GrassyKnoll
First Post
ANywhere in the rules that states that you can HiPs within darkness and NOT be spotted by a darkvision enabled creeature? Thanks.
Hide in Plain Sight and Darkvision
- Thread starter GrassyKnoll
- Start date
There is no mention of dark vision defeating HiPS. Would kind of make hiding in shadows in general worthless. Since it doesnt say under darkvision in the DMG that they can, and it doesnt under the HiPS ability, I would not infer that you can. Could open a dangerous can of worms 
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
First of all, Darkvision has no effect on the Hide skill. There are no modifiers for Hiding vs. Darkvision. That is clearcut. (This is 3e. No longer do we talk about the Hide in Shadows skill.)
Second of all, HiPS is a supernatural ability that allows a person to use Hide where it would not normally be allowed -- in plain view, provided significant shadows are within the area. It is magical and it is pure speculation whether darkness relative to the viewer matters. Maybe the shadowdancer becomes partially shadow? Maybe that makes him invisible to darkvision? Who knows? A shadow is a shadow -- by the book, HiPS works if there is a shadow present.
By the core rules, Darkvision, Blindsight, and even True Seeing are irrelevant to Hide and HiPS.
Second of all, HiPS is a supernatural ability that allows a person to use Hide where it would not normally be allowed -- in plain view, provided significant shadows are within the area. It is magical and it is pure speculation whether darkness relative to the viewer matters. Maybe the shadowdancer becomes partially shadow? Maybe that makes him invisible to darkvision? Who knows? A shadow is a shadow -- by the book, HiPS works if there is a shadow present.
By the core rules, Darkvision, Blindsight, and even True Seeing are irrelevant to Hide and HiPS.
Sejs
First Post
Hide in Plain Sight is a magical extension of the Hide skill, similar if you like to think of it in these terms, to how Bardic Music is a magical extension of the Perform skill.
Both Hide and Hide in Plain Sight are uneffected by Darkvision. It's not that you're just standing where it's dark, you're activly making an effort to conceal yourself. If sucessful, you've concealed yourself and ambient lighting conditions don't matter (other than the shadow that HiPS requires).
However:
Darkvision, See Invisibility, and True Seeing are foiled by Hiding and HiPSing - primarily because there's a skill roll involved, from what I can tell. Instead of just automatically succeeding in being unseen as with Invisibility, you stand a chance of failure if you blow your skil check. HiPS adds the benefit of being able to hide without concealment or cover (as long as there's a shadow), but also adds the restriction of basically giving you a 10 foot 'tether' to the shadow you're hiding in.
Blindsight, Scent, and Tremorsense all defeat Hide and Hide in Plain Sight. Blindsight is a spatial awareness through whatever means and if the hide-ee is within it's radius, their presence is known if they are vulnerable to the method of the blindsight. If you're hidden or HiPSing and a bat uses it's echolocation, if you're able to have ultrasound bounce off you, you're spotted. Magical Silence will defeat this, but if it's an intelligent bat (like.. awakened or a lycanthrope or something) it'll notice something's wrong.. there's just a big sphere that gives back no reading. Scent - as long as you have some smell, scent can pick you out. Pass Without Trace can be of use in this reguard. Tremorsense picks up vibrations of things in contact with the ground - don't be in contact with the ground (ie floating, or standing/clinging on something) and you can get past tremorsense.
Both Hide and Hide in Plain Sight are uneffected by Darkvision. It's not that you're just standing where it's dark, you're activly making an effort to conceal yourself. If sucessful, you've concealed yourself and ambient lighting conditions don't matter (other than the shadow that HiPS requires).
However:
is partially true, and partially false~
Darkvision, See Invisibility, and True Seeing are foiled by Hiding and HiPSing - primarily because there's a skill roll involved, from what I can tell. Instead of just automatically succeeding in being unseen as with Invisibility, you stand a chance of failure if you blow your skil check. HiPS adds the benefit of being able to hide without concealment or cover (as long as there's a shadow), but also adds the restriction of basically giving you a 10 foot 'tether' to the shadow you're hiding in.
Blindsight, Scent, and Tremorsense all defeat Hide and Hide in Plain Sight. Blindsight is a spatial awareness through whatever means and if the hide-ee is within it's radius, their presence is known if they are vulnerable to the method of the blindsight. If you're hidden or HiPSing and a bat uses it's echolocation, if you're able to have ultrasound bounce off you, you're spotted. Magical Silence will defeat this, but if it's an intelligent bat (like.. awakened or a lycanthrope or something) it'll notice something's wrong.. there's just a big sphere that gives back no reading. Scent - as long as you have some smell, scent can pick you out. Pass Without Trace can be of use in this reguard. Tremorsense picks up vibrations of things in contact with the ground - don't be in contact with the ground (ie floating, or standing/clinging on something) and you can get past tremorsense.
