Concealment is Worth Far More Than We Think (in Pathfinder)

There are dozens of different tactical considerations to keep in mind when it comes to an average combat in Pathfinder. From the effective range of an attack, to battlefield positioning, to which options an enemy is more likely to be resilient to, there are so many factors that it's easy to overlook one or two in the heat of the moment. For those looking to exploit an edge, though, concealment is something that doesn't get anywhere near as much love as it should.

As such, I figured I'd talk about it today.

Shhh... did you hear that?

What is Concealment?

The short version is that concealment is any effect that blocks line of sight, though not line of effect, to a target. It might be an enemy lurking in deep shadows away from party members who don't have darkvision, the blinding rain of a storm that hampers your ability to see, illusions that confuse where someone is or isn't standing, or something as simple as billowing smoke. Even heavy underbrush provides concealment to those lurking within it.

Which is particularly handy if people are throwing axes at you.

Mechanically speaking, concealment grants a 20 percent miss chance on attacks against a target (in melee their square has to be within an effect that provides concealment, and at range the attack simply has to pass through a square that provides concealment). And if you have line of effect to a target, but not line of sight, then they have total concealment, which creates a 50 percent miss chance.

If someone is standing on the edge of a fog bank so they're obscured but you can see them, that's 20 percent. If they're deep in the fog and you can't see them at all, that's 50 percent. Make sense?

Concealment does more than grant you a miss chance to attacks targeting you, however. An enemy cannot take an attack of opportunity against you if you have total concealment, for instance, and precision damage like sneak attack doesn't apply when total concealment is present. So even if you drop down among a team of human rogues, all it takes is a billowing cloud of smoke, or a blur effect, and their most potent weapon is immediately stripped from them. When you add in that concealment allows you to make Stealth checks, thus vanishing from an enemy's view and allowing you to surprise them on a subsequent round, concealment can be a potent weapon.

Getting The Most Out of Concealment

Concealment isn't exactly new to most players. After all, it's why so many of us play PCs who have darkvision; you don't want every single monster in the dungeon to get concealment from your archer when you go down into the underground tomb, after all.

Well, somebody's shooting at us. No I can't see who!

However, most of us only think of concealment as something we gain from a magic item like a cloak of displacement, or from temporary spells we activate in combat. Some of the most common methods of gaining concealment include:

- Smokesticks: A simple alchemical item, tossing one of these into a hallway, or in front of a door you just breached, can seriously impede enemy archers and spellcasters from picking out targets as you and your allies make your way inside.

- Eversmoking Bottle: A magic item that billows smoke until it covers an entire battlefield, this magic item is ideal for creating a literal fog of war to obscure your actions and deny the enemy the ability to accurately focus fire. Perfect when combined with abilities like Cinder Sight, or with magic items like a goz mask or fogcutting lenses.

- Darkness: A basic spell or spell-like ability, a single use of darkness is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you can move freely while your enemies without darkvision aren't so lucky. This doesn't often work against monsters and other creatures, but in settings where your primary foes are humans and other surface dwellers, it can be a life saver.

- Invisibility: Whether it's with vanish, invisibility, or other spells, rendering yourself unseen is perhaps the most common way to gain concealment.

There are two primary difficulties in creating concealment. The first is that not every method of concealment will work against every foe, so you need to be sure your strategy is going to function. The second is that you need to make sure your strategy will impede the enemy without hampering your allies.

And if you want to add a third difficulty in, creating concealment often takes your entire turn, meaning that you need to take your action to change the battlefield for the benefit of yourself and your allies.

Tactics, and Denying The Enemy Options

I've said it before, but too often players each want to be the point man. We all want to be the sword that strikes the death blow, or the arrow that brings down the enemy. However, denying the enemy the ability to harm you and your allies is just as useful, while often being far more important.

Now you see me, now you don't.

Take the scenario where a group of rogues have all ganged up on one party member. That party members doesn't have the actions to extricate themselves, and they'll draw several attacks of opportunity if they try. To make matters worse, there are precision archers focusing fire as well. Thinking quickly, an ally tosses out a smokestick. It fills the area with smoke, denying the rogues their sneak attack, but also allowing the ally to retreat without drawing attacks of opportunity. That automatically denies the enemy several d6 of potential damage, as well as other crippling effects that may go with the sneak attack damage. It cost the ally their action to provide that aid, but it provided a timely shield to a party member who may not have survived otherwise.

Alternatively, say the party cleric casts obscuring mist to grant their allies concealment against an enemy force while in a courtyard. An enemy spellcaster might summon up a wind to blow that concealment away, but doing so also ate up that enemy spellcaster's action, buying the party time they wouldn't otherwise have had.

These defensive measures aren't meant to be permanent... they're meant to waste the enemy's time and resources, while providing short-term protection to you and your allies.

Concealment will not solve all your issues, as there will be enemies with blindsight, tremorsense, true seeing, and no one trick is going to automatically work against every foe. The key is to make sure you have enough different strategies that no matter what you're facing you've got something you can pull out to help you and your allies snatch victory.

Lastly, at time of writing it's the 3rd Saturday of the month, which means that my new release from Azukail Games just dropped! So if you haven't had a chance to check out 100 Superstitions For a Fantasy Setting, take a moment to give it a look.

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