Hitting something you can't see

[Aspeon]

(For the benefit of my players that might not recognize this alias: Thursday Cairn of the Winter King game, now go away.)




A hypothetical situation anticipating things that might happen next week:

The party's about to come across a room with a bunch of (Monster Vault) Mad Wraiths, which have an aura 3 that auto-damages and slides anything that ends its turn in the aura. I expect that our Ossassin stealth monkey is going to scout ahead while hidden via a power that gives him concealment. If he enters the aura and takes damage, do the wraiths know they're damaging him? If so, do they know where he is and can slide him around?

The RC's sidebar on Targeting What You Can't See (pg 220) says "If the attacker picks the wrong square [for a melee/ranged attack], the attack automatically misses, but only the DM knows whether the attacker guessed wrong or simply rolled too low to hit," which implies if you attack something and hit it, you know you hit it. But it's not really clear if you know what square it's in if you hit with an area/close attack, or if you wind up targeting something you weren't aware of existed in the first place.

The most fun interpretation for my particular scenario is to say he takes the damage but the wraiths aren't aware of him (or maybe make some more Stealth checks with big enough penalties that he might fail). But it'd be interesting to see if there's a "best" answer.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Taking damage from an aura is nothing like being hit, so no, they shouldn't know where he is. As far as sliding, you, as the DM can always slide him, if you like. The Wraths don't need to 'know' about it, but you may be able to slide him out of cover/concealment and blow his stealth.

You could also rule that the aura doesn't aply until they're in combat. While it probably doesn't give a specific on/off, if they're not active in combat, thay may not be trying to use it, or trying to use it to slide anyone.

I suppose the Mad Wraiths' aura has to do with their insane wailing and babbling. You get close enough, and it starts to mess with you. So, you could picture it as the character is hiding, the wraiths move to w/in 3, and he starts moaning, covering his ears and staggering about.

BTW, you should warn him about the aura as he or they get close. "You can hear the ghostly figures, babbling in a strange, compelling way... you can't hear it well, yet, and you get the distinct feeling you don't want to hear anymore of it: it's an aura 3"

 

[WalterKovacs]

Since the aura is basically whispers that are always on, they would damage the assassin, but not know about his presence. As for the sliding, basically decide before hand what the wraiths use it for in "default" mode. Probably either they are warding an area (in which case their 'whispers' are trying to drive people away, and so would basically push the assassin away). If they are instead hunting, they would be luring people towards them with their whispers, in which case they would pull the assassin towards them. If they are just trying to drive people mad, maybe roll a d8 to determine the direction of the slide randomly.

Even without making it hard for the assassin to hide, he's still going to be taking damage he can't really do anything about, and he can't deal damage himself without revealing himself. The wraiths have pretty bad perception, so likely they would just continue to damage the assassin unknowingly until he made himself known.

 

[chitzk0i]

a) Describe the aura before the PC is in it. He won't know the exact details til he's in it, but he should know about it before that. (See DMG p.26)

b) Unless the wraiths are using stealth to hide, the assassin will be aware of their presence long before he's in the aura. If he can see them, he should be able to attempt a knowledge check to identify them. For shadow undead, this could be arcana or religion.

c) Remember that he needs superior cover or total concealment to become hidden; while in shade form, he can use partial cover, partial concealment, or cover from allies to hide. Most encounter areas I've seen don't have enough stuff in the way for someone to reconnoiter effectively. But if he's picked up shadow walk or something, then yeah, he's practically invisible.

 

[Aspeon]

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

c) Remember that he needs superior cover or total concealment to become hidden; while in shade form, he can use partial cover, partial concealment, or cover from allies to hide. Most encounter areas I've seen don't have enough stuff in the way for someone to reconnoiter effectively. But if he's picked up shadow walk or something, then yeah, he's practically invisible.

Oh, interesting. I was under the impression that Shade Form gave him concealment, which it doesn't. I should ask him how he plans on keeping up concealment/cover, then- if it is Shadow Walk, he's moving >2 squares a round and needs to make Stealth checks at -5. (And if he's just using darkness, he'll find out the hard way that they have darkvision. )