Improved Precise Shot vs. Displacement


Rules Questions


13 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

I may have screwed up part of a fight last night.

Displacement:

School illusion (glamer); Level bard 3, sorcerer/wizard 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, M (a small loop of leather)
Range touch
Target creature touched
Duration 1 round/level (D)
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes (harmless)

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. Unlike actual total concealment, displacement does not prevent enemies from targeting the creature normally. True seeing reveals its true location and negates the miss chance.

vs.

Improved Precise Shot (Combat):

Your ranged attacks ignore anything but total concealment and cover.
Prerequisites: Dex 19, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +11.

Benefit: Your ranged attacks ignore the AC bonus granted to targets by anything less than total cover, and the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment. Total cover and total concealment provide their normal benefits against your ranged attacks.

Normal: See the normal rules on the effects of cover and concealment in Combat.

I did not perfectly recall the exact wording of these. Should I have let the IPS negate the displacement?


I think I'd have ruled the same as you, but it's very close. Remember that with normal total concealment, you have to guess where to even aim, and only then do they get a 50% miss chance. IPS doesn't help in that situation. With displacement, we're skipping selecting the square, but still dealing with the 50%. When you check for total concealment for the attack, you would still have to say "yes it has (virtual) total concealment)" and IPS doesn't help with that.

It also makes sense given the nature of displacement. It's not an obscured creature, which is what concealment normally is. IPS being the ability to precisely hit even an obscured creature. It's magically not where it's supposed to be. You can aim at it perfectly and it's just not there.


Displacement does give the target of the spell total concealment with a small modification (doesn't prevent normal targeting). Since this is considered total concealment, Improved Precise Shot does no good.

Grand Lodge

I concur that IPS doesn't work on Displacement.


I think the targeting part is the important part. I believe it is the key that should allow IPS to work.

The only part that is considered total concealment is the 50%.


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I always figured it meant "You can deal precision damage" (which you normally can't do with concealment) because you CAN target the creature, you just get the 50% miss chance for him not really being there some of the time.

If you are aiming at his face, and you hit, you hit his face, whereas if the miss chance wasn't overcome, you "hit" his face but his face wasn't really there, so no damage.

I might be reading too much into "unlike actual total concealment, displacement does not prevent enemies from targeting the creature normally."


Canthin wrote:

I always figured it meant "You can deal precision damage" (which you normally can't do with concealment) because you CAN target the creature, you just get the 50% miss chance for him not really being there some of the time.

If you are aiming at his face, and you hit, you hit his face, whereas if the miss chance wasn't overcome, you "hit" his face but his face wasn't really there, so no damage.

I might be reading too much into "unlike actual total concealment, displacement does not prevent enemies from targeting the creature normally."

This is similar to my theory on this issue. the displacement effect does NOT grant him total concealment, nor does it grant him concealment at all. it just grants him a 50% miss chance as if he had total concealment. so IPS would not do what you think it would. if it disregarded displacement it would specifically state it

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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Displacement grants a 50% miss chance "as if" the target had total concealment; this means that the 50% miss chance is the ONLY similarity to total concealment, and that the target does not actually HAVE total concealment.

What some people seem to think the spell produces is "total concealment, except X". But if that were the case, it would simply say that it grants total concealment and then specify targetability.

But that's not what it says. The only places it even mentions total concealment is when it says "as if" and "unlike actual".

The target explicitly does NOT have total concealment (or any concealment, for that matter). This makes a difference not only for IPS, but also for things like Sneak Attack and Stealth that care about whether or not you have concealment.

Liberty's Edge

It's not even really concealment at all IMO, so IPS doesn't work, not because it's total concealment, but because it's not concealment at all. Concealment makes things blurry or indistinct, you're perfectly clear but in a different spot entirely.

TL;DR: +1 @ Jiggy


Ok, I will go with the majority and stay with my decision. It didn't make a huge difference. The party still won. But the greater length of time to take out the boss monk allowed a favored and allied NPC to get killed.

They don't have an easy way to get him raised at this point. So he may be perma-gone.

Grand Lodge

Is there any way you could give them something like Salve of the Second Chance?


Tell your player to apply the Seeking enchantment on their bow, then this question is unimportant. I had it for my archer ranger because I could afford it before I could get improved precise shot.


Jeff Merola wrote:
Is there any way you could give them something like Salve of the Second Chance?

This group tends not be willing to consider reincarnate.

