|
| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Alright, in movement, it says that things like difficult ground cause each square of movement to cost two. Now, it also says 'poor visibility' causes this reduction in movement. I cannot find anywhere that actually defines exactly what 'poor visibility' means. Can someone help me out with this?
-Xavier
Concealment or Total concealment.
Poor visibility is anything other than bright light.
Chapter 7 of the Core Rulebook has the rules on lighting, I'm checking them now...
Hmm... that details what dim and no light are, but not about movement.
That's a good question, actually. The rules say there are three levels of light: Bright, Dim, and None. Does poor visiblity count as Dim, or None? That does need clarifying...
Certainly, Bright light is not poor visibility. Dim light has concealment, and No light has total concealment. I personally would rule that only No light makes terrain count as difficult; I think you should still be able to move normally in Dim lighting, but that's just from personal experience; on a night with a full moon, even with no other illumination, I don't have any serious difficulty seeing where I'm going.
Just because its poor visibility for purposes of becoming lost doesn't mean its poor visibility for purposes of movement. That's how you wind up with pinned creatures being helpless.
I looked this up a while ago so I'm 100 percent on the rule. but cannot site a page number. there's a rule that says if you cannot see more than 30 feet it hampers your movement.
so spells that eff up your vision and cause rough terrain and say your movement is 1/4 are actually doing poor visibility and rough terrain.
if you've ever been camping got up in the middle of the night and tried moving quickly to the vaguely visible outhouse you'll know what it's like.
I'm afraid I can't remember here it's listed though.
Your comment is not very constructive.
Do you have a better reference? As far as I know that is the only one for definition of "poor visibility". And I dont see why this should not apply for combat/movement.
I'd call it a constructive comment because it cautioning against such silliness as trying to reduce the speed of those operating by most artificial light sources, because few of those have a 60' radius.
As for how poor visibility affects speed, it is buried in the Environment chapter.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/environment.html
Environment... Environmental Rules... Darkness...
Blind creatures must make a DC 10 Acrobatics skill check to move faster than half speed. Creatures that fail this check fall prone. Blinded creatures can't run or charge.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sillyness resulting from using the poor visibility for overland travel for combat.
All Oracles with the blind curse cannot five-foot step in combat, and they all move at half-speed, making them slower than oracles with the lame curse, since they never see 60 feet.
Any combats taking place inside buildings, caves, dungeons, or other enclosed spaces leave all combatants on difficult terrain, since nobody can see more than 60 feet. This makes dungeon crawls really slow, since everyone is moving at half-speed due to difficult terrain modifiers. Also all combatants move at only half-speed.
Torches still leave everyone using them, even on a flat featureless plain, on difficult terrain, since their radius is too small to cover 60 feet. Therefore any creature that must use them is slowed to half-speed.
Darkvision less than 60 feet leaves it's owner at half-speed in the dark.
As we can see above, using the overland travel 'poor visibility' rule for combat it just plain silly, if not idiotic. It's meant to convey the fact that if you can't see more than 60 feet, you might miss all the important landmarks and end up wandering in the wrong direction, not that you can't see where your feet are going.
Personally, my take on it is you have to be able to see the square you are wanting to move into. A round takes 6 seconds. Even in a pea soup fog, I can see 5 feet away if there's light illuminating the fog (at night is different). I've walked through a fog so thick I couldn't see 10 feet away, and didn't slow down, as I could see where I was moving to. I could, and did, get lost in it, but I didn't go tripping over logs or what have you. Nothing like the fog in Virginia mountains to teach you how visibility works. :) Now, dazzled or dazed by spells or bright light might make it hard to move since you can't see that 5 foot square clearly. Same for illusion spells, things that mask the area around you.