RAW is that darkness doesn't have any effect on your ability to navigate difficult terrain, unless something about the terrain specifies that you must be able to see. It's not very realistic, but effects that cause heavy concealment are too common and easy to apply to give them additional mechanical effects.
RAW is that darkness doesn't have any effect on your ability to navigate difficult terrain, unless something about the terrain specifies that you must be able to see. It's not very realistic, but effects that cause heavy concealment are too common and easy to apply to give them additional mechanical effects.
Yeah, I am familiar with the RAW. But I am wondering if various DM's change things up. I suppose I am suggesting House Rules, something that would be handled in session 0. Where I am going with this is I want to convey a sense of horror (OK, Hunger of Hadar is the only one that really does that) and confusion to the players if they are caught in something like Hunger of Hadar, Sleet Storm, or Fog Cloud coupled with Difficult Terrain.
Sleet Storm asks for a Dex save at the end of a turn, or fall prone. What I am considering is adding a generic House Rule, that clearly would be an edge case:
At the end of the char's turn, when in Difficult Terrain AND Blinded, a Dex Save is required, or the char falls Prone. OK, no biggie so far. Now the kicker. IF the char falls prone, there is some chance they lose their sense of direction. I am not talking 180 degrees of dis-orientation, but perhaps 60 degrees or 90 degrees (hex or square). I am thinking a Survival check against ??? DC. If the char fails the Dex Save, AND the Survival Check, they get up moving in some direction that is not the one they expect.
Say the character is standing in a thorny bush(difficult terrain) and is now blinded. The rules would stay if you jumped INTO difficult terrain, there's a DC 10 acrobatics check to make sure you land on your feet or fall prone. There's nothing about traversing movement causing new saves.
Now, house rule-wise, I can see where you're going. I think if you're in difficult terrain and blinded, you're already going pretty slow. If the character wants to speed up? That's a good reason for a dex save. If OTHER things are happening to that individual, maybe a dex save to maintain stability when you're just clearly out of your element. I wouldn't use Survival for sense of direction though in this situation, I'd use perception. Both are wisdom skills but Survival is all about being able to use the land, or some cues/clues to figure things out. When blind, you don't have any of that. You still have your hearing though, so you could say roll a perception check, there's a small penalty due to not having sight/disadvantage on the roll.
Or you just assume they move in a different direction once they fall prone. Again, difficult terrain, blinded, its not a very far reach.
Say the character is standing in a thorny bush(difficult terrain) and is now blinded. The rules would stay if you jumped INTO difficult terrain, there's a DC 10 acrobatics check to make sure you land on your feet or fall prone. There's nothing about traversing movement causing new saves.
Now, house rule-wise, I can see where you're going. I think if you're in difficult terrain and blinded, you're already going pretty slow. If the character wants to speed up? That's a good reason for a dex save. If OTHER things are happening to that individual, maybe a dex save to maintain stability when you're just clearly out of your element. I wouldn't use Survival for sense of direction though in this situation, I'd use perception. Both are wisdom skills but Survival is all about being able to use the land, or some cues/clues to figure things out. When blind, you don't have any of that. You still have your hearing though, so you could say roll a perception check, there's a small penalty due to not having sight/disadvantage on the roll.
Or you just assume they move in a different direction once they fall prone. Again, difficult terrain, blinded, its not a very far reach.
Yeah, Perception is reasonable. You are right about moving slowly compared to bolting. One of the reasons I am thinking about this I have brought up in another thread. If you are Blinded and in Difficult Terrain, running (I am talking about using the Dash Action) well, there should definitely be chance you fall, and a pretty good one.
RAW is that darkness doesn't have any effect on your ability to navigate difficult terrain, unless something about the terrain specifies that you must be able to see. It's not very realistic, but effects that cause heavy concealment are too common and easy to apply to give them additional mechanical effects.
Yeah, I am familiar with the RAW. But I am wondering if various DM's change things up. I suppose I am suggesting House Rules, something that would be handled in session 0. Where I am going with this is I want to convey a sense of horror (OK, Hunger of Hadar is the only one that really does that) and confusion to the players if they are caught in something like Hunger of Hadar, Sleet Storm, or Fog Cloud coupled with Difficult Terrain.
Sleet Storm asks for a Dex save at the end of a turn, or fall prone. What I am considering is adding a generic House Rule, that clearly would be an edge case:
At the end of the char's turn, when in Difficult Terrain AND Blinded, a Dex Save is required, or the char falls Prone. OK, no biggie so far. Now the kicker. IF the char falls prone, there is some chance they lose their sense of direction. I am not talking 180 degrees of dis-orientation, but perhaps 60 degrees or 90 degrees (hex or square). I am thinking a Survival check against ??? DC. If the char fails the Dex Save, AND the Survival Check, they get up moving in some direction that is not the one they expect.