.
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Claxon wrote:
Tell your player to apply the Seeking enchantment on their bow, then this question is unimportant. I had it for my archer ranger because I could afford it before I could get improved precise shot.

I believe he has already decided to do that. He's never had to deal with displacement before.

He has also requested the druid or sorc have a dispel ready to try and get rid of things like that.


StabbittyDoom wrote:

It's not even really concealment at all IMO, so IPS doesn't work, not because it's total concealment, but because it's not concealment at all. Concealment makes things blurry or indistinct, you're perfectly clear but in a different spot entirely.

TL;DR: +1 @ Jiggy

Read IPS again - it says your ranged attacks ignore miss chance it makes no difference whether or not that miss chance comes from concealment. Even if it's a miss chance from Wind Wall or something else unrelated to concealment, IPS still applies.

Improved Precise Shot wrote:
Your ranged attacks ignore the AC bonus granted to targets by anything less than total cover, and the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment. Total cover and total concealment provide their normal benefits against your ranged attacks.

So IPS should indeed trump Displacement.

Grand Lodge

RumpinRufus wrote:
StabbittyDoom wrote:

It's not even really concealment at all IMO, so IPS doesn't work, not because it's total concealment, but because it's not concealment at all. Concealment makes things blurry or indistinct, you're perfectly clear but in a different spot entirely.

TL;DR: +1 @ Jiggy

Read IPS again - it says your ranged attacks ignore miss chance it makes no difference whether or not that miss chance comes from concealment. Even if it's a miss chance from Wind Wall or something else unrelated to concealment, IPS still applies.

Improved Precise Shot wrote:
Your ranged attacks ignore the AC bonus granted to targets by anything less than total cover, and the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment. Total cover and total concealment provide their normal benefits against your ranged attacks.
So IPS should indeed trump Displacement.

So then they also ignore AC bonuses from anything other than total cover, right? Because it uses the same wording for cover as it does concealment, but I don't see you arguing that you can ignore every other AC bonus.


RumpinRufus wrote:
StabbittyDoom wrote:

It's not even really concealment at all IMO, so IPS doesn't work, not because it's total concealment, but because it's not concealment at all. Concealment makes things blurry or indistinct, you're perfectly clear but in a different spot entirely.

TL;DR: +1 @ Jiggy

Read IPS again - it says your ranged attacks ignore miss chance it makes no difference whether or not that miss chance comes from concealment. Even if it's a miss chance from Wind Wall or something else unrelated to concealment, IPS still applies.

Improved Precise Shot wrote:
Your ranged attacks ignore the AC bonus granted to targets by anything less than total cover, and the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment. Total cover and total concealment provide their normal benefits against your ranged attacks.
So IPS should indeed trump Displacement.

You're contradicting yourself, it explicitly states the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment the miss chance from displacement isn't granted to them by any type of concealment.


Jeff Merola wrote:
So then they also ignore AC bonuses from anything other than total cover, right? Because it uses the same wording for cover as it does concealment, but I don't see you arguing that you can ignore every other AC bonus.

Hmmm, ok, that's a good point. I think it's a poorly-written feat. Because RAW, it could actually allow you to ignore all AC bonuses, so once you take the feat you're shooting at flat-footed touch AC for the rest of your career. Obviously that's now how it's supposed to work, but the wording is ambiguous.

I guess it's a parsing thing - it's intended to mean "(anything less than total) cover" and "(anything less than total) concealment". I was reading it as "(anything) (less than total cover)" and "(anything) (less than total concealment)".

If that's the intent, it should really be worded "cover less than total cover" and "concealment less than total concealment".


RumpinRufus wrote:
... I think it's a poorly-written feat. ...

You have to remember. The rules are written in the English(American) language which is actually a pretty horrible medium to concisely nail down anything with precision.


Well, my proposed correction (using "cover" and "concealment" in place of "anything") is the same number of letters and everything. They could even hyphenate anything-less-than-total in both cases and it would be clear.


Tricky wording indeed.
In my opinion it doesn't negate the displacement miss chance (that's a job for the seeking special ability) but it does negate the miss chance granted by blurr.

Grand Lodge

leo1925 wrote:

Tricky wording indeed.

In my opinion it doesn't negate the displacement miss chance (that's a job for the seeking special ability) but it does negate the miss chance granted by blurr.

Blur explicitly grants you concealment, so yes, IPS works against it.


According to RAW, IPS would not work against Displacement, as it explicently states it's not total concealment.

