Concealment

[Voltumna]

The rules for ignoring concealment say:

Altough invisibility provides total concealment, sighted opponents might still make spot checks to notice the location of an invisible character. An invisible character gains a +20 bonus on hide checks if moving, or a +40 on hide checks when not moving.

Can you apply the same rules to detect a character that has total concealment? Like from the mouth of a cave, you are peeking into its depth where there is total darkness, and from where someone observes you.

 

[ricardo440]

For the invisibility thing, that would allow you to locate the invisible characters rought area (i.e. 5ft by 5ft square)

Even when you know where he roughly is you STILL have a 50% miss chance.
Without it of course you stand no chance.

So basically you get an invisible character and reduce his status to totally concealed by PASSING the spot check.

You can't reduce total concealment.

Although there are some archery feats I think that improve your odds (allow you to reroll your miss chance or something; can't remember off the top of my head)

 

[Voltumna]

I understand spoting the invisible creature's location doesn't negate the effects of total concealment, but you will get him to roll percentile for miss chance, instead of not having a chance to hit at all hacking blindly all around you. It's just the name of the rule, ignoring concealment, and it is clear when you can actualy ignore concealment: darkvision and in some cases with eyes of the cat.

I think I will rephrase my question:

In order to apply the spot-hide rules, and whatever the origin of total concealment might be, can you consider characters with total concealment to be invisible characters?

I will have to get back to this later about the origin of totla concealment. No time right now.

 

[Bregales]

Hey, I posted this link for an online SRD in the Cover thread as well, the link covers cover, concealment, etc. Here's the link (regarding 3.5 OGL rules for cover in combat & situations): http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm

Just remember the rules of SRD: when something specifically written in a CONAN rpg book directly contradicts what's in the SRD, then CONAN takes precedence. But as CONAN rpg is based on the SRD, it's the base rules the Conan game comes from, so it helps in cases like this.

Hope this helps.

 

[argo]

This is a tricky question because it actually goes beyond the bounds of the rules.

Technically what you are suggesting is not a correct reading of the rules. Total Concealment is not a condition which grants Invisibiity. Just the opposite, Invisibility is a condition which grants Total Concealment in addition to several other benefits. So you can't really make the connection that you are trying to.

Moreover, the hide skill suggests that a person with Total Copncealment due to darkness cant be seen with any spot check.

You need cover or concealment in order to attempt a Hide check. Total cover or total concealment usually (but not always; see Special, below) obviates the need for a Hide check, since nothing can see you anyway.

...

Special
If you are invisible, you gain a +40 bonus on Hide checks if you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Hide checks if you’re moving.

The "Special" footnote refers to the Total Concealment provided by Invisibility: an Invisible character can still be Spotted but a character standing in a dark room can't.


However, all that being said I don't see anything wrong with your idea of letting characters figgure our which square somebody occupies with a modified spot check. It is still harder than using a Listen check to do the same thing.

Hope that helps.

 

[Voltumna]

However, all that being said I don't see anything wrong with your idea of letting characters figgure our which square somebody occupies with a modified spot check. It is still harder than using a Listen check to do the same thing.

The Listen check is a good alternative. How would you resolve such a check? If the character isn't moving he might not cause any noise, so he might have an advantage, but say an invisible character is actually attacking you, how would you penalize him for an opposed listen-move silently check? Say one attacking you from an adjascent square, and one form a distance.

 

[argo]

However, all that being said I don't see anything wrong with your idea of letting characters figgure our which square somebody occupies with a modified spot check. It is still harder than using a Listen check to do the same thing.

The Listen check is a good alternative. How would you resolve such a check? If the character isn't moving he might not cause any noise, so he might have an advantage, but say an invisible character is actually attacking you, how would you penalize him for an opposed listen-move silently check? Say one attacking you from an adjascent square, and one form a distance.

You have to be careful here to define what you mean by move. Normally when we say a character moves we mean that he leaves one 5-ft square and enters another. However a character can stay in one square and still "move" around quite a bit - for example a character taking a full round of melee attacks. By the RAW you only need to make a move silent check when you move from one square to another so anything else is a GM judgment call.

If the character moves from one square to another then you resolve it as a normal move silent vs listen check.

If a character stays in one square but takes other actions then I would rule that he makes a move silent check, possibly with a small bonus such as +2 (and definetly not more than +5).

If the character decided to do nothing with his round but try to hold perfectly still, that is if he uses a full-round action to be quiet, then I would either say that he cant be heard and therefore doesn't need to make a move silently check at all or that he makes a move silent check with a large bonus such as +20.

Hope that helps.