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I'm a player in a campaign. One of the encounter I'm currently in is my party are surprised by bunch of skeletons in the bushes when we arrived at a clearing.

We fall back to the bushes. I rolled Stealth Check to Hide.

This is where I'm confused. The DM does not give a DC for me to roll against, so I don't know if I successfully hide or not. They still attacking me although I'm already hidden. I rolled a 13, so I think they have passive Perception 13 or higher and they can spot me.


Tried to find rules for hiding from PHB and from some questions here, but I still don't understand how it should work. This is my understanding of how hiding works:

You roll a Stealth check. You are now Hidden with the value of your Stealth check (in my case 13). Enemies in combat with Passive Perception less than 13 won't notice me, but those with higher can target me. They can do a Search action to actively looking for me with their Perception check, and if a creature rolls higher, that creature is now able to target me.

Is my understanding right?

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To answer your question directly, yes. You are correct.

From what I understand though, you are confused about a) the "DC" of your hide check, and b) what happens after you are spotted, and targeted.

Well firstly, a creature's Passive Perception is calculated by adding 10 to their Wisdom Modifier. This means that a creature would need a Wis Score of 16 to spot you with passive perception. This is unlikely. However, the GM may have decided to give them advantage, since they got the drop on you. This means that they get an additional +5 to their Passive Perception score, which means they only requires a Wisdom of 8 in total to still spot you. (10 + 5 - 2 = 13)

Secondly, if they do not spot you, and need to search for you, even if only one succeeds, the gig is up. You've been spotted, and your position has been given away by the monster hacking at you. Even a monster with only 8 Wisdom would still be able to figure out that there's something worth attacking, if one of his friends was having a go at something they couldn't see.

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    \$\begingroup\$ In that last case, the gig is partly up. Yes, you'd have been spotted, and the guy that actually spotted you would get to attack normally, but the others would attack with disadvantage, unless they individually each spotted you as well. Even though a monster with only 8 Wisdom would still be able to figure out that there's something worth attacking if one of his friends was having a go at something they couldn't see, and could take a swing as well, he still wouldn't know exactly where you are just from that. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 29, 2018 at 7:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ @PhilBoncer You're correct, mostly. Assuming intelligent, communicative enemies (which we can't necessarily, with skeletons), it's a free action for one of the enemies who spots you to point you out to the rest to give them advantage on their perception to find you. Since advantage on perception also gives +5 to passive, that might be enough to raise their results high enough to see you immediately, no action necessary. Even if not, pointing you out tells them where you are even if they can't see you, which is sufficient to attack with disadvantage. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 29, 2018 at 21:40

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