Is Truesight gone?

[the Jester]

The Rules Compendium seems to only reference truesight in the index, and it says "See blindsight".

Is truesight gone? If not, what is the real difference between it and blindsight?

 

[the Jester]

I'm guessing that there's no official word on it then...

 

[malraux]

Well, the difference is that truesight needs line of sight, while blindsight needs line of effect.

Both are still in the compendium FWIW.

 

[the Jester]

Well, the difference is that truesight needs line of sight, while blindsight needs line of effect.

Aha! Now I see the need for both!

Thanks, what a big difference a little difference can make!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

LOL. From a practical standpoint truesight was always rather poorly defined. The MM1 version simply stated that the creature could see invisible creatures in its LoS. Blindsight is different, and has actually changed a decent amount between MM1 and RC, though the end result is usually about the same. I think it is rather odd the way RC claims that truesight is the same as blindsight. They really don't do the same thing. The real problem with truesight is the definition was always rather ambiguous. You can see invisible creatures within range and LoS but it doesn't really clarify how this works, does it require light? IE is it a totally separate sense or is it just a quality of the creature's existing vision?

 

[malraux]

LOL. From a practical standpoint truesight was always rather poorly defined. The MM1 version simply stated that the creature could see invisible creatures in its LoS. Blindsight is different, and has actually changed a decent amount between MM1 and RC, though the end result is usually about the same. I think it is rather odd the way RC claims that truesight is the same as blindsight. They really don't do the same thing. The real problem with truesight is the definition was always rather ambiguous. You can see invisible creatures within range and LoS but it doesn't really clarify how this works, does it require light? IE is it a totally separate sense or is it just a quality of the creature's existing vision?

If there's no light, aren't all creatures invisible and thus seeable by truesight?

 

[abyssaldeath]

If there is no light then you don't have line of sight, so no.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, there you guys have just encapsulated pretty much the whole debate on truesight.

Personally I'd say it requires light, but darkness TECHNICALLY does NOT block LoS. It obscures the target but doesn't block LoS or else you wouldn't be able to see from an area of darkness to an area of light. This is an area that got several errata pretty early on and frankly the game doesn't really clearly state what sorts of things only obscure someone in their square and which ones actually block LoS.

So, given that darkness doesn't block LoS one can easily argue that truesight works in the dark perfectly well.