Hiding in combat mechancs question

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Hello, for our ranged fighters I have a question abiut hiding in combat.

Can a wizard, ranger or bard essentially let loose a spell or some arrows then use their movement to hide?

Does the process of hiding take a bonus action or some movement? So if the bard casts healing word, a bonus action, no hiding?

Thanks for clearing it up for me.

[Tanarii]

In combat, Hide is an action.

Rogues can use a bonus action to take the Hide action, because of the Cunning Action feature.

Note that they can still go behind total cover or into a heavily obscured area. The general assumption is that isn't sufficient that the opponent has completely lost track of you. So they are still aware of where you are and can easily target you with ranged attacks in the case of heavily obscured.

Edit: since Hide is an action, a caster can cast Healing Word (a bonus action), then use their Action to hide afterwards.

[Strangways]

The short answer is "no." Your move can be used only to move. Hiding requires an action. A wizard who casts a spell that requires an action, therefore has no action left on his turn to use for hiding. That's the basic principle but various spells and class abilities make this more complicated. A wizard casting a spell that requires only a bonus action would still have his action left over and could use it to hide.

Rogues get the fantastic class ability "Cunning Action," which lets them hide (or do certain other things) as a bonus action every round. That leads to the infamously deadly rogue rotation of hit / move /cunning action hide, then repeat until target is dead. It's especially deadly with a wood elf in the wilderness or a lightfoot halfling pretty much anywhere medium sized humanoids are around.