Druid shenanigans

[master_marshmallow]

I have a player who wanted to try something when delivering a touch spell with his druid. He had wildshaped into an earth elemental and wanted to earth glide directly underneath his target, then only reach out his hand from underground and touch his target in a way that would prevent him from being targeted by any attacks or having to surface.

I ruled that coming out of the ground in any way regardless of how much of his body was coming out was essentially the same thing as surfacing.

Did I make the right call?

[Nefreet]

It was actually just recently discussed in this thread.

[Bakenellan]

I think yes. I would give him cover for not totally surfaced. Alternatively he could attack without surfacing at all but with miss chance for not seeing an opponent himself (he would know where he is due to tremorsense if he has one - earth elemental would have, but elemental body spell does not explicitly give this ability).

[666bender]

well... its the same as ghosts i think, you CAN get cover, but not total cover when attacking.
and as for spells, groud block line of effect.

[andreww]

master_marshmallow wrote:

I have a player who wanted to try something when delivering a touch spell with his druid. He had wildshaped into an earth elemental and wanted to earth glide directly underneath his target, then only reach out his hand from underground and touch his target in a way that would prevent him from being targeted by any attacks or having to surface.

I ruled that coming out of the ground in any way regardless of how much of his body was coming out was essentially the same thing as surfacing.

Did I make the right call?

Be aware that wildshape does not give him the earth elementals tremorsense ability so if he does not emerge at all then he cannot see his target and will be taking a 50% miss chance. There are ways to fix that such as the cave druid or tremorsense boots but the base ability doesnt let him see where he is going.

[andreww]

666bender wrote:

well... its the same as ghosts i think, you CAN get cover, but not total cover when attacking.

and as for spells, groud block line of effect.

He is talking about using touch spells so it isnt an issue.

[Ascalaphus]

The tremorsense part is important. Without it, the druid can't see if the enemy is still in that square, without surfacing. If you take a long time to deliver the spell that can be a problem.

I think the rules for incorporeal creatures do/should apply to earth-gliders too, in general. (Difference: earth glide doesn't insist you remain adjacent to the surface.)

Universal Monster Rules, Bestiary wrote:

An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object's exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see beyond the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

There are three things to pay attention to here;

1) If it attacks from beneath the floor, the creature suffers miss chance. Even if it can pinpoint creatures outside the rock (which is also what Tremorsense does), you still can't see them, and blind-fighting rules apply.

2) To get rid of blind-fighting you actually have to come out.

3) If you attack you only have normal cover, so a readied action could be used against you.

[andreww]

Tremorsense allows you to pinpoint, it is an entirely separate issue to the limits of being incorporeal. Many incorporeal creatures have lifesense which does exactly the same for them. An incorporeal creature without some form of exceptional sense would certainly suffer the miss chance.

[wraithstrike]

What incorporeal has lifesense other than wraiths. Ghosts and shadows dont have it. I don't know about spectres.

[andreww]

I was mostly thinking about wraiths and spectres although on checking spectres dont get it.

[Werebat]

Purple worms get tremorsense and burrow. So do graboids.

[Kazumetsa Raijin]

master_marshmallow wrote:

I have a player who wanted to try something when delivering a touch spell with his druid. He had wildshaped into an earth elemental and wanted to earth glide directly underneath his target, then only reach out his hand from underground and touch his target in a way that would prevent him from being targeted by any attacks or having to surface.

I ruled that coming out of the ground in any way regardless of how much of his body was coming out was essentially the same thing as surfacing.

Did I make the right call?

I would have to say yes, you made the right call. Though, I think you should have also applied the miss chance that everyone else is chatting about. A readied action could have caught him.