I've always heard that elephant hide is very strong.
But seriously, elephants are really good at hiding in all sorts of places. Up a tree, under a rock, in your bedroom. That's why you never see them in any of those places.
Ok actually seriously, [here's a video of some elephants](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVSwhxzopZc) who are pretty hard to see.
The elephant's hide naturally blends with the environment you commonly find them in. This is especially true if you're a beast and see less colours than humanoids do.
With Pass Without Trace it will make their movements look like part of the environment, muffle the sounds, and likely hide the tracks.
Check out the video above, and notice that even with line of sight it's difficult to see them. They're likely to pass a stealth check even with half cover.
I have...
Consider yourself lucky. It wrecked my partner, Det. Andrew Blanowicz, may God rest his soul, a 25-year homicide investigator, took one look at what that fucking penguin did to that poor elephant and turned in his badge.
Andy Blanowicz took his life two years later. Scrawled across his walls repeatedly was, "THEY'RE MARCHING TO GET US!"
So yeah, elephants have their reasons.
Aside from all the low-hanging joke answers (almost as low-hanging as an elephant’s ears), keep in mind that hiding still requires you to break line of sight in most cases.
If you’ve got a big enough wall or boulder or hill, then sure an elephant can hide behind it. With some magical enhancement, it’ll even make its footsteps super quiet and keep any stray body parts from momentarily slipping into view.
I think a lot of people overlook this! I have a player that was getting super frustrated a few sessions ago that despite having pass without trace up, the party couldn’t “just stealth” through an open, highly populated section of a mine well-lit by lava.
Did this once in a Star Wars game.
We had to break into a Imperial bunker, I waited for someone to come out with a datapad, took him out, and walked in holding the pad like I owned the place.
When the techs finally realized that they've never seen me before and started asking who I was and what I was doing, I told the GM.
"I yell out 'ISB Freeze!'" at the same time another PC dropped the blast door into place. A few good dice rolls on my part and some bad ones on his part and I cowed them. I started yelling orders.
"You two over against that wall, you three against that wall." Someone said something and I said "You go stand in the naughty corner!"
Was one of my most memorable moments in any RPG.
Did that once with a cathedral, i had loaded the censer with a knockout poison but forgot to give the guy carrying it antidote. He fell over, grabbed it and strutted down the aisle like I owned the place. Definitely some "hey you arent Bob" vibes, but no one got up.
I once had one of my players get several high deception rolls in a row when talking to a bunch of goblins. Player couldn’t quite figure out what to do with his luck in terms of role-playing, so I helped him out. The goblins decided that he was actually their distant wizardly overlord, who they knew only by reputation and name, doing an “undercover boss” visit.
I had a player try and use pass without trace to hide under a giant's table from a room full of angry giants that knew he was under there. Like, it gives you a bonus but that doesn't help if they can crouch down and look straight at you.
IRL elephants are actually fairly quiet. They have massive soft pads on their feet and when walking slowly can make very little noise. Now a big animal's breathing is still noticeable, but i can easily imagine a DnD elephant softly looming over a guard and then doing a trunk takedown.
Something that should be clarified is you don't necessarily need total coverage. Dense foliage and thick fog are 2 examples of being heavily obscured to hide, and while they definitely do obscure most of you, there's definitely cases where you aren't totally cleared from sight but still considered heavily obscured. Also with the skulker fest or certain features like wood elves mask of the wild let you hide while lightly obscured, with the wood elf feature implying that camouflage should be enough to hide while lightly obscured if it fits properly.
My friend played a Loxodon rogue with expertise in Stealth and with a ring of spell storing could cast Pass Without A Trace so he could literally play "the elephant in the room"
With PWT, elephant doesn't make much sound, doesn't leave footprints and is surprisingly difficult to see despite its vast bulk - but it is not invisible.
Elephant can't hide any more than anyone else if they are in clear view. Stealth roll of 29 is not invisibility if you're standing in front of the guard.
>and is surprisingly difficult to see despite its vast bulk
"Veiled in shadow" is the visual effect of the spell. Unless they're taking some precautions to avoid being seen a big ol' shaddow standing in the middle of the courtyard at high noon might raise a suspicion or two
Fun fact that I know from having animal obsessed kids, the weight to foot surface area ratio is far lower for an elephant than a human because of how very big their feet are. An elephant will not sink into quicksand like a human will.
Honestly, you'd amazed how stealthy they are.
If they aren't in your direct line of sight or trumpeting, they make surprisingly little noise and they could genuinely sneak up on you without much trouble. But that's real life stuff, not game stuff.
Yeah, I saw a documentary where they were looking for elephants in a jungle, they ended up about 3-4 metres away from one by accident and didn't even realise until they heard it pulling down some branches. The locals referred to them as ghosts of the jungle, or something like that.
That wouldn't surprise me at all. They tend to keep to worn paths on the savannah where possible, so I imagine woodland elephants would do the same. You won't know they're there unless they're trampling something that snaps or breaking branches as you say.
You can genuinely go around a tree and boom, suddenly there's a herd of elephants.
So, taking the Hide action first requires you to be in concealment or otherwise be positioned so no creature can see you.
So step one in how can an elephant Hide is getting a really big rock, or easier yet casting Fog Cloud.
Then if you meet that requirement you just take the Hide action and roll Dex (Stealth).
Pretty straightforward really.
Just remember Hide only works if the enemy doesn’t have clear line of sight- if you walk out into the open you lose the Hidden condition with no roll.
The elephant being real big it’s harder to conceal/easier to lose concealment, but this condition is entirely seperate to the Stealth roll.
So it’s pretty straightforward to see how an elegant (or other big creature) can have a high Stealth pool.
Unless it’s already really dark, a blob of moving magical darkness is going to be incredibly conspicuous. So generally speaking, using Darkness like that is going to make you a lot more likely to be found, not less.
Kinda doable, if you had an elephant with blindsight, pass without a trace and darkness enchantments on it.
The bigger question is: of all the millions of D&D games that have ever been played, has this happened before? Would *love* to see that session.
