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As the title says - I've been toying with different ways to make a Moonlight Stalker build work consistently. A cloak of minor displacement is an obvious choice - but it uses up the shoulders slot and doesn't work against True Seeting.
I was considering a Ring of Blinking combined with a Headband of Ninjutsu so that sneak attacks would still work despite the 20% miss chance. Does Blink count as concealment such that Moonlight Stalker would work? (It says just 50% miss chance - but the spell description actually mentions 20% concealment for those who can strike ethereal creatures - implying that some of the 50% is also concealment.)
Nope. Blink is about you being there or on the ethereal plane. You are going back and forth really fast.
On the other hand, the text of Blink says:
Physical attacks against you have a 50% miss chance, and the Blind-Fight feat doesn't help opponents, since you're ethereal and not merely invisible. If the attack is capable of striking ethereal creatures, the miss chance is only 20% (for concealment).
Emphasis mine.
The subject is "not merely invisible", but not fully visible either, otherwise there would not be a miss chance due to concealment, and the text of the spell refers other times to the subject being only partly visible. In conclusion yes, it works.
Note though, that your attacks also have a 20% miss chance, and that is not due to concealment but due to you being ethereal:
If the attacker can see invisible creatures, the miss chance is also only 20%. (For an attacker who can both see and strike ethereal creatures, there is no miss chance.) Likewise, your own attacks have a 20% miss chance, since you sometimes go ethereal just as you are about to strike.
Note the "likewise" linking the two sentences.
Unless you find a way to overcome this non-concealment miss chance, I would not consider this build as "working consistently". But then again, I am not very lucky with dice :)|
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Note though, that your attacks also have a 20% miss chance, and that is not due to concealment but due to you being ethereal:
So you don't think you'd even need the Headband of Ninjutsu to apply your sneak attack? Interesting. (Not that it'd be a bad purchase anyway.)
Unless you find a way to overcome this non-concealment miss chance, I would not consider this build as "working consistently". But then again, I am not very lucky with dice :)
Meh - in terms of absolute miss chance - them being flatfooted from Moonlight Stalker Feint along with the additional +2 to hit from the base Moonlight Stalker feat should more than cancel out a 20% miss chance. Even moreso if you get the extra +2 insight bonus from the Headband of Ninjutsu.
So you don't think you'd even need the Headband of Ninjutsu to apply your sneak attack? Interesting. (Not that it'd be a bad purchase anyway.)
Note though, that your attacks also have a 20% miss chance, and that is not due to concealment but due to you being ethereal:
Exactly.
Unless you find a way to overcome this non-concealment miss chance, I would not consider this build as "working consistently". But then again, I am not very lucky with dice :)Meh - in terms of absolute miss chance - them being flatfooted from Moonlight Stalker Feint along with the additional +2 to hit from the base Moonlight Stalker feat should more than cancel out a 20% miss chance. Even moreso if you get the extra +2 insight bonus from the Headband of Ninjutsu.
Well, if your attack bonus is high enough, so assuming you hit always except on natural 1s, I suppose missing once every five strikes is not that bad. And if enemies are too hard to hit, you can always turn off the ring.
Would a ghost touch weapon allow you to attack from blink without the 20% miss chance from being ethereal?
Nope.
Ghost touch weapons only affect incorporeal creatures. The confusion here is due to the fact that an etheral and incorporeal creatures have much in common mechanically, but if you read their descriptions there are no cross-references. Basically, an incorporeal creature is here, but has no physical body (like a ghost), whereas an etheral creature is on another plane and its interaction with the material plane is mostly limited to sight and hearing within 60 feet.
