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Jack_Simth
2007-04-03, 08:28 PM
Silly, instant house-rule, but RAW:



CLOAK DANCE [GENERAL]

You are skilled at using optical tricks to make yourself seem to be where you are not.
Prerequisites: Hide (file:///D:/local%20web/SRD/srd.pbemnexus.com/skillsAll.html#hide) 10 ranks, Perform (file:///D:/local%20web/SRD/srd.pbemnexus.com/skillsAll.html#perform) (dance) 2 ranks.
Benefit: You can take a move action to obscure your exact position. Until your next turn, you have concealment. Alternatively, you can take a full-round action to entirely obscure your exact position. Until your next action, you have total concealment.






Hustle

Psychometabolism
Level: Egoist 3, psychic warrior 2
Display: Auditory
Manifesting Time: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Effect: 1 extra move action
Power Points: Egoist 5, psychic warrior 3
You gain an additional move action in the current round. Taking a full round’s worth of attacks and then using this power to move away from your foe does provoke attacks of opportunity.
You can manifest this power with an instant thought, quickly enough to gain the benefit of the power before you move. Manifesting the power is a swift action, like manifesting a quickened power, and it counts toward the normal limit of one quickened power per round. You cannot manifest this power when it isn’t your turn.

You spend a move action to gain concealment, using the feat.


You then use a Bluff check to create a distraction to hide (a Standard action).

You then manifest Hustle as a Swift action to gain a move action - which you then actually use to Hide (as Hiding is part of a move action).

Thereafter, you take a move action to maintain your concealment, and go wherever with your other action, hiding. In your own concealment. And you did this while observed.

If you start unobserved, you don't need Hustle; you just take a move action to gain concealment every turn, and Hide in that. You have portable concealment for hiding.

It defies common sense, mind (hard to hide in your own cloak; they at least know what square you're in), and most reasonable DMs will house-rule it without a second thought.... but it is, technically, a way for just about anyone to Hide wherever.

Mewtarthio
2007-04-03, 08:34 PM
Well, they certainly can't see you, but... well, have you ever seen the Monty Python sketch "How Not to Be Seen"? If not, let's just say there's a difference between "not being seen" and "your location not being known."

martyboy74
2007-04-03, 08:38 PM
Cloud Mind's better.

Kel_Arath
2007-04-03, 09:51 PM
hustle has auditory display, so they just have to make a listen check and pop you one.

Mewtarthio
2007-04-03, 09:54 PM
hustle has auditory display, so they just have to make a listen check and pop you one.

Or you could just make the Concentration check to dispense with the display.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-04-04, 12:14 PM
It defies common sense...
Not really. You're just really good at concealing your entire being to the extent that all any outside observer can see is the cloak. People come up, try to stab you, but instead wind up hitting empty cloak instead.

(Also, it probably helps to visualize the thing as being more like the three-quarters to nine-tenths concealment of 3.0 days than actual 100% concealment. People would still probably get an occasional glimpse at some body part or another.)

Well, I suppos it does defy common sense when you realize you can do the trick while buck naked and without anything else to offer concealment. Despite the feat's name, it does not actually require a cloak to use by the RAW wording.


...most reasonable DMs will house-rule it without a second thought...
Don't see why I should have to. It's pretty expensive, taking a full round and at least three power points (assuming observation) to start and a move action each round to maintain. And, as you pointed out, your opponents can still pinpoint your location quite easily. All you really gain is a 50% miss chance.

Though I would house-rule the part about not actually needing a cloak...


hustle has auditory display, so they just have to make a listen check and pop you one.
The display only affects the round in which you manifest the power.
The auditory display can be so quiet that needs its own listen check to notice anyway.
Concentration to manifest without display as mentioned above.
You can only use a listen check to pinpoint an invisible creature's location. It does not remove miss chance. As mentioned above, the cloak dancer's location is already known, making the need for a Listen check completely and totally irrelevant.

Were-Sandwich
2007-04-04, 12:20 PM
"Optical Tricks". We're talking Siegfried and Roy style here.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-04-04, 12:24 PM
"Optical Tricks". We're talking Siegfried and Roy style here.
Siegfried and Roy still need some sort of prop (maybe a trick mirror at least) to make themselves disappear. They can't do it if they were just randomly teleported into the middle of a featureless plain while buck naked.

Were-Sandwich
2007-04-04, 12:25 PM
How do we know?

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-04-04, 12:44 PM
So how do you think Siegfried and Roy do it?

SpiderBrigade
2007-04-04, 12:51 PM
Tigers.

