Pitch, Asmodeus's Advocate's page

"I'm on it! Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there was no law broken here. My client, was not blame nor would he have been responsible for any harm that might have befallen those guardsmen. Clearly it was Gravity that was to blame for endangering them. As we are all endangered every moment of the day that risk standing up and moving about. Those men knew the risks, and took them any way."

Prince of Law's advocate, thank you. Devil has all sorts of negative connotations, and the unenlightened are nervous enough because of the whole 'evil' subtype thing. People can be so judgemental about 'evil', but what about 'aquatic' or 'gnomes'? I find it racist. Remember: 'evil' is just 'live' spelled backwards, and we all want to live don't we?

Hell's new theme song (It's a rebranding thing)

I think that to apply that to effects that emanate from a specific creature or object doesn't hold water.

Perhaps not, but that I think is the normal rule made for abstract simplicity sake. I'm not arguing the ruling itself, but do want to point it out. You could always use the reach area of effect templates if you wanted to demonstrate a center-focused light. Just remember that by putting the focus in the center the overall radius becomes closer to 12.5 feet. Not really an issue here, but down the road....

For example, I don't think we have to pick a corner of Apollyanna's square that radiates courage.

As for Apollyanna, remember this is an abstraction and that Polly can exist anywhere within that square (even though a few inches of her poke out at the top--a common enough problem for medium beings between 5-foot-1 and 7ish feet tall), it just represents the space she needs to move freely and fight effectively in, but because she is not a small gelatinous cube she does not exist everywhere in that square. If she happens to be closer to one edge than the other her aura probably goes with her. Plus, it's an aura, why not fluctuate it like the Van Allen belt.

That and well your honor, I probably do have a character somewhere who does have courage radiating out of their butt. ;)

While they certainly can be, I'm not sure I agree that light sources are by default attached to intersections, do you have a source?

Dancing lights "Depending on the version selected, you create up to four lights that resemble lanterns or torches (and cast that amount of light)"

Torch A torch burns for 1 hour, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius and increasing the light level by one step for an additional 20 feet beyond that area (darkness becomes dim light and dim light becomes normal light).

20-foot radius.

Nearly all area of effects that reference a 'radius' come down to some version of one of the templates in the last link, and all of those radii templates originate from an intersection. In this way a character holding a torch can switch their torch from corner to corner of their space to shed slightly more or less light in the areas around them. Spells work in a similar fashion. "The point of origin of a spell is always a grid intersection."* Think of fireball or grease.

Most folks using dancing lights go with torches, or hooded lantern-like light, to keep things simple on the map and illuminate all directions at once--a radius (or, in the case of four lights, multiple overlapping radii) of effect.

There is though a case for allowing bullseye lantern-like light which would project cones from a single square, but that would only be in one particular direction, and not be quite as helpful in this instance. I have never actually seen this use in a game, but the vagueness of the term 'lantern' in the entry for dancing lights might technically allow for it.

Your honor, I rest my case. ;)

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* Taken from the same page as the last link listed above.