D&D 5E Tremorsense and ranged attacks

Oofta · Jun 17, 2019

Rya.Reisender said:
Person without tremorsense shoots an arrow at person with tremorsense in a heavily obscured area within tremorsense range? Disadvantage or neutral?

Well, I only pay attention to the sage advice that's in the official document and I don't see a clarification there (and honestly I ignore/override some of those), so I'll give you my ruling.

So let's start with the definition: " tremorsense can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius, provided that the monster and the source of the vibrations are in contact with the same ground or substance."

Compare that to truesight: "out to a specific range, see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects"

So I would say the former let's you know the exact location so you don't have to guess where they are, the latter allows you to see them. If you don't have tremorsense you have to guess where something is which may mean that you fire that arrow in the wrong direction and have no chance to hit. So I would say that no, it doesn't change the fact that you are effectively blinded for purposes of advantage/disadvantage.

Bobble · Jun 17, 2019

Rya.Reisender said:
But as clarified by Sage Advice, with Tremorsense you can see everything that's connected to the ground, the hand is connected to the ground via the rest of the body, so you can detect that with tremorsense.

Then, since its original inception it has been changed to just another magical vision not a vibration detection like hearing or touch. At this point there is no reason to have it in the game. Might as well give all who have it True sight like ability.

ArwensDaughter · Jun 17, 2019

I have a player with a blind earth genasi fighter character. We gave her blindsight to 10’ and tremorsense to 100. The way we handle ranged attacks for her is that her AC is reduced by 2 for ranged attacks. The logic is that she knows the arrow is fired (tremorsense) but she has no sense of where it is from that point until it enters her blindsight range. So we felt advantage on the attack was a bit much, but that there should be some adjustment, thus the -2 to AC. (Alternatively, you could give +2 to the attack roll). For her character, I’d rule that fog makes no difference to her attacks. Sighted creatures attacking her would be at disadvantage due to fog, as is standard. But her AC would still take a hit if it a ranged attack.

I should note that attacks from non-grounded attackers are a whole different matter for her: they get the typical advantage on blinded targets.

jasper · Jun 17, 2019

So if one has tremorsense and the other does not in this situation, that means all attacks on the person with tremorsense are at disadvantage (unless the attack is flying) and all attack from the person with tremorsense are at advantage.

You answered your own question. 5E tries not to nitpick every combat situation. And I see nothing is Sage advice compendium on tremorsense

Rya.Reisender · Jun 18, 2019

Bobble said:
Then, since its original inception it has been changed to just another magical vision not a vibration detection like hearing or touch. At this point there is no reason to have it in the game. Might as well give all who have it True sight like ability.

There's a difference between those. Tremorsense can only detect things that are in contact with the same ground. A flying creature or someone standing on a floating platform or floating himself would be unseen for the person with tremorsense.

So if one has tremorsense and the other does not in this situation, that means all attacks on the person with tremorsense are at disadvantage (unless the attack is flying) and all attack from the person with tremorsense are at advantage.

Yes, I think that's how it is according to RAW.

I'm still contemplating about Spiritual Weapon. Going by RAW, then if the caster moves out of visions but the weapon is in sight, the attacks with the weapon are still at advantage because the attacker can't be seen. (The spell text makes it clear that the caster is making a melee spell attack and not the weapon itself.)

But I guess that's just how the rules are.

By the way, here is what I went for: I go mostly by RAW (see above), but will grant advantage for clever thinking once. So if someone uses an arrow or spiritual weapon to make it harder for the enemy with tremorsense to know where the attack is coming from, the first time I'm granting advantage (which is neutralized by disadvantage from not seeing the target), but if the same attack is repeating that advantage is no longer given.

Bobble · Jun 18, 2019

Rya.Reisender said:
There's a difference between those. Tremorsense can only detect things that are in contact with the same ground. A flying creature or someone standing on a floating platform or floating himself would be unseen for the person with tremorsense.

Yes, yes. And given that ~99% of encounters are with things that touch the ground my recommendation stands.

jaelis · Jun 18, 2019

I think people are reading more into the Sage Advice tweets than warranted. All I see is an answer from Mike Mearls:

Q: When a spell/ability says that a creature must see the target, does blindsight/tremorsense count as seeing?
A: yes

So first that is Mearls not Crawford, and second it is not directly about attacks.

The plain text of tremorsense says "A monster with tremorsense can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius, provided that the monster and the source of the vibrations are in contact with the same ground or substance." To me, that sounds like it knows your location but not that it can see you, so I would rule that it doesn't have any impact on advantage/disadvantage while fighting, even in melee. I'd say it just makes it hard to hide from a creature with tremorsense, and lets you detect creatures through walls and the like.

Of course DMs should rule as works best for their table. But I would argue against taking Mearl's tweet as a deciding factor. (Unless there is another tweet that I didn't find.)

aco175 · Jun 18, 2019

I keep coming back to how I would run a monster with tremmorsence and let the PC do the same thing. I would allow the monster to make attacks as normal unless the PC started levitating or such. The rule seems like it was made so that monsters were not penalized to use their attacks and could walk around in the dark.

Staffan · Jun 18, 2019

If you want a good illustration of Tremorsense in action, check out Toph in Avatar: The Last Airbender. She's blind, but can "see" things that are in contact with the ground (or at least the same surface she's on) via earthbending. There are some scenes where we see things via her... feet, I guess, and those are pretty cool.

Bobble · Jun 18, 2019

aco175 said:
The rule seems like it was made so that monsters were not penalized to use their attacks and could walk around in the dark.

"A monster with tremorsense can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius..."

A wall doesn't make vibrations. Neither does a hole. So, "walking around in the dark" could be very hazardous.