The description of Foil Senses is not entirely clear to me;
Assume the following scenario:
A PC is in dim light(/darkness) without any cover and can be seen by an enemy with low-light vision(/darkvision).
Can the PC hide by foiling the enemies senses?
Dim light provides the concealed condition "unless the seeker has darkvision or low-light vision [...]".
The Hide action can be taken whether we are concealed or not. Without taking any precautions however, we are guaranteed to stay observed in this scenario.
"The GM rolls your Stealth check in secret and compares the result to the Perception DC of each creature you're observed by but that you have cover or greater cover against or are concealed from."
Foil Senses states that
"Whenever you use the Avoid Notice, Hide, or Sneak actions, you are always considered to be taking precautions against special senses"
Now, dim-light vision and (greater) darkvision are special senses.
But does "taking precautions" allow for the concealment of dim light and if, for how long does it last?
[Note that Foil Senses is not strictly necessary, as the PC can simply foil senses by taking precautions beforehand. But with the feat, it is guaranteed to work.]
The examples in "Using Stealth with other senses" never mention concealment directly.
My interpretation is this;
1. I expect that, since Foil Senses specifically mentions the Hide action, it will foil the enemies dim-light vision and, during the Hide action, the PC is considered concealed due to being in dim-light.
2. I _assume_ that the effect of Foil Senses remains at least until something happens such that the PC looses the hidden status (e.g., the PC attacks/the enemy successfully uses Seek). Otherwise, the PC would become observed directly after the end of the Hide action which would be useless (One could not even chain a Sneak action if I am not mistaken)?
3. I _assume_ that breaking the hidden status leads to Foil Senses "deactivating" until another listed Stealth action is taken? So, after the PC attacks, it becomes observe and not concealed. The enemy can use its dim-light vision to observe the PC again. This assumption is simply based on the fact that Foil Senses has no given duration. The alternative would be that taking a simple Hide action to Foil Senses would render the dim-light vision useless for the rest of the encounter (or longer), which does not seem intended, IMO.
4. It could be that the enemy never gets a bonus to Seek for having dim-light vision (for this PC), as their dim-light vision has been foiled? This seems to be very dependent on GM interpretation though, I assume.
My interpretation "feels" a bit odd, as the PC can only be hidden or 'fully' observed; they are never concealed. (But that could simply be an effect of RAW being RAW).
Am I missing a Rule/Is your interpretation of the interactions above the same/different?
foiling creatures’ special senses
Vision is not a "special sense".
Now, dim-light vision and (greater) darkvision are special senses.
I fully agree that "average" vision is no special sense.
However, Low-Light Vision, and (Greater) Darkvision are specifically listed under the section "Special Senses" (Next to Scent and Tremorsense). (PlayerCore page. 433)Thus, I would argue that RAW Foil Senses applies.
Well, Low-Light & Darkvision are listed under special senses. So that checks out.
But... Foil Senses itself points at the Detecting with Other Senses sidebar, and it treats Vision as the primary precise sense and any other one is special. So by that, nothing Vision related is impacted by Foil Senses at all.
On the balance? RAW looks like it would work. RAI I'm really not sure.
On the balance? RAW looks like it would work. RAI I'm really not sure.
Yeah, that is what I am seeing too.
It does appear that the ruling will hinge on if low-light vision or darkvision is a special sense when regular vision is not.
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Previous discussion might be useful.
If you want it to work like that, expect to need to ask the GM.
But... Foil Senses itself points at the Detecting with Other Senses sidebar, and it treats Vision as the primary precise sense and any other one is special. So by that, nothing Vision related is impacted by Foil Senses at all.
Good point.
1. Under "Detecting with Other Senses", it simply states that the GM has to alternate when someone is concealed if another sense than vision is used (So concealed from echolocation if it is noisy).
But this may just be my interpretation, the words are
"If a monster uses a sense other than vision, the GM can adapt ways of avoiding detection that work with the monster's senses."
As far as I read it, this is only about adapting by the GM, as the case of vision would be specified as the default for RAW and is that the other senses are based upon on a rule level.
I don't read into it that vision is special or not in this part.
[to be fair, special sense is not a key term.]
2. The sidebar itself does only use the term "special sense" twice under "Using stealth with other senses". However;
"The Stealth skill is designed to use Hide for avoiding visual detection and Avoid Notice and Sneak to avoid being both seen and heard. For many special senses, a player can describe how they're avoiding detection by that special sense and use the most applicable Stealth action. For instance, a creature stepping lightly to avoid being detected via tremorsense would be using Sneak."
