Ghost of Vhecker's page

I made recent ruling in my campaign for when trying to cast a spell from a hidden position in combat. I decided that if a spell has a verbal component, the caster gets a –2 circumstance modifier to their hide check because of the additional auditory cues they provide potential targets. (Note – I do not want to bog down combat with additional listen checks, hence just a modifier on the single spot roll)

Do you think this sounds reasonable?

This decision impacts on a player’s Arcane Trickster character, and he has expressed his dissatisfaction with the ruling. He points out that this isn’t mentioned in the rules anywhere, and seems to him to be an arbitrary decision aimed at curtailing his core class tactics.

I, however, think it’s a reasonable interpretation of circumstances that only minimally curtails his chance of sneak attack in most situations. To me, it highlights how someone with a Silent Metamagic feat could and should have some advantage in this regard.

I’m keen for people’s thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

Ghost

I’ve two quick questions about this item found in the Area D7:

Hi all, these last few months I’ve been DM’ing my friends through Age of Worms and the HoHR. Having a hoot of a time with it, but I recently encountered another rule conundrum. I’m very interested what other DM’s in the Paizo community think, as your feedback has proved most enlightening before.

The question is, does the third level arcane spell displacement prevent sneak attacks? This came up when my players battled a wizard. The party rogue/wizard argued the miss chance was specified (in the spell description) as not being actual concealment and therefore didn’t prevent a sneak attack. I was inclined to think the spell would negate precision based special attacks because you’re essentially guessing where your target is within a square.

Quote from the SRD, displacement spell description;
“The subject of this spell appears to be about 2 feet away from its true location. The creature benefits from a 50% miss chance as if it had total concealment. However, unlike actual total concealment, displacement does not prevent enemies from targeting the creature normally. True seeing reveals its true location.”

Quote from the SRD, under Sneak Attack;
“A rogue can sneak attack only living creatures with discernible anatomies—undead, constructs, oozes, plants, and incorporeal creatures lack vital areas to attack. Any creature that is immune to critical hits is not vulnerable to sneak attacks. The rogue must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment or striking the limbs of a creature whose vitals are beyond reach.”

After doing some research, I found a ‘Rules of the Game’ article on the wotc site ‘All About Sneak Attacks, Part 2’ which mentioned Blink negating sneak attacks, another spell with a non-concealment miss chance mechanic. To quote, “A blink spell provides the user with some degree of concealment -- and foils sneak attacks -- when the attacker cannot see ethereal opponents. (Both the see invisibility and true seeing spells reveal ethereal opponents).”

But…, then I found this in the latest D&D 3.5 FAQ!
“Would a sneak attack work on a creature affected by the blink spell?
Yes. Blink doesn’t provide concealment, so sneak attack functions normally against a target affected by that spell (though such attacks would have a 50% miss chance, as normal for the spell).”

That gave me a laugh. Even the game designers seem unsure on this one. Back to square one I guess. Funny, but finding that contradiction kind of gives me the confidence to stick to my hunch ruling.

My initial ruling was displacement does prevent sneak attacks, because “The rogue must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot”.
Who out there would rule the same way? And if you have the time, please tell me why/why not.

Thanks in advance.

Grapple rules. Everyone loves them right? Sure you do… well; at least we have some sort of handle on them by now. Swelled with pride at our deft gaming skills, we use them in most cases without undue hassle and rampant house-ruling. After all, most of us are well educated individuals, and many of us even enjoy puzzles!

Now, let’s just throw in a Mimic or three. Just for spice. Welcome to the Sodden Hold, room D2.

Hmm… with its Adhesive and Crush abilities, we have some new elements of grappling fun. Oh lucky me.

To Quote the Monster Manual, page 186;
Adhesive (Ex): A mimic exudes a thick slime that acts as a powerful adhesive, holding fast any creatures or items that touch it. An adhesive covered mimic automatically grapples any creature it hits with a slam attack. Opponents so grappled cannot get free while the mimic is alive without removing the adhesive first.
A weapon that strikes an adhesive-coated mimic is stuck fast unless the wielder succeeds on a DC 16 Reflex save. A successful DC 16 Strength check is needed to pry it off.
Strong alcohol dissolves the adhesive, but the mimic still can grapple normally. A mimic can dissolve its adhesive at will, and the substance breaks down 5 rounds after the creature dies.
Crush (Ex): A mimic deals 1d8+4 points of damage with a successful grapple check.