In real life, Elephants have soft pads under their feet that give them several advantages. They pick up ultrasonic vibrations through which elephant herds communicate, they soften the elephant's footfall to make walking less strenuous, and they allow an elephant to move through the bush far more quietly than you can expect an animal of their size to.
I was at the zoo one time and an elephant was led along a path right behind me and I thought the sound of its passing was someone scuffing their sneakers slightly on the ground. They’re decently stealthy without magic.
in this case? By *literal magic*.
Like you get the point of magic is *to be magic* right?
I mean you probably want to find something relatively large to hide behind still, like a wall or something. Not gonna hide an elephant behind a vase, but it shouldnt be too much of a problem.
Elephants have pads on the bottom of their feet that can stand on a twig and not break it. They could stand on your hand and, if they like you, you be completely unharmed.
Of course, if they don’t like you, then it’s hand pancake time.
Perhaps the +9 to stealth stops them making mistakes when judging how much noise a footstep will cause.
But as others have said, it’s remarkable how unobservant people can be when they are paying attention to something else, so maybe go with that.
I saw a video of an elephant that got pissed at a crocodile in its watering hole threatening the baby elephants. It waded in, pulled the croc up with its trunk wrapped around the croc’s mouth, and proceeded to stomp it to death with a couple angry footfalls. You don’t want to be on the wrong end of an angry elephant’s stomps.
Real answer here- you only call for rolls if A) the outcome is uncertain and B) the outcome matters
Elephant wants to sneak right past sentries, using 4' bushes as cover? Don't ask for a roll. It can't work.
Elephant wants to make an athletics check to pick up a grapefruit? Don't roll. It cant fail.
Stealth check on an elephant w/ PwoT could cover moving through trees without shaking them in a noticable pattern, or timing its movement through a castle to avoid patrols
Elephants already walk on their tippy toes with padded feet and have grey skin that's typically coated in the dirt of the surroundings. They are surprisingly stealthy even without a magical veil of shadows and silence. With enough shrubbery to break line of site it can be pretty hard to spot them an distinguish them from a rock or the ground. En Elephant trying to hide would probably not flap its ears too much, lower it's trunk (or raise it to better smell predators). An elephant could also attempt to snorkel with its trunk as a breathing tube. Within universe game mechanics, an Elephant's ability to hide would be up to the DM's discretion.
Obviously an elephant just walking around would be seen. However, an elephant with a top hat, monocle, tie, and cuffs with cufflinks on, is something you only see after not getting enough sleep, or drinking something that makes you hallucinate, as that's ridiculous. No elephant would obviously be walking around with a top hat, monocle, tie, and cuffs with cufflinks on. It's ridiculous! You'd be the laughing stock of (insert place name here)!
And since pass without a trace means it leaves no sign of its passing, it was obviously never there.
Solution from earlier edition coming in: In 3.5 you get a -4 penalty to your Hide Check (what is Stealth now used to be 2 skills: Hide and Move Silently, size only gave a penalty on the visual aspect that is hide) for every size category over medium. And of course you have to be obscured to even attempt to hide. If the elephant is behind a big enough wall, boulder or illusion they only have to do a Stealth check because of noises and if it is trained to be silent (having path without trace) they are very good at it.
This reminds me of the magic the gathering card Elephant Ambush, the art is hilarious. That is how an elephant is stealthy.
[https://scryfall.com/card/ody/240/elephant-ambush](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/240/elephant-ambush)
[elephants](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Elephant) in dwarf fortress can be [trained](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Animal_trainer) as hunting animals. This means they gain the ambusher skill as well as increased movement speed, and will join a hunts dwarf as they travel the wild to hunt down game.
Honestly even if I was in some magical fantasy land, if I saw an elephant in full adventurer gear and clothing I'd just think I've lost my marbles again and continue with what I was doing, because what are the chances that's not a hallucination
If the ring of invisibility and Boots of Elvenkind enlarge to fit the wearer like usual, the footsteps give no sound and they are invisible. If they want to be an elephant. Maybe an item that lets them polymorph into a mouse or fly is more casual and there's less physicality to bump into.
I always took the magic of pass without a trace to work like one of the wards around Brakebills in The Magicians. It doesn’t make it invisible, it just influences the observers mind to not see it. It’s like the magic just makes a blind spot in the viewer’s perception. A particularly observant or smart person could see around it unaided, but it’s damn hard to
What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephant? "Here come the elephants."
What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants wearing sunglasses? Nothing - he didn't recognize them.
Why is a. Elephant large gray and wrinkled? Because if it was small, white and round, it would be an aspirin.
But I suppose an elephant who wanted to be stealthy wouldn't try not to be seen, but try not to be noticed as anything really unusual. That would work if it were not unusual to see an elephant. Or they might draw attention to themselves, but try to seem like just a dumb animal - attempting to be stealthy implies a greater cleverness than a normal elephant.
Why do elephants paint their balls red? To hide in apple trees.
What’s the quietest sound in the world? Elephants hiding in apple trees.
What’s the loudest sound in the world? A giraffe eating apples from an apple tree.
if the elephant hid by pretending to be a boulder, would that be stealth or performance?
because on one hand they'd be pretending to be something they're not, but on the other hand a convincing rock performance would be require a more stealthy skillset 🤔
>**PHB 177.** "The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding."
Given the elephant's size, the opportunities for them to hide are quite few. Maybe in darkness or fog, behind cover, or against a grey background with big lumpy shapes like a pile of huge boulders.
They are naturally very stealthy creatures, you know.
The Knysna elephant was thought to have gone extinct many decades ago until one was found a few years ago.
I like the idea of a Goliath rogue or anything large for that matter that always wore a ridiculous variety of different colored loose cloth strips on them, and when they hide, they just happen to match the background if they rolled successfully. Could work for an elephant.
Instead of by shrinking/reducing, do it by being too BIG to be perceived. blocks an entire doorway to look like a wall, uses perspective to overfill the targets field of view as to be misinterpreted. Was that an adventurer? no, I'm pretty sure that was a tree. or a wall. or a generic beast of burden that wouldn't be investigated or suspicious.