This is hard to read; Either [any] vision is the default and the other are special, or it simply does not make this statement at all.
My interpretation would be the later in this case, as the paragraph continues with the tremorsense example.
In most cases, one would simply use "normal" means to hide against low-light vision, i.e., cover or concealed by smoke or similar.
But there are some interpretation options in this paragraph.
It does appear that the ruling will hinge on if low-light vision or darkvision is a special sense when regular vision is not.
I fully agree. That and the definition/extend of "taking precautions".
Previous discussion might be useful.
Thank you, I don't seem to have searched thoroughly enough.
To sum up most of the previous discussion,whether it seems to work at all seems GM dependent; There has been no consensus.
That does still leave open how it works under the assumption that it does.
Since "taking precautions" is rather vague, and point 1 seems rather GM dependent,
I assume that point 3-4 are simply GM dependent as well.
Point 2 should work (IMO), as it would otherwise be "too bad to be true".
On the balance? RAW looks like it would work. RAI I'm really not sure.
RAI feels weird either way (especially with case 2 and 3 above).
RAW _may_ work as written above.Balance wise it may be "fine" (but strong);
Legendary Sneak lets one do this without dim light (and much more) at level 15.
It is only guaranteed to work starting with Foil Senses on level 7 and requires a situation with dim light (so, e.g., underground and a fitting party that does not rely too much on light) or feat investment for, e.g., Cloak of Shadow and can be circumvented by the enemies by simply creating light (except with Cloak of Shadow). How common light is, however, is again very GM dependent.
Another comparison would be Camouflage Dye (Greater) which has a comparable effect on level 7, but getting enough items of another heavy investment and it taking consumables during a fight is as well. This again seems "weaker" than Foil Senses working like that, but is not made obsolete either.
I cannot tell if it would be too strong.
But that is why I hoped for a RAW answer;
That it is an intended play style or it is not;
A PC martial that uses its third action to hide.
This play style exist late game (15+)
and may or may not be sometimes be available on earlier levels.
(It does exist at earlier levels [b]with[\b] heavy investment to at least some degree (e.g., Camouflage Dye via Alchemist Dedication).
I had hoped for a RAW answer as that would indicate how much this would stretch the intended game design/is within an acceptable/expected balance.
But I guess in this case the only options are
* Don't try it. But it may be fun.
* Try it and risk getting into unforeseen balancing frustration if it turns out to be a broken idea, forcing adjustments along the way.
This play style exist late game (15+)
Late game you can get Legendary Sneak and as that doesn't require cover/concealment at all, it makes the whole question moot. I had a player literally using Hide in the middle of a wide open arena in the Ruby Phoenix Tournament with over a thousand people watching them. (This makes Sniper Gunslinger a LOT stronger, let me tell you...)
To sum up most of the previous discussion,
whether it seems to work at all seems GM dependent; There has been no consensus.
Yep, that's about it. This is going to be a "ask your GM before making this character" question, unfortunately.
I feel like on the balance, RAW does lean toward it working given that having a sense listed in the "special senses" sidebar is the single strongest point here.
But I've also never seen anyone run it that way, for what that's worth. I could probably be persuaded by a player to at least try it, so I don't have a visceral hatred of the idea heh.
Could be a good candidate for the errata thread as it might get a clarification in the future if you add it there.
To sum up most of the previous discussion,
whether it seems to work at all seems GM dependent; There has been no consensus.Yep, that's about it. This is going to be a "ask your GM before making this character" question, unfortunately.
I feel like on the balance, RAW does lean toward it working given that having a sense listed in the "special senses" sidebar is the single strongest point here.
But I've also never seen anyone run it that way, for what that's worth. I could probably be persuaded by a player to at least try it, so I don't have a visceral hatred of the idea heh.
I agree.
As long as our GM is not fully against the idea of hiding anywhere, I should be able to do the same thing RAW with both rulings (Camouflage Dye via Alchemist Dedication vs. Cloak of Shadows via Oracle Dedication).I hope this will, in either case, end up feeling very "Rogue-ish".
But to try, we first will need to get to level seven anyways.
Could be a good candidate for the errata thread as it might get a clarification in the future if you add it there.
Good point, I will do that.