Anyway, thank you for correcting me with a fair dose of irony... or was that sarcasm? ;)
Neither, I was being sincere.
She's actually a great artist, but she has single-handedly distorted the concept of irony for an entire generation of people.
Unless of course the song about irony was non-ironic on purpose, in which case the song is still non-ironic, but the fact that people (like me) become frsutrated at how non-ironic the song is, is ironic.
Got that? : P
And just for the sake of education:
"The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs."
If you're just commenting to your neighbor; "man, I sure do hate monsters", and then your village gets overrun by monsters, that's not irony.
If your village melts all of its weapons to build a monument in protest of violence, and then gets overrun by monsters and burned off the map because they had no weapons to defend themselves with, that's irony.
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reminder: these are the questions
Just to be clear, these are the questions about the Wall of Thorns spell (PF Core Rulebook page 367) that I would like to be answered:
1. What can a creature do (i.e. which actions can it take) while inside the wall?
2. Does the WoT provide a concealment/cover modifier to those inside? Does it block the line-of-effect of spells?
3A. If a creature is blocked inside the wall, can it still attack with melee weapons opponents which happen to be on squares within its reach? Can it attack target outside the wall with ranged weapons or spells?
Can it attack other targets inside the wall with ranged weapons or spells?
3B. Viceversa, can creatures from outside make melee attacks to the creatures inside the wall (and within reach)?
Can creatures from outside target the creatures inside with ranged attacks and spells?
3C. Can gas-based effects (e.g. an incendiary cloud or a cloudkill) and breath weapons affect the creatures inside the wall of thorns?
Thank you.
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Questions' summary.
1. What can a creature do (i.e. which actions can it take) while inside a Wall of Thorns (WoT)?
2. If a creature can take an action (other than attempting to free itself with a Strength check), will it take damage as if it moved even if it remains in the same square? [Question credit: Laurefindel]
3. Does the WoT provide a concealment/cover modifier to those inside? Does it block the line-of-effect of spells?
4A. If a creature is blocked inside the wall, can it still attack with melee weapons opponents which happen to be on squares within its reach? Can it attack target outside the wall with ranged weapons or spells?
Can it attack other targets inside the wall with ranged weapons or spells?
4B. Viceversa, can creatures from outside make melee attacks to the creatures inside the wall (and within reach)?
Can creatures from outside target the creatures inside with ranged attacks and spells?
4C. Can gas-based effects (e.g. an incendiary cloud or a cloudkill) and breath weapons affect the creatures inside the wall of thorns?
Thank you.
The spell essentially conjures up a wall of razor vine (from old second edition D&D, nightmarish stuff as it was), and is pretty devastating to be sure.
That being said another damage mitigating factor is Damage Reduction, while the spell lists it deals 'piercing damage', this is not magical in any way (though the wall is created by a spell it does not count as an enhancement bounus, it would otherwise list this in the spell), so creatures would also take off Damage Reduction in addition to usual modifiers (in 2nd ed, anything immune to magic weapons was also immune to unenchanted razor-vine whips, it had to be specifically enchanted to hurt creatures vulnerable to +X weapons).
That being said it is still a devastating spell, and my players did not enjoy being on the recieving end of it. Though a valid point was made, since other wall spells such as Wall Of Fire have varied damage variables, why does this spell act differently?, I know it somewhat replicates the Razorvine mechanics but it'd make more sense someone got pricked by a different number of thorns in different places every round they tried to move or act and thereby took different sums of damage - as such, I houseruled it dealt 3d6+7 piercing damage, giving it a threshold of 10-25 damage which is respectable while the wall retained its amazing battlefield-changing dynamics and difficulty to pass through while still killing weaker opponents)
That being said another damage mitigating factor is Damage Reduction, while the spell lists it deals 'piercing damage', this is not magical in any way (though the wall is created by a spell it does not count as an enhancement bounus, it would otherwise list this in the spell), so creatures would also take off Damage Reduction in addition to usual modifiers
This is unfortunately not RAW. No matter what type of damage it is, damage dealt by spells ignores DR. Only if the spell specifically states that DR affects the damage (and there are a very few examples of this in 3.5) does DR have any bearing.
