[RPG] In combat, does a hidden character lose half their speed

combatdnd-5emovementstealth

Last session, my bard polymorphed a fellow party member into a T-Rex to fight another T-Rex. As concentration had to be kept, I made my bard take the hide action, which succeeded. My bard had no condition on them except that they were hidden in this stony environment (it wasn't difficult terrain). This being done, my bard had to move to heal a downed character.

The DM ruled that my bard, to maintain their hidden status, had to move at half the usual speed. I couldn't find any rule stating this movement restriction. Is there any RAW basis for this?

Best Answer

A hidden character may move at full speed in combat.

The idea of “slower speed stealth” comes from the rules for “Travel Pace”:

A fast pace makes characters less perceptive, while a slow pace makes it possible to sneak around and to search an area more carefully

[…]

Stealth

While traveling at a slow pace, the characters can move stealthily. As long as they’re not in the open, they can try to surprise or sneak by other creatures they encounter.

However, we see in the Sage Advice Compendium:

Does travel pace apply to movement in combat, or just when traveling?

The travel pace rule doesn’t apply in combat.

So the travel rules that mention moving slower during stealth do not apply, and since there is no rule for combat about stealth hindering movement speed, your movement speed is not hindered while stealthing during combat.