Kineticist tremorsense wild utility

[Evilserran]

I have a potential future gm giving me a ruling i do not agree with, but he is open to discussion, therefor this thread. A kineticist has the tremorsense wild talent. An enemy is invisible, i target them with tremorsense and attack. He states they still have a miss chance, because tremorsense does not pinpoint location but just the square they are in, and that that is not "concealment".

Tremorsense
Element(s) earth; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0

You can take a move action to gain tremorsense 30 feet for 1 round on any earth or stone surface that you touch. You can accept 1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist level you possess. While benefiting from this tremorsense, your earth blasts and composite blasts that include earth components don’t suffer a miss chance from concealment or total concealment against creatures you detect with your tremorsense.

I feel by his "reading" that it makes the second line entirely moot. I literally see no way it would make any sense in existing by his interpretation. Thought? Can you cite locations? Please help! I may be making an earth kineticist in his game in the next few months, so we need to get this nailed down by then! thanks.

[MrCharisma]

Evilserran wrote:

I have a potential future gm giving me a ruling i do not agree with, but he is open to discussion, therefor this thread. A kineticist has the tremorsense wild talent. An enemy is invisible, i target them with tremorsense and attack. He states they still have a miss chance, because tremorsense does not pinpoint location but just the square they are in, and that that is not "concealment".

Tremorsense
Element(s) earth; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0

You can take a move action to gain tremorsense 30 feet for 1 round on any earth or stone surface that you touch. You can accept 1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist level you possess. While benefiting from this tremorsense, your earth blasts and composite blasts that include earth components don’t suffer a miss chance from concealment or total concealment against creatures you detect with your tremorsense.

I feel by his "reading" that it makes the second line entirely moot. I literally see no way it would make any sense in existing by his interpretation. Thought? Can you cite locations? Please help! I may be making an earth kineticist in his game in the next few months, so we need to get this nailed down by then! thanks.

Normally Tremorsense wouldn't do anything for concealment, but that's pretty clear in letting you ignore the miss chance. My guess would be theat the GM is just remembering the general rules for Tremorsense and miss-chance, and hasn't noticed that last line. Just show them that again (maybe with the text bolded as I've done or something).

Also remember specific trumps general, and this is the more specific ruling, so it would overrule the general rule.

[Evilserran]

I actually pointed out that line to them. I even cited "specific trumps general" but he still disagreees. He is stating that because it does not pinpoint their exact location thats why there is miss chance, and it has nothing to do with "concealment" or at least that is my take on his statement.

[MrCharisma]

Evilserran wrote:

I actually pointed out that line to them. I even cited "specific trumps general" but he still disagreees. He is stating that because it does not pinpoint their exact location thats why there is miss chance, and it has nothing to do with "concealment" or at least that is my take on his statement.

Ah ... yes it does?

TREMORSENSE wrote:

The creature 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.

[MrCharisma]

Also, the miss-chance comes from concealment, that's the only reason there' a miss-chance to begin with.

Check here: BLINDSIGHT AND BLINDSENSE

[Joesi]

For the record in case you needed more of a backup, I 100% agree with MrCharisma's original statement. It's also not even an issue of opinion, the GM is flat out wrong, and there should be no consensus of people required (unless the issue is somehow of balance, which it really shouldn't be. If the GM somehow thinks the character is too strong, this ability is not the one to make that point).

Normally tremorsense wouldn't prevent an attack from missing, but in this specific case it definitely allows blasts (not other attacks) to be performed without any additional miss chance.

The issue seems to be with what the GM considers to be concealment. They are probably thinking of specific things (like fog or cover) blocking vision, which is not [entirely] true. There are other sources of concealment such as invisibility (invisibility providing concealment is WELL document, and he is ignorant or crazy to think that it does not), and invisibility does nothing to evade detection from tremor sense.

Quote:

He states they still have a miss chance, because tremorsense does not pinpoint location but just the square they are in

Yes that is normally completely true, but he's completely ignoring the fact that this isn't normal tremor sense, and that it specifically states that it ignores concealment (for earth blasts), and concealment is the only thing that invisibility gives to add a miss chance roll.

[Claxon]

Yeah, I think your GM just has some confusion on what causes miss chance.

Miss chance pretty much only arises from concealment, although a few specific spells (e.g. Mirror Image) do give a miss chance without concealment. But for example, Invisibility have a miss chance because of concealment. As does displacement.

So the fact that your wild talent gives you tremorsense that specifically ignores concealment for your earth blasts means you ignore that miss chance.

[Daneel]

I'm the GM in question.

As Evilserran mentioned, since Tremorsense (the monster ability) never mentions concealment, I didn't think the wild talent removed the monster ability's miss chance.

But I'm always willing to admit it whenever I make mistakes, and although some of the comments were a bit... it's obvious consensus is on Evilserran's side. Nice to see a forum still performing their ancient role.

[MrCharisma]

Welcome Daneel.

It looks to me like you just misremembered where the miss-chance was coming from. Have a read and see what you think (I linked Tremorsense in a quote, and Blindsight/Blindsense in another post so you can click the links).

Regarding your actual game: If you're unconvinced by everything it's your prerogative to rule, however the main thing to remember with rules discrepancies is that the player should probably get to re-pick their feat/spell/talent/whatever if it doesn't work how they thought it would (They can pick between sessions, I wouldn't stop mid-session to look things up).

Thanks for weighing in, I hope this works out amicably.

[Daneel]

Umm, we're in the middle of Mummy's Mask right now. His Kineticist isn't until we start Strange Aeons in another year-ish.

If it'd happened in the middle of a session, I'd've probably taken a straw-poll and had that vote stand until we could bring it here.

I'm of the: "it's a game; if we're not all having fun, what's the point?" school of thought. I have very few problems with players completely changing their entire character mid-game, similar to the PFS level-2 re-roll.

[Evilserran]

Thanks everyone! I believe this can be put to bed now :)