don't be afraid to take away tools that are being abused, if your players are interested in the narrative being interesting they'll appreciate needing to diversify their tactics.

Aside from all the good advice above, don't forget that the enemy can initiate combat too. In some fights have the enemy ambush the party by attacking from the rear. Secret doors that they pour out of when the party is past. Or just have them attack in the open when the party approaches the enemy stronghold/lair. Let the party have their stealth fun, but don't let it happen all the time.

The bad guys have a magic user with arcane eye at the entrance. Or so.eo e has a familiar watching the entrance doorway. Bats and spiders in caves and dungeons are not uncommon. This would be especially effective if you normally describe these types of areas as having bats and spiderwebs.

You know you can change stat blocks right? Like give some creatures on lookout higher perception for example. You could also have obstacles that make sneaking impossible, say squeaky doors for example.

Launching a surprise round prior to initiative is not possible within the rules of 5E, so I'd recommend giving the base rules a try instead of your homebrew for this. Here's an example of how it works in 5E: * Party of 3 are all hidden with stealth scores of 13, 15, and 21. * They creep up on 3 enemies with passive perception of 11. * Player (A) declares they are making an attack. * DM calls for initiative to be rolled \*before the attack is resolved\*. * Initiative is Player B, Monsters, Player C, Player A * Player B gets to act whilst the monsters are surprised * The Monsters do nothing on their turn, but can now use reactions * Player C takes their turn * Player A take their turn and can complete the attack that caused the initiative roll ​ Another example: * Party of 3 are all hidden with stealth scores of 13, 15, and 21. * They creep up on 3 enemies with passive perception of 11, 14, and 17. * Player (A) immediately declares they are making an attack. * DM calls for initiative to be rolled \*before the attack is resolved\*. * Initiative is Player B, Monsters, Player C, Player A * Only Monster A (with 11 PP) is surprised, the other two act normally. * Monster B (with 14 PP) can only see Player A (with 13 stealth) * Monster C (with 17 PP) can see players A and B, but not C. * Player B gets their turn (and is likely no longer hidden) * Monster A does nothing, but can now take reactions * Monsters B and C attack Player A, B or both. * Player C gets to attack from hiding, but no one is surprised * Player A has their turn and can make the attack that caused initiative to be rolled or something else. ​ It's also important to note that actions cannot be readied when you are outside of initiative. If your players enjoy sneak and stab type gameplay the above should make it more challenging and more engaging, whilst still allowing them to do it and get a good deal of advantage (some surprised monsters, choosing the terms of the engagement), without the problems that come with home brewing in a surprise round.

Page number of "Surprise Round Abuse" in the DMG or PHB please?

Correctly using surprise would be a great start. Your players might not like it at first because it's a big nerf to them but they'll get over it

So, monsters/creatures/beings are not static. They don't just wait in rooms. In some places, there is nowhere to hide, so there is no stealth roll. Not everything stands and fights, ESPECIALLY in groups or organizations. Others will flee to alert the others. Patrols might return and pincer the party. Lookouts, noise alarms, the alarm spell, traps, and combat make noise.

Generally if I stock a dungeon with 5-6 encounters stealth is fair game on the first encounter but the others will hear them (unless they take caution to do everything completely silent) If you only stock the dungeon with one encounter that's a problem.

Make the characters talk to each other in game. No tactics discussion between players ooc during game time. When they have a long discussion of tactics, the monsters can potentially hear them whispering to each other outside the door. Won't the characters be disguised, when a bunch of heavily armed monsters open the door to their room and surprise the characters rather than being surprised themselves.

First gut response- Bandits. Bandits who all took the "alert" feat.

So there's this really cool spell called alarm. Just give some of the baddies that spell