MC caster fix, Frank style

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Ever play Theif: The Dark Project, or either of its sequels, RC? "Few can see a Keeper without his permission." The idea was that this guild taught techniques of avoiding detection that were so near-perfect that they were only just this side of magical.

-Desdan

[Username17]

The main thing I have a problem with is when something can't adequately be described.

Then you have a nonsensical defintion of "adequate". Darkvision defies description because it is impossible. If you can describe things by their effect, ie.: that you can see people despite the fact that there is no light, then you can describe HiPS the same way. You just can't see the guy, and that's the only explanation you need.

If you need more explanation than that, then you'll want to require it for everything. And if you require explanation for everything, sooner or later Darkvision is going to make your head explode because it is physically impossible.

If you require explanations for some things and not for other things you are just being a dick, and any level of explanatory requirements which gives Darkvision a free pass can allow HiPS with equal facility. As is, you basically come off as autistic - obsessing about completely unimportant details while ignoring glaringly obvious sections of the big picture.

People being able to fade from view just by standing there is something that really happens sometimes. Rabbits freeze and a combination of their lack of movement with their mild camoflage makes predators lose track of them visually. That really happens every day, without magical intervention of any kind and without defying any physical first principles.

What you are doing is labeling rabbits the same way as perpetual motion machines, and that makes no sense at all. There's no contradiction of logic going on here. There is, however, an unhealthy fascination with unimportant story elements. The things you are choosing to pick out as being glaring examples of the depraved nature of the inexplicable are themselves peculiar.

I mean, we aren't talking about D&D's slow gravity approximation here or something. That's unrealistic, and kind of dumb. You could change it and relatively few people would tell you that you are wrong for doing so. But picking at your seemingly randomly chosen hated character abilities, that's just weird.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1087365460[/unixtime]]Ever play Theif: The Dark Project, or either of its sequels, RC? "Few can see a Keeper without his permission." The idea was that this guild taught techniques of avoiding detection that were so near-perfect that they were only just this side of magical.

Yeah, thief was an awesome game. Though I really don't think the thief had HiPS, I distinctly remember getting caught lots of times when I was standing in an area that wasn't dark enough. You needed a good deal of concealment to remain unseen.

Darkvision defies description because it is impossible. If you can describe things by their effect, ie.: that you can see people despite the fact that there is no light, then you can describe HiPS the same way. You just can't see the guy, and that's the only explanation you need.

Well, no not really Frank, because you need to know more to tell how things interact with it. If he's invisible, which he'd have to be for me not to see him, then see invisibility or true seeing should be able to pick him up. If he's merely hiding, then he needs somewhere to be hiding. If it's a mind effect and he really is in plain sight, like the Shadow's mental invisbility, then it should have the [mind-affecting] tag.

Darkvision I know the effect and the description, and they both more or less matchup. It allows you colorless sight in darkness up to a certain range. How it's actually doing it is relatively irrelevant, but I can paint a picture of it. It's like the black and white low light vision in splinter cell. I really don't care particularly how those night vision goggles work scientifically, but I know what the picture looks like, and I'm happy.

Now hide in plain sight... there are a lot of holes. Say the guy is hiding right in front of a signpost which has some writing on it. Can I read the signpost? Do I see right through him? Or does he just look like a part of the wall? Is he a big black thing or what? How would I describe that? I mean he's standing there in plain sight blocking the signpost, yet somehow you're supposed to not see him and not see the signpost, but somehow you're oblivious to the fact that he's not there, even if you know the signpost is supposed to be there.

Unlike darkvision, I have no idea what the picture looks like for HiPS. And if I can't get a visual screenshot of something in my mind, then I have a problem with it.

Throwing science out the window is fine. Throwing out the ability to describe something visually is not.

People being able to fade from view just by standing there is something that really happens sometimes. Rabbits freeze and a combination of their lack of movement with their mild camoflage makes predators lose track of them visually. That really happens every day, without magical intervention of any kind and without defying any physical first principles.

Camouflage and HiPS are entirely different things. I don't have a problem with a rogue disappearing into concealment, but the problem is when the other guy has darkvision, he can see you perfectly. You aren't going anywhere, and freezing just won't cut it.

[Sma]

You describe someone HIPSing just the same way as you describe someone being invisible. Which usually means you don´t. He could be cloaked into stuff from the plane of shadows which has dust of dissappearance like effect. There´s lots of possible reason for why this works the way it is, and why magical means of seeing invisibility won´t pick him up.

