A druid which is wild-shaped (elemental body) into an earth elemental has the ability "earth glide". I have a couple of questions regarding this:
- If he's inside of a wall, can he see/hear what's happening in an adjacent room?
- Can he cast (while he's inside of the wall) into an adjacent room?
- Can he emerge(what exactly that means?), cast a spell and then go back inside the wall?Thank you
Franc
1) I would say not without a difficult perception check.
2) No, while within the wall, the Druid would have no line of sight, or Line of effect to any targets. Can he cast on himself? That's up to the GM...3) Well, if the Druid uses his move action to leave the Wall, and uses his Standard action to cast. I would say no, he's got no movement left to return into the wall. (I have had players try to do similar things with 'peeking' around corners. It got silly, so they can only see without their 5 foot square now.)
3) I believe there's a feat called 'Cast on the run' that let's you move, cast, move. Unless I'm remembering a 3.5 feat. That would be required to leave the wall, cast, and return.
The big problem, as pointed out, is that there's a bug in earth elementals earth glide, they are technically blind under the earth.
The problem with that is, Dennis, it makes it useless as a power, and insane to boot.
A) If you can't see where you're going, then you can get lost under the ground in one or two rounds, and could end up traveling down or off under a mountain or something, and still be underground when the spell wears off. Surrounded by earth you wouldn't be able to tell up from down even (this is a major problem for deep sea divers, when there's no light).
B) Earth elementals who live on the plane of earth can't see through the stuff they live in. So why do they have normal sight, or earth glide? Either way, one or the other is useless to them.
Tremorsense only tells you where something is moving, it doesn't tell you anything about your surroundings. It's not echo-location. You can't tell up from down with tremorsense, you can only say 'Something moved in that five feet over there, at 5 o'clock' Technically, if there's a pit between you and the thing moving, you'd earth glide right out into the pit because you would not know it was there, since it isn't 'trembling'.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I always figured you used it like a gopher popping in and out, you see where you want to go, drop in, go 60 feet forward, and pop back up. It's like a limited/ slow teleport but you can stop in between and either just take cover or do stuff. I don't get how any of that is useless at all. In combat you gopher. Out of combat you can go 30 feet and stick your head up to see what's on the other side of that wall. I've seen players use it to swim up a mountain then drop a rope down.
I've never seen a GM have a player get lost underground and I honestly don't see why it would ever be a problem. Seems like a pretty rotten thing to do to a player and I don't really play with GMs who would pull that. Do you also have them get lost deep underwater if they have water breathing?
As for what earth elementals do on their home plane, whatever they want. If I'm building an adventure on the elemental plane of earth maybe I'll worry about it. In general I'm not and I'm more worried about how players interact with things and how abilities they might pick up work. Maybe on the elemental plane of earth there are other ways elementals can navigate?
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- If he's inside of a wall, can he see/hear what's happening in an adjacent room?
Sure, just add the perception mod of the stone walls remaining thickness to his check.
- Can he cast (while he's inside of the wall) into an adjacent room?
Nope, he cant see the area so no line of sight. Plus hows he meant to execute the verbal component when talking into dirt. Its like having a rag in your mouth and trying to talk clearly.
- Can he emerge(what exactly that means?), cast a spell and then go back inside the wall?
Sure, if his movement permits or he has the appropriate feats. The walls like air so it doesnt effect what he can normally do.
To nitpick, and I'm currently playing a Druid, I'm not certain that earth glide would let you meld into any worked stone structure. I'd like to be wrong on that one.
IMO, you have to treat tremor sense as blindsight underground (sort of), or you wins up with a ridiculous rules scenario.
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Here's my take on it.
Tremorsense (Ex) A creature with tremorsense is sensitive to vibrations in the ground and can automatically pinpoint the location of anything that is in contact with the ground.
Based on the bolded section, I would imagine that moving would create plenty of vibrations with which to *see* the surrounding stone. Including those areas where the vibrations stopped. *i.e. a pit, or the surface*
Here's my take on it.
Tremorsense (Ex) A creature with tremorsense is sensitive to vibrations in the ground and can automatically pinpoint the location of anything that is in contact with the ground.
Based on the bolded section, I would imagine that moving would create plenty of vibrations with which to *see* the surrounding stone. Including those areas where the vibrations stopped. *i.e. a pit, or the surface*
Which would be echolocation, which would be blind sight.
