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QIbyItwI wrote:

I would love for this to be answered in the FAQ section or in a blog post. It seems to have a lot of entries on the message board. I have a PFS shadow dancer and it makes hide in plain sight (HIPS) seem pretty useless when going against orcs, goblins, kobolds, or drow. The Society GM wants an official response before he will concede that darkvision does not negate the HIPS supernatural ability (that or I would like an official ruling before I concede that it does negate it).

There has been no "official" ruling. That said, this has been debated many times and there are a few things that might be helpful to bring to your GM.

1. PC centric logic. LLV/DV are naturally existing (Ex) abilities that can be had by any number of creatures from birth. HiPS is a (Su) ability that a character may spend half their career building up to. So then the GM needs to ask themselves, do I really think this mid-high level supernatural ability, that characters have to work pretty hard to get, was meant to be thwarted by every single random creature in the world that was born with LLV or DV? IMO, it would be pretty dumb game design if it was. However, if that logic isn't enough, there are rules selections to bring up as well.

2. People focus in on the fact that the HiPS ability is tied to shadow. They get hung up on the fact that DV and LLV eliminate Concealment. But the HiPS ability does not rely on the Concealment granted by shadow to function. It only relies on the physical presence of the shadow itself. It states you can hide out in the open (no cover/concealment) and only need to physically be within 10’ of some sort of shadow to do this. The ability comes from a supernatural (magical) tie to the presence of shadow, not the use of shadow for visual Concealment. DV/LLV eliminates the visual hindrance of Concealment, it does NOT eliminate the presence of shadow.

3. People also get hung up on the description of DV and LLV in the Additional Rules Vision and Light section of the CRB. They...

I have read all the post on these boards related to this topic. I believe your interpretations to be correct. I read the RAW the same way as you... but it would still be nice if I did not have to spend several hours pouring through the boards and be stuck with "no official ruling." If it was a home game this would be fine, but PFS is supposed to be about consistency in story and rules.

Unfortunately, these are all of the relevant rules. Their interaction is highly debated. Hell, the rules for stealth can't even be agreed upon which makes it impossible for any rule that uses it to be agreed upon as well.

(Excluded opinion paragraph)

A few of us have "checked" many times. This is not our first debate on this topic.

Yes, this is not the first debate. It is, in fact, difficult to read everything in the forums relating to this topic, because there is so much. The arguments go around and around. That is why I think it should be answered in errata, an official blog post, or in the FAQ.

I would love for this to be answered in the FAQ section or in a blog post. It seems to have a lot of entries on the message board. I have a PFS shadow dancer and it makes hide in plain sight (HIPS) seem pretty useless when going against orcs, goblins, kobolds, or drow. The Society GM wants an official response before he will concede that darkvision does not negate the HIPS supernatural ability (that or I would like an official ruling before I concede that it does negate it).