I am not sure how concealment due to darkness works with aoe spells.
Say I have a baddy that has darkvision, and blindfighting, and casts Deeper Darkness in an area of dim light on the party (darkvision does not work) Can said baddy still target them with cones, and line attacks? Is there a miss chance still? or Does the miss chance not exist for aoe's?
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
|
Cones and lines are not the same thing as AOE spells. Fireball is an AOE spell - you drop it on a spot, and it effects everyone within a certain radius whether you can see them or not.
Cone of Cold, or other cone spells, requires you to direct them toward a target. In other words, you must have line of effect to your target AND you must know where your target is located. Since all targets in your example have 100% concealment, you cannot pinpoint their location. This means you can direct your cone in the direction you believe your target to be, but since you can't actually see them, the 50% miss chance granted by the concealment still applies.
Concealment does not protect you from AoE's or cone(also a form of an AoE) spells. If you are in the area you have to make the reflex save.
The 50% miss chance only applies to attack rolls.
For spells that force you to choose a target you simply can't select a target with full concealment.
Targeted spells are spells like magic missile, and charm person which have the word target at the top and tell you to select one creature or person as an example.
Concealment does not protect you from AoE's or cone(also a form of an AoE) spells. If you are in the area you have to make the reflex save.
The 50% miss chance only applies to attack rolls.
For spells that force you to choose a target you simply can't select a target with full concealment.
Targeted spells are spells like magic missile, and charm person which have the word target at the top and tell you to select one creature or person as an example.
so i am confused by feats and spells here. so could a baddy with improved blind fight target something in deeper darkness (from dim light) with a cone or line? Does it need to make a perception to find them?
so i am confused by feats and spells here. so could a baddy with improved blind fight target something in deeper darkness (from dim light) with a cone or line? Does it need to make a perception to find them?
Ignore that second post, it's entirely wrong. Cones and lines are AoE spells, and do not suffer from miss chances due to concealment. You don't need blind-fight to hit things with AoE spells. You would still need a good idea of where your target is to hit it with a line (because the line still has to be aimed in a certain direction, so you could cast it on the wrong side of a sphere of darkness for example), but a cone could easily cover the entire area of darkness.
Concealment does not protect you from AoE's or cone(also a form of an AoE) spells. If you are in the area you have to make the reflex save.
The 50% miss chance only applies to attack rolls.
For spells that force you to choose a target you simply can't select a target with full concealment.
Targeted spells are spells like magic missile, and charm person which have the word target at the top and tell you to select one creature or person as an example.
so i am confused by feats and spells here. so could a baddy with improved blind fight target something in deeper darkness (from dim light) with a cone or line? Does it need to make a perception to find them?
Rules text below put in spoiler tags to avoid wall of text.
Blind Fight and the subsequent feats in that chain only affect melee attacks, so they will not help your baddy make AoE spell attacks at all. The only spells they will help with are melee touch attack spells.
For spells, there are two types that it seems like you are interested in. One is targeted spells, such as Magic Missile, the other is untargeted spells, such as Cone of Cold. The way you can tell the difference is if they have a "TARGET" entry in the Effect section of the spell description.
So Magic Missile says:
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets up to five creatures, no two of which can be more than 15 ft. apart
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes
While Cone of Cold says:
Range 60 ft.
Area cone-shaped burst
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Reflex half; Spell Resistance yes
Note the lack of a target entry in Cone of Cold. It is an untargeted spell.
What this means for casting in areas of magical darkness or where you otherwise have limited perception relates to this paragraph from the "Aiming a Spell" section of the Magic chapter:
Some spells have a target or targets. You cast these spells on creatures or objects, as defined by the spell itself. You must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target. You do not have to select your target until you finish casting the spell.
So, if a spell is targeted, as Magic Missile, then you must be able to see or touch the target. In total darkness, if the target is right next to you, then, you can cast a targeted spell and then attempt a touch attack against the target (if it is a touch range spell, then you can make that attack for free as part of casting), but it will be subject to the 50% miss chance granted by total concealment. Also, since that touch attack would be a melee attack, it would benefit from the blind-fight feat chain.
If the target you want to hit is not adjacent, then you can't target them because you can neither see nor touch them.
If the spell is untargeted, then you CAN affect the area where you believe the person you want to affect is. Here's that paragraph:
Some spells affect an area. Sometimes a spell description specifies a specially defined area, but usually an area falls into one of the categories defined below.
Regardless of the shape of the area, you select the point where the spell originates, but otherwise you don't control which creatures or objects the spell affects. The point of origin of a spell is always a grid intersection. When determining whether a given creature is within the area of a spell, count out the distance from the point of origin in squares just as you do when moving a character or when determining the range for a ranged attack.
So for cone of cold, your starting point is defined as one of the corners of your square, and it goes out in a semicircle from there to a range of sixty feet. If you think that the enemies are all thirty feet from you to the northeast, then you cast the spell and direct it to the north east.
You plot out the cone on the mat to see what squares it affects. Any creature in those squares is affected, regardless of your ability to see them. They receive no miss chance, because a miss chance only applies against a targeted attack, which this is not.
If you do not know where the enemy is and cannot see them, then you can attempt to pin point them with perception using a move action. If you succeed, then you know where they are, but you still cannot see them, so targeted spells are still a no-go. But, it makes your untargeted AoE spells, like Cone of Cold, much easier to aim because you know it's a sure thing to get them in it.
EDIT: fixed a typo and a erroneous use of the word target for touch.
EDIT 2: The point about making a touch attack to target a non-touch range spell is my interpretation of how it would work, but usually runs into action economy problems for non touch range-spells. It might be safer to say that if you want to target someone in total darkness with a targeted non-touch range spell, then you would have to be grappling them first.