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Well, would you like to try again without pulling stuff out of your butt?
Tremorsense (Ex) A creature with tremorsense is sensitive to vibrations in the ground and can automatically pinpoint the location of anything that is in contact with the ground. Aquatic creatures with tremorsense can also sense the location of creatures moving through water. The ability's range is specified in the creature's descriptive text.
So, yeah, I take it you've never actually bothered reading the ability before.
WOW, do we need such sarcastic responses in a civilized conversation. Please keep it civil.
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Removed some posts. Please don't resort to insulting each other when discussing the rules.
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Nope, he cant see the area so no line of sight. Plus hows he meant to execute the verbal component when talking into dirt. Its like having a rag in your mouth and trying to talk clearly.
From the magic chapter — "If the form grants a swim or burrow speed, you maintain the ability to breathe if you are swimming or burrowing. "
If you can breath, you can speak. Just because no-one can hear you doesn't mean you can't cast a spell. Obviously there is no line of sight, you similarly have no line of sight when you step into another room. It is a defensive aspect to the ability, not offensive.
Here's my take on it.
Tremorsense (Ex) A creature with tremorsense is sensitive to vibrations in the ground and can automatically pinpoint the location of anything that is in contact with the ground.
Based on the bolded section, I would imagine that moving would create plenty of vibrations with which to *see* the surrounding stone. Including those areas where the vibrations stopped. *i.e. a pit, or the surface*
The more important thing to bold is the next phrase: can automatically pinpoint the location of anything that is in contact with the ground.
It's not anything moving on the ground.. but anything in contact with the ground. There's a difference and a telling one.
-James
Valid points. In this instance, I'm having to go off of nothing more than opinion, since I'm not aware of any hard rules that specify what an earth elemental (and druid) could or could not see, while moving underground.
Based on an extrapolation of "what makes sense?," regardless of RAW (or rules as NOT written), to give a creature a movement speed/type and completely disallow the ability to navigate within that movement type, is utter ridiculousness.
I can accept someone's position of "Per RAW, an earth elemental is blind when earth gliding," but my rebuttal is simply going to be "shenanigans."
Valid points. In this instance, I'm having to go off of nothing more than opinion, since I'm not aware of any hard rules that specify what an earth elemental (and druid) could or could not see, while moving underground.
Based on an extrapolation of "what makes sense?," regardless of RAW (or rules as NOT written), to give a creature a movement speed/type and completely disallow the ability to navigate within that movement type, is utter ridiculousness.
I can accept someone's position of "Per RAW, an earth elemental is blind when earth gliding," but my rebuttal is simply going to be "shenanigans."
Pinpoint just means you know "something" is in a particular 5 foot square. It is not much different than blindsense.
True, but my (unofficial?) position is that an earth gliding earth elemental (or druid) should be treat tremorsense as if it were blindsight, for the purposes of navigation.
To be clear though, I wouldn't extend that to allowing shenanigans like casting from inside a wall. I'd make the critter pop out.
I agree.
They should be able to 'see' the earth when they're earthgliding, and pinpoint anything that moves on it. But that's not what tremorsense does. All it does is let them know where something is by the vibrations it gives off.
Honestly, I really wish the power were more detailed. We have way more details for senses we really have than we have for this made up sense. It's a two line description. Honestly, it's just a poorly written up power, and has been for as long as I can remember. There's literally twice as much written up about darksight than there is tremor sense.
As it is, there's just no way of saying 'you can do this with tremorsense', because it's self contradictory (you can pinpoint something via the vibrations it gives off, what if it doesn't give vibrations, what's the penalties with distance, what's the modifiers, how do you 'stealth' vs tremorsense, adnauseum).
As it's written, it's pathetic, and it says nothing about knowing what the shape of the ground is, only knowing if something is touching it and vibrating.
And the funny thing is that we seldom, if ever call these mechanics into question when the monsters use them; only when players get ahold of them, via polymorph effects. :)
Franc, I'm almost certain that tremor sense is one of the granted senses. I'll go back and check, though...
...funny, I'm not seeing it in the SRD. I'll have to check my CRB later.
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The problem with that is, Dennis, it makes it useless as a power, and insane to boot.
