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I was perusing the Tatoo section of AoN and came upon "Eye Slash", which says:
"Small scars or marks around your eye improve your distant vision. These scars are especially common among orc scouts, who favor scars shaped like eagle talons. You can see four times farther than normal. If you have darkvision, you can see blood in color. Higher-level versions of an eye slash are larger and more elaborate scars or marks, radiating out around the eye."
How far can a normal human or your average elf see otherwise?
None of us can see.
GMs just make it up as they go.
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I would mostly consider that to be something useful if using Environment and terrain to limit vision.
I wouldn't let an Eye Slash tattoo increase vision distance if the distance is limited by light level. It doesn't say that it increases the distance of dim light coming from a torch or gives you low-light vision.
But I would let it work on things like Underwater visibility or Visibility penalties from Fog or Precipitation.
I think something like that tattoo gives GMs something to build on for exposition during exploration. For example if a player in my game had it I would start considering what kind of information I can provide them that otherwise I wouldnt think of giving.
I'll admit visibility ranges at distances that exceed whatever maps I have set up is a part of game prep I havn't really put effort into.
I do have a regional hex map set up for my game but so far ive had them decide on what direction they want to travel and then Ive pulled out the narrative and encounter events that I had planned for those areas they decided to go. its not true hexploration where having really long sight distance might give an advantage.
Players can really only actually see as far as I have or can think of a description to give.
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This sort of question always stymies me because I have never had a strong intuitive sense of distances. So some kind of general rule or even guidance would be appreciated. In 1E, as was mentioned, it was DC 0 to see a visible creature, modified by +1 per 10 feet away.
Assuming an “average person” has a +4 Perception (It was a class skill for Commoner, seems reasonable to have dropped a skill point in, and assuming Wis 10, they’d be about 50/50 to see a human sized creature 150 feet away. While I admittedly don’t have a great sense of distance, that seems absurd to me, considering a football field, with end zones, is 320 feet, and people buy tickets to watch football from the end zones. That said, the length of a football field is probably the longest benchmark I intuitively grok, so I’m not sure how far would be reasonable.
On a clear day, with no obstacles, you can see to the horizon. Weather conditions, smoke and darkness can limit your sight range. Other then making things obscured or hidden I think distance is up to the GM based on how strong the effect is.
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This sort of question always stymies me because I have never had a strong intuitive sense of distances. So some kind of general rule or even guidance would be appreciated. In 1E, as was mentioned, it was DC 0 to see a visible creature, modified by +1 per 10 feet away.
Assuming an “average person” has a +4 Perception (It was a class skill for Commoner, seems reasonable to have dropped a skill point in, and assuming Wis 10, they’d be about 50/50 to see a human sized creature 150 feet away. While I admittedly don’t have a great sense of distance, that seems absurd to me, considering a football field, with end zones, is 320 feet, and people buy tickets to watch football from the end zones. That said, the length of a football field is probably the longest benchmark I intuitively grok, so I’m not sure how far would be reasonable.
You need to remember 1e also had rules to take 10 and take 20. Using Perception was just an action, so that Commoner can just take 10 for a 14, allowing them to automatically see any visible creature up to 140 feet away, or they can take 2 minutes (20 times as long) to see creatures up to 240 feet away.
As for distances, you're not exactly wrong. The numbers would make more sense if they were about identifying creatures at those distances, rather than simply detecting them. Because yes, if you seat down to watch a football game, you can tell there's players on the other end of the field, but can you tell who they are?
(Fun fact about 1e rules, I had a player once who read the table on modifiers, saw the modifiers for "Through Door" and "Through Walls" and thought you could just see through those as a PC without the need for any items or magic.)
Still, 2e has no guidelines so I'm afraid OP will have to eyeball it.
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Well human vision can see start up to 2,6 millions light years away. With Eye Slash now I can see 10,4 millions light years away.
Now the clear night sky is more brighter and beautiful for me.
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You need to remember 1e also had rules to take 10 and take 20. Using Perception was just an action, so that Commoner can just take 10 for a 14, allowing them to automatically see any visible creature up to 140 feet away, or they can take 2 minutes (20 times as long) to see creatures up to 240 feet away.
