Blink: what exactly does it do?

[Deaxsa]

As title. I'm just a bit confused, especially since I'm trying to get my 12 AC caster some miss chance, so I want to know what is causing the miss chances on blink.

As far as in understand, blink makes you 50% ethereal, which means you are A) 50% invisible, B) 50% incorporeal, and C) on the ethereal plane. Which means see invisibility will help you fight me(to be able to entirely see me), and the ability to hit incorporeal creatures that get that quality by being on the ethereal plane (in other words, easier to hit than just being incorporeal) will also help mitigate the miss chance.

Am I on target? It's not the most clearly written spell :smalleek:

[Diarmuid]

I actually think it's all pretty well spelled out.



You “blink” back and forth between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane. You look as though you're winking in and out of reality very quickly and at random.
Blinking has several effects, as follows.
Physical attacks against you have a 50% miss chance, and the Blind-Fight feat doesn't help opponents, since you're ethereal and not merely invisible. If the attack is capable of striking ethereal creatures, the miss chance is only 20% (for concealment).
If the attacker can see invisible creatures, the miss chance is also only 20%. (For an attacker who can both see and strike ethereal creatures, there is no miss chance.) Likewise, your own attacks have a 20% miss chance, since you sometimes go ethereal just as you are about to strike.
Any individually targeted spell has a 50% chance to fail against you while you're blinking unless your attacker can target invisible, ethereal creatures. Your own spells have a 20% chance to activate just as you go ethereal, in which case they typically do not affect the Material Plane.
While blinking, you take only half damage from area attacks (but full damage from those that extend onto the Ethereal Plane). You strike as an invisible creature (with a +2 bonus on attack rolls), denying your target any Dexterity bonus to AC.
You take only half damage from falling, since you fall only while you are material.
While blinking, you can step through (but not see through) solid objects. For each 5 feet of solid material you walk through, there is a 50% chance that you become material. If this occurs, you are shunted off to the nearest open space and take 1d6 points of damage per 5 feet so traveled. You can move at only three-quarters speed (because movement on the Ethereal Plane is at half speed, and you spend about half your time there and half your time material.)
Since you spend about half your time on the Ethereal Plane, you can see and even attack ethereal creatures. You interact with ethereal creatures roughly the same way you interact with material ones.
An ethereal creature is invisible, incorporeal, and capable of moving in any direction, even up or down. As an incorporeal creature, you can move through solid objects, including living creatures.
An ethereal creature can see and hear the Material Plane, but everything looks gray and insubstantial. Sight and hearing on the Material Plane are limited to 60 feet.
Force effects and abjurations affect you normally. Their effects extend onto the Ethereal Plane from the Material Plane, but not vice versa. An ethereal creature can't attack material creatures, and spells you cast while ethereal affect only other ethereal things. Certain material creatures or objects have attacks or effects that work on the Ethereal Plane. Treat other ethereal creatures and objects as material.


While you aree blinking...

1) Things with no special perceptions suffer 50% miss chance against you, to which Blind-Fight does not apply.
2) Things that can only See Invis only have 20% miss chance against you
3) Things that can only See Invis and can target ethereal can attack/target as normal

[Lord Vukodlak]

As title. I'm just a bit confused, especially since I'm trying to get my 12 AC caster some miss chance, so I want to know what is causing the miss chances on blink.

As far as in understand, blink makes you 50% ethereal, which means you are A) 50% invisible, B) 50% incorporeal, and C) on the ethereal plane. Which means see invisibility will help you fight me(to be able to entirely see me), and the ability to hit incorporeal creatures that get that quality by being on the ethereal plane (in other words, easier to hit than just being incorporeal) will also help mitigate the miss chance.

Am I on target? It's not the most clearly written spell :smalleek:

Blink makes you ethereal 50% of the time. You blink in and out of physical existence. Ghost touch weapons are useless as you aren't incorporeal. When your ethereal you literally aren't present on the material plane.
The issue isn't the wording of the spell the problem is you're confusing ethereal with incorporeal which is a very common mistake so don't feel bad about it.

[Feytalist]

Also note that you are not half-ethereal, you are ethereal half of the time.

