rings of blinking and rogues

[Arcturus_Rugend]

Ok, guys. I am now fully aware of this board's definition of "house rule", and I think I explained my rationale as to why and how I made the call on my use of the term earlier. I'm more than willing to participate in a conversation about logical and rational reasons why these feats should or should not work against a blinking opponent.

Maybe it was a bit stubborn of me to pursue an argument for an outcome with which I didn't necessarily agree, but I honestly think that I read the rules on the subject correctly, whether or not they were intended to operate that way.

In any case, I now know enough to not call it a "house rule" within the context of the boards when I say that the feats probably SHOULD work against a blinking opponent who can see an ethereal creature. That's the guideline that I would follow IMC.

And, to repeat, I am sorry if I offended someone in the process. The last thing I want to do is alienate fellow gamers on a board I thoroughly enjoy reading.

Oh, and Darklone: Arcturus Rugend is the name of a character I've had since far before Blizzard came out with the Starcraft series of games. I was actually disappointed to see the name used in such a high profile game when I had thought the name to be somewhat unique prior to the game's release. Blizzard does produce excellent games, though, as well as stellar art, as you might have recognized with my avatar.

 

[drnuncheon]

I was actually disappointed to see the name used in such a high profile game when I had thought the name to be somewhat unique prior to the game's release.

You mean aside from the star?

 

[Hypersmurf]

If someone says "That makes no sense, it should be like this," I have no qualms about pointing them elsewhere.

Here's an example

When you have "I think" and "should" in a sentence, followed by something not backed up by printed rules (in this case, that the "helpless" condition should have different effects depending on how the condition came about) - that tweaks my House Rules radar

-Hyp.

 

[Particle_Man]

another question

What if the blinking rogue throws a dagger at some bad guy? Does the rogue still roll a 20% miss chance? If so, and the rogue "misses", does the dagger stay ethereal? Does it "blink"? Does it become physical (but then would it need the 20% miss chance?).

I'm confused....

As for two "blinkers" attacking each other, does anyone know if all blinkers are meant to be "in sync", so that they would always be in the same plane? Or is it like car turn signals, which are all out of sync?

 

[Arcturus_Rugend]

Particle Man: I would say that a thrown dagger (or any missile weapon that leaves the rogues possession) would remain in whatever state it was in when it left the rogue's posession, just as someone who travels to another plane would leave a piece of equipment behind if they no longer had possession of it and plane shifted.

This will work nicely, because it maintains the 20% miss chance for the weapon, as the weapon in question won't affect a creature on the Prime if its ethereal (unless the weapon is in some way enchanted to do so). And if the weapon misses and the rogue (or whoever) is still blinking, he could still go retrieve the weapon from it's landing place on the ethereal.

As for interacting with other blinkers, the spell indicates that you interact with etheral creatures in the same way as material ones and it mentions that you blink back and forth between the material and ethereal at random, so I would say that you would both suffer a 50% miss chance to hit each other as at any given time there seems to be a 50% chance that you're both different planes.

Then there's the problem of who can see who, however. Any blinker who is on the etheral can see both ethereal and material blinkers, but vice versa is not necessarily true.

So if you have Blinker A and Blinker B and neither is using any type of magic that lets the other affect or see etheral targets, the breakdown would go like this:

25% A is material AND B is material - attacks function normally

25% A is material and B is ethereal - A cannot see or affect B, B can see but not affect A

25% A is ethereal AND B is ethereal - attacks function normally

25% A is ethereal and B is material - B cannot see or affect A, A can see but not affect B

So this seems to support the 50% miss chance.

When you involve magic that lets one or both blinkers see and affect ethereal targets, it would seem to become somewhat more complicated, but statistically it seems to follow the similar rules as described in the spell for when a material subject is targeting a blinker, but an additional condition would need to be added. The guidelines in this case would have to be slightly slightly modified to read "If you can strike ethereal targets when material AND material targets when ethereal, the miss chance would become 20% for half concealment." The same clause would have to be added for the second part of the spell concerning seeing AND striking ethereal targets.

If neither of these conditions are met, and I'm figuring correctly, the miss chance for appears to remain at a constant 50%. I don't know if that helps or made things more confusing, but here's helping it was the former.


(edited for spelling)

 

[Murrdox]

I agree with you there Arcturus - The 50% miss chance is all good.

Now, what about the 20% miss chance the attacker has to all his attacks? Should that still apply? Or are we in a situation where they don't stack, and you should just take the highest miss chance?

I'm thinking that they DO stack, and that you would have to roll two separate miss chances in this situation.

 

[AuraSeer]

Re: another question

What if the blinking rogue throws a dagger at some bad guy? Does the rogue still roll a 20% miss chance? If so, and the rogue "misses", does the dagger stay ethereal? Does it "blink"? Does it become physical (but then would it need the 20% miss chance?).

