I would like to preface the following scenario with I am currently looking for the RAW answer to the situation in question.
I was running A House on Hook Street on Saturday, and without giving away the specifics of the situation, the party got trapped on the pier with an angry mob (appearing as a Troop unit) bearing down on them. Within the first round of combat, the party used a Glitter Dust spell and the Troop failed it's save to resist the blind. When the Troop's turn arrived and they overlapped the party, I rolled damage as normal per swarm/troop rules.
My party's Swashbuckler was displeased with the fact that concealment rules did not apply from the blindness, but per RAW my understanding concealment only occurs on an "attack" (melee or ranged) which involves having to perform an attack roll prior to dealing with the concealment in the first place.
In terms of game rules, I continued to follow all other blindness rules (could not move more than half its speed, -2 AC, -2 on skill checks, flat footed for purposes of sneak attack) but did not feel that the concealment applied.
In terms of narrative, I ruled that while the glitterdust was effective to deterring the crowd, they are essentially a roving moshpit charging in the direction of their quarry, while some may be blinded/left behind, some might have fallen into the water below the pier, and some of them might have been fighting eachother, it did not translate into game rules as "concealment."
Am I off base (in terms of RAW rules) or is this correct?
I would like to note, that I am asking for RAW specifically because I have already determined how I will handle this issue when/if troops are encountered again.
since a troops do not make attack your players cannot roll for conceal to negate the attack. conceal say this
''if the attacker hits, the defender must make a miss chance d% roll to avoid being struck. Multiple concealment conditions do not stack.''
and in troop they say that (the relevant point for conceal at least)
''Creatures with the troop subtype don’t make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature within reach or whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed.''
so since they make no attack roll your player cannot make a conceal roll to save them from the damage
Yup, this is exactly how I ruled it, I wanted to make sure I wasn't mis-understanding the rules.
On a facebook group someone claimed that every party member in the group should roll for concealment or take auto damage, which I understand as a house rule but that's not how I understood the RAW to work.
I think you got the rules right, but if somebody questions the flavor of it I guess you could say that since a troop is a group of creatures maybe some of the individual creatures were still able to see. Either way, if there's no attack roll there's nothing to apply the miss chance to though I guess you could house rule it as a chance to reduce or avoid the damage (house rule if you wanted to use it - not RAW as I understand it)
It's a swarm, they surround you and don't need to see you to grab you and tear you apart. No attack roll = no concealment roll.
Yeah, but they can't fairly move into a square if they cannot see. They can guess, but if the PC moves and the troops are blind then their ability to target the square by moving into it should be affected.
I agree with this, but for the record they knew exactly where the PCs were and which direction to head. If the PCs went somewhere else they couldn't have gotten to them without glitter dust wearing off, but that's not what happened, the PCs stood in roughly the same area.
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I think the RAW was correct, but not the flavor. It's an angry mob but it's still made up of people. People that are suddenly blind will slow down their movement and have more to worry about then attacking. They will also, if continuing to swing clubs, torches, pitchforks around start damaging each other as much as the party, so if you give the party full damage maybe have the troops damage themselves - which will keep the glitter-dust caster from feeling their spell was wasted/ignored.
I think the RAW was correct, but not the flavor. It's an angry mob but it's still made up of people. People that are suddenly blind will slow down their movement and have more to worry about then attacking. They will also, if continuing to swing clubs, torches, pitchforks around start damaging each other as much as the party, so if you give the party full damage maybe have the troops damage themselves - which will keep the glitter-dust caster from feeling their spell was wasted/ignored.
Next time I run them into a troop, if I opt to use the rule, I will likely have the troop do half damage. My reasoning in terms of flavor was that the way the situation occurred, more and more people were streaming in to get them, it was a disorganize rabble and they were indiscriminately attacking. As far as the reasoning as why I ruled it like I did this time, it falls into history with the players and knowing that they tend to edge closer to the "power gamer" level than the average player, so I try not to give them "gimmes" since even though they became surrounded quickly, they still dispatched the troop in 2 rounds without much trouble. I felt that having the glitter dust completly stop the troop or have it damage itself would have completely marginalized the encounter which was also the first encounter of the day and the first one in over a month which I wanted to be challenging.
Flaming Mob > Mob.
Ah, harder encounter, then you should have had the mob start swinging their torches wildly setting themselves on fire so that the mob took 1d6 fire damage each round as did every creature enveloped (also enveloped creatures need to save or catch on fire - so that the damage could continue once the mob was dispersed). If some of the mob was carrying oil or fireworks, it could have become a flaming burst mob.
Flaming Mob > Mob.
Ah, harder encounter, then you should have had the mob start swinging their torches wildly setting themselves on fire so that the mob took 1d6 fire damage each round as did every creature enveloped (also enveloped creatures need to save or catch on fire - so that the damage could continue once the mob was dispersed). If some of the mob was carrying oil or fireworks, it could have become a flaming burst mob.
Why stop there? I should use the little known "Tarrasque Troop" featuring no fewer than 40 tarrasques from different universes all converging into one epic encounter.
Troops are affected by area of effect spells as if they were one creature. If they failed the save against blindness, then the troops were blinded and should have contended with concealment - even with autohits.
The problem is auto-hits aren't affected by concealment, so any argument to the contrary fails before it even gets started.
The worst that happens is the need for perception checks to locate the target if it moved away from it's last known location.
Source?
Source?
Troops, like swarms, never hit to begin with--they just damage, like walking through a bonfire damages. Concealment is irrelevant--they hit anything in reach or in their space.
There's more to being blinded than 50% miss chance. The troop would also have to make DC 10 acrobatics checks to move more than 1/2 speed and if they fail they drop prone.
Making the troop deal 1/2 damage because half of their attacks would miss seems like a pretty reasonable house-rule for this scenario if you wanted to reward the players for having their spell succeed though.
There's more to being blinded than 50% miss chance. The troop would also have to make DC 10 acrobatics checks to move more than 1/2 speed and if they fail they drop prone.
OP covered half-speed, among other things.
Yeah. I have Bestiary 6. I am running troops in Ironfang and I have read the entries thoroughly.
I still say you are mistaken. They are clearly said to be affected by area of effect spells, so those of you saying concealment is irrelevant are incorrect and spreading misinformation based on your misreading.
They are either affected or not.
Concealment does affect them. Concealment simply doesn't do what you assert that it does. Do you roll miss chance for a fireball?