Sma

[Username17]

You are walking, people track you with their eyes. Then you suddenly stop, peoples eyes continue to follow for a moment and you aren't there, they turn their eyes back and they don't notice you at any point earlier on the path. Where did you go?

You don't really go anywhere, of course, or maybe you do. It's up to you. You just changed directions suddenly and got a lot stealthier. If their spot check isn't high enough they don't see you.

It's just like in Aliens, when you were staring at that weird archetecture for a while and then suddenly some of it starts moving and you realize that you've been staring at some monsters next to some archetecture for a while now.

That kind of shit really works, and pulling your hair about how hard it is to explain makes you come off as a moron.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1087379910[/unixtime]]You describe someone HIPSing just the same way as you describe someone being invisible. Which usually means you don´t. He could be cloaked into stuff from the plane of shadows which has dust of dissappearance like effect. There´s lots of possible reason for why this works the way it is, and why magical means of seeing invisibility won´t pick him up.

So, if the guy in question was standing in front of a signpost in a dark room which you were observing with darkvision, you'd still be able to read it? And if you made your spot check, what would you see? Does he now appear transparent like the predator or do you totally see him now or what?

The thing is that normally with the hide skill you know what you're looking at when you don't see the other guy. If the guy is hiding in the shadows, then you simply see a dimly illuminated room. If the guy is hiding behind some barrels, then you see a room with a few barrels in it. But HiPS leads you to some real problems as to what exactly is there.

[Username17]

So, if the guy in question was standing in front of a signpost in a dark room which you were observing with darkvision, you'd still be able to read it?

No, but you don't see the guy either.

If you get a spot check at all, there are photons that correspond to that creature hitting your eye (or whatever the hell propogates darkvision), but if you don't make your spot check, you don't "see" it.

That's it. There's no reason to get all cranky about it.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1087412172[/unixtime]]

So, if the guy in question was standing in front of a signpost in a dark room which you were observing with darkvision, you'd still be able to read it?

No, but you don't see the guy either.

That doesn't make any sense. If you know the signpost is there, and you now can't see it, then you obviously know something is blocking it. So the next logical question the PC is going to ask is "what's blocking the signpost?" and how do you respond to that one?

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Personally, I would say yes because the alternative to treating HiPS as a highly limited invisibility is better than treating it as wearing a big "IGNORE ME" sign on your chest that people watching you must obey. Simply put, you could obscure anything from view completly by simply standing in front of it and Hiding in Plain Sight. It's not that big a deal, I just don't want the party lining up behind the rogue in the doorway to the Dragon's lair to get their buffs on while the Rogue makes them all unseeable by extension. (Yeah, I am more comfortable with the party wizard using Mass Invisibility or an illusion spell or somesuch. There are resources that have been used there. It costs the rogue nothing to hide the whole party this way.)

-Des

[RandomCasualty]

I have a problem with the "ignore" sign, because it defies any logic a rational creature should have, and that's a big problem, because it means the ability should have the [mind-affecting] tag, because you're changing the way a creature thinks and creating a mental block of sorts, not just simply hiding.

Once you get to the point that "I know you're there, because you're blocking my view of object A, but I can't act because I'm supposed to ignore you." then it must have a [mind-affecting] tag IMO.

[Username17]

That doesn't make any sense.

How does that not make any sense? That's how real camouflage works.

There's a giant yellow dot that you couldn't not see if you tried. Now there's a hedgehog in front of it and the entire thing just looks like an extension of the scraggly bushes next to it.

That's how camouflage actually works. The object appears to be part of something adjacent to it, so your eye just lumps it all together. Whether there is anything obvious behind it or not is irrelevent.

Just because you know something is there and are looking for it doesn't mean that you can see it or that you can understand why you can't. Human vision is a lot more interpretive and a lot less on/off than you are giving it credit for. How many individual objects can you see right now?

If you have to count, it's because at any given time you aren't actually seeing a lot of things in your field of view.

There are resources that have been used there. It costs the rogue nothing to hide the whole party this way.

It costs organization. The Rogue can only obscure people directly behind him. This means that he can only practially obscure the party from one known enemy. I have no problem with that.

---

While we're on the subject, how the hell would you not hide from people using darkvision? It's supposed to be gray scale, but it does not see shadows (the only picture of someone using darkvision actually shows shadows, but that's logically an artist error). So how does it determine what part of the gray scale to put you in? There's no attenuation and no color and no shadows. Since those are the complete list of criteria by which all forms of visual distinguishment work, wouldn't everything just be a uniform white blur?