That being said another damage mitigating factor is Damage Reduction, while the spell lists it deals 'piercing damage', this is not magical in any way (though the wall is created by a spell it does not count as an enhancement bounus, it would otherwise list this in the spell), so creatures would also take off Damage Reduction in addition to usual modifiersThis is unfortunately not RAW. No matter what type of damage it is, damage dealt by spells ignores DR. Only if the spell specifically states that DR affects the damage (and there are a very few examples of this in 3.5) does DR have any bearing.
Though ordinarily, spells that deal 'energy/force/magic' damage obviously ignore DR, there are some spells that dont mention these though, they deal weapon-type (bludgeoning/piercing/slashing) damage and arent, by initial appearances reduced by ANYTHING...and that cant be right, and let me explain why.
"Splinterbolt" from the Spell Compendium is a spell similar to Wall of Thorns as it deals piercing damage, now Splinterbolt deals 4d6 piercing damage on a ranged attack from a wooden bolt, it has a 18-20/x2 critical threat range and you get another bolt every 4 levels past 3rd. More importantly, Splinterbolt says it counts as MAGIC and PIERCING for Damage Reduction, and it allows no save or SR. I'd rule the same thing applies to the thorns of a Wall Of Thorns, it counts as Magic and Piercing for DR purposes (which hardly makes the spell useless).
Since it has very clear weapon-like mechanics, and a listed threat range (unlike any other spell I have ever seen), its clear to me that "Splinterbolt" deals normal weaponlike (piercing (magic DR)) damage, which states it deals 'magical piercing' damage in its description (this is not flavor text, a spell that mentions a damage type in its description deals damage of that nature otherwise...fire for fireball, electricity for lightning bolt, etc. would be 'flavor text' as well by that definition)
And since "Scorching Ray" is reduced by Fire Resistance, so should the damage from a spell like "Splinterbolt" count any relevant forms of DR because it deals Magic Piercing damage and says as much in its description..
Why would Wall of Thorns bother to mention that ARMOR and such reduces the damage if Damage Reduction did not apply?, the two go very similarly hand-in-hand. The spell simulates someone being forced to move through a very thick and prickly briar, someone with DR has more or less a 'form of armor' that reduces the damage taken in a very similar manner, and a bunch of thorns dealing small damage individually to a creature with DR should thereby be taken into account since Armor/Natural Armor/etc is taken into account. If Armor and suchlike was NOT taken into account, then I'd be willing to see the thorns counting as some weird, untyped magical damage, but they're not, it deals 'piercing' damage that is less effective versus armored targets...just as a normal briar would be less dangerous to an armored foe.
Its from spells like this and few other spells I have seen yet have some unknown type of damage (Magic Missiles is for instance Force, and Holy Smite is infact 'magic' damage, Blade Barrier deals Force damage, even Disintegrate deals an untyped 'Magic' damage, etc), but few if any say they deal slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage exclusively like Wall Of Thorns & Spliterbolt, this has to be taken into account SOMEHOW for balance purposes. Without a doubt the spells are deadly enough as they are, but spells deal listed types of damage and are reduced by relevant factors accordingly, and those few spells (such as Disintegrate that dont mention any type of damage at all are reduced by nothing at all BECAUSE the spell lacks a specific damage "type" in its description (In 3.5 Dragon Magazines, they listed it as "Magic" damage for simplicity that wasnt reduced by anything).
Why would Wall Of Thorns and Splinterbolt ever bother to mention it deals PIERCING damage if it wasnt reduced by DR?...(((I'd be willing to do with the write up of "Piercing Bolt" and say the thorns deal Piercing damage and count as Magical for DR purposes)))...neither spell allows a save or counts versus Spell Resistance...that doesnt make sense. No other core spells I have seen deal simply 'piercing' damage in their descriptions, so something with DR /Slashing or DR/Piercing such as most basic undead would reduce the damage accoridingly...and thats at the very least, since [i]Splinterbolt deals this kind of piercing damage so would Wall of Thorns which is very similar [/i]
Why would Wall Of Thorns and Splinterbolt ever bother to mention it deals PIERCING damage if it wasnt reduced by DR?
Because there are more things that depend on damage types than DR. For example, there are monsters that splash acidic/poisonous blood if they take piercing damage.