Partial cover all the time with burrow?

[Cowboy_ninja]

Can an earth elemental, or any creature with burrow that is bigger than one square, poke half their body above the ground to attack/interact with those above ground?

being that half their body has no line of effect nor line of sight, does that mean they can partial cover so long as they remain this way?

[Hecuba]

There are actually rules for attacking from partially inside a solid object. They are part of the incorporeal rules


An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

The situation for earth elementals would seem fairly similar, as earth glide means that they do not create a tunnel as part of their burrow movement. I would use the same rules for them.

not sure about creatures that leave a tunnel when burrowing though.

[Solophoenix]

Most burrowing creatures don't leave tunnels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#burrow). So it shouldn't come up too often.

EDIT: I'd rule that any creature doing this would be granted cover, regardless of size. Also, any creature melee attacking them would get the +1 bonus from being on higher ground.

Come to think of it, most burrowing creatures are probably considered prone while burrowing, so that's their AC bonus from cover negated right there.

[Hecuba]

Most burrowing creatures don't leave tunnels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#burrow). So it shouldn't come up too often.

It's not the default, but it's still fairly common (or, at least, the option to do so is comes up on several creatures). I think there is a dire animal of some kind that doesn't have the option not to.

I don't have any idea how to adjudicate such a case: they're clearly not as inaccessible a normal burrower and not remotely as safe as something using earth glide.
We don't have the kind of clear analog incorporeality provides for the more general case.