Seriously, though, this is a system where a completely non-magical character can, with skill, pass his entire body and all his equipment through a 2" diameter hole.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-04-04, 01:05 PM
Tigers.
But the featureless plain doesn't have tigers. Just a buck naked Seigfreid and/or Roy. And someone they must hide from.


Seriously, though, this is a system where a completely non-magical character can, with skill, pass his entire body and all his equipment through a 2" diameter hole.
Epic doesn't really count where verisimilitude is concerned. Once you reach that level, you've determined that natural physics are so screwy in your campaign, that nothing really counts where verisimilitude is concerned.

NullAshton
2007-04-04, 01:39 PM
Why not just take a full round action to get total concealment, then hustle to move? Total concealment negates the need for hide checks completely. Thus, you're effectively invisible.

I think of it as more of artfully avoiding your opponents gaze, though. Think like those cartoons where the person hides behind someone, staying behind their head.

SpiderBrigade
2007-04-04, 02:00 PM
But the featureless plain doesn't have tigers. Just a buck naked Seigfreid and/or Roy. And someone they must hide from.The tigers come out of nowhere, that's what tigers do. But yeah, that was more by way of a joke anyway :smallbiggrin:
Epic doesn't really count where verisimilitude is concerned. Once you reach that level, you've determined that natural physics are so screwy in your campaign, that nothing really counts where verisimilitude is concerned.How about the oft-mentioned rogue dodging a fireball in a 10-foot room? Theres a lot of things you can do that stretch verisimilitude just within the basic rules. Besides, doesn't this example use psionic powers?

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say that this trick isn't silly, or that I wouldn't agree with a house rule that requires, I donno, A CLOAK, to use Cloak Dance. Naked people hiding behind themselves IS ridiculous. I'm mostly just being the devil's advocate, it's my job.

I'd also point out that some people seem to be missing the part of this trick that is ridiculous. It's not that you can hide yourself in your cloak (or lack of cloak, if you're generous) and the opponent can't hit you even though they know your location. It's the fact that after you do that, you can walk around behind them or, really, anywhere, and they can't tell where you are anymore, unless they beat your Hide check.

Jack_Simth
2007-04-04, 03:53 PM
Not really. You're just really good at concealing your entire being to the extent that all any outside observer can see is the cloak. People come up, try to stab you, but instead wind up hitting empty cloak instead.

Ah, you missed it.

After you've successfully hidden and moved, they technically don't even know what square you're in without a Spot check / Listen check / Something else.

You made the instant house rule without even thinking about it. You applied common sense - you're hiding behind something (the cloak) - and they know where that is; as it's in your square, they know what square you're in. Common sense.

The cloak, however, is an attended object - under normal circumstances, you don't have the rogue make seperate hide checks for the shortsword in his belt, the Cloak of Resistance he's wearing, his Boots of Haste, and so on. The rogue just hides.

All the Hide skill requires is some sort of cover or concealment while hiding (well, and being unobserved when you start, and a little issue of an opposed check....). Theoretically, the Blur spell can have the same effect - letting someone Hide anywhere - as it also grants actual Concealment (Displacement doesn't work for it, though, as it only grants the miss chance of concealment).

One could also do this by using a Tower Shield for Total Cover, then loosing it (a move action) and using a standard action to go elsewhere and hide (as Hiding is part of movement).

It's silly beyond belief (well, unless you've seen really silly things before), but there it is. RAW Hide in Plain Sight for Psionics.


Why not just take a full round action to get total concealment, then hustle to move? Total concealment negates the need for hide checks completely. Thus, you're effectively invisible.
Because that option only lasts until your next action - which, if you then take a swift action to gain a move action and go somewhere, vanishes.

Mewtarthio
2007-04-04, 04:34 PM
But if you leave the thing behind which you are hiding, you become visible again. That Tower Shield trick, for instance, is just you ducking behind a Tower Shield so nobody can see you. That doesn't make it a very intelligent move. By the same token, if there's a single Darkness spell in the middle of a vast desert, you can hide in it, but everyone will still know where you are.

Jack_Simth
2007-04-04, 05:26 PM
But if you leave the thing behind which you are hiding, you become visible again. That Tower Shield trick, for instance, is just you ducking behind a Tower Shield so nobody can see you. That doesn't make it a very intelligent move. By the same token, if there's a single Darkness spell in the middle of a vast desert, you can hide in it, but everyone will still know where you are.Oh, the Tower Shield trick requires you have something else to hide behind on your trip - you need cover while you're hiding, not just at the beginning - but it gives you the "around a corner" type setup (total cover) needed to make a Hide check while observed. So you pull up the shield, and vanish into the bushes as the shield falls flat.