Recently, our group was playing the second part of the Hell's Rebel campaign, and came across a bit of a confusing moment when fighting a Devilfish( http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary2/devilfish.html )
The Devilfish used it's Unholy Blood ability, giving it total concealment. It then attacked and grappled Player A, pulling them into the concealment with it. Player B and a summoned shark came in to attack it.
Shark( http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/shark.html )Note: The shark has blindsense.
The question is this:
With the 50% miss chance of total concealment, and the grapple of the player, how would attacks to the creature work?
Should there be a 50% chance to hit the player grappled, or is it just the 50% chance to hit the creature as normal?
Total concealment requires you to guess the square of the target. The devilfish is large, so it's 4-squares large on a 2D tacmat. (And I would suggest that if you're in an underwater 3D environment, the GM should make the devilfish a 2x2x2 creature, thus 8 squares. Though this my extrapolation, and not in the base rules.)
Assuming your ally is small or medium sized, that means he or she would only take up one square. If the devilfish is grappling him or her, then that means that PC is sharing one of the devilfish's 4 (or 8) squares.
When Player B guesses a square to attack, if that square contains a devilfish, but not a friendly PC, then there is no chance of hitting that PC. Only if Player B guesses Player A's square is there a chance.
Now, what is that chance, assuming he targets the very square his ally is in? (For Player B, who doesn't have blindsense) By the rules, there isn't one. There's a printed optional rule that says you hit your ally on a natural 1. And I think the GM is well within his or her rights to houserule the situation. But you're not actually able to accidentally hit an ally in the Pathfinder rules. It's one of the things they dropped from 3.5.
Total concealment requires you to guess the square of the target. The devilfish is large, so it's 4-squares large on a 2D tacmat. (And I would suggest that if you're in an underwater 3D environment, the GM should make the devilfish a 2x2x2 creature, thus 8 squares. Though this my extrapolation, and not in the base rules.)
Assuming your ally is small or medium sized, that means he or she would only take up one square. If the devilfish is grappling him or her, then that means that PC is sharing one of the devilfish's 4 (or 8) squares.
When Player B guesses a square to attack, if that square contains a devilfish, but not a friendly PC, then there is no chance of hitting that PC. Only if Player B guesses Player A's square is there a chance.
Now, what is that chance, assuming he targets the very square his ally is in? (For Player B, who doesn't have blindsense) By the rules, there isn't one. There's a printed optional rule that says you hit your ally on a natural 1. And I think the GM is well within his or her rights to houserule the situation. But you're not actually able to accidentally hit an ally in the Pathfinder rules. It's one of the things they dropped from 3.5.
Thank you for this response. I really do appreciate it. I can perfectly understand the houserule due to the lack of rules available, and it makes sense as to why that was done that way. Most of the other players were being rules lawyers and arguing the fact. More so because there was confusion and it wasn't clarified that he made it a houserule.
What should have been summoned was a Dolphin that had Blindsight.
Assuming your ally is small or medium sized, that means he or she would only take up one square. If the devilfish is grappling him or her, then that means that PC is sharing one of the devilfish's 4 (or 8) squares.
Unlike in 3.5 they don't share squares anymore. You get pulled into an adjacent square. The rest was correct.