A) If you can't see where you're going, then you can get lost under the ground in one or two rounds, and could end up traveling down or off under a mountain or something, and still be underground when the spell wears off. Surrounded by earth you wouldn't be able to tell up from down even (this is a major problem for deep sea divers, when there's no light).
B) Earth elementals who live on the plane of earth can't see through the stuff they live in. So why do they have normal sight, or earth glide? Either way, one or the other is useless to them.
I'd allow druids a Survival check to "keep from getting lost" if they wanted to cover large distances underground.
Not everyone's version of the plane of earth is an infinite underground area. Some people have a giant cave system, or other more bizarre things. The BECMI plane of earth was a normal world with gaseous and liquid earth in place of the air and water.
My interpretation of tremorsense is that it basically makes you aware of everything within the radius that is touching the ground. But, I bring in real-world physics when I don't have a reason not to, and in the real world, everything above absolute zero temperature vibrates. (a lack of vibration is the actual definition of absolute zero).
My interpretation of tremorsense is that it basically makes you aware of everything within the radius that is touching the ground. But, I bring in real-world physics when I don't have a reason not to, and in the real world, everything above absolute zero temperature vibrates. (a lack of vibration is the actual definition of absolute zero).
Correct me if I'm misremembering, but I believe the actual definition of absolute zero is the temperature of a perfect crystal with minimal entropy. While I agree that an object at absolute zero would therefore not vibrate (as vibration would give multiple energy states and a higher entropy), I don't think the definition itself includes vibration.
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Correct me if I'm misremembering, but I believe the actual definition of absolute zero is the temperature of a perfect crystal with minimal entropy. While I agree that an object at absolute zero would therefore not vibrate (as vibration would give multiple energy states and a higher entropy), I don't think the definition itself includes vibration.
Well to be more technical, absoulte zero is the state of minimal entropy. Classically, that coincides with no particle motion in the substance. The crystal thing comes in with the third law of thermodynamics. Perhaps I misspoke when I called it the literal definition.
The fundamental point, that anything with an actual temperature vibrates, stands.
In PF, it may be entirely possible to reach absolute zero (or lower) using magic, I suppose.
At first glance it makes no sense to allow earth glide without tremorsense, but then again that's how 3.5e did it. Of course, for us that always begged the question of how exactly earth elementals saw anything. Now that Pathfinder earth elementals have both earth glide and tremorsense, earth elementals finally make sense.
My hunch is that it was an oversight when elemental body I was written, but it's entirely possible that it was an intentional limitation to prevent making elemental body overpowered by giving access to both earth glide and tremorsense.
I know that in my 3.5e campaign I was extremely happy that the druid did not gain access to tremorsense. Having earth glide is powerful enough without tremorsense (check out the rules for cover and consider what happens when someone using wild shape spends all their time "submerged" virtually all the way ... no penalties to attacks or vision, yet huge bonuses to AC and saves).
1. Depends on where you are in the wall. By rule, as I understand it, a medium creature inhabits an entire 5' square. That means you are on the edge of the square as much as you are in the middle of it. I personally would rule that an earth elemental in a solid wall adjacent to an open room can see and hear whatever is in the room as well as anyone in the room can.
2. See 1. If he's adjacent to the room, he can see the room. So he's got line of sight. Can he speak? Since the entire square he is in is stone, then it would be difficult to speak. However, he could potentially have silent spell and not need to speak, or an argument could be made that since he's an earth elemental, and earth elementals presumably "speak" to each other while fully enclosed in stone, then he could speak as an elemental so if he had "natural spell" he could cast a spell.
3. He doesn't need to move into the room unless he can't cast while in the wall. If he needs to move, then he can't move, cast, move unless he has a feat that allows it.
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The way I see it the ability is balanced as part of a 4th level power so long as it has the limitation that all interaction is two way. If you have line of site while earth gliding, everyone in the room has line of site to you. So long as you are blind while underground this is the case. If there is one-way line of sight, earth glide becomes tremendously overpowered. An NPC druid could cast call lightning just pound the party from underground all day long and they couldn't retaliate unless they have a similar capacity to earth glide.
As I said above, breathing underground is explicitly part of the burrowing ability in the Polymorph rules. There is no need for silent spell to cast underground.