Or failing that, wouldn't everything be a completely arbitrary swirl of different grays? I mean, how the hell are you supposed to differentate between anything? The only way I could see you distinguishing between a guy and a stone formation is because one of the swirls of gray happens to be guy shaped. So couldn't you "hide" pretty much perfectly by pulling your arms in and leaning over?

The question of "how do you hide from people with darkvision" is much less pressing than the question "how do you manage to not hide from people with darkvision"...

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I don't find it unreasonable, I just find the implications unappealing. But then, I'm a Hitchhiker's Guide fan, and can envision HIPS working something like a SEP-Feild.

-Desdan

[Username17]

1087414360[/unixtime]]I don't find it unreasonable, I just find the implications unappealing. But then, I'm a Hitchhiker's Guide fan, and can envision HIPS working something like a SEP-Feild.

-Desdan

I think that's pretty much exactly how it works. Only people with a lot of training can bring themselves to respond to the visual information. I can't think of how else it could work.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I don't think it CAN work exactly that way, since a SEP feild was explicitly mind-effecting, and HiPS works on mindless creatures.

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

1087415017[/unixtime]]I don't think it CAN work exactly that way, since a SEP feild was explicitly mind-effecting, and HiPS works on mindless creatures.

Right. That's basically the problem I have with HiPS.

[Username17]

Mindless creatures in D&D include ants. Ants respond to stimuli, and the prospect of fooling them doesn't even seem very improbable.

A creature is "mindless" because it has no higher reasoning, not because it does not have basic visual selectivity. You can become "somebody else's problem" simply by being anything outside the basic program, and without any higher reasoning they'll never be able to learn themselves a new program to deal with that fact.

So if you paint yourself pink and yellow and cover yourself with balloons, zombies can't see you because you are outside the zombie reactivity program. You don't correspond to anything on the list of things to respond to, so they don't respond to you.

-Username17

[User3]

1087415017[/unixtime]]I don't think it CAN work exactly that way, since a SEP feild was explicitly mind-effecting, and HiPS works on mindless creatures.

Even mindless creatures need to have some way of distinguishing among parts of their environment -- well, that's not strictly true, since some creatures just don't care. However:

(a) if a mindless creature does have the ability to distinguish different parts of its environment (this is a wall, this is a statue, this is a thief), then it's at least theoretically possible to fool it into thinking one thing is actually another.

(b) if it doesn't have that ability, then hiding from it is indistinguishable from not hiding from it, since either way it's a crapshoot whether it decides to slam into you or not.

--d.

[fbmf]

IIRC, HiPS is an extraordinary ability, which means it has the PH's permission to defy the physical laws. Since it defies the physical laws, and our reality is limited by them, then we can not possibly hope to understand it. It just works.

Game On,
fbmf

[Essence]

X--0---RC

If RC is reading signpost X, and then Ninja O, failing every kind of awareness check in the entire game, walks between RC and X, RC suddenly notices O.

O panicks, and invokes HiPS. Suddenly, RC can't see him anymore. RC, not really concerned about O in the first place, goes back to reading X.

X, seeing that RC is attempting to read the signpost that's directly behind him, crouches. RC, who still can't see O, can now read the signpost, and, establishing that he is, in fact, only 8 miles from Biloxi, continues down the road.


...HiPS isn't about suddenly standing still and occupying as much as possible of your 5' square. It's just the opposite. It's about keeping yourself out of the way of people who are looking for you, or who would otherwise accidentally observe you. There is no signpost dilemma, because anyone *hiding* isn't going to be standing between someone and whatever they're looking at.

[Username17]

Bugs Bunny tiptoes around Elmer Fudd, alternately creeping when Elmer moves his head slowly and dashing when Elmer jerks his head back and forth, always staying just out of view.

The Easter Bunny freezes in the middle of some dry underbrush, vanishing from sight right in front of you.

Which is "hiding"? They both are!

Hiding obscures things behind you if and only if you want it to. Because a successful hide can represent either staying out of the field of view or melding yourself with the field of view, and there's no game mechanics to distinguish the two.

Being generally inconspicuous and having adaptive camouflage both give you a non-specific bonus to hide. Don't worry about it!

If there's a wallet on the floor people are looking for you can hide yourself right over it and obscure the wallet as well. If there's a sign behind you that people are trying to read you can duck under it and have people read it without ever being aware of your presence.