That's a good point. Man, I miss Take 10 and Take 20. The distances still seem absurdly short, even to me, though.
As for distances, you're not exactly wrong. The numbers would make more sense if they were about identifying creatures at those distances, rather than simply detecting them.
That honestly may be what the numbers in 1E are intended to represent, since I think this is what was used to determine encounter distance, which probably indicates a level of discernment beyond "there's a human out there."
Because yes, if you seat down to watch a football game, you can tell there's players on the other end of the field, but can you tell who they are?
That's what the big numbers on their backs are for. When I first posted to this thread, I Googled a bit and found this website, talking about how far the average person could read numbers and letters at different sizes. According to that, ten inch high characters can be read out to about 450 feet, which seems like it should cover spectators in the stands reading football players' jersey numbers.
(Fun fact about 1e rules, I had a player once who read the table on modifiers, saw the modifiers for "Through Door" and "Through Walls" and thought you could just see through those as a PC without the need for any items or magic.)
It's right there in the book!
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On a clear day, with no obstacles, you can see to the horizon.
Barbara Streisand will tell you that On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.
Roger Daltrey will tell you that he can see for miles and miles, and miles and miles, and miles. Oh yeah.
Weather conditions . . . can limit your sight range.
Mine, sure. But Johnny Nash can see clearly now, the rain is gone.
There's a lot to this topic.
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On a clear day, with no obstacles, you can see to the horizon.Barbara Streisand will tell you that On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.
Roger Daltrey will tell you that he can see for miles and miles, and miles and miles, and miles. Oh yeah.
Weather conditions . . . can limit your sight range.Mine, sure. But Johnny Nash can see clearly now, the rain is gone.
There's a lot to this topic.
You're going to trust your weather knowledge to Bards?!
I prefer Druids myself. :-)---
D&D1 had to alternate between inside & outside because tactical reasons rather than physics. 3.x/PF1 broke down too fast at distance, especially in the fantasy genre where (extreme) creatures routinely discern details miles away. I prefer the Champions/Hero System for distance. Every doubling adds a -1, so extremely long distances still become viable when looking at suitably large phenomena. And PF2's call for GM adjudication might instead be the best, as the ruling suits the level of fantasy that table plays, and there are so, so many factors that wouldn't warrant the page space. PF2 isn't simulationism, rather narration-ism (if that's a thing).
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If anyone is curious why the specific rules for how far perception can go were quietly omitted from the rulebooks, this thread is shaping up to be a good indicator.
It is probably something best left up to the GM and the table for each specific circumstance and scenario that comes up during play.
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You're going to trust your weather knowledge to Bards?!
Only if they’re Enigma Muse.
3.x/PF1 broke down too fast at distance
I’m honestly not sure how well PF2E would handle very long distances in an encounter. When about 60 to 100 feet both represents an entire round’s worth of movement and ranged weapons and some spells that outrange rhat, I can see a lot of frustrating rounds for melee oriented characters.
I was addressing more sight than encounter size, and simply being able to see a neighbor's barn, or the sun & moon as often joked about.
I had a friend write a scenario for PFS1 he said specifically was to make use of underused long ranges, King of the Storval Stairs. There was another scenario's final battle in a large cavern with the bad guy way down a circuitous path. Took the fast Barbarian a long time. I waited until he got there before jumping w/ Feather Fall (though I was also a Monk so faster). Heck, even one of the evergreen scenarios featured a long-distance finale (though vs. a short-range enemy who also had to close!).
In PF2, there remain enemies that can contend long range, or from the air for that matter. I imagine PFS2 features rivers, gorges, fortress walls, and so many common fantasy-adventure staples that lend themselves to ranged battle. One must consider them, and a generic bow suffices. Melee-oriented characters (perhaps w/ party assistance) need to be able to address battles like that, even if at half effectiveness or losing fewer rounds than a slower runner.
It's complicated, and it's why you can't really find a value in the book.
Distance determines the detail you can see, but to someone's point you can see the sun right? And the sun is one away (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) which is about 93 million miles.
To be honest, this kind of item is something that as a GM, when I'm describing something that is far away I'll give a player with these items/abilities a bit more detail than everyone else.