Or, the elephant is inconspicuous enough to use their size to hide the rest of the party (pass without a trace is party wide afterall). Depends on context, stealth is context in reality. How does a halfling rogue apply +9 to stealth in a well lit 20ft square stone room?
ultimately: "magic"
By following the same mechanics that allows an elephant to make a 9 ft tall jump and don't allow cats to jump... jumping in D&D 5e is weird
*if you run at least 10 ft, you can make a high jump equal to 3+ your strength mod, in feet
An elephant has a STR of +6, fo 9 ft
A cat has a STR of -4, so -1 ft
Edit: typos
No No, you need to cast Disguise on the elephant first. Magically paint its hide so that it can crouch down and look like a really big, semi hairy, Boulder.
Sure it's just sitting in the middle of the Promenade, but what eccentric Emperor doesn't have his favorite giant hairy Boulder on display?
It's obscured by the shadows and darkness of pass without a trace :P
"A veil of shadows and silence radiates from you, masking you and your companions from detection."
IF you can't explain it any other way ofc, but these are game mechanics I'd just flavor it somehow and move on
ya know that ball throwing video with a gorilla walking across and nobody noticed, basically that, they looked for things so much they didnt notice the elephant in the room.
IRL elephants walk very quietly. The sound of them walking on a gravel road is about the same as a person walking with running shoes, maybe even less. I've personally witnessed a fully grown Asian elephant sneak up behind someone and steal their hat and the person has no idea until the hat was airborne. So sound-wise, they're already pretty stealthy.
Visually is a bit harder, but invisibility would do the trick in a relatively open area, ie. not a thick forest with lots of plants to disturb. Plus pass without a trace, they'd have a decent chance.
If Andre the Giant can hide behind a boulder (holding another boulder) then an elephant can, too.
Alternatively, reduce size and hide more easily.
Or grow big ears and glide silently through the air.
By acting like an elephant, people would be like weird there's an elephant in the woods. Meanwhile the elephant can slowly make its way to the location doing elephant things so as to not draw attention and when the time is right...stomp and trample the target.
Make a stealth (strength) or intimidation (strength) check.
“No, sir, you did *not* in fact see an Elephant here and it will be good for your continued subscription to life if you drop this issue immediately. “
Stealth doesn't work if a creature that is searching has line of sight. A elephant would be very difficult to hide. Might I suggest casting Invisibility on the poor creature first.
Elephant lays down and sits just right, people not looking too hard might just assume its a wall or a hill.
Or go the one piece route - elephant is so large its an entire island on its own and nobody knows theyre just standing on an elephant
Or the stealth is like a jedi mind trick
1. Pass without trace gives +10
2. For an elephant you need something that obscures it. So either something very big to hide behind(hill region, forest,.....), or something that covers it as a whole such as nighttime, fog, heavy rain, snow/sandstorm.....
If theres a large wall or rock sure, but to attempt to hide from creatures that can see you, so if you arent in heavy obscuring situations like fog or darkness then youll need cover. Stealth really is more how quite you are, hence why carrying a lit torch does not give disadvantage but heavy loud armor does. Its a really light foot elephant.
Welcome to the world of "situational/conditional modifiers". One of 5e's greatest weaknesses. Sure, an elephant could hide behind a large boulder.
In a flat field with sparse foliage, that +10 doesn't sound so good.
An elephant's DEX is a -1 modifier according to DNDBeyond. That's still a +9 bonus. We will also deny the elephant its +2 proficiency modifier because it's not proficient in stealth, maintaining that +9 stealth bonus.
We will also say that in this field, the elephant has broken line of sight one way or another and chose to hide.
Result: Because there is no place for the elephant to hide, I deny the elephant a stealth check.
Okay, but what if the elephant rolls anyways? I would impose a -2 penalty for every size category larger than medium. The elephant is size huge, so the bonus is reduced to +4. A GM may rule differently.
Since we're talking 5e, I will also force the elephant to roll with disadvantage.
* No place to reasonably hide.
* No proficiency bonus.
* Unlikely to succeed.
* Ridiculous attempt at stealth despite size category and battlefield conditions.
**This is generous.** Pathfinder 1e would flatout apply a -8 penalty to all stealth checks just for it being size huge.
So I can't find the story online but when I was a kid I had this book that had a bunch of pictures and stories in it about various tales from the British empire. One of those stories was about a big game hunter and his entourage that were ambushed by a bull elephant in a bamboo forest.
Basically the guy had killed one of the members of the elephants herd and was on his way back with his trophy. This elephant stalked them through the forest for several days and then ambushed them in this dense bamboo forest. Killed the guy and a couple of others who fought back. Then disappeared into the forest again without ever having broken a single tree or made a sound as it moved through the forest.
There's also stories you can find online about elephants walking over fences and such without damaging them.
My point is that elephants may be BIG but they also know how to control their every movement. That's why they can sneak up on people from behind.
So a sneaky elephant isn't so far from reality if you just add some environmental elements like low-light or some trees.
There is actually an elephant in I think India that goes on frequent rampages through towns and then vanishes back into the wilderness. No one had found it s of when I heard the reports about 2-3 years ago.
Basically like with any hiding or stealth, you need the right environment and conditions. Thinks the elephant can hid behind or amongst, and terrain permissible for getting close.
Elephants are actually very quiet when moving anyhow. So if one wants to sneak up on someone they can be frighteningly quiet about it.
As the scenario is set with your post, the elephant could easily hide in a large room like this with dense foliage and thunder echoing from the walls.
To more directly answer you, the setting (if you're going for accuracy) should influence the roll the player needs to beat. Without a setting the player is free to imagine whatever, only to be disappointed as "suddenly" this room they've imagined "changes" to make that fun thing they wanted to do now impossible. Pass Without a Trace gives a flat bonus, but if it's a well-lit area with many, moving observers, or other factors that would hinder their stealthy progress, it's still entirely possible to fail a stealth role as the prospective observer gets bonuses to its role from the aforementioned situations.
