For reference, here is the battlemap:
https://imgur.com/a/TT9mrtL
The PC on the island is fully on land. The creature in the water is fully submerged, and the water is considered murky, and the distance is beyond what is noted for murky water under the aquatic terrain rules.
The PC has Freedom of Movement up and flight, and is a zen archer with a bow and 20' of reach if he does melee. He fires shots into the water. He should miss because he's beyond sight due to murky water, right? Or he fires at squares and has 50% miss chance, right? He has a zen archer power called trick shot which should allow him to ignore concealment or cover, but how many points would he need to spend? I told the group it was essentially as if the target was invisible, or they were blind. So I think 2 ki points would allow the archer to ignore the problem, right?
However, the PC also moved into melee, hovering at the surface of the water and striking 20' down with his reach, using no ki points. They said this would bypass the murky water issue because they have Freedom of Movement up. However, I said that the issue is sight being blocked, not movement in water. This went over like a ton of bricks. Does Freedom of Movement bypass the murky water issues?
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Murky water grants concealment or total concealment. Neither of these interact with FoM in any way. FoM Would allow uninhibited movement through the water, but would not allow a bow and arrow to function underwater as the arrow loses the effects of FoM as soon as it leaves the bow.
You ruled correctly.
Quote: "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." FoM does interact with meele attacks from Land. However the problem is whether the creature is able to see the underwater enemy
Quote: 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. FoM does not help you if you cant see your enemy
outshyn wrote: The PC on the island is fully on land. The creature in the water is fully submerged, and the water is considered murky, and the distance is beyond what is noted for [total concealment in] murky water ... outshyn wrote: The PC has Freedom of Movement up and flight, and is a zen archer with a bow and 20' of reach if he does melee. outshyn wrote: the PC also moved into melee, hovering at the surface of the water and striking 20' down with his reach, using no ki points. I am having trouble following the layout of the question. Is this one question or multiple? You start with the PC on an island and they have a bow, then they're hovering over the creature and shooting down? But that's a melee attack?
Then they have a bow that makes melee attacks with a 20 foot reach?
I am sure there's some way to do that, and I am sure it's super obvious, but I'd like you to be specific.
How is he getting 20-foot reach and making a melee attack with his bow? Some sort of zen archer thing, I don't see any of it in the link you provided. Some sort of feat?
I am inclined to say the archer needs to use at least 3 ki points, but I am going to wait until things get less murky (pun intended).
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.
Both the description of Freedom of Movement and the rules for Aquatic Terrain specify that the ability to ignore penalties is only for melee attacks. The bow is a ranged attack so does not benefit from being under Freedom of Movement. A completely submerged character has total cover, so the character will need to spend 3 Ki points to attack with the bow. But as a ranged attack the character will take a -2 per 5 feet.
Freedom of movement will allow the character to ignore the total cover provided by being completely submerged for a melee attack. But if the murky water grants total concealment Freedom of movement does not negate the 50% miss chance. That penalty is not due to being underwater; it is due to not being able to see the target. Freedom of movement does not allow the character to see underwater, just to move and attack. Trick Shot only works with the bow so will not help a melee attack.
How is the character gaining reach with a melee attack while using a bow?
Pizza Lord wrote: I am having trouble following the layout of the question. Is this one question or multiple? You start with the PC on an island and they have a bow, then they're hovering over the creature and shooting down? But that's a melee attack? It was 2 separate things. 1) They were on the island, shooting the bow into the water. They objected to my ruling about the water being murky and that causing problems with sighting and accuracy. So 2) they moved over the area where the enemy was last seen, and struck down into the water with a melee attack, saying THAT should solve all issues.
I said that in both cases, the murky water provided a targeting problem, as the creature was either unseen or difficult to see. This renewed their objection because of Freedom of Movement, supposedly allowing them to move freely in water should mean that they see freely in water too (???) or maybe it means that just... water limitations of any kind must be removed? I'm not 100% clear on the logic here, but I got objections that were stated forcefully enough to motivate me to come here and double-check.
Okay, so:
By 'land-bound' I believe the rules are interpreted as 'not being in the water', whether that means standing on a dock, on the deck of a ship, or hovering above the water or flying, and probably standing on the surface of it with water-walking.
#1— Zen archer is on land shooting with a bow. The target is far enough away in murky water (10-80 feet) that you say it is unseeable. Being fully underwater grants total cover (technically that means you can't even attack them, but I think this is a special case, since that would be stupid that you couldn't spear a fish underwater).
The archer can't see the target, but maybe they are guessing. Assuming your link is accurate, then the creature is Huge or even Gargantuan... so he has a fair chance to guess a reasonable square that it's in.
Normally, this would be a 50% miss chance.
Then there's a –2 penalty for every 5 feet of water the arrow passes through. We don't know how deep the monster is, but probably at least 3+ squares.
Freedom of movement is no help to the bow here.
Trick shot will remove the total concealment 50% miss chance for 2 ki points (and it will still have the improved cover bonus to AC) or the miss and total cover bonus for 3 points.
#2a— Zen archer moves above the creature and strikes down with a melee attack. Assuming they can see the creature, like it's right below the surface, there's no issue if they have FoM. The creature gets no cover from the water.
#2b– Zen archer moves above the creatures and strikes down 20 feet(!) with a melee attack somehow. Murky water has visibility of 10–80 feet, so lets assume visibility is less than 20 feet. The archer cannot see the target, but if they guess (it's a big target, not hard to guess a square), the creature has no cover bonus (because of FoM) but it will still have a 50% miss chance (because he can't see it). He can't use Trick Shot since he's not firing an arrow (unless you've left an important detail out).
#2c– Zen archer moves above the creature and shoots an arrow straight down at creature who is 20 feet below the water and not in sight. Since he can't see it, it would have a 50% miss chance and the creature would have +8 AC from total cover (technically total cover doesn't seem to add to AC, but it has at least improved cover). Ranged attacks have –2 to attack for each square of water the arrow passes through (3 or 4 depending on where he shot).
FoM does nothing in this situation. It doesn't seem to apply to ranged attacks.
Trick Shot will remove the 50% miss chance (2 ki) for not seeing the creature. For 3 points, it will remove the cover bonus. It will not remove the –2 penalty for each square of water passed through (so –6 to –8 depending on depth) since this is not a concealment or cover bonus (which would usually raise the target's AC).
I would say that 3 ki points are needed to fire an arrow with no penalties (other than passing through squares of water), but I'll admit this is kind of convoluted and there's lots of technical points that can be made (like saying that Trick Shot says it requires an opening, like a window somewhere, and clearly the submerged creature is fully encased, but I think we have to chalk that up to meshing two mechanics together and that water is a special case).
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