Important distinction.

And your own spells also have a 20% miss chance. easy to miss that.

[SethoMarkus]

Think of it like this. You are constantly shifting between the Material plane and the Ethereal plane. Since a round is 6 seconds, you could say that you are on the Material plane for 3 seconds of a round, and on the Ethereal plane for the other 3 seconds. Sometimes it's in increments of 1 second, sometimes it's for the full 3 seconds in one shot; this is completely random and you don't control it.

If a creature cannot see invisibility and cannot strike ethereal foes, they have 50% miss chance.

If a creature cannot see invisibility but can strike ethereal foes, they have 20% miss chance (concealment).

If a creature can see invisibility but cannot strike ethereal foes, they have a 20% miss chance (etherealness).

If a creature can see invisibility and can strike ethereal foes, they have no penalty.

[Deaxsa]

Blink makes you ethereal 50% of the time. You blink in and out of physical existence. Ghost touch weapons are useless as you aren't incorporeal. When your ethereal you literally aren't present on the material plane.
The issue isn't the wording of the spell the problem is you're confusing ethereal with incorporeal which is a very common mistake so don't feel bad about it.

thanks, that clarifies a lot :smallsmile:

Also note that you are not half-ethereal, you are ethereal half of the time.

Important distinction.

And your own spells also have a 20% miss chance. easy to miss that.
more clarification :smallsmile:
also, greater blink fixes the 20% everything failure chance



three questions:
A) how invisible are you? in other words, if i got blink on, and then invisibility, would i have total concealment(50%) and the ethereal miss chance (20%)?

B)does blink work backwards? that is, do all of the effects work the same way against creatures that only exist on the ethereal plane? (for instance, a phase spider that has not jaunted?)

C) incidentally, why is it not 30% miss chance, instead of 20%? after all, .7*.7=.49 which is almost exactly .5

[Lord Vukodlak]

A) how invisible are you? in other words, if i got blink on, and then invisibility, would i have total concealment(50%) and the ethereal miss chance (20%)?

Presuming the target could strike ethereal creatures but not see invisible creatures then yes.



B)does blink work backwards? that is, do all of the effects work the same way against creatures that only exist on the ethereal plane? (for instance, a phase spider that has not jaunted?)
So if you were fighting a ethereal creature would you be blinking against them... yes. As a wizard I once engaged two groups of enemies one on the material and one on the Ethereal



C) incidentally, why is it not 30% miss chance, instead of 20%? after all, .7*.7=.49 which is almost exactly .5
I don't get what you mean why does 30% make more sense?

[Killer Angel]

Plus, you cannot be grappled, and you can pass walls and doors for free.
Lots of goodies, in a single spell. :smallwink:

[Deaxsa]

Presuming the target could strike ethereal creatures but not see invisible creatures then yes.


So if you were fighting a ethereal creature would you be blinking against them... yes. As a wizard I once engaged two groups of enemies one on the material and one on the Ethereal


I don't get what you mean why does 30% make more sense?

1. I don't think you understood my question, I was asking if they are combining two 20%s to get a 50%.
2. Very cool.
3. Because if I have two sources of miss chance, and they both give the same amount, and together they equal 50%miss chance, then 30% is the real math number that gives us (basically) 50% miss chance.

[Chronos]

Huh, I'd never noticed before that Ghost Touch doesn't work against ethereal creatures. That seems kind of odd. But then, the whole interplay between ethereal and incorporeal always seems kind of odd.

[ericgrau]

1. I don't think you understood my question, I was asking if they are combining two 20%s to get a 50%.
I don't think there's that much math involved. 20% and 50% are just used a lot.

Generally, not including blink, if you have 20% concealment and 20% miss chance, you roll for both and don't combine them. If you have two sources of concealment, they don't stack and it's still 20% (and only 1 roll). If the target can't be seen at all, it's 50% and it doesn't get worse than that even if there are multiple concealing effects (but a non-concealing miss chance may apply on top of it). Plus you can't locate the guy by vision. You need to use listen or his last attack location or a special ability or guess. If you guess the wrong square you just miss, no rolling. Guess right or use one of the listed methods and it's still a 50% chance of missing.