rings of blinking and rogues

[drnuncheon]

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.

Presumably you know when you are material, so you can line yourself up, wait until you are material, and then launch your attack. That would imply a greater chance to actually connect than you would get with a 50% miss chance.

J

 

[Arcturus_Rugend]

Presumably you know when you are material, so you can line yourself up, wait until you are material, and then launch your attack. That would imply a greater chance to actually connect than you would get with a 50% miss chance.

I agree with your logic, but if this was completely the case, I don't see why there would be ANY miss chance, as the blinker could time his attacks to not occur when he was ethereal. If the chance to miss is simply reduced because the blinker can only SOMEWHAT anticipate his blinking, then the 20% miss chance seems kind of arbitrary, so I think the designers just selected the half-concealment penalty to impose some kind of drawback for balance reasons.

Murrdox: I like your version of the house rule as you wrote it as it addresses the potential for abuse that AuraSeer brought up. I'm assuming when you say "blinks as the character" you mean in phase or at the same time as the character, as that seems to make sense.

 

[drnuncheon]

I agree with your logic, but if this was completely the case, I don't see why there would be ANY miss chance, as the blinker could time his attacks to not occur when he was ethereal.

Sure. And the fighter could time his attacks so that his sword always hit his opponent.

The blinker could mistime, he could turn material for a shorter time than he thought (I don't think it's material for 1 second, ethereal for 1 second in a rigid progression), he could accidentally 'jump the gun' and go too early...plenty of ways to screw up.

J

 

[AuraSeer]

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?

There's a 50% miss chance for people attacking the blinker. When he's ethereal, they can neither see him nor touch him; that makes it hard to track his location, and hard to connect with a swing.

But the blinker can always see material creatures, even when he's ethereal, so he has less trouble. His weapon may still "phase through" a target-- represented by the remaining miss chance-- but he can track his targets just fine. (Note that if a blinker fights someone who can see but not strike ethereal creatures, they're on even footing. Each has the same 20% miss chance.)

[houserule]
According to the SRD, ethereal creatures can only see on the Material plane within a 60' radius. If a blinker tries to attack a material creature further away than that, I'd probably apply the full 50% miss chance, since he can neither see nor touch them when he's blinked out. Nothing in the book specifically says this, though.
[/houserule]

 

[Arcturus_Rugend]

AuraSeer& drnuncheon: The problem I have is that the RAW equates not being able to see your opponent but being able to strike him with being able to see your opponent but not strike him. The two are clearly not the same. Being able to strike someone whether or not you can see them (as is the case with someone attacking an effectively invisible opponent) provides a chance for you to swing and connect by accident, but being able to see someone and not able to strike them (as is the case for the blinker who goes ethereal before his attack) will never allow you to hit them.

I can understand everyone's inclusion of adding timing into the argument, but whether or not this should affect the combat mix with respect to blinking is clearly subjective, as the rules give no clear reason as to how often the blinker phases in and out or how much control over the timing of the phase he has. That is why the 20% miss chance rule on the part of the attacking blinker seems rather arbitrary, as no explanation of why or how it works is given.

 

[AuraSeer]

I can understand everyone's inclusion of adding timing into the argument, but whether or not this should affect the combat mix with respect to blinking is clearly subjective, as the rules give no clear reason as to how often the blinker phases in and out or how much control over the timing of the phase he has. That is why the 20% miss chance rule on the part of the attacking blinker seems rather arbitrary, as no explanation of why or how it works is given.

It's not subjective; it's perfectly well-defined. Blinking happens exactly often enough that, even if an attacker knows where the blinker is (i.e. can see invisible), exactly 20% of his attacks will fail to connect.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the blinker spends 20% of his time on the Ethereal plane. It doesn't actually imply anything about when, how often, or in what manner he switches back and forth. No matter how you want to explain those things in your campaign, the upshot is that the blinker gets a 20% miss chance.

If the attacker cannot see invisible, the blinker's partial invisibility makes him even harder to hit, to the extent that he has a 50% miss chance. He might fade between states, or have a nifty Star Trek transporter effect, or just instantaneously flick in and out; it simply does not matter. 50% miss chance, end of story.

You may as well argue about why a fighter has d10 hit points per level, or why the spell list includes fireball instead of iceball. Sure it's arbitrary, but when you get right down to it, all game rules are arbitrary. My advice is not to think too hard and just play the game.

 

[Arcturus_Rugend]

AuraSeer: I'm not sure of the argument in your last post. If you agree that the rules in this case were arbitrary and are defining the way the spell works simply by assigning them a specific miss chance, rather than explaining them, I think we are saying the same thing. I am saying that the WAY in which they work (not just "they work because the number says 20%") was unclear. I like to have the rationale behind things be a little more clear than they were in this case, so that other rules that relate to them can more easily be adjucated when situations such as two blinking subjects attacking each other arise.

 

[Darklone]

Now this starts to be interesting at page 3 again ...

Arcturus: Just a little joke about that name, no offense intended I have my own burden about namejokes to carry, so feel free to add to the fray...

Rulesquestion: How do you check if a blinking guy manages to walk through a wall, e.g. while running? He simply manages to go through, has a miss chance or what?

SRD: While blinking, the character can step through (but not see through) solid objects. For each 5 feet of solid material the character walks through, there's a 50% chance that the character becomes material (see below). The character can move only at three-quarters speed.

Reason: Player asks if he can go through thicker walls if he runs at higher speed before blinking out... Or would you interpret the SRD as that he's moving through kinda jelly while in the wall?

 

[AuraSeer]

I am saying that the WAY in which they work (not just "they work because the number says 20%") was unclear.

Yeah, that bit is unclear, but only because it doesn't matter. It's magic! You can explain things however you want, as long as the game effect is the same.

I could invent a pseudo-scientific explanation, but it might not fit the "laws of nature" in your campaign world. If you come up with your own, it might not make sense in my cosmology. Since the game effect is identical, it's not worth worrying about what the "right" explanation is, if there even is one.

 

[Murrdox]

Now this starts to be interesting at page 3 again ...

Arcturus: Just a little joke about that name, no offense intended I have my own burden about namejokes to carry, so feel free to add to the fray...

Rulesquestion: How do you check if a blinking guy manages to walk through a wall, e.g. while running? He simply manages to go through, has a miss chance or what?



Reason: Player asks if he can go through thicker walls if he runs at higher speed before blinking out... Or would you interpret the SRD as that he's moving through kinda jelly while in the wall?

Although it would SEEM to make sense that perhaps someone running through a wall while blinking REALLY fast would have less of a chance of becoming material in the wall... the rule specifies that it is by distance traveled, not speed, so that's what I'd go on. Doesn't matter if you're a turtle or a hare about it.