Touch Sight

[DrakePenn]

Soooo... Am I the only one who hates, hates, hates the touch sight power? I play a rogue multiclass whos main strategy is to hid in the beginning of combat, and I have the capability to hide my scent and make no vibrations in the earth, but any jackass Psion can beat my 50+ hide check(w/o invisibility) with a third level power!:smallfurious: Is there ANY way to beat it?

[TaiLiu]

I believe the Darkstalker feat, from Lords of Madness, can do that.

[Jigokuro]

I believe the Darkstalker feat, from Lords of Madness, can do that.

Sadly, I don't actually think so. Darkstalker specifically says "creatures with blindsense, blindsight, scent, or tremorsense" are neutered.
Touchsight, while emulating blindsight, is not it. TS is its own unique thing, thus not covered by Darkstalker (even if RAI it probably should be.)

[GreenSerpent]

Becoming incorporeal? Can't touch you if there's nothing to touch.

[SiuiS]

Soooo... Am I the only one who hates, hates, hates the touch sight power? I play a rogue multiclass whos main strategy is to hid in the beginning of combat, and I have the capability to hide my scent and make no vibrations in the earth, but any jackass Psion can beat my 50+ hide check(w/o invisibility) with a third level power!:smallfurious: Is there ANY way to beat it?

This actually depends on your DM, so talk to them.

Personally, I view touch sight as picking up cues through the skin, like telekinetic echolocation. A constant TK 'ping' is being sent out and received, as the psion registers pressure and resistance. It's basically like extension your arm and noting where you meet a wall, how far, what texture, etc. right?

I rule that particulates can still block touch sight. A cloud of fine powder or smoke, will register because the particles in the air effectively screen touch 100%. Sure, each particle is small, and only blocks a particle-sized area, but enough of them together will eventually block line of effect completely.

My player at the time disagreed, and as a DM has touch sight work as an I win button. So mileage and variance.

[Piggy Knowles]

Touchsight is tough, but it's not insurmountable. Its biggest weakness is here:


You ignore invisibility, darkness, and concealment, though you must have line of effect to a creature or an object to discern it.

(Emphasis mine.)

So find a way to block LoE, and you block Touchsight. Yeah, that restricts you considerably, but at least the duration is relatively short - if you block LoE, you can wait it out until it expires, and then continue unimpeded.

[Morcleon]

Becoming incorporeal? Can't touch you if there's nothing to touch.

Doesn't work, as touchsight is a [Force] power.


This actually depends on your DM, so talk to them.

Personally, I view touch sight as picking up cues through the skin, like telekinetic echolocation. A constant TK 'ping' is being sent out and received, as the psion registers pressure and resistance. It's basically like extension your arm and noting where you meet a wall, how far, what texture, etc. right?

I rule that particulates can still block touch sight. A cloud of fine powder or smoke, will register because the particles in the air effectively screen touch 100%. Sure, each particle is small, and only blocks a particle-sized area, but enough of them together will eventually block line of effect completely.

My player at the time disagreed, and as a DM has touch sight work as an I win button. So mileage and variance.

Touchsight basically works as normal sight, but using telekinetic impressions transmitted to your brain rather than through optical impressions. I'd think that it would work just as well as sight for particulates.


Touchsight is tough, but it's not insurmountable. Its biggest weakness is here:

(Emphasis mine.)

So find a way to block LoE, and you block Touchsight. Yeah, that restricts you considerably, but at least the duration is relatively short - if you block LoE, you can wait it out until it expires, and then continue unimpeded.

While that may work for normal touchsight, if the psion really wants to find you, they could simply use Burrowing Power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#burrowingPower). Or walk around.

[AmberVael]

Doesn't work, as touchsight is a [Force] power.

Er... where did you get that idea? 'cause it definitely doesn't have the force descriptor in the basic book, or on the SRD, and it hasn't been changed in Complete Psionic either.

[Morcleon]

Er... where did you get that idea? 'cause it definitely doesn't have the force descriptor in the basic book, or on the SRD, and it hasn't been changed in Complete Psionic either.

*checks again* ...huh. Must have been thinking about something else. Nevermind. :smallredface:

[Person_Man]

I disagree. At it's heart, most good tactical games are basically an elaborate variant of rock paper scissors. X should work well against Y, Y against Z, Z against X, and so on, but no one strategy or ability should dominate. Otherwise everyone would just use that one thing.

When properly optimized, Hide is a very potent ability. With Hide in Plain Site and some decent Skill optimization, you can pretty much auto-succeed on being hidden from your enemies every turn after you act. (You can Hide as part of any movement, so it's just about timing things correctly, or getting the right secondary abilities).

That's a pretty huge deal. Players should be allowed to have nice things and have fun with them most of the time, but some combats will feature enemies that can defeat it. I would also add that players are fully capable of getting Touch Sight, so that they're not auto-defeated by enemies with ridiculous Hide and Darkstalker.