Ceilings and LOS

[imp_fireball]

How does LOS relate to ceilings in a PvP situation?

Say, a player is attached to a ceiling, another player walks into the room. The former player is not hiding. Would the latter have LOS (the former concealment)? How many people actually look up at ceilings? Would LOS be established later? Would it be a spot check still?

[talus21]

I would think it's a spot check. The DC would be dependent on lighting I would think.

[Devils_Advocate]

LOS = Line of Sight?

How would line of sight in particular be relevant here? I'm curious.

In old-school gaming, your DM gives you a detailed description of your character's surroundings and you give a detailed description of how your character interacts with them, including how he investigates them. This is immersive but time-consuming.

In 3.5, you make Spot checks to passively notice things and Search checks to actively look for things. Knowing that important things might be on the ceiling is exactly the sort of stuff that Spot ranks represent.

[oxybe]

if he's on the ceiling to avoid the other player's line of sight, he is hiding even though he's not actively doing it.

resolve it like you normally would.

let's say a fighter in full plate, even if he is on the ceiling via spider climb, might still creak and clank a bit, the armor might reflect torchlight, a few stones might fall as it cannot support his weight, ect...

when i GMed i would normally have a "cheat sheet" of the PCs that had a few of their skills and i'd roll them secretly.

so when Player A walks into the room, i'd roll his Spot VS Player B's Hide (possibly with modifiers) and describe accordingly.

[AslanCross]

I'd say that the Spotter gets to take 10 on his Spot check to find the other guy, since he's not actively looking. If the Hider doesn't actively hide, he'll easily get spotted, even by a casual observer. If the Spotter says he's actively looking, then he still gets an active Spot check and rolls.

[magellan]

It's a ceiling. Adventurers are unable to look at ceilings for not very well understood reasons. (current theories say it's genetic)
Several monsters have even adopted to this habitat beyond PC perception! LOS isnt one of them though. At least i never heard of those.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Character on ground takes 10 on their perception checks, -5 penalty for being distracted (not looking up). Character on ceiling can hide despite lacking cover due to distraction. If 5+Spot modifer or 5+Listen Modifier beats the relevant stealth check, then the character on the ceiling is found.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Line of sight simply means there exists a line from the player to the target where the player could observe the target if she looked that way. So yes, there would be a spot check involved, though I'm not sure there would be bonuses or penalties in the +/- 5 area considering it's a PvP situation and characters are likely to be paranoid and looking everywhere.

[Foryn Gilnith]

it's a PvP situation and characters are likely to be paranoid and looking everywhere.

And this is why you read the original post.
If they're not specifically looking at the ceiling, I still maintain they'd have a -5 distraction penalty. But their paranoia means something like a retry on Spot/Listen each round as a move action; and so the character at the top may be caught in time.