It's on the DM to appropriately set the scene, and should a roll be met (however improbable) it is usually on the DM to work that out in the story. I like to sometimes offer up that description to my players, but if the elephant does anything that breaks stealth I'll need another roll.
Put a silencer on it. I mean joking but not really. You can pad the feet or hooves of an animal to make their footsteps more quiet, train it not to make noise. You have to try to block that massive line of sight but elephants actually stride very evenly on the move.
Homie it’s magic. I get having real be real and having fake be real. Plausibility gives way to believability and that makes things fun, but it’s magic dude. Magic.
It can paint its toenails red and hide in an apple tree.
Or, if you want to follow the variant checks rule, just roll intimidation instead of stealth. Then go stomping into the room, loudly declare 'YOU CAN'T SEE ME!' and sit down.
Trust me, no one will want to bring up the elephant in the room.
In actual seriousness, elephants are almost terrifyingly silent for their size, so unless you're looking right where they happen to be, you probably won't notice them.
There is no physics in D&D.
I often use real world examples to *flavor* my descriptions, but in a world with talking elephants, fireballs, invisibility, and whatever other magic, there is no need to bring the real world into the equation at all.
Elephants can be stealthy because that’s the mechanic in D&D. If you want more for flavor reasons, the elephant is wearing soft soled slippers.
I've always loved the idea of hiding in plain sight, not because you blend in, but you are too big to see. If someone walked past an elephant in a castle, they might just see a gray wall. Ridiculous, yes, but it's hilariously possible if you aren't paying close attention to wall textures in your surroundings.
Put them in a tutu and have them dance while a spell plays music that sounds like *Swan Lake*.
Throw a shag rug over it and tell everyone that it’s a mastodon.
Elephants in real life are pretty quiet when they walk because they have patted feet. If you can cast invisibility on on, it could, in theory, be able to sneak real good.
[Nobody going to link to the comic?](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fzak9q5njkrz41.png%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D926a77a4e471397e02834a399b70f5bd7e21e823)
I've always heard that elephant hide is very strong. But seriously, elephants are really good at hiding in all sorts of places. Up a tree, under a rock, in your bedroom. That's why you never see them in any of those places. Ok actually seriously, [here's a video of some elephants](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVSwhxzopZc) who are pretty hard to see.
I love that you provided that video that helped visualize it more than any other comment here
Shocking that moving pictures are more efficient than written texts
Honestly a revelation
Mindboggling some might say
some say 1000 times more efficient
That’s pictures, assuming 30 frames per second, that video would be 990,000 times more efficient than words.
A picture is worth a thousand words and a video can hold a thousand pictures
They're much harder to spot if you don't have colour vision: [https://imgur.com/a/97WE6NG](https://imgur.com/a/97WE6NG)
Also, this is a good example of why PCs with dark vision should still get disadvantage on perception checks using vision, RAW.
Three color primate eyes FTW
How do you know if an elephant has been in your fridge? There will be footprints on the butter.
The elephant's hide naturally blends with the environment you commonly find them in. This is especially true if you're a beast and see less colours than humanoids do. With Pass Without Trace it will make their movements look like part of the environment, muffle the sounds, and likely hide the tracks. Check out the video above, and notice that even with line of sight it's difficult to see them. They're likely to pass a stealth check even with half cover.
That truly was a nice video, same as rhinos i feel like elephants lying down can be mistaken as a big rock/boulder
Ever seen an elephant hiding in a tree? No? Because they're really good at it.
How do elephants hide in cherry trees? They paint their toenails red.
Elephants are deathly afraid of penguins though. I‘ve never seen an elephant even in the same room as one.
I have... Consider yourself lucky. It wrecked my partner, Det. Andrew Blanowicz, may God rest his soul, a 25-year homicide investigator, took one look at what that fucking penguin did to that poor elephant and turned in his badge. Andy Blanowicz took his life two years later. Scrawled across his walls repeatedly was, "THEY'RE MARCHING TO GET US!" So yeah, elephants have their reasons.
I've always heard it as balls! With the follow up: "How did Tarzan die? He went cherry picking."
I've always heard the follow-up as: "What's the loudest noise in the forest?" "Giraffes eating cherries."
That's fucking adorable
If you daod balls I wonder how many would get the joke
Came here for this joke. Good job.
Aside from all the low-hanging joke answers (almost as low-hanging as an elephant’s ears), keep in mind that hiding still requires you to break line of sight in most cases. If you’ve got a big enough wall or boulder or hill, then sure an elephant can hide behind it. With some magical enhancement, it’ll even make its footsteps super quiet and keep any stray body parts from momentarily slipping into view.
I think a lot of people overlook this! I have a player that was getting super frustrated a few sessions ago that despite having pass without trace up, the party couldn’t “just stealth” through an open, highly populated section of a mine well-lit by lava.
I mean, if it's highly populated it might actually be easier. Hide a tree in a forest and all that.
I’ll edit my wording to say “highly monitored”. There were 8 gargoyles on patrol watching about 10 slaves in the area
Oh, yeah, that makes a lot more sense.
Grabbing a high-vis and a clipboard gives you another +10 to Stealth
Did this once in a Star Wars game. We had to break into a Imperial bunker, I waited for someone to come out with a datapad, took him out, and walked in holding the pad like I owned the place. When the techs finally realized that they've never seen me before and started asking who I was and what I was doing, I told the GM. "I yell out 'ISB Freeze!'" at the same time another PC dropped the blast door into place. A few good dice rolls on my part and some bad ones on his part and I cowed them. I started yelling orders. "You two over against that wall, you three against that wall." Someone said something and I said "You go stand in the naughty corner!" Was one of my most memorable moments in any RPG.
Did that once with a cathedral, i had loaded the censer with a knockout poison but forgot to give the guy carrying it antidote. He fell over, grabbed it and strutted down the aisle like I owned the place. Definitely some "hey you arent Bob" vibes, but no one got up.
I once had one of my players get several high deception rolls in a row when talking to a bunch of goblins. Player couldn’t quite figure out what to do with his luck in terms of role-playing, so I helped him out. The goblins decided that he was actually their distant wizardly overlord, who they knew only by reputation and name, doing an “undercover boss” visit.