As RAI, this is a tough call. Mechanically, Displacement works just like total concealment, a hair shy of a pin-pointed invisible target (invisibility gives "+2 to attack", which doesn't make any difference on the defense against someone with IPS), and you still provoke AoO with Displacement and is susceptible to precision damage.

I guess this difference is enough to say IPS works. After all, it's quite an expensive feat.


I had to research this topic awhile back and I came to the same conclusion as Jiggy, much to my own disappointment.

As others have pointed out, its most likely that Paizo wants IPS to only work against things with actual concealment. It's possible that Paizo could say if X spell works "as if" you had concealment, then it counts as that something for feats/abilities that work against it.

The only question I see is that why say "as if" X if you don't want other mechanics to treat it as X. The obvious answer is because they simply want that functional outcome, but not under the same category.

I'd welcome a FAQ on the off chance "as if" means it counts as concealment for IPS.

Shadow Lodge

You guys seem to be missing the math.
Total concealment = 50%
Displacement = 50%

50% = 50%
50% =/= <50%

IPS requires less than total concealment therefore it requires <50% and does not trump Displacement.


I agree with Zayvian.

Not to mention if IPS did work on displacement, it would also work on incorporeal as well. and I doubt it was Paizo's intent to allow mundane arrows to strike with enough pinpoint accuracy to hit the spot where the material and etheral planes converge.


Gol Zayvian wrote:

You guys seem to be missing the math.

Total concealment = 50%
Displacement = 50%

50% = 50%
50% =/= <50%

IPS requires less than total concealment therefore it requires <50% and does not trump Displacement.

Not missing the math. But the wording doesn't say it is necessarily defined by the bath.

Yes IPS requires less than total concealment.

But Displacement doesn't actually give you total concealment. You are still targetable for precision damage for example. Which you wouldn't be if you had total concealment. So by one interpretation it is less than total concealment.

Shadow Lodge

Less than is a mathematical expression. Miss chance is represented by a numerical value and is the only part of concealment that is referenced by IPS. Looking at this question as anything other than a mathematical equation is just grasping at straws to justify your desire to break the game. But honestly if its fun for you, break away.


Gol Zayvian wrote:
Less than is a mathematical expression. Miss chance is represented by a numerical value and is the only part of concealment that is referenced by IPS. Looking at this question as anything other than a mathematical equation is just grasping at straws to justify your desire to break the game. But honestly if its fun for you, break away.

Irrelevant.

Concealment = X
Miss chance from displacement = Y

You cannot properly evaluate the expression 50X < 50Y without having information about X and Y. You cannot compare concealment directly to displacement because displacement does not give you concealment.

Liberty's Edge

Charender wrote:
Gol Zayvian wrote:
Less than is a mathematical expression. Miss chance is represented by a numerical value and is the only part of concealment that is referenced by IPS. Looking at this question as anything other than a mathematical equation is just grasping at straws to justify your desire to break the game. But honestly if its fun for you, break away.

Irrelevant.

Concealment = X
Miss chance from displacement = Y

You cannot properly evaluate the expression 50X < 50Y without having information about X and Y. You cannot compare concealment directly to displacement because displacement does not give you concealment.

In other words, if displacement were concealment IPS wouldn't work because it doesn't help against 50%+. If displacement were not concealment, IPS wouldn't work because it's not concealment or cover, which are the only two things IPS affects. Either way, IPS doesn't work, so the question of "is this concealment?" is irrelevant for this purpose.


Gol Zayvian wrote:
Less than is a mathematical expression. Miss chance is represented by a numerical value and is the only part of concealment that is referenced by IPS. Looking at this question as anything other than a mathematical equation is just grasping at straws to justify your desire to break the game. But honestly if its fun for you, break away.

The problem is that there are miss chances granted by things other than concealment. In logic terms:

"total concealment" implies "50% miss chance"
BUT
"50% miss chance" does not imply "total concealment"

(Anyone know how to draw a Venn diagram in ASCII?)

There are three options:
1) Displacement provides total concealment, so IPS will not work.
2) Displacement provides some kind of concealment but not total concealment, so IPS will work.
3) Displacement does not provide any type of concealment at all, so IPS will not work.

Of these options, #1 is the least supported by the wording of the spell ("as if total concealment" and "unlike actual total concealment" clearly says "this is not total concealment").

The argument then becomes whether 2 or 3 is correct, and you can make reasonable arguments for either one. (I happen to support 3, FWIW.)

I suppose you can just say, "Hey, 2 out of 3 readings say it doesn't work," but I'm a bit pedantic about wording and rules reading, so I don't recommend that.


