Blindsight

[wally]

An issue has arisen where an individual in our group believes that blindsight will not automatically see hidden creatures. The book specifies everything but hidden and this individual states that since the description doesn't specify hidden then blindsight can't see hidden.

I say that blindsight is seeing without eyes, so how could a spot check be made against a hidden creature. Blindsight pretty much states that you determine anything in the given area. That may be reading in to it.

I have looked in many books, and in the FAQs for the DM's guide, Monster Manual and Sword and Fist. I can't find any 'official' answer.

Can anyone help?

 

[gfunk]

Blindsight is rather poorly defined. The best "official" source that you will find is the Blindsight spell in MaoF. In it, it states that Blindsight makes "Listen and Spot checks irrelevant."

 

[Destil]

While that's the setiment that's been published in many post core rule books, it's problmatic at best, and IMHO hurts class balance too much. This allows anything with blindsight to completly trump a rogue reguardless of skill.

Per the DMG you can make a very good arguement that you can hide from blindsight, and that it's only supposted to defeat things like invisibility and darkness. It's still a sort of sight you can hude from, though much better than normal, dark and low-light vision in many ways. The problem with this is determining what sort of check to use to find somehting hiding, and I'd make it the better of the creature's spot or listen, myself. This makes blindsight a way to keep invisble mages from out-stealthing a rogue.

Entirely my opinion, though. The core rule books are ambigious and supplements go dirrectly against this interpertation.

 

[Christian]

The supplements may say that Blindsight makes Listen and Spot checks irrelevant, but this actually is in contradiction to the core rules ...

Blindsight (Ex): Bats can "see" by emitting high-frequency sounds, inaudible to most other creatures, that allow them to locate objects and creatures within 120 feet. A silence spell negates this and forces the bat to rely on its weak vision, which has a maximum range of 10 feet.
Skills: *Bats receive a +4 racial bonus to Spot and Listen checks. These bonuses are lost if Blindsight is negated.

(SRD, Monsters: Animals: Bat)

This is a very reasonable (sample) ruling, IMO. Blindsight won't prevent a character who has it from failing to notice a creature with only a small body area exposed from whatever it's hiding behind, who's holding very still and pretending to be part of the tree, etc. It will foil things like invisibility, darkness, fog, and also visually oriented concealment methods like dark clothing or camouflage. This last justifies a bonus to Spot checks for characters using Blindsight, but not that the Spot checks are automatically successful. (The Listen check for the bat is probably because the bat's ability is sonic in nature ...)

 

[Janos Antero]

Another consideration is that blindsight is radar, or another similiar sense, which means it would be blocked by object hiding.

I'd still allow Blindsight to reveal Shadowdancers, or anyone not hidden behind an object. But it should reveal pretty much most other things.

I don't think the rogue issue really applies though given how many other ways there are to already see someone hidden, or get around suprise sneak attacks. The list of creatures unable to be snuck attack is pretty substantial, plus items of fortification and the like too. It still leaves flanking as a viable option to sneak attack, as well as bluffing, and other means of suprising them that don't involve popping out and yelling Boo! then stabbing them in the kneecap.

 

[Gaiden]

The Dragon mag on Dragons (forget the issue - IDHMBWM) detailed dragon's blindsight in detail. I believe it said that if you were silent it would require a listen check to see you.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The list of creatures unable to be snuck attack is pretty substantial...

I'm just going to chime in irrelevantly to say that "snuck attack" has to be the ugliest English construction I've seen all day

-Hyp.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'm just going to chime in irrelevantly to say that "snuck attack" has to be the ugliest English construction I've seen all day

-Hyp.

It could have been snack attack....

 

[Janos Antero]

Hehe agreed, I sat there and stared at it for a few minutes trying to decide if it was correct or not, but couldn't come up with a better way to say it either.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'd have gone with "sneak attacked" myself.

But I can't stand the word "snuck", and use "sneaked" as the past tense anyway.

-Hyp.