When an attacker is blinking, all attacks suffer the miss chance. Thrown weapons are not excepted. The rules don't specifically say what happens to objects that leave the blinker's possession.

[houserule]
If the weapon misses because of the miss chance (as opposed to a failed attack roll), that apparently means it was ethereal when thrown. I'd rule that the weapon stays in the Ethereal plane, at whatever location it happens to land. If the thrower doesn't pick it up before his blink spell runs out, it'd stay in the Ethereal plane until retrieved.

I label this as a house rule because it implies that blink is useful for carrying objects to and from the Ethereal plane. The only other spell that can easily do so is ethereal jaunt, which is four levels higher.
[/houserule]

 

[Arcturus_Rugend]

Murrdox: You bring up an interesting point.

The spell description implies that the attacker usually got this 20%miss chance as it was the result of him always being able to see his target, but not always being able to AFFECT his target, kind of like the reverse of half concealment where you can always affect your target, but not SEE them.

To me, this spell seems to contradict itself a bit, because there should always be a 50% miss chance for the blinker's attacks; if the blinker goes ethereal 50% of the time, why should only 20% of his attacks miss if an etheral opponent can't strike a material one? But this delves into house rules territory, if I'm not mistaken, so lets avoid that route.

Realistically, which is the way I tried to approach the problem, in the above case I'd say that you simply stick with the flat 50% miss chance for both blinkers as this takes into account both situations (i.e. you can see but not affect or you can affect but not see). But this kind of supports the "house rule" -ish feel of my above solution, so it comes with a caveat.

Since in the above example there are situations where you can neither affect nor see your opponent and there are situations where you can both see AND affect your opponent AND there are situations in between, it might make sense to stick to the mechanic of the spell text and apply a flat 20% miss chance to either attacker's rolls. This method seems to stick with the spell's precident of the advantage being with the blinker, not the non-blinker, and therefore this miss chance would apply to both blinkers.

Using your method of applying both miss chances (50% and 20%) actually provides LESS of a chance to hit than in a completely "real" situation, as the "real" chance would be exactly 50%, so I don't recommend that method.

Finding a method to track which plane each blinker is on at a given time (at the moment the attack is resolved, a 50% roll for each blinker) and then determining the miss chance, if any, from that situation might be a good RAW compromise, representing both reality and the spell's intent. It does tend to make dealing with the situation a bit more cumbersome, however, but it's likely a rare one to deal with anyway and if you don't mind dealing with the extra rolls, I think it's a good one.

 

[Murrdox]

A very good houseruling on items left in the etherial plane, Auraseer.

Here's another variant, only it wouldn't allow using Blink to store treasure, items or whatnot on the etherial plane.

Any object that leaves a Blinking character's possession continues to Blink as the character for 1 round or until the end of the spell duration, whichever is sooner. If a Blinking object is picked up by a creature on the material plane, it ceases blinking and becomes material. If a Blinking object is picked up by an etherial creature, it ceases Blinking and becomes etherial. A material creature has a 50% miss chance to pick up a Blinking item.

thoughts?

 

[Murrdox]

Murrdox: You bring up an interesting point.

To me, this spell seems to contradict itself a bit, because there should always be a 50% miss chance for the blinker's attacks; if the blinker goes ethereal 50% of the time, why should only 20% of his attacks miss if an etheral opponent can't strike a material one? But this delves into house rules territory, if I'm not mistaken, so lets avoid that route.

I agree with you here. I've always assumed that the reason the Blinker's attacks only fail 20% of the time is because the Blinker is more aware of what's going on in the material plane.

For people ATTACKING the blinking character, they see the character completely vanish, then reappear.

For the blinker attacking OTHERS, he doesn't see his target vanish, the target just becomes grey and indistinct, as per the description of what things look like on the etherial plane. He always has VIEW of his target, unlike those trying to attack him. Thus, he doesn't get a miss chance for not being able to see others... he just gets one because he needs to correctly time his strikes so that they land while he's material.

Using your method of applying both miss chances (50% and 20%) actually provides LESS of a chance to hit than in a completely "real" situation, as the "real" chance would be exactly 50%, so I don't recommend that method.

Finding a method to track which plane each blinker is on at a given time (at the moment the attack is resolved, a 50% roll for each blinker) and then determining the miss chance, if any, from that situation might be a good RAW compromise, representing both reality and the spell's intent. It does tend to make dealing with the situation a bit more cumbersome, however, but it's likely a rare one to deal with anyway and if you don't mind dealing with the extra rolls, I think it's a good one.

I think you're right on this one... going back on it. You shouldn't stack the 20% and the 50%... just go with the highest miss chance - 50%. I don't even think that ruling in this fashion breaks the "All the blinker's attacks suffer a 20% miss chance" rule, because technically you ARE still applying it... but it overlaps with the 50% miss chance he gets to hit the other blinker.