If a player only has tremorsense....

[CyberThread]

If a player only has tremorsense, for vision, what sort of... interactions or roleplay should they consider? What horrible life does one have?

[Nettlekid]

They are Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

[Lord Haart]

Well, for starters, as i've discovered to much chagrin, it would seem that all the special senses in 3.5 only give rules for detecting creatures, with no other way to see objects but Spot'ting (and, if they're noisy, Listen'ing) them existing (and therefore no way to detect an object, even if it's in your square, if something makes it impossible to Spot it).

It sucks to be a burrowing creature. Apparently, all the earth elemental can do without asking the GM to houserule things when he's facing an opposed earth elemental is to stumble blindly through the earth-which-he-doesn't-see-a-jack-in, hoping to shamble out to surface (or into some lava) where he'll be able to at least make an attack without earth making it impossible via total cover.

[Rubik]

They are Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender.This.

And if you're not familiar with any of that, you are missing out. Go get Netflix or something and watch it. You must.

[Kane0]

They are Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

This.
And if you're not familiar with any of that, you are missing out. Go get Netflix or something and watch it. You must.

Agreed. Watch it. It's like required reading.

[Chronos]

Note that she doesn't show up until the second season, so you'll have to watch a lot before meeting her.

Which is a good thing-- The show is great.

[Rubik]

Agreed. Watch it. It's like required reading.And speaking of required reading... (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5398503/1/Embers)

[Note: Do not read that until you've finished the series. After that, go nuts.]

[Kane0]

Already reading it, I think it was you that originally lead to me finding it :smallamused:

[tyckspoon]

They are Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Not quite - in D&D, Toph's sense is detailed enough to be Blindsight, just with the tremorsense-like restriction of only working on things touching the ground. Tremorsense alone does not have the level of precision and detail Toph does; the quality works like a surface-restricted Blindsense.

[Chronos]

True; she doesn't have any difficulty at all in hitting things. They do do a pretty good job with the limitations, though: She hates flying because it blinds her, she can't respond to people jumping until they land, she's illiterate, she has no interest at all in astronomy, and so on.

[Kane0]

Not quite - in D&D, Toph's sense is detailed enough to be Blindsight, just with the tremorsense-like restriction of only working on things touching the ground. Tremorsense alone does not have the level of precision and detail Toph does; the quality works like a surface-restricted Blindsense.

One could argue a degree of surface-restricted blindsight as well as blindsense too.
Stupid distinction between Blindsense and Blindsight. Needlessly specific if you ask me.

[Lightlawbliss]

for starters, plenty of "you don't understand me" instances.

second, he won't be doing much fighting like that without DM intervention. That person won't even know who is who untill they talk RAW

[TuggyNE]

Not quite - in D&D, Toph's sense is detailed enough to be Blindsight, just with the tremorsense-like restriction of only working on things touching the ground. Tremorsense alone does not have the level of precision and detail Toph does; the quality works like a surface-restricted Blindsense.

… Tremorsight? This should be a thing!

[Psyren]

Toph also hears and smells just fine, which a tremorsense-only player might lack. I agree it's a great starting point though.

I think Touchsight-only would be very interesting.

[Than]

She's good enough with the tremor sight to recognize familiar people. She may not be able to see an arrow through the air but she can see who shot it within sight range. Even behind her from total cover and concealment.

[Rijan_Sai]

1) *sadly has not seen enough A:TLA...must fix soon*

2) I would think a good starting point for understanding a creature that "sees" with tremorsense to be this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100814/?ref_=nv_sr_1). At least, that's how I understand the ability...

[Rubik]

True; she doesn't have any difficulty at all in hitting things. They do do a pretty good job with the limitations, though: She hates flying because it blinds her, she can't respond to people jumping until they land, she's illiterate, she has no interest at all in astronomy, and so on.On the other hand, it certainly doesn't restrict her sarcasm-sense and common-sense, which more than make up for any other limitations she might have.

[Fooliscious]

Tremorsense works off vibrations. EVERYTHING gives off vibrations, nothing is completely inert. A creature with tremorsense will know how to tell those vibrations apart and sketch a picture of its surroundings in its head. Closest real world comparison I can come up with is echolocation, with the echoes being vibrations that objects emit vs sound waves bouncing back.

Now as for telling things apart(as in this human or that human) is up to you. If the summoner of an earth elemental calls the same elemental over and over again, I'd think that elemental would become familiar with that person's particular vibrational 'flavor'. I'd say a mental command to attack the human 'that way' would be sufficient as well.

No concealement penalties. Cover would still be effective.

[Psyren]

No concealement penalties. Cover would still be effective.

If you get your DM to go along with that, fine, but that's not how the rules work. And honestly, I think it's fine that way, because nothing says that the vibration detection of tremorsense has detail so fine that it can overcome concealment. If you go down to vibrating matter/atoms, then you could just as easily say there's no way for them to see anything, because the air around their targets vibrates too.

[Fooliscious]

Where does it say in tremorsense you get concealment penalties? And everything vibrates at higher than the molecular level. Take a bridge for example, it's really easy to see those vibrate. You can resonate with almost anything, given the right frequency.

A creature that lives with that all his life would be able to distinguish minutia. Toph sure as heck didn't pick up her precision overnight. I agree with with air vibrating so much it would make things not on the ground pretty fuzzy, hence the ground limitiation.

[Lyndworm]

Where does it say in tremorsense you get concealment penalties?
This doesn't make any sense to me. Absence of definition is not definition of absence.

Tremorsense (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#tremorsense) doesn't mention concealment at all, while blindsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#blindsightAndBlindsense) does.

[TuggyNE]

Where does it say in tremorsense you get concealment penalties?

Not really the right way to look at it, but here:
A creature with tremorsense automatically senses the location of anything that is in contact with the ground and within range.

Compare to blindsight, blindsense, and the rules for detecting invisible creatures:
Some creatures have blindsight, the extraordinary ability to use a nonvisual sense (or a combination of such senses) to operate effectively without vision. Such sense may include sensitivity to vibrations, acute scent, keen hearing, or echolocation. This ability makes invisibility and concealment (even magical darkness) irrelevant to the creature (though it still can’t see ethereal creatures and must have line of effect to a creature or object to discern that creature or object).
[…]
Other creatures have blindsense, a lesser ability that lets the creature notice things it cannot see, but without the precision of blindsight. […] Any opponent the creature cannot see has total concealment (50% miss chance) against the creature with blindsense, and the blindsensing creature still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment.

The only reason blindsense has to say it doesn't bypass concealment is because it works like blindsight, which says that it does. Tremorsense doesn't work like anything in particular, so, lacking sight, it wouldn't avoid penalties for being blind.


An invisible creature's location cannot be pinpointed by visual means, including darkvision. It has total concealment; even if an attacker correctly guesses the invisible creature's location, the attacker has a 50% miss chance in combat.
[…]
A creature with blindsight can attack (and otherwise interact with) creatures regardless of invisibility.

Since all tremorsense does is allow a creature to pinpoint locations of other creatures, they still remain effectively invisible, with total concealment. Note that while blindsight is specifically called out as bypassing invisibility, tremorsense is not.

[Suddo]

Toph also hears and smells just fine, which a tremorsense-only player might lack. I agree it's a great starting point though.

This is what everyone is missing.

The person is Helen Keller but can notice people are her. Even if we say it is at Toph's level of tremorsense then we still have someone with no way of communication. Though they might be able to learn writing (as Helen Keller did if I remember) but that is it and the writing would have to be actively done they can't read a note but they can tell a message you draw into the ground with your foot (even if it doesn't leave a trace).