| Concealment Level | Effects | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Detected | Enemies know where you are. Enemies can detect you with their primary sense. |
|
| 2 | Obscured | Enemies know where you are Enemies can't see you. Enemies have disadvantage. |
|
| 3 | Hidden | Enemies | |
| 4 | Undetected | Example | |
| 5 | Unknown | Example |
Detected
Enemies know that you are present and can use their senses to target you. Generally this requires the enemy creature's most honed and effective sense, like sight for most creatures. Some creatures use other senses as their primary sense.
Obscured
Enemies know that you are present and can use their senses to target you, but due to dim light, mist or otherwise disruptive elements that reduces the performance of the enemy senses, you count as obscured. While obscured, creatures have disadvantage on checks against you, like attack rolls.
Hidden
Enemies know that you are present but don't know your specific location and can't use their senses to target you. While hidden, you have a cover bonus ranging from half-cover to total cover, as well as any bonuses from being obscured.
To continue being hidden, a creature must either stay behind cover or be in an area that
A creature that’s hidden is only barely perceptible. You know what space a hidden creature occupies, but little else. Perhaps the creature just moved behind cover and successfully used the Hide action. Your target might be in a deep fogbank or behind a waterfall, where you can see some movement but can’t determine an exact location.
Maybe you’ve been blinded or the creature is under the effects of invisibility, but you used the Seek basic action to determine its general location based on hearing alone. Regardless of the specifics, you’re flat-footed to a hidden creature.
When targeting a hidden creature, before you roll to determine your effect, you must attempt a DC 11 flat check. If you fail, you don’t affect the creature, though the actions you used are still expended—as well as any spell slots, costs, and other resources. You remain flat-footed to the creature, whether you successfully target it or not.
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring—noticing danger, finding hidden objects, hitting an enemy in combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few—rely heavily on a character's ability to see. Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance.
A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness.
Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.
Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.
Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.
When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you're guessing the target's location or you're targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.
When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.
If you are hidden—both unseen and unheard—when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.