But most of the time it's not relevant. Generally speaking, something will block you line of sort. Or you'll be able to see more open ocean. Or more trees in a forest. And it's simply not relevant.
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Well human vision can see start up to 2,6 millions light years away. With Eye Slash now I can see 10,4 millions light years away.
Now the clear night sky is more brighter and beautiful for me.
Counter the red shift with one simple trick!
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Counter the red shift with one simple trick!Well human vision can see start up to 2,6 millions light years away. With Eye Slash now I can see 10,4 millions light years away.
Now the clear night sky is more brighter and beautiful for me.
I see by your tattoo and binoculars that you're an astronomer.
If anyone is curious why the specific rules for how far perception can go were quietly omitted from the rulebooks, this thread is shaping up to be a good indicator.If they had been completely left out, sure. But when there are items that interact with an undefined value, it’s a problem.
Do you think these items are intended to work with some rules, or is it more likely they were written by free lance writers who didn't know that there were no sight range rules?
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I prefer the option of "They knew there were no established rules, and no one has attempted to make established rules because it would be hard to make nuanced rules that account for the many possibilities, but they also wanted to make items that made you better at this thing that had undefined rules"
If anyone is curious why the specific rules for how far perception can go were quietly omitted from the rulebooks, this thread is shaping up to be a good indicator.
It is probably something best left up to the GM and the table for each specific circumstance and scenario that comes up during play.
I mean, technically, in 1E nobody had an idea what the sun looks like. It's just too far away to spot, with it's huge negative distance modifier... ;)
When did you ever need to make a check to see the sun?
Well, with 1E rules you never would, because nobody ever has seen it anyway. ;)
The sun is just a hole in our reality that leads to the plane of fire
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We also have a Spyglass which allows "to see eight times farther than normal"! Two whole times better than this tatoo!
Absolutely fantastic!
If we knew what that should mean.
So would someone with the tatoo and using a spyglass be able to see 32 times farther? ;-)
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Easy- normally, you can see to the edge of the map. This lets you see an additional three maps!
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Do you think these items are intended to work with some rules, or is it more likely they were written by free lance writers who didn't know that there were no sight range rules?
I would guess whoever designed these itemsjust assumed that sight ranges wear defined in the rules, but I don’t know that we need to assume that means they were designed by freelancers. This system is sufficiently complex that full-timers can easily have blind spots.
Do you think these items are intended to work with some rules, or is it more likely they were written by free lance writers who didn't know that there were no sight range rules?I would guess whoever designed these itemsjust assumed that sight ranges wear defined in the rules, but I don’t know that we need to assume that means they were designed by freelancers. This system is sufficiently complex that full-timers can easily have blind spots.
Perhaps, but I would expect in house writers to have a much better understanding of the rules then freelancers who likely write for multiple systems and different projects.
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Even full-time authors can’t keep the entire ruleset in their memory. Hell, I was just educated last month that when a target is paralyzed or otherwise immobile, combat maneuver checks automatically succeed as if you rolled a natural 20. And I’ve been working with 1E from the start.
Even full-time authors can’t keep the entire ruleset in their memory. Hell, I was just educated last month that when a target is paralyzed or otherwise immobile, combat maneuver checks automatically succeed as if you rolled a natural 20. And I’ve been working with 1E from the start.
Maybe not every detail, but they should have a higher standard for them.
The rest of your comment is untrue/misplaced because we're talking about 2e.
Even full-time authors can’t keep the entire ruleset in their memory. Hell, I was just educated last month that when a target is paralyzed or otherwise immobile, combat maneuver checks automatically succeed as if you rolled a natural 20. And I’ve been working with 1E from the start.
Where's that rule at???
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** spoiler omitted **
Where's that rule at???
Thanks!
On a similar note, if my character with myopia doesn't have their corrective lenses on (they were awakened by a terrible ambush in the middle of the night, you see (or maybe you didn't?) and didn't have the action economy to wrest them out of their spacious pouch and equip them), can they only see as far as a fraction of their corneal curvature?
How high of a standard?
Doesn't matter, my original statement was just using freelancer as an obvious lower expectation of correctness.