StabbittyDoom wrote:
Charender wrote:
Gol Zayvian wrote:
Less than is a mathematical expression. Miss chance is represented by a numerical value and is the only part of concealment that is referenced by IPS. Looking at this question as anything other than a mathematical equation is just grasping at straws to justify your desire to break the game. But honestly if its fun for you, break away.

Irrelevant.

Concealment = X
Miss chance from displacement = Y

You cannot properly evaluate the expression 50X < 50Y without having information about X and Y. You cannot compare concealment directly to displacement because displacement does not give you concealment.

In other words, if displacement were concealment IPS wouldn't work because it doesn't help against 50%+. If displacement were not concealment, IPS wouldn't work because it's not concealment or cover, which are the only two things IPS affects. Either way, IPS doesn't work, so the question of "is this concealment?" is irrelevant for this purpose.

Yes, but since it is pretty well covered that displacement is not concealment, the part about it not being less than 50% is the irrelevant part.


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Is it not concealment?

CRB 197 - Concealment wrote:
In addition, some magical effects provide concealment against all attacks, regardless of whether any intervening concealment exists.

Is there any other miss chance that isn't concealment? The spell even implies that it is concealment by stating "AS IF" but "UNLIKE ACTUAL TOTAL CONCEALMENT..."

Would you apply IPS to the Darkness Domain granted power?

CRB p42 wrote:
Touch of Darkness (Sp): As a melee touch attack, you can cause a creature’s vision to be fraught with shadows and darkness. The creature touched treats all other creatures as if they had concealment, suffering a 20% miss chance on all attack rolls.

I am not asking about the 20% part yet, but would you apply it to a power that acts "AS IF?" If you would apply the "AS IF" to the Darkness Domain, then you should apply it to Displacement. If you would not apply THAT PART of the question to the Darkness Domain, then you would not apply it to Displacement.

If it is agreed that the "AS IF" in Displacement is concealment, then the only question that remains is if it counts as total concealment or not.

In my opinion, the AS IF makes it concealment. Also, in my opinion, the qualifier that it is not "ACTUAL TOTAL CONCEALMENT" would mean that IPS would apply.

YMMV as I can understand opposing positions.


Komoda wrote:
stuff

I think this is spot on. It's the same question I raised when I researched the issue. If Paizo were to say that IPS works against Touch of Darkness, then we'd have to answer one more question. Is 50% miss chance = Total concealment?

IPS works against any miss chance less than Total Concealment.

PRD wrote:
Your ranged attacks ignore...the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment.

It's very easy to read this as saying any miss chance is ignored, regardless of source, so long as it's not Total Concealment. It's not clear whether "less" is meant to be a quantitative comparison or a boolean operation.

Further complicating the issue is the description of the feat

PRD: Improved Precise Shot wrote:
Your ranged attacks ignore anything but total concealment and cover

It doesn't say your attacks ignore any concealment less than TC, it says they ignore "anything but."

As I said earlier, My research showed the majority of people think IPS only works against Concealment or things that specifically grant concealment. I am very curious to hear from a dev whether IPS works on Touch of Darkness.

Thanks for the post!

Grand Lodge

Komoda wrote:
Is there any other miss chance that isn't concealment? The spell even implies that it is concealment by stating "AS IF" but "UNLIKE ACTUAL TOTAL CONCEALMENT..."

Totally. The following spells and abilities grant some form of miss chance without granting concealment (this is not necessarily an exhaustive list):

  • Entropic Shield
  • Blink
  • Wind Wall
  • Fickle Winds
  • Familiar Figment
  • Air Barrier (Shaman Hex)
  • Wind Ward (Shaman Hex)


  • If it were meant to give you concealment it would be worded like this:

    Lightning Stance (Combat) wrote:

    The speed at which you move makes it nearly impossible for opponents to strike you.

    Prerequisites: Dex 17, Dodge, Wind Stance, base attack bonus +11.

    Benefit: If you take two actions to move or a withdraw action in a turn, you gain 50% concealment for 1 round.


    So it appears to me that Paizo is using a lot of terms that are so similar but may, or may not, mean different things.

    I think table variation is the only proper answer until Paizo attempts to clear it up.


