Ok, so with a number of threads recently dealing with the weirdness of blindness & concealement, I thought I would ask a few questions. I've yet to see this come up, but it might be good to have a better understanding:
1) What differentiates the "blinded" condition from the effects of the "invisible" condition on an enemy?
Ok, so if you're blinded, -2 to AC ; hidden +2 to attack. These seem to correspond to each other. For blinded, you get a -4 on str & dex checks; however, the invisible guy is still as easy to hit (beyond the 50% concealement), which confuses me. Am I missing something that explains how you (being blinded) differentiates from the enemy being invisible?
2) What is the order of operations for total concealement?
This comes from the way total concealement is defined. It says you can attack the square that contains a creature with total concealement (hitting the square is a 5 or 10 if I remember properly). Afterwards, you roll 50% to know if you hit it (or not). Then what happens? Do you re-roll to know if you hit? Do you use your original roll? Do you get any penalties to attack (since you are, effectively, blinded towards the invisible enemy).
I'm kind of confused, and those other threads have only increased my confusion.
And the blind penalty to AC has been clarified to not stack with the invisible bonus to hit. They derive from the same thing (not being able to see your attacker).
It is slightly odd that a blind attacker has the exact same chance to hit an invisible foe as a sighted attacker, but the differences are really negligible.
If I know where the enemy is the rules work the same regardless of wether I cannot see or the enemy is invidible. Really it isn't any different than displacement whete I acrually know what square to attack. Attack vw ac if I hit check for concealment.
And the blind penalty to AC has been clarified to not stack with the invisible bonus to hit. They derive from the same thing (not being able to see your attacker).
It is slightly odd that a blind attacker has the exact same chance to hit an invisible foe as a sighted attacker, but the differences are really negligible.
A blind attacker has -4 to hit (as I understand) (against all oponents), while the sighted one (facing somebody invisible) has no penalty. I wouldnt exactly call -4 a negligible difference.
Ah, I hadnt noticed they specified strength & dex SKILL checks. My mistake.
It does seem to indicate that "to hit" is perceived as "hitting strong enough" rather thatn "hitting acurately enough". Considereing how confusing blindness is, I'm surprised you can even target a square.
Making it worse than it already is just wouldn't be fun. Plus, if an opponent can Stealth better than your Perception after attacking you, you won't have any idea where to attack. Allowing the targeting of squares just gets around complications like Readying an Attack while you're being attacked (since per the rules you know the direction of the attack).
Being blind is vs. ALL opponents.
Invisible opponent is ONE opponent.
How many opponents are you facing? :-)
/cevah