Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jlhorner1974" data-source="post: 782668" data-attributes="member: 8628">I would say that observing the size of the circle and being able to locate the center point would help you determine which square to aim into, but it should not be allowed to reduce the miss chance due to concealment.I know what you mean -- if the darkness is a 20' radius, you should be able to locate exactly where it's center point is, which is presumably inside of the creature it is affecting.   However, is darkness is cast on an item, the item could be carried in either hand, fastened to your leg.  This method of pinpointing the creature holding it is inaccurate and unreliable, at best.Also, said creature could duck down or even get on hands and knees and crawl around so arrows aimed at his torso go over his head.  You may see the darkness sphere sink into the ground a bit, but now you cannot even see half of the sphere so it is even harder to judge where to aim by visually estimating where the center of the sphere is.  After all, you don't have to tell your DM where you are aiming on the z-axis (up and down) within the 5' square, just which square you are aiming at.  It is a pain to try to figure out exactly where within the 5' square the target is.  The 50% miss chance reflects an average probability of hitting the target when they have total concealment.Besides, it is assumed that all characters are constantly moving and making minor adjustments that do not change its position -- for example, dodging to the left 6 inches to avoid a spear thrust , ducking to avoid an arrow -- this does not count as movement in the D&D sense.  But even more than that, you are trying to implement something that basically pinpoints the location of a creature within a square, and I say that the whole ruleset was not designed for this.  After all, in terms of targeting things, the smallest unit in the game is one 5' x 5' square.With that in mind, I would say that the small movement of the sphere of darkness is noticable, but that it is not enough to improve your targeting to be able to aim more accurately without being able to see the target, due to the constant tiny movements made by the target.  Due to the abstract nature of AC, even a movement of a half inch could make the difference between an arrow hitting a vital area, hitting a reinforced area of the armor, or missing completely..Anyway, the rules are pretty clear.  You pick a square and there's a 50% miss chance due to concealment.   If you let characters reduce the miss chance just because of trying to pinpoint/triangulate the center of the area, darkness becomes weeaker and it makes feats, class abilities, and weapon enhamncements that reduce miss chance due to concealment much less powerful.</blockquote>

Verification