I don’t understand why Larian Studios punishes players who invest into stealth. Imagine this at your DND 5e table.

Player: I move here and hide.
DM: Roll a stealth check.
Player: 18.
DM: You feel really confident in your ability to avoid detection. A bugbear runs up to where he heard the noises of battle come from. He rolls a perception check and fails to detect you. He spins around. Roll stealth.
Player: 19.
DM: You’re still hidden so he spins around. Roll stealth.
Player: Okay……22.
DM: Yup still hidden, so he uses the sense hidden ability….every enemy on the entire battlefield knows your exact location now.

This is how Baldur's Gate 3 handles stealth. It doesn’t even show sense hidden on the combat log.

I’ve also experienced passing every check just to lose the hidden condition without any explanation at all.

No tabletop experience here, only CRPGs. I think ranged stealth is powerful in BG3 with the caveat being that you are gonna miss a lot of dialogue if you open combat any time you can with a stealth attack. Melee stealth here sucks bad unless you have a way to go invisible at will or easily multiple times per fight (Dark Urge cape that anyone can equip is massively OP).

Thrown weapons also can't use DEX, so you're basically forced to play a ranged sneak attacker.

On the bright side if a DM lets you hide in front of a bugbear who is looking directly at you without even disadvantage then you're getting away with murder. Normally if BG3 makes you take a stealth check it's in a situation a DM would have you auto fail.

The instances I'm referring to are ones where the target creature HAS NEVER even seen the PC, or the PC has ran to an adjacent area with cover. I've even been caught stealing with Greater invisibility and the Hidden condition.

The reason for it has to do with the fact sound and sight are different in BG3 then it is in tabletop. When you cast a spell of invisibility, you are not invisible because the enemy can not see you, you are invisible because you are unable to be detected by senses outside of magical ones- tabletop. Now Larian fear this like the plague, so they interpreted them different. Invisibility is protection from sight, not from being heard. Sneaking is protection from neither, as you break los.

Do I think such changes make sense? NO. There is no reason why every enemy would be able to attempt detect you multiple times without a penalized check- if i already cant see anyone, I am in a state of ignorance, rolling a check for hearing should be a -2, and then another check at -4, then -6, and then -8. Instead enemies make each and every check at normal, so you can hide, but get instant caught by their 2nd, third or forth check

Nope, that's NOT how tabletop works at all. Invisibility in tabletop... you can't be seen. Period. You can still be heard and still be attacked (albeit at disadvantage). Successfully hiding while invisible makes you undetected.

Its invisible to detection by senses. "Creatures which use other senses to “see”, like blindsight or truesight, are unaffected by invisibility". Spells like echolocation and true sight are abilities that improve our ability to detect by magic. Its why your able to use invisibility to fly/ walk up to enemies without being caught. Albeit its not stated explicitly in the rules, one of the reason a lot of DM's are inconsistent with it from table to table

Were you in "hiding" state when you stole stuff?

I find that steel watchers immediately turn around when I don't crouch when steal stuff even when invisible, but otherwise don't react when I'm invis.

Hopefully this is formatted right (on mobile).

I got into a fight with some Flaming Fist folks. The bodies were highlighting red, and I didn’t want to “steal”. So I broke line of sight with all NPCs, cast greater invisibility on myself, hid, then stealth walked back to the bodies by myself, and the moment I touched the body I got stopped by a new flaming fist accusing me of theft.

The only part that annoys me is that I can't use detect hidden presence(at least to my knowledge)