Too much?
What I ask myself is, would it be too much if the party did it to me? Cause they are in a better position to use it every single fight if it's clearly the best option.
As Pantagruel said, blinding through obscurement is not a rare thing, and the primary balancer for a lot of spells is that you can simply move out of the obscured area. Sleet Storm does zero damage because this combination of effects is quite strong when used correctly. I'd absolutely allow two spells like Darkness and Grease to have an effect greater than the sum of their parts, but to give a blanket boost to obscurement is probably a bit too much.
RAW is that darkness doesn't have any effect on your ability to navigate difficult terrain, unless something about the terrain specifies that you must be able to see. It's not very realistic, but effects that cause heavy concealment are too common and easy to apply to give them additional mechanical effects.
Yeah, I am familiar with the RAW. But I am wondering if various DM's change things up. I suppose I am suggesting House Rules, something that would be handled in session 0. Where I am going with this is I want to convey a sense of horror (OK, Hunger of Hadar is the only one that really does that) and confusion to the players if they are caught in something like Hunger of Hadar, Sleet Storm, or Fog Cloud coupled with Difficult Terrain.
Sleet Storm asks for a Dex save at the end of a turn, or fall prone. What I am considering is adding a generic House Rule, that clearly would be an edge case:
At the end of the char's turn, when in Difficult Terrain AND Blinded, a Dex Save is required, or the char falls Prone. OK, no biggie so far. Now the kicker. IF the char falls prone, there is some chance they lose their sense of direction. I am not talking 180 degrees of dis-orientation, but perhaps 60 degrees or 90 degrees (hex or square). I am thinking a Survival check against ??? DC. If the char fails the Dex Save, AND the Survival Check, they get up moving in some direction that is not the one they expect.
Too much?
What I ask myself is, would it be too much if the party did it to me? Cause they are in a better position to use it every single fight if it's clearly the best option.
As Pantagruel said, blinding through obscurement is not a rare thing, and the primary balancer for a lot of spells is that you can simply move out of the obscured area. Sleet Storm does zero damage because this combination of effects is quite strong when used correctly. I'd absolutely allow two spells like Darkness and Grease to have an effect greater than the sum of their parts, but to give a blanket boost to obscurement is probably a bit too much.
As you said, Blindness/Heavily Obscured Area in and of itself is quite common, and I am not about to alter those mechanics. But with the edge case of Difficult Terrain (like Grease) tacked on, I feel that those that simply say "I am going to run (Dash) out of the area", should face some higher risk. Something like Hunger of Hadar should invoke terror brought on by the other-worldly effects, PLUS disorientation. Right now, a player who identifies the spell (or not even need to identify it) says "I am going to run out of this mess in 1 turn." That seems to easy.
RAW is that darkness doesn't have any effect on your ability to navigate difficult terrain, unless something about the terrain specifies that you must be able to see. It's not very realistic, but effects that cause heavy concealment are too common and easy to apply to give them additional mechanical effects.
Yeah, I am familiar with the RAW. But I am wondering if various DM's change things up. I suppose I am suggesting House Rules, something that would be handled in session 0. Where I am going with this is I want to convey a sense of horror (OK, Hunger of Hadar is the only one that really does that) and confusion to the players if they are caught in something like Hunger of Hadar, Sleet Storm, or Fog Cloud coupled with Difficult Terrain.
Sleet Storm asks for a Dex save at the end of a turn, or fall prone. What I am considering is adding a generic House Rule, that clearly would be an edge case:
At the end of the char's turn, when in Difficult Terrain AND Blinded, a Dex Save is required, or the char falls Prone. OK, no biggie so far. Now the kicker. IF the char falls prone, there is some chance they lose their sense of direction. I am not talking 180 degrees of dis-orientation, but perhaps 60 degrees or 90 degrees (hex or square). I am thinking a Survival check against ??? DC. If the char fails the Dex Save, AND the Survival Check, they get up moving in some direction that is not the one they expect.
Too much?
What I ask myself is, would it be too much if the party did it to me? Cause they are in a better position to use it every single fight if it's clearly the best option.
As Pantagruel said, blinding through obscurement is not a rare thing, and the primary balancer for a lot of spells is that you can simply move out of the obscured area. Sleet Storm does zero damage because this combination of effects is quite strong when used correctly. I'd absolutely allow two spells like Darkness and Grease to have an effect greater than the sum of their parts, but to give a blanket boost to obscurement is probably a bit too much.
