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If you are in contact with the ground, yes.
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.
It can automatically pinpoint the location of anything that is in contact with the ground.
Not if they are moving. If they are in contact with the ground. A corpse is visible to somebody with tremorsense.
Also, if you really want to get into the physics of it, every single object ever is always vibrating. Period. Everything. Always. It is impossible to not vibrate at some sort of frequency. The only thing that doesn't is either at absolute zero (impossible) or in a black hole (theoretically improbably). So tremorsense detects everything in contact with the ground.
Everything that exists is always vibrating at a constant frequency, so yes, it can detect you. Even with pillows (otherwise wearing shoes would make you immune to it).
If you want to stealth around the guy with tremorsense, get flight.
Also, even if you ignore the vibrations the hider gives off, by being in contact with the ground, they affect the vibrations that are moving through that space. Much like holding a finger on a fret of your guitar changes the pitch and putting your hand on the strings can stop their vibrations altogether, just standing on the ground that's vibrating from other sources can reveal your presence.
Yes, the shoe example is my point. Pillows are as effective as shoes.
They don't even need a pulse to be detected. They need a physical form.
Yes, tremorsense is very handy. That's why it usually comes in pretty low ranges.
I would imagine 'automatically pinpoint anything in contact with the ground' is functionally the same as the unsubscribed ability of most creatures to automatically pinpoint the location of something within line of sight and sufficiently illuminated.
If you are touching the ground with their range they are able to observe you, so regular uses of stealth wouldn't work.
Hide is plain sight is questionable. I would probably work that it trumps the observed of tremor sense but that depends entirely on my assumption that tremorsene 'automatically pinpoints' isn't any more powerful than regular vision 'automatically pinpoints'.
There's ways around it...flight, levitation, or any of the spells/abilities that have you "fly" 1 inch off the ground.
Sounds like a reasonable houserule to me as long as you let your players know beforehand.
The basics of it being that even if you would be invisible and silenced the creature would still be able to locate you. Since stealth can not beat absolute invisibility or absolute silence stealth is useless.
A simple spell or magic boots might be developed to cheat tremor sense though.
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.
Hide in Plain Sight will not help you against this ability.
If you are in contact with the ground and within range of the sense it automatically pinpoints the location.
An ability will specifically call out if it allows you to beat Tremorsense using Stealth.
Example
Supreme Stealth (Ex): Choose one of the following senses: blindsight, scent, or tremorsense. A creature using the chosen sense can't automatically detect you, and must succeed at Perception checks as normal to do so. If you choose blindsight, this ability also affects blindsense. You can select this ability up to three times, each time choosing a different sense.
As a Rules question: Yes, as long as you are within range and in contact with the ground.
Anything else is a house-rule or general discussion.
It might be 3.5, but Paizo made the Boots of the Soft Step.
Then we have the Skulking Sniper's Blowgun..
Why would there be a miss chance when you know exactly where to attack? I'd give the denied Dex though. Knowing where the feet/equivalent body part is doesn't let you dodged the invisible sword.
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Why would there be a miss chance when you know exactly where to attack? I'd give the denied Dex though. Knowing where the feet/equivalent body part is doesn't let you dodged the invisible sword.
Because you still can't see what you are attacking. You know where something is standing, but you don't know how the rest of their body not in contact with the ground is situated. You can swing over their head, or thrust between their legs and hit air.
Tremorsense allows you to pinpoint the location of a creature. It does not allow you to ignore concealment.
I was able to shut that down by pointing out that tremorsense only discusses pinpointing creatures and nothing else,
This is not true. Tremorsense says it "can automatically pinpoint the location of anything that is in contact with the ground." Not just creatures.
You absolutely still suffer the miss chance for invisible creatures.
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Then why have the first part of the sentence, "is sensitive to vibrations in the ground"? why not just says "A Creature with tremorsense can automatically pinpoint anyone in contact with the ground". This would be clear to say that no stealth can be attempted in the vicinity of a tremorsense creature.
the first part of the sentence tells me that its only sensitive to vibrations and should it feel a vibration, which would be someone coming into contact with the ground, can auto pinpoint where it came from.
Sorry but while I agree everything resonates and vibrates at a certain frequency, its too high a frequency for even a creature honed in detecting vibrations to notice.
either way, I say it can be debated that stealth should still be allowed to be attempted because someone trying to move stealthy would cause less vibrations than someone walking normally.
I can hear perfectly fine but sometimes its hard to hear a person whispering. same concept with any other type of sense. Is my opinion anyway.
The first part of the sentence exist because there are things in this game that can be in contact with the ground but that will not generate vibrations:
- incorporeal creatures- gaseous creatures
It is not possible to exclude that in the future we will see some ability or spell that will stop that kind of detection, so it give an indication on how it work.
Said that, as a GM you can choose to limit how it work and what it detect.
except the word AND in that same sentence leads me to believe it can only detect vibrations, AND when it does it pinpoints your location. I feel its worded improperly. otherwise they wouldn't need the whole sensitive to vibrations part of the text.