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    Komoda wrote:
    CRB p42 wrote:
    Touch of Darkness (Sp): As a melee touch attack, you can cause a creature’s vision to be fraught with shadows and darkness. The creature touched treats all other creatures as if they had concealment, suffering a 20% miss chance on all attack rolls.

    saying the words "as if" does not in any shape or form mean "now has" a couple of examples using other feats/abilities:

    Flurry of Blows wrote:
    When doing so, he may make one additional attack, taking a –2 penalty on all of his attack rolls, as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat.

    It says "as if" using the two-weapon fighting feat, but it does not grant the monk that feat.

    Deadly Shuriken (Ex) wrote:
    She makes the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest, as if she were making a full attack.

    As a full-round action, she makes all of her attack rolls as if she was making a full-attack, but she is not actually making a full-attack.

    Solo Tactics (Ex) wrote:
    At 3rd level, all of the inquisitor’s allies are treated as if they possessed the same teamwork feats as the inquisitor for the purpose of determining whether the inquisitor receives a bonus from her teamwork feats.

    Here's a good one, they even state explicitly what the purposes are. And again, it does not grant her allies any of the feats.

    Its a matter of understanding how Paizo words their descriptions, and a wee bit of understanding the english language and sentence structures. If they meant to say "treated as if it had concealment for the purpose of attacks that ignore concealment", it would explicitly say so, that's how they've done it in the past.


    FAQ'd.

    It seems like there are several interpretations being argued for:

    A) It only applies to concealment and cover, and not to miss chances (or AC bonuses) from other sources besides concealment or cover.

    B) It applies to any miss chance numerically less than that provided by total concealment, i.e., 50%.

    C) It applies to even the miss chance provided by Displacement, because even though Displacement provides 50% miss chance, the extra conditions on it make it considered "less than" total concealment.

    It seems ambiguously worded enough that it merits clarification.

    (My current position is A is the intended interpretation, based on Jeff Merola's reasoning. If it applied to something like Wind Wall (30% miss chance is less than 50% miss chance) then wouldn't it also apply to, say, a +4 armor bonus (as the +4 armor bonus is an AC bonus t less than the +8 bonus to AC provided by improved cover)?)


    Is it less than total concealment? Clearly, as it give a specific example of how it's total concealment-ish, but with conditions.

    Since IPS says "anything less than total concealment", it's not even something that needs discussing.


    Lovesmasher wrote:

    Is it less than total concealment? Clearly, as it give a specific example of how it's total concealment-ish, but with conditions.

    Since IPS says "anything less than total concealment", it's not even something that needs discussing.

    It can be interpreted in 2 ways:

    1) any level of concealment that is less than total concealment
    or
    2) anything granting a miss chance that is less than the miss chance granted by total concealment.

    IF it is (2) than the same should go for the cover aspect. which reveals a scary issue:
    IPS ignores anything granting a bonus to AC that is less than the bonus to AC granted by total cover
    So now I can bypass the armor bonus of that Fighter (who spent 1,200gp on his Masterwork Mithral Scalemail with a +5 armor bonus) because it is less than the bonus granted by total cover (which is +8)
    Ridiculousness I say.


    Concealment grants a miss chance, but miss chance and cover are still two different things. Miss chance can occur for reasons other than concealment.

    "Anything less than total concealment" is still referencing concealment. If it was referencing miss chance it would say "any miss chance that is less than 50%".

    I do think this is FAQ worthy to spell this out however.


    BigP4nda wrote:


    IF it is (2) than the same should go for the cover aspect. which reveals a scary issue:
    IPS ignores anything granting a bonus to AC that is less than the bonus to AC granted by total cover
    So now I can bypass the armor bonus of that Fighter (who spent 1,200gp on his Masterwork Mithral Scalemail with a +5 armor bonus) because it is less than the bonus granted by total cover (which is +8)
    Ridiculousness I say.

    This is exactly the reasoning I used when I came to the conclusion that IPS only works on Concealment. I had actually forgotten that until you brought it up. Good post.


    Gol Zayvian wrote:
    Less than is a mathematical expression. Miss chance is represented by a numerical value and is the only part of concealment that is referenced by IPS. ...

    In the English (American) language 'less than' has uses other than as a mathematical operator. When used as mathematical operator it is nearly always referenced by the symbol '<' not as words. Very little in these books is stated as mathematical expressions. (Which could be used as a reason there are so many discussion over what was actually intended by a rule.) Most people do not have enough of a mathematical background for referencing rules as mathematical expressions to be less confusing. Therefore it seems unlikely that this one rule was intended to be addressed as a mathematical expression.

