Hidden Step 5E | How to Use the Firbolg’s Strongest Tool

The Firbolg are a strong race of Fey giants who largely keep to themselves. While they are much stronger than a standard human, they are meek and prefer to just keep everyone alive when they can. This meekness expresses itself in the Firbolg’s natural Fey ability to keep invisible at most times. However, permanent Invisibility is much too strong for a player character to have access to. Thus, the Firbolg’s invisibility is bundled into a single racial ability with strong limitations. That doesn’t mean it’s weak, however. In our Hidden Step 5E guide, we will explain how you can use the Firbolg’s most unique tool and harness the Fey within them.

Hidden Step 5E Guide

The Firbolg are Strength and Wisdom-based Fey. They have multiple abilities, but the one we will be discussing is Hidden Step.

Hidden Step: As a bonus action, the Firbolg becomes invisible until the start of it’s next turn, or until it does any sort of aggressive action. This replenishes after any type of rest; short or long.

The Firbolg is almost exclusively using this in two ways; to hide with a Stealth check, or to get the jump on an opponent.

Using Stealth to Your Advantage

Since you’re Invisible, you have enough concealment and cover to perform a Stealth check. You’ll still need to be behind cover after the end of your next turn, since you blink back into existence at that point. However, this will let you attack, turn invisible, and get into cover without your opponents knowing where you went. Make sure you do your aggressive action first!

Your invisibility by itself might be enough to get you away from danger. For example, say your party is being chased by a bunch of angry villagers. They are dashing at your party every round. You decide to head back to town to see if you can find the relic that’s causing them to attack you, and just go invisible. Your party keeps sprinting away, leading the villagers on while you just slip by them. This is a pretty specific scenario, but it can come up surprisingly often. You get your turn right after the Invisibility is let up, meaning you can move, Dash, or do anything else you need to.

An important thing to consider when using this ability to evade is that it works as a free disengage. After all, you cannot make attacks of opportunity against an invisible opponent unless you can see them.

Get the Drop On an Enemy

The other way to use this is to perform an attack from invisibility. If you attack with an attack roll from invisibility, and your opponent has no other way to see you, you get Advantage to the attack roll. So, you can use your bonus action to turn invisible, move to a specific point on the battlefield, and use a high-level spell or throw a huge attack out. This aggressive use of Hidden Step is essentially just a bonus action to gain advantage on an attack roll which… isn’t stellar, but it’s far from bad. Use it to guarantee that a boss dies by the end of your turn.

The invisibility is otherwise too limited to let you do anything else. You only get the round that you activate the Bonus Action and the turns until your next. This is great to avoid specific situations, but it’s way, way too short to do any scouting or otherwise. You’re either using this to start a defensive maneuver, or to do a single aggressive attack.

Wrapping Up Our Hidden Step 5E Guide

For many people, Hidden Step is the primary reason they choose this racial option. There are so many things you can do with it on a tactical level, which lends itself to creativity. We hope this helps you play a Firbolg! If you’re still building one, check out our Firbolg race guide.