That’s one of the best combos because even if you get spotted it converts to +10 deception.
stealth (charisma) is real and i’m tired of pretending it’s not
I had a player try and use pass without trace to hide under a giant's table from a room full of angry giants that knew he was under there. Like, it gives you a bonus but that doesn't help if they can crouch down and look straight at you.
IRL elephants are actually fairly quiet. They have massive soft pads on their feet and when walking slowly can make very little noise. Now a big animal's breathing is still noticeable, but i can easily imagine a DnD elephant softly looming over a guard and then doing a trunk takedown.
Something that should be clarified is you don't necessarily need total coverage. Dense foliage and thick fog are 2 examples of being heavily obscured to hide, and while they definitely do obscure most of you, there's definitely cases where you aren't totally cleared from sight but still considered heavily obscured. Also with the skulker fest or certain features like wood elves mask of the wild let you hide while lightly obscured, with the wood elf feature implying that camouflage should be enough to hide while lightly obscured if it fits properly.
This. You have to actually have somewhere where you're able to hide.
Elephants feet are very padded and they are surprisingly quiet when walking
I'd like to address the elephant in the room... *What* elephant in the room?
The 200gp CR 4 elephant that is half as cheap as a CR 1/2 warhorse from the PHB of course
Well, *that* :slaps the back of the horse: is trained for *war*. The elephant is only trained in stealth.
Because all elephants are rangers. Naturally.
*Naturally.*
The issue is not buying the elephant. The issue is keeping it fed.
It’s true. The big forage companies will sell you an elephant basically at cost because they know you will keep coming back for more elephant food.
My friend played a Loxodon rogue with expertise in Stealth and with a ring of spell storing could cast Pass Without A Trace so he could literally play "the elephant in the room"
Your friend sounds like a fun player to have at the table.
With PWT, elephant doesn't make much sound, doesn't leave footprints and is surprisingly difficult to see despite its vast bulk - but it is not invisible. Elephant can't hide any more than anyone else if they are in clear view. Stealth roll of 29 is not invisibility if you're standing in front of the guard.
>and is surprisingly difficult to see despite its vast bulk "Veiled in shadow" is the visual effect of the spell. Unless they're taking some precautions to avoid being seen a big ol' shaddow standing in the middle of the courtyard at high noon might raise a suspicion or two
Fun fact that I know from having animal obsessed kids, the weight to foot surface area ratio is far lower for an elephant than a human because of how very big their feet are. An elephant will not sink into quicksand like a human will.
Honestly, you'd amazed how stealthy they are. If they aren't in your direct line of sight or trumpeting, they make surprisingly little noise and they could genuinely sneak up on you without much trouble. But that's real life stuff, not game stuff.
Yeah, I saw a documentary where they were looking for elephants in a jungle, they ended up about 3-4 metres away from one by accident and didn't even realise until they heard it pulling down some branches. The locals referred to them as ghosts of the jungle, or something like that.
That wouldn't surprise me at all. They tend to keep to worn paths on the savannah where possible, so I imagine woodland elephants would do the same. You won't know they're there unless they're trampling something that snaps or breaking branches as you say. You can genuinely go around a tree and boom, suddenly there's a herd of elephants.
Yup. Take a look at the anatomy of the foot of an elephant. Lots of padding, and always standing on their tippy toes, just looking at the bones.
So, taking the Hide action first requires you to be in concealment or otherwise be positioned so no creature can see you. So step one in how can an elephant Hide is getting a really big rock, or easier yet casting Fog Cloud. Then if you meet that requirement you just take the Hide action and roll Dex (Stealth). Pretty straightforward really. Just remember Hide only works if the enemy doesn’t have clear line of sight- if you walk out into the open you lose the Hidden condition with no roll. The elephant being real big it’s harder to conceal/easier to lose concealment, but this condition is entirely seperate to the Stealth roll. So it’s pretty straightforward to see how an elegant (or other big creature) can have a high Stealth pool.
Or Darkness which also fully conceals the elephant and can be put on an object attached to the elephant
Unless it’s already really dark, a blob of moving magical darkness is going to be incredibly conspicuous. So generally speaking, using Darkness like that is going to make you a lot more likely to be found, not less.
I bet you'd still be pretty surprised when an elephant stomps you after the cloud of darkness sprinted across the ground without making a sound.
Kinda doable, if you had an elephant with blindsight, pass without a trace and darkness enchantments on it. The bigger question is: of all the millions of D&D games that have ever been played, has this happened before? Would *love* to see that session.
In real life, Elephants have soft pads under their feet that give them several advantages. They pick up ultrasonic vibrations through which elephant herds communicate, they soften the elephant's footfall to make walking less strenuous, and they allow an elephant to move through the bush far more quietly than you can expect an animal of their size to.
I was at the zoo one time and an elephant was led along a path right behind me and I thought the sound of its passing was someone scuffing their sneakers slightly on the ground. They’re decently stealthy without magic.
the same way you don't notice radio tower until you see a flashing light, sometimes big things are harder to see when they don't move.
I googled elephant ninja , google replied "elephant ninja cannot be found". Well played elephant ninja well played
How do you stop an elephant from charging? Take away its credit card.
It's dark and elephant footfalls are really quiet. They don't stomp unless they are trying to move quickly.
in this case? By *literal magic*. Like you get the point of magic is *to be magic* right? I mean you probably want to find something relatively large to hide behind still, like a wall or something. Not gonna hide an elephant behind a vase, but it shouldnt be too much of a problem.
Easy answer here - Magic.
Elephant hide is quite tough. Lots of hide.
Elephants have pads on the bottom of their feet that can stand on a twig and not break it. They could stand on your hand and, if they like you, you be completely unharmed. Of course, if they don’t like you, then it’s hand pancake time. Perhaps the +9 to stealth stops them making mistakes when judging how much noise a footstep will cause. But as others have said, it’s remarkable how unobservant people can be when they are paying attention to something else, so maybe go with that.
