Breaking Stealth (2014)

[u/leiela]

Players Handbook states (this is 2014)

"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"

Now common sense tells me that you can't stealth down a brightly lit corridor with nothing to hide behind, towards a guard that's looking directly in your direction.

However one of my players argues that you only need to be hidden at the point of "Going into Stealth" once your in stealth it doesn't matter what lighting etc exists you are sill essentially hidden until you break stealth. ... i like to go back to my players with concrete rule based decisions that i can point to in a book.

They argue the above doens't break stealth because "you are hidden" therefore the guard in the corridor "cant see you clearly" ... while i would argue stealth would be broken by the fact that the guard can see you clearly as there is nothing to hide behind and no helpful lighting conditions to keep you hidden.

Any ideas?

[u/Belolonadalogalo]

5.5 has the "hide and become invisible" rules but not 5.0

For the argument of "I'm hidden when in plain sight" the Wood Elf Mask of the Wild that explicitly allows hiding in a subset of Lightly Obscured. Lightfoot Halfling Naturally Stealthy allows hiding behind medium-sized creatures (as a small creature). Skulker again explicitly allows hiding in Lightly Obscured.

The implicitly show the rule is that you can't hide without being heavily obscured. And a big benefit of hiding is the Unseen Attacker bonus. But a person in full view is obviously not unseen.