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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Empirate" data-source="post: 6047794" data-attributes="member: 78958">This is true enough. However, it has no bearing whatsoever on a rules discussion. You wanna know how the mechanics of HiPS work at the table? Read the rules, apply them. You wanna know how HiPS works in the gaming world? Make something up, the (game) world is your canvas. Please don't mix the two, the result is never satisfactory IME.Bull. Sorry to be so direct, but what makes you undetectable when you use Stealth (without HiPS!) is not a lack of clanging a hammer  loudly on your shield, nor is it a lack of Darkvision on an enemy's part (with HiPS). What makes you undetectable is the simple fact that your Stealth check beat everybody else's Perception check. The HiPS ability modifies the conditions under which you can use Stealth at all. The darkvision ability modifies your enemy's conditions under which he can use Perception, and how well he can use it.Clanging a hammer might be an example of ex-post-explanation of why a Stealth check  failed really badly. Similarly, the enemy hearing your heartbeat might be an ex-post-explanation of his extremely high roll on Perception, coupled with a good skill mod. But don't turn the whole thing on its head.Then make something up to fit your bill while staying within the rules. It's not really difficult most of the time (ridiculous TO stuff like the Jumplomancer excepted, of course). But when you do it the other way round, you're not using D&D's ruleset anymore. You're making up houserules based on what you see fit. Which can be fine, but can also needlessly gimp players or playstyles, create imbalance where none existed before, or lead to more complicated adjudicatin down the road. Not that this is necessarily the case, just sayin'.You can read the ability whichever way you like. But there's a rules-y way to read it, and that one's pretty clear-cut where the actual game mechanics are concerned. Adding stuff based on fluff is coming up with houserules (and in this case, gimping a not-so-strong class further).I repeat, make something up. If you really like a PrC's mechanic but not its fluff, change the fluff and keep the PrC. If a game mechanic has no rhyme or reason, change the rhyme or reason, not the mechanic. Fluff is mutable in a magical world far removed from real-world physics, which moreover makes heavy use of literary and pop culture tropes, and also wants the players to feel like heroes.Nothing says it can. There's no rules for what you can't do when your dead, either. The one principle that all D&D rules are founded upon is that they must positively say what is possible. Everything not mentioned is impossible.That said, in the case of the HiPS ability I agree with you that an area of total darkness should suffice to use it.I have adressed the Ranger HiPS (Ex) ability upthread. The fact that it's called the same as the Shadowdancer ability is bad editing on the designers' part. The two abilities work very differently, with the Shadowdancer version making many stipulations that the Ranger version doesn't. As I said before, a Ranger still needs cover or concealment to hide behind - and if he tries to hide from a creature with darkvision in an area of dim light, he will auto-fail, which the Shadowdancer will not.</blockquote>

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