The way I see it the ability is balanced as part of a 4th level power so long as it has the limitation that all interaction is two way. If you have line of site while earth gliding, everyone in the room has line of site to you. So long as you are blind while underground this is the case. If there is one-way line of sight, earth glide becomes tremendously overpowered. An NPC druid could cast call lightning just pound the party from underground all day long and they couldn't retaliate unless they have a similar capacity to earth glide.
As I said above, breathing underground is explicitly part of the burrowing ability in the Polymorph rules. There is no need for silent spell to cast underground.
Dennis, I'm just trying to apply the rules as I understand them. And doing so would suggest to me that if an earth elemental is in a stone wall adjacent to an open room and listening and watching the people in the room, then yes, if the people in the room target that earth elemental or the square it is in, they can absolutely beat the hell out of it.
Now some spells might have trouble affecting it, such as a fireball or other spell that specifically is bound by stone, but magic missile? Absolutely.
That's how I see it.
Just got home from work and checked my CRB - I must have somehow tricked myself into thinking that Elemental Body granted tremorsense.
Apparently, by literal RAW, it doesn't.
I think it only makes sense to:
a) Grant tremorsense as a gained sense from taking the earth elemental form, when using elemental body.
b) Treat tremorsense as blindsight, for the purpose of underground (read: earthgliding) navigation.
c) Treat any exposure when earthgliding as bi-directional exposure. If you have LoS and/or LoE, then so do the enemies. Further, if you have LoS and/or LoE, and take any action, then the enemies can sense exactly where you are, unless their senses are somehow otherwise impaired.
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Dennis, I'm just trying to apply the rules as I understand them. And doing so would suggest to me that if an earth elemental is in a stone wall adjacent to an open room and listening and watching the people in the room, then yes, if the people in the room target that earth elemental or the square it is in, they can absolutely beat the hell out of it.
Now some spells might have trouble affecting it, such as a fireball or other spell that specifically is bound by stone, but magic missile? Absolutely.
I don't see it that way. If you are in the wall, you are in the dirt, similar to being underwater. You are not on the surface of the wall, you are inside it. If you can't see through the wall, you don't have line of effect. Look at it this way, if you are in fog, a creature 5' away (in the adjacent space) has 20% concealment due to the fog between the two of you. If you are are in the wall the creature has 100% concealment due to the dirt/ stone between you.
There is no partial line of site, perhaps you could rule someone is halfway out of the wall and gets partial cover.
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Which would be echolocation, which would be blind sight.
Nope. I didn't call it blind sight (or echolocation) because it's not.
Why? Because blind sight has this little caveat."the creature must have line of effect"
And line of effect is:
"a straight, unblocked path that indicates what a spell can affect. A line of effect is canceled by a solid barrier."
So blind sight doesn't work underground where everything is a solid barrier.
Dennis, I'm just trying to apply the rules as I understand them. And doing so would suggest to me that if an earth elemental is in a stone wall adjacent to an open room and listening and watching the people in the room, then yes, if the people in the room target that earth elemental or the square it is in, they can absolutely beat the hell out of it.
Now some spells might have trouble affecting it, such as a fireball or other spell that specifically is bound by stone, but magic missile? Absolutely.
I don't see it that way. If you are in the wall, you are in the dirt, similar to being underwater. You are not on the surface of the wall, you are inside it. If you can't see through the wall, you don't have line of effect. Look at it this way, if you are in fog, a creature 5' away (in the adjacent space) has 20% concealment due to the fog between the two of you. If you are are in the wall the creature has 100% concealment due to the dirt/ stone between you.
There is no partial line of site, perhaps you could rule someone is halfway out of the wall and gets partial cover.
How is your interpretation RAW Dennis? Every "line of sight" or "line of effect" diagram I see in the rule books starts at a corner of your square and proceeds from there. It does not start WITHIN your square, it starts at a corner.
You are interpreting a rule in a way that I don't believe is RAW. As far as I can tell, by RAW you inhabit an entire square (or cube, really).
I'm open to your interpretation, but for it to be more than just that, your interpretation, help me with how RAW shows that a line of sight or line of effect starts from within your square, not a corner on the outside of it.
In the case of fog, the concealment for adjacent creatures is RAW. It's written into the rules that way. That is not the case for a stone-dwelling creature in a wall.
I'm not saying your interpretation doesn't "make sense". I'm saying it's not RAW.