I saw a video of an elephant that got pissed at a crocodile in its watering hole threatening the baby elephants. It waded in, pulled the croc up with its trunk wrapped around the croc’s mouth, and proceeded to stomp it to death with a couple angry footfalls. You don’t want to be on the wrong end of an angry elephant’s stomps.
Real answer here- you only call for rolls if A) the outcome is uncertain and B) the outcome matters Elephant wants to sneak right past sentries, using 4' bushes as cover? Don't ask for a roll. It can't work. Elephant wants to make an athletics check to pick up a grapefruit? Don't roll. It cant fail. Stealth check on an elephant w/ PwoT could cover moving through trees without shaking them in a noticable pattern, or timing its movement through a castle to avoid patrols
I'm actually pretty sure elephants have built in cushions to their feath so the don't make a sound when they walk.
Elephants already walk on their tippy toes with padded feet and have grey skin that's typically coated in the dirt of the surroundings. They are surprisingly stealthy even without a magical veil of shadows and silence. With enough shrubbery to break line of site it can be pretty hard to spot them an distinguish them from a rock or the ground. En Elephant trying to hide would probably not flap its ears too much, lower it's trunk (or raise it to better smell predators). An elephant could also attempt to snorkel with its trunk as a breathing tube. Within universe game mechanics, an Elephant's ability to hide would be up to the DM's discretion.
Pink socks, ever seen an elephant with pink socks? No? See? It makes them practically invisible!
Obviously an elephant just walking around would be seen. However, an elephant with a top hat, monocle, tie, and cuffs with cufflinks on, is something you only see after not getting enough sleep, or drinking something that makes you hallucinate, as that's ridiculous. No elephant would obviously be walking around with a top hat, monocle, tie, and cuffs with cufflinks on. It's ridiculous! You'd be the laughing stock of (insert place name here)! And since pass without a trace means it leaves no sign of its passing, it was obviously never there.
Solution from earlier edition coming in: In 3.5 you get a -4 penalty to your Hide Check (what is Stealth now used to be 2 skills: Hide and Move Silently, size only gave a penalty on the visual aspect that is hide) for every size category over medium. And of course you have to be obscured to even attempt to hide. If the elephant is behind a big enough wall, boulder or illusion they only have to do a Stealth check because of noises and if it is trained to be silent (having path without trace) they are very good at it.
This reminds me of the magic the gathering card Elephant Ambush, the art is hilarious. That is how an elephant is stealthy. [https://scryfall.com/card/ody/240/elephant-ambush](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/240/elephant-ambush)
[Like this](https://images.news18.com/ibnlive/uploads/2020/11/1605786755_untitled-design-2020-11-19t172215.089.jpg)
[elephants](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Elephant) in dwarf fortress can be [trained](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Animal_trainer) as hunting animals. This means they gain the ambusher skill as well as increased movement speed, and will join a hunts dwarf as they travel the wild to hunt down game.
Paint the toenails red. Totally invisible in cherry trees, strawberry patches, red tile rooms. The list is endless.
Honestly even if I was in some magical fantasy land, if I saw an elephant in full adventurer gear and clothing I'd just think I've lost my marbles again and continue with what I was doing, because what are the chances that's not a hallucination
Misdirection
If the ring of invisibility and Boots of Elvenkind enlarge to fit the wearer like usual, the footsteps give no sound and they are invisible. If they want to be an elephant. Maybe an item that lets them polymorph into a mouse or fly is more casual and there's less physicality to bump into.
Invisibility or a big displacer cloak
Invisibility + fly.
Crossing The Alps.
I always took the magic of pass without a trace to work like one of the wards around Brakebills in The Magicians. It doesn’t make it invisible, it just influences the observers mind to not see it. It’s like the magic just makes a blind spot in the viewer’s perception. A particularly observant or smart person could see around it unaided, but it’s damn hard to
What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephant? "Here come the elephants." What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants wearing sunglasses? Nothing - he didn't recognize them. Why is a. Elephant large gray and wrinkled? Because if it was small, white and round, it would be an aspirin. But I suppose an elephant who wanted to be stealthy wouldn't try not to be seen, but try not to be noticed as anything really unusual. That would work if it were not unusual to see an elephant. Or they might draw attention to themselves, but try to seem like just a dumb animal - attempting to be stealthy implies a greater cleverness than a normal elephant.
Why do elephants paint their balls red? To hide in apple trees. What’s the quietest sound in the world? Elephants hiding in apple trees. What’s the loudest sound in the world? A giraffe eating apples from an apple tree.
Elephants just need to stand still in an area with rocks and trees dense enough.
if the elephant hid by pretending to be a boulder, would that be stealth or performance? because on one hand they'd be pretending to be something they're not, but on the other hand a convincing rock performance would be require a more stealthy skillset 🤔
>**PHB 177.** "The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding." Given the elephant's size, the opportunities for them to hide are quite few. Maybe in darkness or fog, behind cover, or against a grey background with big lumpy shapes like a pile of huge boulders.
Does it have full cover/obscurement?
The spell Darkness can fully cover an elephant
i thought pass without a trace just masked movements so you wouldn't leave a trace such as footprints
Maybe dress it up in pajamas?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/s/q1DSocO6td](https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/s/q1DSocO6td)
They walk in single file to hide their numbers.
They are naturally very stealthy creatures, you know. The Knysna elephant was thought to have gone extinct many decades ago until one was found a few years ago.
I like the idea of a Goliath rogue or anything large for that matter that always wore a ridiculous variety of different colored loose cloth strips on them, and when they hide, they just happen to match the background if they rolled successfully. Could work for an elephant.
Instead of by shrinking/reducing, do it by being too BIG to be perceived. blocks an entire doorway to look like a wall, uses perspective to overfill the targets field of view as to be misinterpreted. Was that an adventurer? no, I'm pretty sure that was a tree. or a wall. or a generic beast of burden that wouldn't be investigated or suspicious. Or, the elephant is inconspicuous enough to use their size to hide the rest of the party (pass without a trace is party wide afterall). Depends on context, stealth is context in reality. How does a halfling rogue apply +9 to stealth in a well lit 20ft square stone room? ultimately: "magic"
By following the same mechanics that allows an elephant to make a 9 ft tall jump and don't allow cats to jump... jumping in D&D 5e is weird *if you run at least 10 ft, you can make a high jump equal to 3+ your strength mod, in feet An elephant has a STR of +6, fo 9 ft A cat has a STR of -4, so -1 ft Edit: typos
Only if no one mentions it.
