Hide in Plain Sight and Darkvision

[LokiDR]

Let's hope 3.5e fixes this. It's unreasonable.

It overpowers spells/items that grant blindsight. But there should be some way for magic to find a hiding rogue, besides discern location.

 

[Derren]

According to Dragon #100, Blindsight will be changed to Blindsense, which allows you to pinpoint invisible creature but doesn't negate the 100% concealment.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

It overpowers spells/items that grant blindsight. But there should be some way for magic to find a hiding rogue, besides discern location.

I sort of agree. But I hate things that absolutely work. So with a save or as a super spot buff I'm ok with other magic ways to find a hidden rogue. But a spell or ability that just goes pwang he's over there I wouldn't like.

 

[LokiDR]

I sort of agree. But I hate things that absolutely work. So with a save or as a super spot buff I'm ok with other magic ways to find a hidden rogue. But a spell or ability that just goes pwang he's over there I wouldn't like.

I agree, which is why I don't want blindsight in the hands of the players. But for the occasional NPC or creature to keep the PCs on their toes, it is good.

Why aren't there any decent ways to improve your spot score via magic, but there are half a dozen ways to stay hidden? A PC wizard less than 15th level should have some way to stop the spring attacking rogue from flaying him. Perhapse Arcane Sight, but that seems to be an imperfect solution as well.

 

[Sejs]

Ideally, I'd like some kind of Invisibility Purge- like spell that works on invisible, hidden, and etherial creatures but each target that would be affected gets a will save or something.


So you'd have a magic detection way to trump most forms of hiding, but it's not infalliable. I'd like to think that would be a good solution for both sides of the fence - they stand a chance to find the hiding guy, but likewise the hiding guy has a chance to resist it.

 

[LokiDR]

Ideally, I'd like some kind of Invisibility Purge- like spell that works on invisible, hidden, and etherial creatures but each target that would be affected gets a will save or something.


So you'd have a magic detection way to trump most forms of hiding, but it's not infalliable. I'd like to think that would be a good solution for both sides of the fence - they stand a chance to find the hiding guy, but likewise the hiding guy has a chance to resist it.

from Arcane Sight:

You know the number of auras within your sight, and the strength and location of each aura

If the NPC has any magical gear (near certainty at high levels) you will pick them out through cover (3 feet organic material, 1 foot stone, 1 inch common mettal).

This doesn't allow a save, and is really cheesy. But with out this kind of cheese, you can't find hiding characters at all. I do prefer a spell with some sort of save. Untill that spell is out, I will use Arcane Sight and other cheesy spells because I can't afford to ignore hiding characters.

 

[GrassyKnoll]

Yes Blindsight is very powerful, but it helps massively against creatures in a campaign that happens in set in dungeons for 90% of the time.

My original question was not specifically against Rogues in general, and I agree with some people saying that Hide is really easy to raise to huge scores, where Spot cannot, allowing Rogues to hide with ease, but good luck to them.

But the question seems to have been answered, that there are no specific rules mentions saying that Darkvision is fooled by HiPs. It seems to all depend on the DM ruling, deciding whether there is suitable cover for the HiPs PC to actually hide behind, but then that ruins the 'plain sight' part of the ability

 

[LokiDR]

A side question: if there is no light in the area, are you in shadow, at least in so far as HiPS is concerned?

I was in a dungen campaign where we didn't use light (we all had blindsight or darkvision) and so the shadowdancer stayed hidden most of the time. It got abbused some times, but so did most rules in that game.

 

[Sejs]

But the question seems to have been answered, that there are no specific rules mentions saying that Darkvision is fooled by HiPs. It seems to all depend on the DM ruling, deciding whether there is suitable cover for the HiPs PC to actually hide behind, but then that ruins the 'plain sight' part of the ability

Other way around - darkvision does not let you automatically see someone successfully hiding. Hide in Plain Sight is a supernatural ability that removes the 'cannot hide while being observed' and 'must have something to hide behind/under/etc' requirements for the successful use of the hide skill.


Darkvision is fooled by Hide/HiPS. If you had an ability that made you all black all over and you stood in a dark area.. Darkvision would see through that. If you had an ability that made you camoflaged with your surroundings by way of changing your color to match the color around you.. Darkvision would see through that. But Darkvision does not see through invisibility, mirror image, displacement, hiding, or hipsing.

 

[Sejs]

A side question: if there is no light in the area, are you in shadow, at least in so far as HiPS is concerned?

I was in a dungen campaign where we didn't use light (we all had blindsight or darkvision) and so the shadowdancer stayed hidden most of the time. It got abbused some times, but so did most rules in that game.?

Yep, indeed it is. The best defense against a shadowdancer is to turn on all the lights and move around alot. Failing that, a rope with a weight on the end works good. Just swing it around in a big circle and wait for it to snag on something that isn't there.