Ok, that should be easy enough to play. Shouldn’t it?

Round 1
A mimic surprises the party with its cunning Mimic Shape ability, rolls an attack, hits a flat-footed PC with its first swing doing 1d8+4 damage and automatically grapples its target. I guess its second slam attack is lost because it’s now grappling. Right oh. Hmm, mimic’s don’t seem to have Improved Grab, so I guess it moves into the targets square to continue the grapple. Ok, I move 10’ and into my targets square. Let’s hope there is enough room because I happen to be a large critter. Squeezing and grappling would not be fun. Luckily, there is room.

Ok, the Crush ability. When does this happen? After a successful grapple check. Let’s see, does an automatic grapple constitute a successful grapple check? Hmm, I guess so. So I do an extra 1d8+4 crushing damage. Least, I think so...

I guess that's the end of my surprise round.

Round 2
We all roll initiative. A few PC’s beat me, and a few don’t, as is usual. The first PC to act happens to be the grappled one. I describe the sticky substance that seems to be holding him fast to this odd anamorphic creature. He looks up grapple in the PHB to determine his options. He decides to try and break free. He gets two attempts, but fails both times automatically. I explain how the sticky adhesive just seems to be far too strong to be overcome in this fashion.

The next PC decides to attack the critter grappling his friend, (note – attacking into a square with two people grappling each other always seemed a dangerous option to me, even with melee weapons. Hence, I have a house rule that a grappled ally provides some cover to the target. Using proportional cover, a medium sized grappled ally provides +2 cover to the large critter. Obviously, if the PC hits the cover, he may hurt his ally) risking the 10% chance he strikes the wrong target. He easily hits the mimic but his weapon becomes stuck. Oops. He want’s to pull it free. Hmm, doesn’t say if the required Strength check is a standard action or not. Going easy on him I rule it’s a move action. He tries, but fails the check (Another odd thing here. If the PC want’s to keep a hold of his weapon so he can pull it free next round, is he drawn into the grapple? If two combatants are rolling around in a grapple and your weapon is stuck fast to one of them, I don’t see how you could avoid it. But it would be a bit harsh to rule this way I think… so I’ll just ignore the implausibility of it all for the moment).

Ok, now the mimics turn. It’s in a grapple and only has a BAB of +5, so – despite two normally available slam attacks – it just gets one grapple attempt at +13. It succeeds, doing crush damage again of 1d8+4. I guess that’s all it can do from now on, unless it elects to dissolve its own adhesive and just fight normally?

--------------

So, all in all, I think the players and I will find this a tricky little encounter to play.

My question to you is (with obvious house rule exceptions), am I basically playing this correctly? Is my use of grappling rules interacting with the mimic abilities correctly?

I thought this was simple, but now I'm not so sure...

I have a player in my AOW campaign wanting to play these two classes. He 's found a thread on Wotc message boards that talks about this class combination having two independent turning pools, with obvious advantages if Divine Feats are taken!

This is what he emailed me;
“There is a forum called Comprehensive Guide to Turning on the WOTC site.
There is a posting by Soltares that says paladin and cleric classes each
provide their own pool of turn attempts.
Turning thread on WOTC boards”

Me? I still think it would be the usual number of 3 + Charisma modifier, but the potency (effective turning level) would stack. So a Cleric 1/Paladin 4 would turn as a 2nd level Cleric (i.e. C1 + (P4 – 3) = 2) but would still only get the regular number of attempts.

However, all the PHB rules on the matter - ‘Turning Undead’ in the combat section (page 159), ‘Cleric’ and ‘Paladin’ abilities in the classes section (pages 33 and 44), and ‘Multiclass Characters’ at the end of classes section (page 59) - don’t seem to explicitly rule out this interpretation.

It just my imagination?

Opinions most welcome.