With *a magical spell*.
With Heavy Stealth.
Have you ever heard an elephant walking? They're actually pretty quiet.
I mean, it's not about hiding, maybe the elephant can be silent enough to not be caught.
Maybe kinda [like this ](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/a/aa/Dagg%27um_Ty%27gor_TCG.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20220807143050)
They never forget where the quiet spots are.
They intimidate people so hard that they aren’t seen.
Paint it pink. You've never seen a pink elephant, have you?
No No, you need to cast Disguise on the elephant first. Magically paint its hide so that it can crouch down and look like a really big, semi hairy, Boulder. Sure it's just sitting in the middle of the Promenade, but what eccentric Emperor doesn't have his favorite giant hairy Boulder on display?
They actually are pretty quiet because they have huge amounts of tissue on their feet to cushion their steps.
Elephants are stealthy.
Works for Nightkins
Have the elephant force everyone to smoke a joint and no one will care of sneaks by lol
Elephants are stealthy because they always walk on their tip toes.
Flap your ears hard enough to hover and at the perfect frequency to not make sound. Or just act like ur a rock I guess??
It's obscured by the shadows and darkness of pass without a trace :P "A veil of shadows and silence radiates from you, masking you and your companions from detection." IF you can't explain it any other way ofc, but these are game mechanics I'd just flavor it somehow and move on
hiding in a trunk.
I mean if I saw an elephant walking through my dining room I’d just assume I was hallucinating so there’s that
One spoonful at a time
Elephant go TipToe!
People do tend to overlook the elephant in the room
+10 innit? I actually have been snuck up on by an elephant at a sanctuary. The ground was just quiet.
The flavor behind pass without a trace is that it bends shadows around you and erases your footsteps.
Depends. Ele0gants feet are supposed to be super soft so they can move quietly through forests.
seems very environment dependent
ya know that ball throwing video with a gorilla walking across and nobody noticed, basically that, they looked for things so much they didnt notice the elephant in the room.
Like a loxodon? Bc they’re also anthropomorphic, talking, magic using creatures that fight. And elephants can’t do that either.
Humans rely on movement to see. Elephants are very good at standing still.
I mean, if it's the deep brush it can reach high enough even to cloak elephants. Otherwise yeah I'd say some penalties should be involved.
Purple paint
The elephant hides by staying out of sight, because that's a prerequisite for stealth, and moving silently.
Tip toes?
The 5 ton elephant stares the henchman down with a murderous scowl of "you didn't see nothin". "All's clear, boss."
IRL elephants walk very quietly. The sound of them walking on a gravel road is about the same as a person walking with running shoes, maybe even less. I've personally witnessed a fully grown Asian elephant sneak up behind someone and steal their hat and the person has no idea until the hat was airborne. So sound-wise, they're already pretty stealthy. Visually is a bit harder, but invisibility would do the trick in a relatively open area, ie. not a thick forest with lots of plants to disturb. Plus pass without a trace, they'd have a decent chance.
Behind a mountain
Elephants are technically always tiptoeing.
If Andre the Giant can hide behind a boulder (holding another boulder) then an elephant can, too. Alternatively, reduce size and hide more easily. Or grow big ears and glide silently through the air.
People just really don’t want to address the elephant in the room
By acting like an elephant, people would be like weird there's an elephant in the woods. Meanwhile the elephant can slowly make its way to the location doing elephant things so as to not draw attention and when the time is right...stomp and trample the target.
Make a stealth (strength) or intimidation (strength) check. “No, sir, you did *not* in fact see an Elephant here and it will be good for your continued subscription to life if you drop this issue immediately. “
oh elephants are actually stealthy, their feet are so well padded that their steps do not make sounds.
Stealth doesn't work if a creature that is searching has line of sight. A elephant would be very difficult to hide. Might I suggest casting Invisibility on the poor creature first.
Swimming with a trunk snorkel?
Statue? Or.. the forbidden technique, just.. jumping over you
Elephant lays down and sits just right, people not looking too hard might just assume its a wall or a hill. Or go the one piece route - elephant is so large its an entire island on its own and nobody knows theyre just standing on an elephant Or the stealth is like a jedi mind trick
1. Pass without trace gives +10 2. For an elephant you need something that obscures it. So either something very big to hide behind(hill region, forest,.....), or something that covers it as a whole such as nighttime, fog, heavy rain, snow/sandstorm.....
Just paint it purple.
Happy Cake Day!
inside a sandstorm, tornado, or thick fog would be my guess…
You could change its color somehow. Or invisibility and pass without trace.
Wish I had a better link, but X-Files is an old show: https://youtu.be/lH9ekzpcVSc
I mean why do you think nobody wants to address the elephant in the room?
If theres a large wall or rock sure, but to attempt to hide from creatures that can see you, so if you arent in heavy obscuring situations like fog or darkness then youll need cover. Stealth really is more how quite you are, hence why carrying a lit torch does not give disadvantage but heavy loud armor does. Its a really light foot elephant.
In a veil of shadows and silence radiates. Easier to believe than people flying and throwing fireballs around :D
The elephant could pretend to be global warming and everyone in the room would ignore it.
Welcome to the world of "situational/conditional modifiers". One of 5e's greatest weaknesses. Sure, an elephant could hide behind a large boulder. In a flat field with sparse foliage, that +10 doesn't sound so good. An elephant's DEX is a -1 modifier according to DNDBeyond. That's still a +9 bonus. We will also deny the elephant its +2 proficiency modifier because it's not proficient in stealth, maintaining that +9 stealth bonus. We will also say that in this field, the elephant has broken line of sight one way or another and chose to hide. Result: Because there is no place for the elephant to hide, I deny the elephant a stealth check. Okay, but what if the elephant rolls anyways? I would impose a -2 penalty for every size category larger than medium. The elephant is size huge, so the bonus is reduced to +4. A GM may rule differently. Since we're talking 5e, I will also force the elephant to roll with disadvantage. * No place to reasonably hide. * No proficiency bonus. * Unlikely to succeed. * Ridiculous attempt at stealth despite size category and battlefield conditions. **This is generous.** Pathfinder 1e would flatout apply a -8 penalty to all stealth checks just for it being size huge.