And you'll do whichever aids you more at any given time and there's no penalties or bonuses involved. Getting all worked up about how hide has to work some special certain way all the time is what causes you to think that things aren't realistic and then make stupid rulings that hurt non-magical characters.

There's no reason for it. Hide just works unless they beat you with their Spot check and that's the end of it.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

I suppose if you go with Essence's interpretation that the skill use itself involves getting out of the way of anything important that you could block, then it works... kinda.

There's still the question of why shadows actually aid you against people who can't even see shadows of course, but the rest of it sorta works.

I really don't see how you can obscure something as in Frank's example though, specifically if people know it's there. Assuming part of hiding is using the skill to stay away from contrasts that would make your presence known, I don't think you could do stuff like hide and then try to hide your whole party behind you by standing there. That really strikes me as wrong, because it's an affront to hiding in general.

[Sma]

Don´t get all worked up trying to think why some things don´t work. Try instead to go with the flow of the game mechanics.

HIPS sometimes needs shadows, sometimes not. It works in a similar way someone can wave their hands and vanish from sight. Just because one is called a spell and one is called an ability is no reason to penalize one over the other.

Sma

[Username17]

They know YOU are there! Got it? They are looking right at you, and then they don't see you anymore. What possible difference does it make whether there is something behind you or not? They are looking right at you, know you are there, totally see you and then they still know you are there and are still looking right at you, and they can't see you anyway.

Hide in Plain Sight does not make people forget you are around, it just means they can't visually perceive you. Subject to listen checks they may not know where you are anymore. But they still saw you, they still know you are there. And if they continue to get Spot Checks at all, you are still in their field of view. If you actually hide behind something so that you aren't in their field of view, you don't actually have to make hide checks because people can't see you. Spot checks don't give you X-ray vision at any point.

If you have to make a hide check at all, they can see you. There is at least part of your body which is reflecting photons right into their eyeball. The whole boogey boogey about obscuring things behind you is retarded. You always obscure things behind you, provided that you are a non-transparent corporeal creature. And if you are hiding, there is all or part of body in their field of view and you are naturally obscuring anything and everything which is directly behind it.

For example: you are standing in a tiled room. You are hiding in the corner. Every tile in the corner underneath you is automatically not seen by anybody looking into the room. If their spot check is good enough to see you, they notice that you are there and don't see the tiles in the corner. If their spot check is not good enough they don't see you and still don't see the tiles in the corner. If they are attempting to do something like count all the tiles in the room they won't succeed and depending upon the results of their own skill check they will either know why or not.

And you seem to be totally tweaking out on the Shadows requirement of the Shadowdancer. Shadows don't "help" you. The Shadowdancer can only do it when near shadows. The Ranger can only do it when in natural settings. You can only do it when you are in a situation where hiding is familiar to you. You don't literally need to to jump behind a shadow or a leaf.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Well, I think like Essence said, part of the hiding skill is making sure you don't obscure stuff that people can see, which actually gives you away.

The way you see things is generally that they contrast with the background, especially if you've got somethig that you're looking for. If for instance you stand in front of a lighted corridor and the other guy no longer can see the light, then he knows you're there.

Hiding shouldn't be some mystical ability whereby you can stand somewhere, be blocking something that others know is there, and then somehow mystically they're supposed to pretend like everything is normal. That's just stupid.

Part of hiding should be avoiding blocking things. It's ok if we say the hide check represents the thief actively not trying to stand in front of stuff like visible signs, because he knows it'll make him visible by doing so. That actually makes sense.

However, if you're hiding you shouldn't be able to also be an active element in your enviroment and affect other's vision in a negative way. Otherwise you get crap like a rogue with tons of ranks in hide running up to an enemy and blinding him by constantly standing in front of his eyes, meanwhile the enemy is supposed to pretend the rogue isnt' there, simply because he can't beat the spot roll. Even though we all know the rogue's presence is totally obvious.

[Username17]

part of the hiding skill is making sure you don't obscure stuff that people can see, which actually gives you away.

No. It absolutely doesn't have anything to do with that. If you don't obscure anything they can see then you don't need to make hide checks because they can't see you.

Spot does not allow you to see through objects. If you are not obscuring anything it is because you are entirely behind other things, and are thus completely obscured regardless of how low or high your Hide check is.

A successful hide check means they don't know they see you despite the fact that you are visible. That's all it can mean.

-Username17