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While this all makes an interesting hypothetical discussion, one thing people are not taking into account is the intelligence of elementals.
A small elemental only has a 4 int. It's not going to react on much more than an instinctive level (what is its instinctive attack pattern). An elder elemental has a 10 int, that of an average human. It should be able to adjust its tactics dynamically, using its abilities to their full advantage.
I already covered that.
While this all makes an interesting hypothetical discussion, one thing people are not taking into account is the intelligence of elementals.A small elemental only has a 4 int. It's not going to react on much more than an instinctive level (what is its instinctive attack pattern). An elder elemental has a 10 int, that of an average human. It should be able to adjust its tactics dynamically, using its abilities to their full advantage.
You don't need that high of an int score. Even hyenas which are dumber than elementals know to stay out of reach of danger when attacking. When a bunch of them jump an old lion or a large creature they do it in such a way that they can't don't get hit, as much as they can help it. They only have an int of 2.
Another example is that when my nephew was only around 1 or 2 years old he did not like my grandmother for some reason so she would try to bait him with candy. He figured out about how far she could reach and would grab for the candy without getting close enough to be picked up if she held it away from her body at arms length.
I don't think it is a far stretch for something with an int of 4 to know to stay below ground when it is safe.
Another example are animal that have shells in order to avoid certain predators.
Okay, was looking for this because I am making a Clouded Vision/Deaf Oracle, and after reading all the threads, this is the way I figured out to look at it for it to make sense...
With Blindsense/sight one would assume you are blind to normal sight but are able to use blindsense/sight (like bats are mostly blind but use their echolocation and therefore "see" better than we do) So, everything has 100% concealment vs. you, but your blindsense/sight compensates for that. No concealment because... I can't see you anyway!
Tremorsense on the other hand one would assume you can see normally so i can sense you are there... but if like you are invisible... I can't see you even though i know you are there. I don't have the blindsense/sight to compensate for not being able to see you, so therefore your concealment still applies.
I need to revive this thread to cover a question that came up from last night's game. I had a player die due to a Buggane attack.
The creature has tremorsense 60 ft. One of my played pointed out this morning that he may have had to still roll against concealment.
Does tremorsense function like blindsense even though it's not worded the same way? Does tremorsense require rolls against concealment?
I want to be fair to my players, so I'm going to the forums for a definitive yes or no. It will determine if I retcon the death or not.
You're going to have a hard time finding anything definitive. Generally Tremorsense is regarded to be similar to Blindsense, and would not bypass concealment. If an invisible creature were in range, Tremorsense would pinpoint it, but still have a miss chance to hit. If there was nothing like this then the guy should still be dead.
I realize the fluff description of the monster mentions that it is Blind, and it also gains benefits for being Blind. However, the Buggane's normal attacks in melee should not have a miss chance. If it was meant to have a miss chance on all of it's attacks, that would be deliberately mentioned in the monster description somewhere. It would also make the monster extremely weak. If you want to be very kind you could say the player was only MOSTLY dead, and stable at negative hp but the party didn't do a heal check to notice how he wasn't totally dead.
You're going to have a hard time finding anything definitive. Generally Tremorsense is regarded to be similar to Blindsense, and would not bypass concealment. If an invisible creature were in range, Tremorsense would pinpoint it, but still have a miss chance to hit. If there was nothing like this then the guy should still be dead.
I realize the fluff description of the monster mentions that it is Blind, and it also gains benefits for being Blind. However, the Buggane's normal attacks in melee should not have a miss chance. If it was meant to have a miss chance on all of it's attacks, that would be deliberately mentioned in the monster description somewhere. It would also make the monster extremely weak. If you want to be very kind you could say the player was only MOSTLY dead, and stable at negative hp but the party didn't do a heal check to notice how he wasn't totally dead.
This is helpful. Thank you.