As you said, Blindness/Heavily Obscured Area in and of itself is quite common, and I am not about to alter those mechanics. But with the edge case of Difficult Terrain (like Grease) tacked on, I feel that those that simply say "I am going to run (Dash) out of the area", should face some higher risk. Something like Hunger of Hadar should invoke terror brought on by the other-worldly effects, PLUS disorientation. Right now, a player who identifies the spell (or not even need to identify it) says "I am going to run out of this mess in 1 turn." That seems to easy.
The general purpose of zones like that is area denial, not straight up killing people. Simply forcing people to run likely accomplishes the purpose of the spell, and doing damage is a bonus.
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I do not believe there is any precise mechanic that handles chars stumbling around when Blind and in Difficult Terrain.
How do you various DM's handle it? My question was triggered reading Hunger of Hadar, and coming away wanting.
RAW is that darkness doesn't have any effect on your ability to navigate difficult terrain, unless something about the terrain specifies that you must be able to see. It's not very realistic, but effects that cause heavy concealment are too common and easy to apply to give them additional mechanical effects.
Yeah, I am familiar with the RAW. But I am wondering if various DM's change things up. I suppose I am suggesting House Rules, something that would be handled in session 0. Where I am going with this is I want to convey a sense of horror (OK, Hunger of Hadar is the only one that really does that) and confusion to the players if they are caught in something like Hunger of Hadar, Sleet Storm, or Fog Cloud coupled with Difficult Terrain.
Sleet Storm asks for a Dex save at the end of a turn, or fall prone. What I am considering is adding a generic House Rule, that clearly would be an edge case:
At the end of the char's turn, when in Difficult Terrain AND Blinded, a Dex Save is required, or the char falls Prone. OK, no biggie so far. Now the kicker. IF the char falls prone, there is some chance they lose their sense of direction. I am not talking 180 degrees of dis-orientation, but perhaps 60 degrees or 90 degrees (hex or square). I am thinking a Survival check against ??? DC. If the char fails the Dex Save, AND the Survival Check, they get up moving in some direction that is not the one they expect.
Too much?
So justify the dex save.
Say the character is standing in a thorny bush(difficult terrain) and is now blinded. The rules would stay if you jumped INTO difficult terrain, there's a DC 10 acrobatics check to make sure you land on your feet or fall prone. There's nothing about traversing movement causing new saves.
Now, house rule-wise, I can see where you're going. I think if you're in difficult terrain and blinded, you're already going pretty slow. If the character wants to speed up? That's a good reason for a dex save. If OTHER things are happening to that individual, maybe a dex save to maintain stability when you're just clearly out of your element. I wouldn't use Survival for sense of direction though in this situation, I'd use perception. Both are wisdom skills but Survival is all about being able to use the land, or some cues/clues to figure things out. When blind, you don't have any of that. You still have your hearing though, so you could say roll a perception check, there's a small penalty due to not having sight/disadvantage on the roll.
Or you just assume they move in a different direction once they fall prone. Again, difficult terrain, blinded, its not a very far reach.
Yeah, Perception is reasonable. You are right about moving slowly compared to bolting. One of the reasons I am thinking about this I have brought up in another thread. If you are Blinded and in Difficult Terrain, running (I am talking about using the Dash Action) well, there should definitely be chance you fall, and a pretty good one.
What I ask myself is, would it be too much if the party did it to me? Cause they are in a better position to use it every single fight if it's clearly the best option.
As Pantagruel said, blinding through obscurement is not a rare thing, and the primary balancer for a lot of spells is that you can simply move out of the obscured area. Sleet Storm does zero damage because this combination of effects is quite strong when used correctly. I'd absolutely allow two spells like Darkness and Grease to have an effect greater than the sum of their parts, but to give a blanket boost to obscurement is probably a bit too much.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
As you said, Blindness/Heavily Obscured Area in and of itself is quite common, and I am not about to alter those mechanics. But with the edge case of Difficult Terrain (like Grease) tacked on, I feel that those that simply say "I am going to run (Dash) out of the area", should face some higher risk. Something like Hunger of Hadar should invoke terror brought on by the other-worldly effects, PLUS disorientation. Right now, a player who identifies the spell (or not even need to identify it) says "I am going to run out of this mess in 1 turn." That seems to easy.
The general purpose of zones like that is area denial, not straight up killing people. Simply forcing people to run likely accomplishes the purpose of the spell, and doing damage is a bonus.