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How often do you apply Circumstance Penalty to Ranged Attacks and Ranged Attack Spells in your games?
While reading the Witch class feats I came across these sentences:
Wortwitch
"You don't take circumstance penalties to ranged spell attacks or Perception checks caused by foliage, and your targeted attacks don't require a flat check to succeed against a target concealed only by such vegetation." Source Advanced Player's Guide pg. 101
Murksight
"You don't take circumstance penalties to ranged attacks or Perception checks caused by non-magical precipitation, and your targeted attacks don't require a flat check to succeed against a target concealed only by such effects." Source Advanced Player's Guide pg. 103
It made me realize that I never apply circumstance penalty to ranged attacks and spells in my games (with the exception of the ranged increment rule). Maybe because the Concealed condition exists I stopped worrying about the circumstance penalty.
Unfortunately the only mention of this type of penalty that I can find is specifically related to the weather and says:
"Weather can impose circumstance penalties on certain checks, from –1 to –4 based on severity." Source Core Rulebook pg. 517
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There are quite a few really bad feats for a Witch. Those are two of them.
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And to answer the actual question asked...
No, I don't ever use circumstance penalties for attacking targets that are concealed by foliage or concealed by weather. That is what the Concealed condition is for.
Those strike me as feats for witches that hunker down in one particularly dreary environment where they crave isolation and have adapted to thrive.
They're thematic, though as Eoran noted, bad for PCs/adventurers.
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There are quite a few really bad feats for a Witch. Those are two of them.
When thinking about it low-light environments, as well as the weather and heavy foliage mentioned above, they probably all generate a circumstance penalty on ranged attacks and ranged attacks spells. These are all very common situations. (Rain, dark places, forest...)
But I can't find guidance in the core book about these penalties.
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When thinking about it low-light environments, ...
Low-light environments also cause the Concealed condition - not circumstance penalties.
And the rules for the Concealed condition itself outright state that it should be used for non-magical precipitation. And strongly hints that concealed by foliage would be concealed too.
Now, to be fair, Wortwitch and Murksight do both still negate the Concealed condition too. So the feats aren't completely useless.
But the language regarding avoiding circumstance penalties just seems a bit strange. Having it there doesn't really hurt anything though.
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And to answer the actual question asked...
No, I don't ever use circumstance penalties for attacking targets that are concealed by foliage or concealed by weather. That is what the Concealed condition is for.
This is exactly how I think and play. What I understood from reading the weather section is that, for example, not all rain generates the Concealed condition, only the heavy ones. However, any rain that is not light creates a penalty on visual perception checks. (Which makes it a bit confusing for not referring to attacks lol)
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Now, to be fair, Wortwitch and Murksight do both still negate the Concealed condition too. So the feats aren't completely useless.
But the language regarding avoiding circumstance penalties just seems a bit strange. Having it there doesn't really hurt anything though.
I also find it strange. CRB and APG do not use the same description in these cases. What I can conclude from all this is that it is possible to apply penalties to attacks in these cases, but it is up to the GM to insert this into the game or not, as it is not something specified in the CRB.
I also find it strange. CRB and APG do not use the same description in these cases.
There are a couple of rather significant differences between the rules in the CRB and the APG. What I conclude from that is that the two books, or at least those sections, were written by different developers.
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I do apply circumstance penalties to ranged attacks in case of bad weather - heavy rain, and especially wind. Never did for foliage - so far.
It made me realize that I never apply circumstance penalty to ranged attacks and spells in my games (with the exception of the ranged increment rule). Maybe because the Concealed condition exists I stopped worrying about the circumstance penalty.
Outside fog, weather doesn't impair vision and as such should not give Concealment. I've been in storms and I was seeing fine.
Heavy rain, wind, even snow (as long as it's not a blizzard) should give circumstance penalties to ranged attacks and that's all.