Unseen servant and blindsense

[Waldham]

Hello,
I have a question about the unseen servant.

Can a creature with blindsense detect the unseen servant ?

Are there a official answer about this ? If yes, where, please ?

Thanks for your future answer.

[Crake]

Hello,
I have a question about the unseen servant.

Can a creature with blindsense detect the unseen servant ?

Are there a official answer about this ? If yes, where, please ?

Thanks for your future answer.

No, because unseen servants aren't actually creatures or really beings. They're force, which isn't something that can be detected

[Albions_Angel]

I would argue that it depends on the blindsense. Sounds dumb at first, but blindsense can take a number of forms in a fluff sense.

Currently, unseen servants are just bundles of force. Normally you cant see them. But in a super dusty environment, they will disturb the dust, leaving trails. And maybe in mist an outline would be visible.

Now, a creature that echo-locates cant detect an unseen servant unless its carrying something physical. But if you define it in some other way, maybe it can. Lets deal with a few.

Thermal Vision. Similar to a snake, heat sensing pits can portray a vague picture of surroundings. If your creature or character has this form of blind sense (I dont know what would, but there is bound to be something like a naga with blind sense), then it MAY see a colder outline around the servant. Force requires an energy store. Energy is often garnered from the surroundings. This would make them colder and the air would radiate less infrared. So a fuzzy, very slight outline.

Barometric sense. Yes, absolutely. You at least know what square the servant is in. A pocket of force would create a pressure differential. This could be picked up by something that has pressure sensing organs (like a lot of sea creatures do).

Magical sense. Maybe, maybe not. Depends if you define the servant as having a lingering magical aura.

Electrical sense. Think electric eel. Or hammerhead shark. Every living creature with a nervous system gives off electrical impulses. These are detectable. Particularly in water. Force does not give this off (unless its electrical field derived force but thats unlikely). So a creature that uses this method to detect its surroundings cannot detect an unseen hand. In fact, it couldn't even detect the things it was carrying.

Ok, now lets look at some other things.

Tremor Sense. An interesting one. Some people take tremor sense to mean that a creature with it can "see" everything touching the ground. Others take it to mean that such a creature is only aware of its general location (square of occupation). Either way, an unseen hand would be hard to detect. It really depends how you classify the servant. Are the humanoid? If so, then they walk. They apply actual pressure on the ground to move. They dont have heartbeats though, so if they stand still, they become undetectable. If you feel they are more like a floating ball, well, no, not detectable with tremor sense.

Blind sight. There is a lot of overlap with blind sense here. The way my DM plays it is that Blind Sight is just a super precise version of blind sense. A blind sense creature that echo-locates can tell vague shapes. It can avoid walking into things but it cant see a strike coming even if it knows the creature is in front of it. A blind sight creature is more precise, being able to discern shapes, speeds, hardness, depth, down to the width of an arrow or so. They can "see" just like anything else. Same with other interpretations of blind sense. If a blind sense creature can see an unseen servant, a blind sight creature can see everything about it. It may even be able to detect disturbed dust clouds and the like.

Dark vision. No. Doesnt work on light so there is no refraction or reflection. It can see the effects, but not the servant.

Actual vision. Ah, here it gets interesting. Depends how good your spot is. You can probably identify dust being moved around, or outlines in mist or fog. But there is another way. Ever looked at a straw in a glass of water? Yeah, refraction. The force cloud will probably increase the density (or decrease) of the air or water it sits in. Light passing through it refracts. You could probably see the warping of objects behind with a sufficiently high spot roll (around 40 ish, unless you are an expert in light somehow). If you view it with the sun or a light source behind it, you may see DIFFRACTION. That is, chromatic aberration would occur around its edges (prism effect). Again, it would be very slight so you need a very high roll.

Other methods of detection. Well, they are balls of force, so they cant walk through you. They would knock you out the way. Like a solid wall. They can probably manipulate their shape though, so you cant throw something at it and have it bounce off. As discussed above, the air might be ever so slightly colder around it. You might be able to hear its passage, or feel displaced air. You might spot that things have been recently moved in a long sealed room and infer its presence. Or, as in the case of our campaign, a magical talking archway might just tell you it has servants and have them bring you a box of gold as a reward.

One last point. You could make an argument for unseen servants being on the ethereal plain and using some form of "ghost strike" to move objects. A ninja or wizard that can enter said plain may be able to see them. Its up to you.