Scent is not sufficient to pinpoint the creature, unless you are within 5' of the creature.Sejs said:
Blindsight, as written, works against any hiding creature unless they have 100% cover.
Noticing a field of silence while using a bat's blindsight is not sufficent to pinpoint the creature.
Tremorsense works if you are climbing on a wall, as you are as connected to the ground as much as standing on a stone on the ground. Not moving will stop tremorsense, so you should be safe hiding, but the creature will see you move into hiding.
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Ridley's Cohort
First Post
I must disagree. Blindsight does not help against hiding creatures by the core rules.
True Seeing does not defeat hiding, therefore hiding is not a form of invisibility. Therefore blindsight does not apply. I see no room for ambiguity on the matter.
Perhaps you are thinking of something in the splatbooks?
From the SRD:
The SRD is consistent with the DMG.
True Seeing does not defeat hiding, therefore hiding is not a form of invisibility. Therefore blindsight does not apply. I see no room for ambiguity on the matter.
Perhaps you are thinking of something in the splatbooks?
From the SRD:
The SRD is consistent with the DMG.
Sejs
First Post
LokiDR~
As for the Tremorsense thing - whoa, I had totally missed that 'shortest indirect route' note in the ability description. The 'actions are considdered movement' bit is a bit too open-ended for my taste. Casting a spell with somatic components is considdered movement, taking any physical action is considdered movement. How fine does the scale go? Shifting your weight? Readying a move? Kinda wish that was clairified more.
Ridley's Cohort~
True Seeing and Blindsight are not concurrent. True Seeing trumps pretty much any magical deception, but states it doesn't affect mundane hiding or mundane disguises. Blindsight on the other hand lists no exceptions for what you can and cannot sense within your blindsight range as long as they fit the sensing criteria. If it's echolocation and you're not in a field of silence or behind a sufficiently thick object (as echolocation/ultrasound can penetrate a good ammount of materials and thickness) the hider can be seen. Likewise with scent and odur, vibration and movement (again the scale problem.. how fine a vibration do you need to make?), hearing and noise, etc. Saying Blindsight doesn't see hiding because True Seeing doesn't is like saying diet coke has less sugar in it because dogs like bacon.
^_^
True, my bad - I should have been more speciffic. Yeah, scent lets you detect presence within range (usually 30'), but you have to be within 5' to pinpoint.
Also very true, but it would send feedback to the bat that would just seem wrong. Visially it would be like there's just a bubble where there isn't anything. The floor would just stop suddenly and you can't see anything past a certain point, unlike if there was a wall there (which would say hey, there's a wall) or open air (because you'd be able to sense things further along). Being able to interpret those as something wrong is really a function of intelligence. I agree that it wouldn't pinpoint a hidden creature in the silence at all, but it would tell you that something is not right.
As for the Tremorsense thing - whoa, I had totally missed that 'shortest indirect route' note in the ability description. The 'actions are considdered movement' bit is a bit too open-ended for my taste. Casting a spell with somatic components is considdered movement, taking any physical action is considdered movement. How fine does the scale go? Shifting your weight? Readying a move? Kinda wish that was clairified more.
Ridley's Cohort~
True Seeing and Blindsight are not concurrent. True Seeing trumps pretty much any magical deception, but states it doesn't affect mundane hiding or mundane disguises. Blindsight on the other hand lists no exceptions for what you can and cannot sense within your blindsight range as long as they fit the sensing criteria. If it's echolocation and you're not in a field of silence or behind a sufficiently thick object (as echolocation/ultrasound can penetrate a good ammount of materials and thickness) the hider can be seen. Likewise with scent and odur, vibration and movement (again the scale problem.. how fine a vibration do you need to make?), hearing and noise, etc. Saying Blindsight doesn't see hiding because True Seeing doesn't is like saying diet coke has less sugar in it because dogs like bacon.
^_^
Shard O'Glase
First Post
actally not by the core, unless the faq altered it. But by the description of blindsight they never mention hiding as something it auto spots. Invis and darkenss mean nothing, but someone hidden is still hidden. I'll have to check specific monsters some might give a version that lets you see anything(dragons for example)
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