foiling blindsight?

[hong]

I am under the idea that Hide/Move Silently should still assist in that department. It isn't that hard to imagine that a Rogue with 15 ranks in Hide/Move Silently would be able to use that ability to prevent other mechanisms of detection.

The MM2 clarifies this a bit:

"Blindsight (Ex): Using nonvisual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, scent, acute hearing, or echolocation, the creature maneuvers and fights normally without vision. ... The creature usually does not need to make Spot or Listen checks to notice creatures within range of its blindsight ability." -- MM2 p.15

Naturally, whether the MM2 is taken as canon is up to individual DMs.

 

[hong]

Oh come on, SOMEONE has to mention Dune.

The sandworms? Sensed vibrations? Fremen walking in broken rhythms to keep from attracting them?

That would be tremorsense, not blindsight.

 

[Caliban]

Being Incorporeal will completely negate any form of Blindsight (but not Detect Invisible or True Seeing).

Specific forms of Blindsight may have specific ways of being negated. The blindsight spell uses "vibrations", which is one of the harder things to mask. I thing that casting fly and silence on somone would effectively mask all their vibrations, but you will want to check with your DM.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Tremorsense to me is different than vibrational Blindsight, in the same way that Scent is different from smell-based Blindsight.
If it's just used to know whether you're there at all, it's Tremorsense or Scent.
If it's good enough to specifically locate you well enough to make attacks with the sort of accuracy normally reserved for vision, it's Blindsight.

 

[Caliban]

Tremorsense to me is different than vibrational Blindsight, in the same way that Scent is different from smell-based Blindsight.
If it's just used to know whether you're there at all, it's Tremorsense or Scent.
If it's good enough to specifically locate you well enough to make attacks with the sort of accuracy normally reserved for vision, it's Blindsight.

Both Tremorsense and Scent can pinpoint someone closely enough to negate the miss chance for attacking an invisible opponent.

With Scent, you have to be within 5'.
With Tremorsense, both you and the target have to be in contact with the ground. Tremorsense is a more limited version of blindsight, but still negates blindness/invisibility if the conditions are met.

 

[hong]

Tremorsense to me is different than vibrational Blindsight, in the same way that Scent is different from smell-based Blindsight.
If it's just used to know whether you're there at all, it's Tremorsense or Scent.

Um, that's what the worm has, then. If it was blindsight, then no amount of fancy footwork by the fremen would foil it.

If it's good enough to specifically locate you well enough to make attacks with the sort of accuracy normally reserved for vision, it's Blindsight.

The reason the sandworm doesn't need to roll a miss chance (to the extent this is a sensible statement) is not because it knows where in the 5-foot square its target is. The reason is because it's so frickin' BIG it can ignore the miss chance altogether (as per the description of invisibility in the DMG). When your maw is 10 feet across, it doesn't really matter where exactly the target is.

 

[hong]

Both Tremorsense and Scent can pinpoint someone closely enough to negate the miss chance for attacking an invisible opponent.

With Scent, you have to be within 5'.

?? I don't see anything to suggest that in the scent description.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Um, that's what the worm has, then. If it was blindsight, then no amount of fancy footwork by the fremen would foil it.

The way I read it, it wasn't that the worm wouldn't detect them, it was that the worm simply didn't recognize the pattern as being something a living being would make.
That's more a function of intelligence/wisdom than a limitation on the sense. It's like using Disguise, or building a duck blind; it's not that you become invisible, it's that you blend in to the natural surroundings. So, the Fremen were using a variant of Disguise to blend in to the natural sounds of a shifting desert.

But, the point about having a BIG FRICKIN MOUTH is well taken.

 

[Sejs]

Etheralness does the trick pretty well. Blink, Eth Jaunt, Etheralness, or go down to Avis and rent a Phase Spider.

*nod*


Edit: Oh yeah, uh, dispell magic should work also, seeing as how they're using the spell version.

 

[Sejs]

Hong: scent lets you detect the presence of someone in your range, but to pinpoint their exact location (they're in -that- hex!) you have to be within 5 feet of them. Assuming they're using only scent to detect someone, that is.