What bonus (if any) does a creature get on its stealth check when it is completely underwater, while those trying to observe it are above water?
would it just be that the people making the perception check get a -2 or -5 penalty due to unfavorable or terrible conditions?
|
What bonus (if any) does a creature get on its stealth check when it is completely underwater, while those trying to observe it are above water?
would it just be that the people making the perception check get a -2 or -5 penalty due to unfavorable or terrible conditions?
Water provides cover, so the benefit is the ability to make a Stealth check.
Plus any distance penalties to Perception.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
PRD:
"Stealth and Detection Underwater: How far you can see underwater depends on the water's clarity. As a guideline, creatures can see 4d8 × 10 feet if the water is clear, and 1d8 × 10 feet if it's murky. Moving water is always murky, unless it's in a particularly large, slow-moving river.
It's hard to find cover or concealment to hide underwater (except along the sea floor).
Invisibility: An invisible creature displaces water and leaves a visible, body-shaped "bubble" where the water was displaced. The creature still has concealment (20% miss chance), but not total concealment (50% miss chance)."
and
"Attacks from Land: Characters swimming, floating, or treading water on the surface, or wading in water at least chest deep, have improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves) from opponents on land. Land-bound opponents who have freedom of movement effects ignore this cover when making melee attacks against targets in the water. A completely submerged creature has total cover against opponents on land unless those opponents have freedom of movement effects. Magical effects are unaffected except for those that require attack rolls (which are treated like any other effects) and fire effects."
and
"Improved Cover: In some cases, such as attacking a target hiding behind an arrowslit, cover may provide a greater bonus to AC and Reflex saves. In such situations, the normal cover bonuses to AC and Reflex saves can be doubled (to +8 and +4, respectively). A creature with this improved cover effectively gains improved evasion against any attack to which the Reflex save bonus applies. Furthermore, improved cover provides a +10 bonus on Stealth checks."
If completely underwater, it's Total Cover. So the question is whether this section on attacks is supposed to be implied for all purposes. If so, you technically can't use sight to spot an underwater creature from land at all. So it's not a bonus to the Stealth roll, it's essentially auto-succeed. I don't really think that should be the case.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
PRD:
"Bogs: If a square is part of a shallow bog, it has deep mud or standing water of about 1 foot in depth. It costs 2 squares of movement to move into a square with a shallow bog, and the DC of Acrobatics checks in such a square increases by 2.
A square that is part of a deep bog has roughly 4 feet of standing water. It costs Medium or larger creatures 4 squares of movement to move into a square with a deep bog, or characters can swim if they wish. Small or smaller creatures must swim to move through a deep bog. Tumbling is impossible in a deep bog.
The water in a deep bog provides cover for Medium or larger creatures. Smaller creatures gain improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves). Medium or larger creatures can crouch as a move action to gain this improved cover. Creatures with this improved cover take a –10 penalty on attacks against creatures that aren't underwater.
Deep bog squares are usually clustered together and surrounded by an irregular ring of shallow bog squares.
Both shallow and deep bogs increase the DC of Stealth checks by 2."
And as previously quoted, yes, completely submerged = total cover:
"Attacks from Land: Characters swimming, floating, or treading water on the surface, or wading in water at least chest deep, have improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves) from opponents on land. Land-bound opponents who have freedom of movement effects ignore this cover when making melee attacks against targets in the water. A completely submerged creature has total cover against opponents on land unless those opponents have freedom of movement effects. Magical effects are unaffected except for those that require attack rolls (which are treated like any other effects) and fire effects."
Finally:
"Total Cover: If you don't have line of effect to your target (that is, you cannot draw any line from your square to your target's square without crossing a solid barrier), he is considered to have total cover from you. You can't make an attack against a target that has total cover."
Purple Dragon Knight - thank you for gathering all of those. I had already read them prior to posting, but none of them spoke about perception checks between environments.
Anyone who has looked at the ocean or a lake or river - it is rare that you see anything very well if it is more than a foot below the surface.
Similarly - if you are underwater and open your eyes - seeing other things under water is easy - but everything outside of the water is completely distorted.
This is why i was asking soecifically about perception between the two environments. I get that it grants cover , but it seemed like it should give a bonus to stealth (or perception should take an equivilent penalty) more than standing upright behind a wall that goes up to your waist.
fretgod99 you seem to be confusing "improved cover" with "total concealment" there is a difference.
fretgod99 you seem to be confusing "improved cover" with "total concealment" there is a difference.
I am not.
A completely submerged creature has total cover against opponents on land unless those opponents have freedom of movement effects.
If you don't have line of effect to your target (that is, you cannot draw any line from your square to your target's square without crossing a solid barrier), he is considered to have total cover from you. You can't make an attack against a target that has total cover.
Assuming you are asking about what happens when one party is completely under water and the other is standing next to water, against attacks from the land-bound party, the submerged party does in fact have Total Cover, which completely prevents attacks. My point is that this section is relevant for attacks and there really isn't an explicit rule covering the Perception scenario. True, water might not completely break line of sight (so the auto-succeed Stealth was a bit too much of an exaggeration), but we don't know how much it inteferes with sight-based checks. By the same token, the Stealth bonus for Improved Cover might not be appropriate for the same reason.
If completely underwater, it's Total Cover. So the question is whether this section on attacks is supposed to be implied for all purposes. If so, you technically can't use sight to spot an underwater creature from land at all. So it's not a bonus to the Stealth roll, it's essentially auto-succeed. I don't really think that should be the case.Total cover isn't an autosucceed on stealth.
See the post directly above yours.