Shooting blind...

[Thornir Alekeg]

OK, obviously I don't know all the details about how this went down, but why would the Ranger think the priest went ethereal? He had seen him use this tactic before? Was it combined with casting Obscuring Mist? Then how did he see it? How did the Ranger know the Obscuring Mist spell was quickened and the priest had the ability to cast another spell immediately after? Did the Ranger make a Spellcraft check to recognize the spell as Quickened? No matter what, I think some metagaming had to happen.

 

[Camarath]

To me, the character could have known and/or guessed that: 1) the opponent might be ethereal and 2) might still be out there somewhere. I think the LAST thing the character would reasonably guess is that the opponent stops moving, even for a split second, after creating mist to cover their escape/retreat/whatever.

I do not believe that you can move and cast a spell at the same time. And since everyone actions are suppose to be simultaneous I don't think that is odd that a character should shoot at the spot that an enemy disappeared immedatly after it cast a spell (which it had to stop moving to do). Just as I is don't odd to shoot through a door when a foe that you are chasing stops to close the door. In both cases you see the foe preforms an action that you know prevents them from moving while they preform it and while you can not see them you know the have you be in almost the same spot you last saw them because your attack happens at almost the same time as thier actions.

OK, obviously I don't know all the details about how this went down, but why would the Ranger think the priest went ethereal? He had seen him use this tactic before?

From the original post

(the cleric had turned ethereal in a previous battle)

 

[Hypersmurf]

Why does the character think the opponent stopped instead of continuing to move after they lost sight of them?

This character is... what, 10th, 12th level? If he's anything like most 10th level rangers, he's been chumming around with (probably) a wizard and a cleric for the last several years, getting into a whole lot of combats.

And every single time he's seen those two guys cast spells, they've stopped moving around and stood in one place while they do it.

It's a completely reasonable assumption for the ranger to make, based on his own experiences, that someone who's casting a spell won't be running around while they're doing it.

This cleric just produced a wall of magical mist. The reasonable assumption says "He's standing still while he's doing that - if I shoot fast, I'll catch him before he can get too far away."

Now, since the Mist was Quickened, if the cleric hasn't stopped to cast Ethereal Jaunt, the ranger's guess "He's still in the same place, because he's casting" would have been wrong, because the Quickened spell effectively lets the cleric cast "while moving" - he can move-cast-move.

But he did stop to ccast another spell, so the ranger guessed right.

Not based on the player's knowledge that "this is a game with a turn-based initiative system", but based on the ranger's knowedge that "Clem and Wally always stand in one place while they cast spells, so maybe this guy does too."

-Hyp.

 

[Dwarmaj]

He's what happened...

I'm running some PCs through a series of "arena" type combats 4PCs vs 4 NPCs. They do a couple of one on ones, a 2on2, and a free for all. I'm DMing the NPCs (which the ranger (Drow ranger9/wizard1/peerless archer3) is. The PCs and NPCs know each others strengths and weaknesses and have battled each other seveal times before (we had 5th and 10th level matches before this 15th level match). In a previous match the cleric turned ethereal and came back in 10 rounds later fully buffed and killed his opponant in a single round (a fully buffed melee cleric is pretty tough).

In this battle:
Round 1
Ranger rapid shoots the cleric for over 1/2 his hits. (the ranger is trying to take him out before he buffs up)
The ranger's friend (bard shadowdancer) casts silence and moves next to the cleric. This forces the cleric to move and either heal (and get pelted again next round) or move and go ethereal. The ranger and bard knew this was going to happen as soon as initiative was determined and they both beat out the cleric.

The cleric moved, casted quickened Obscuring Mist, then Ethereal Jaunt.

Round 2
The ranger, knowing that his opponant couldn't have moved, is either in the same square fully healed or in the same square ethereal. Either way, force arrows were in order (better to hit and do a bit less damage than to miss entirely). He casted a quickened true strike (rod of quicken, lesser) and manyshot/powershot the cleric.

The player playing the cleric brought up the question as to whether or not the ranger should be able to target a square that he can't see. I thought that the ranger should be able to target the last position of the cleric (even through the mist) since he saw the cleric go there and couldn't find anything in the rules that says that you can't target any square in range. If the ranger didn't have seeking or true strike (didn't need to have both) then he would have had a 50% miss chance because of concealment.