    However. Looking at it as a mathematical expression combined with the imprecise language could actually give strength the idea that it would negate displacement. Does the set of items granted by displacement contain everything in the set of items granted by total concealment? No. Then it is less than total concealment mathematically. So IPS would negate the miss chance.

    However, I had already agreed with the reasoning of the other posters above who said it should not work for various reasons.

    Gol Zayvian wrote:
    ... Looking at this question as anything other than a mathematical equation is just grasping at straws to justify your desire to break the game. But honestly if its fun for you, break away.

    Now your just intentionally being obnoxious for no real reason. I have no intention of breaking the game. I was the GM that ruled against it working. After the session I looked more closely at the wording and could see the reason the player thought it would have worked.

    The enemy monk's high AC and deflect arrows combined with the displacement made it so the archers were almost unable to hurt him.

    That contributed to the death of an NPC and the loss of a sundered bow.
    I was concerned I may have been too harsh on the PC's. So I came here to ask if it seemed fair to the rest of the community. They seem to have mostly agreed with me, so I have let the ruling stand.


    N N 959 wrote:
    BigP4nda wrote:


    IF it is (2) than the same should go for the cover aspect. which reveals a scary issue:
    IPS ignores anything granting a bonus to AC that is less than the bonus to AC granted by total cover
    So now I can bypass the armor bonus of that Fighter (who spent 1,200gp on his Masterwork Mithral Scalemail with a +5 armor bonus) because it is less than the bonus granted by total cover (which is +8)
    Ridiculousness I say.
    This is exactly the reasoning I used when I came to the conclusion that IPS only works on Concealment. I had actually forgotten that until you brought it up. Good post.

    Whoops! My reasoning was a little different now that I reread yours. I realized IPS wouldn't ignore any bonus that were not associated with cover, so it that should apply to concealment. Or maybe the GM made the argument and I agreed with it.


    Total Concealment:
    - 50% Miss Chance (LoS obstruction)
    - Can't be targeted (no LoS)
    - Doesn't provoke AoO (no Los)
    - Can't receive precision damage (no Los)

    Displacement:
    - 50% Miss Chance (LoS "obstruction". It's as if you are invisible but there's one mirror image right next to you, so the enemy knows exactly what you are doing, how you are moving, but his attack needs some calibration/adjustment to hit you, and somehow spells work on you)
    - Can be targeted (has LoS)
    - Provokes AoO (has LoS)
    - Can receive precision damage (has LoS)

    The Miss Chance from Displacement is the same kind of miss chance provided by concealment, as stated by the spell "The creature benefits from a 50% miss chance as if it had total concealment".

    The IPS only cares about the Miss Chance provided by Concealment, and since in that aspect Displacement works exactly like Total Concealment with 50% Miss Chance of the same type, then IPS should not work against Displacement, However...

    The question is, if the fact that Displacement is somewhat "less than" Total Concealment, according to the spell ("Unlike actual total concealment, displacement does not prevent enemies from targeting the creature normally") enough to qualify the Feat's criteria of ignoring "the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment".

    I think not, so IPS should not work against Displacement. Due to the lack of rules to clarify this 100% (not that they have to make rules for every possible situation, 100% clear, or that they even can), I'd say this is a judgment call.


    To chime in this debate (and someone mentioned until Paizo cleared this up...since when has Paizo cleared up any extreme major confusion from their core book?), let's not forget the original intent of the spell.

    It DISPLACES you. You are NOT standing where the enemy SEES you standing, you are 2-3 feet off base entirely. To say the IPS works against Displacement is like saying the feat grants True Seeing. Which it does not. How can you precisely strike a target that is not even located where you see him standing? You're precisely hitting air half the time.

    Sovereign Court

    Barachiel Shina wrote:
    To say the IPS works against Displacement is like saying the feat grants True Seeing. Which it does not.

    I'm not going to weigh in on the original argument - but that is a straw-man. (Possibly unintentional.)

    Even IF it does negate Displacement entirely, it's still not the same as True-Seeing.

    1. It's actually better in that it negates non-magical smoke.

    2. It's still not as good in that it doesn't negate invisibility, any other magical total concealment, or prevent them from using magical concealment for stealth.


    IMHO, the feat was designed with non-magical effects in mind ... and the RAW are trying to have as many possible examples point to common rule terms as possible.

    IMHO you need seeking to negate displacement and blur or if I was to make it a feat it would be 2 or 3 feats and then provide a % chance to not be under the spells effects or a simple subtraction from the miss chance ie 1/2% per level of caster from miss chance.
    MDC

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