Stealth Help: Continued

[Bjarkmundur]

The scene is a large warehouse with shelving that reaches to the ceiling. There are at least 5 shelves that run across the entire warehouse, with 15-feet walkways in between each pair. The shelves are filled with crates and barrels, and you can easily walk between the crates in the bottom shelves, especially as a small rogue.


My party is fighting a group of bandits, we outnumber them by one. Each one of my allies is fighting one bandit, leaving me free to maneuver around the battlefield. I want to move between the crates of the bottom shelf and accross the walk way, constantly ending my turn hidden as to gain advantage on the ranged attack on my turn. Can you help narrate and rule this scenario for me. I think this is the best way for me to wrap my head around stealth; by doing it step by step as if it were happening in a session.

Lighting shouldn't matter, since I know it would simply decide whether the enemy takes a -5 penalty to his passive perception or not.
Is it as simply as saying "If you are out of sight, roll stealth against enemy passive perception" and "If you are kindasorta out of sight, but not completely, you can't roll stealth"

What if one of the bandits breaks free? What are his options, apart from readying an attack to shoot when he sees me or walking right up to me? Is there any way he can discern my location on his turn?

Can anyone help me out here?

[ad_hoc]

You need to be completely out of sight to try to be hidden. (there are some special abilities which make this possible with conditions).

If an enemy can see you then you are no longer hidden to that enemy.

If I see a goblin run behind a tree to hide from me all I need to do is walk around to the other side of that tree. If the goblin is still there then they aren't hidden from me anymore even with a stealth score of 100.

[Lunali]

Searching for someone (making a perception check to spot a hidden character) is an action unless you have abilities that make it otherwise so it's more likely that they will move so they can see you directly or ready an attack.

It's possible that even if someone is hidden, you know where they almost certainly are even if you can't actually see them such as if you see them go behind a pillar. In this case you could still make an attack against them, at disadvantage for not being able to see them and with an AC bonus if what they're hiding behind would stop ranged attacks.

[Spiritchaser]

You need to be completely out of sight to try to be hidden. (there are some special abilities which make this possible with conditions).

If an enemy can see you then you are no longer hidden to that enemy.

If I see a goblin run behind a tree to hide from me all I need to do is walk around to the other side of that tree. If the goblin is still there then they aren't hidden from me anymore even with a stealth score of 100.

Just a heads up:

The wording in early versions of the PHB was as stated above, but the wording was changed to state that you cannot hide if you can be seen *clearly*, and this change was then included in the official errata.