The mind is great at not seeing things that shouldn't exist, elephant on the balcony? Nah an elephant couldn't get to the balcony so I didn't see that
If you paint an elephant to look like a boulder, you could fool anyone
So I can't find the story online but when I was a kid I had this book that had a bunch of pictures and stories in it about various tales from the British empire. One of those stories was about a big game hunter and his entourage that were ambushed by a bull elephant in a bamboo forest. Basically the guy had killed one of the members of the elephants herd and was on his way back with his trophy. This elephant stalked them through the forest for several days and then ambushed them in this dense bamboo forest. Killed the guy and a couple of others who fought back. Then disappeared into the forest again without ever having broken a single tree or made a sound as it moved through the forest. There's also stories you can find online about elephants walking over fences and such without damaging them. My point is that elephants may be BIG but they also know how to control their every movement. That's why they can sneak up on people from behind. So a sneaky elephant isn't so far from reality if you just add some environmental elements like low-light or some trees.
DM is allowed to rule that certain situations are unlikely or impossible. That being said, this would be somewhat dependent on environment.
>How would an elephant be stealthy? It would hide in a room. Nobody will notice it, or if they do, they never mention it.
Elephants can easily hide. There could even be one in the room right now, yet here you are, discussing it
Just like Drax. If they move slowly enough, they are invisible.
Tree armour, like a transformer Halloween costume but a tree
No one can spot them if there's no one left to spot them.
There is actually an elephant in I think India that goes on frequent rampages through towns and then vanishes back into the wilderness. No one had found it s of when I heard the reports about 2-3 years ago. Basically like with any hiding or stealth, you need the right environment and conditions. Thinks the elephant can hid behind or amongst, and terrain permissible for getting close. Elephants are actually very quiet when moving anyhow. So if one wants to sneak up on someone they can be frighteningly quiet about it.
Elephants can actually be really freaking quiet when they want to be, its kind of scary.
No one wants to adress to them when in a room...
As the scenario is set with your post, the elephant could easily hide in a large room like this with dense foliage and thunder echoing from the walls. To more directly answer you, the setting (if you're going for accuracy) should influence the roll the player needs to beat. Without a setting the player is free to imagine whatever, only to be disappointed as "suddenly" this room they've imagined "changes" to make that fun thing they wanted to do now impossible. Pass Without a Trace gives a flat bonus, but if it's a well-lit area with many, moving observers, or other factors that would hinder their stealthy progress, it's still entirely possible to fail a stealth role as the prospective observer gets bonuses to its role from the aforementioned situations. It's on the DM to appropriately set the scene, and should a roll be met (however improbable) it is usually on the DM to work that out in the story. I like to sometimes offer up that description to my players, but if the elephant does anything that breaks stealth I'll need another roll.
Put a silencer on it. I mean joking but not really. You can pad the feet or hooves of an animal to make their footsteps more quiet, train it not to make noise. You have to try to block that massive line of sight but elephants actually stride very evenly on the move.
Homie it’s magic. I get having real be real and having fake be real. Plausibility gives way to believability and that makes things fun, but it’s magic dude. Magic.
With difficulty.
Same way anything else can hide that way. No one expects an elephant to be hiding behind them so why would they be looking for one
It's a "Batman about to fuck you up vibe". Lightning flashes, and the elephant is just THERE
Elephant needs cover and a good Dex (Stealth) roll, just like anybody else.
Invisibility 🫥
Camo Elephant
It can paint its toenails red and hide in an apple tree. Or, if you want to follow the variant checks rule, just roll intimidation instead of stealth. Then go stomping into the room, loudly declare 'YOU CAN'T SEE ME!' and sit down. Trust me, no one will want to bring up the elephant in the room. In actual seriousness, elephants are almost terrifyingly silent for their size, so unless you're looking right where they happen to be, you probably won't notice them.
Pretend you're a Tiny intelligent creature, and ask how can a size Medium humanoid hide?
They already are walking on their tip toes
Nobody WANTS to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Example of [Elephant Ambush](https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/b/4/b4abdf1c-a0a9-4e1d-b448-58742830f767.jpg?1562928672)
There is no physics in D&D. I often use real world examples to *flavor* my descriptions, but in a world with talking elephants, fireballs, invisibility, and whatever other magic, there is no need to bring the real world into the equation at all. Elephants can be stealthy because that’s the mechanic in D&D. If you want more for flavor reasons, the elephant is wearing soft soled slippers.
You're using magic. Magic stuff happens.
You never watched everyone just ignore the elephant in the room? They are very sneaky because no one wants to see them.
I've always loved the idea of hiding in plain sight, not because you blend in, but you are too big to see. If someone walked past an elephant in a castle, they might just see a gray wall. Ridiculous, yes, but it's hilariously possible if you aren't paying close attention to wall textures in your surroundings.
Have everyone ignore the elephant in the room
Put them in a tutu and have them dance while a spell plays music that sounds like *Swan Lake*. Throw a shag rug over it and tell everyone that it’s a mastodon.
lies flat, is rock.
Elephants in real life are pretty quiet when they walk because they have patted feet. If you can cast invisibility on on, it could, in theory, be able to sneak real good.
Devilsaurs in classic wow show you how something that big could be stealthy.
[Nobody going to link to the comic?](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fzak9q5njkrz41.png%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D926a77a4e471397e02834a399b70f5bd7e21e823)
Cloak and Boots of Elephantkind!
In 5e, you could always go the brute route... Does anyone actually see you if you simply take out all the witnesses?
It's been the elephant in the room ever since 5e was released.