It should either be
"A Creature with Tremorsense can automatically pinpoint any creature that is in contact with the ground"
OR
"A Creature with Tremorsense is sensitive to vibrations and can automatically pinpoint any creature in contact with the ground that is causing sufficient vibrations"
I would imagine 'automatically pinpoint anything in contact with the ground' is functionally the same as the unsubscribed ability of most creatures to automatically pinpoint the location of something within line of sight and sufficiently illuminated.And this right here, a person can still attempt to stealth before they have been observed in this sufficiently lit room. even if the observer gains line of sight on the hider, if he doesnt beat the opposed stealth check with his perception he can't detect the hider, regardless of the hider being "In Plain View" because the hider was able to stealth before being observed. SO I believe a person who is stealthing and moving into a creatures tremoresense range would still get to be stealthy. If they walked into the range, realized there was a creature and tried to stealth I would say no because that person has been observed by the tremorsense.
If people are observing you using any of their senses (but typically sight), you can't use Stealth. Against most creatures, finding cover or concealment allows you to use Stealth. If your observers are momentarily distracted (such as by a Bluff check), you can attempt to use Stealth. While the others turn their attention from you, you can attempt a Stealth check if you can get to an unobserved place of some kind. This check, however, is made at a –10 penalty because you have to move fast.
Breaking Stealth: When you start your turn using Stealth, you can leave cover or concealment and remain unobserved as long as you succeed at a Stealth check and end your turn in cover or concealment. Your Stealth immediately ends after you make and attack roll, whether or not the attack is successful (except when sniping as noted below).
The earth elemental's ability has a range of 30' only and is not typically very stealthy.
Of course the elemental can 'swim' underground if in stone or earth at least. It is possible to have the earth elemental make a stealth check with a significant bonus (probably +30) to allow creatures a chance to detect vibrations in the earth themselves.
It will not be a very high chance to be detected but there is a slight possibility that increases with higher CR foes.
No you said everything that exists. this would mean your shoes would have a frequency too.
but I disagree that a creature would be able to detect such a frequency since our own modern machines have to be turned up to max just to detect it. I really doubt a creature with a regular sense could detect it.
I hate to go here...
Toph Beifong. She is one of the prime examples of how tremor sense works.
While yes, your vibrations are obvious, but her own vibrations work as echolocation to notice you.
Not entirely true, but close enough that you can imagine how it works.
I originally thought that Tremorsense was supposed to be a lesser Blindsight or a special case Blindsense, but the answers I'm getting here make Tremorsense out to be much better than Blindsight.
I wouldn't compare tremor sense to the blind ones- I think of it more as an upgrade of scent.
Scent lets you spend actions to find the square of an unseen foe. Tremor sense does this automatically in range.
Both fail to do anything about misschances though. Invisible is invisible, and miss chance is misschance. Blindsense and Blindsight get around invisible.
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I originally thought that Tremorsense was supposed to be a lesser Blindsight or a special case Blindsense, but the answers I'm getting here make Tremorsense out to be much better than Blindsight.
I'm running an underground dungeon crawl adventure that has almost every encounter tactic built around the enemies hiding until certain conditions are met (like all the players are in the room), and one of my players is a Stonelord Paladin, which gets an Earth Elemental as a companion. He uses it to scout the rooms out before opening the door. Which has made every encounter ten creatures bottle-necked in a 5-ft doorway.
When the player first got the elemental, he tried to argue that tremorsense would allow hie elemental to tell him everything about the room, including size, shape, height, terrain hazards, traps (all traps, not just pit traps), and what all the creatures in the room are. And he thought all this should be known automatically. I was able to shut that down by pointing out that tremorsense only discusses pinpointing creatures and nothing else, so I've since been giving them number of creatures, size of the creatures, and occasionally something else, if relevant (like number of feet, or "There's a large creature in there. It's laying down.").
The only exception I've made has been constructs with a "acts like a statue" special ability. That gap in tremorsense has since stopped because the sorcerer bought Deathwatch Eyes.Since he got that elemental, the only encounter that's been run by the published tactics has been the floor with a bunch of creatures with racial stealth bonuses crawling on the ceiling.
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.
Read the bolded part, that is all that tremorsense do.
It pinpoint the location.It don't say: this is an human, that is a dwarf and that is a bugbear. It say, at most "there is a bipedal creature there".
"There is a large item there", not "there is a loaded ballista aimed at the door with a trap wire ready to trigger it".
Pinpoint is a far cry away from a description.
Both fail to do anything about misschances though. Invisible is invisible, and miss chance is misschance. Blindsense and Blindsight get around invisible.
Well, blindsight does, blindsense doesn't
If you also take the Blind Fighting Feat, then you are in business. Blind Fighting doesn't eliminate the Miss Chance, but it lets you reroll it, reducing the Miss Chance due to Total Concealment from 50% to 25% and Total Concealment from 20% to 4%.
I have a PFS Half Orc character who took the Keen Scent and Blindfighting feats, and she carried an Eversmoking Bottle. It wasn't as good as it sounded, though: it almost always Blinded friend and foe alike, and most PFS players do not take countermeasures against being Blinded, so everyone resented it whenever I opened my bottle.
Yeah...but you can get the same result if your wizard has see invisibility up and just tells you which square to aim at.
Oh, being able to do this on your own is obviously an advantage. No actions or spell slots wasted. Just saying- it isn't everything.
Both fail to do anything about misschances though. Invisible is invisible, and miss chance is misschance. Blindsense and Blindsight get around invisible.Well, blindsight does, blindsense doesn't
I stand corrected on blindsense. I suppose it is yet another 'scent' upgrade (just one that can deal with creatures touching the ground or flying, while tremor sense handles touching the ground and digging under it), and blind sight is the only true 'sight' upgrade (well, other than darkvision, low light vision, and see in darkness, obviously).