Area effect and melee combat

[BadMJ]

Hello friends roleplayers,

I need your light on the rules for area effects such as cones, explosions (fireball ...), the magical features (lightning ...) that assigns a target engaged in a combat melee.

Let me explain,
if a caster (or any other character) using an "attack zone" with its attack target "boxes" or what is the enemy, the boxes just outside the area that can hold but allies engaged in combat melee (or control) they are also victims of the attack?

example:
Imagine a line of "nice guys" facing a line of "bad guys" in a close combat.
A wizard launches a lightning on the line of "bad guys."
Only the "bad guys" are assigned or "nice guys" too because of the fight they may also damage?

Thank you in advance.
(sorry for my english)

[wraithstrike]

BadMJ wrote:

Hello friends roleplayers,

I need your light on the rules for area effects such as cones, explosions (fireball ...), the magical features (lightning ...) that assigns a target engaged in a combat melee.

Let me explain,
if a caster (or any other character) using an "attack zone" with its attack target "boxes" or what is the enemy, the boxes just outside the area that can hold but allies engaged in combat melee (or control) they are also victims of the attack?

example:
Imagine a line of "nice guys" facing a line of "bad guys" in a close combat.
A wizard launches a lightning on the line of "bad guys."
Only the "bad guys" are assigned or "nice guys" too because of the fight they may also damage?

Thank you in advance.
(sorry for my english)

Your allies would also be injured

[Strannik]

Yep, you typically can't turn off friendly fire when using area attack spells, so if your allies are in the area of effect, they are effected by the spell as well.

[Ciaran Barnes]

I am trying to understand the intent of the question and think that in the example, the allies are adjacent to the lightning bolt and engaged in melee with enemies inside the lightning bolt. If that is the case then no the allies are not affected.

[Tarantula]

I think the question is can the wizard lightning bolt the line of badguys without hitting the good guys adjacent engaged in melee. The answer is yes, only the 5' square the character occupies is what is effected by a spell, and being in melee doesn't matter. So, for example:

☺=good guy;☻=bad guy;☼=wizard

1: Here the wizard can straight across hit all badguys and no good guys
☺☺☺☺☺☺
☻☻☻☻☻☻☼

2: Here, the wizard cannot hit all bad guys, because it is not a valid line target from him according to spell templates. At best, he could hit the 2 good guys next to him(#5,#6), then bad guys (2,3,4) then open space behind bad guys 2 and 1.
☺☺☺☺☺☺☼
☻☻☻☻☻☻

[BadMJ]

After you have read I see no formal rules exist to manage areas in melee combat.

I find it a bit strange that archer is disabled for his shots in a melee (without the rights feats) while a fireball-lightning-alchemy bomb ... can perform a surgical strike.

Anyway, thank you again for all your help, do not hesitate to add information if you find one.

[Are]

BadMJ wrote:

I find it a bit strange that archer is disabled for his shots in a melee (without the rights feats) while a fireball-lightning-alchemy bomb ... can perform a surgical strike.

It's only in very specific circumstances that such a thing would be possible. Usually, enemies and allies who are engaged in melee combat won't be placed in such a way that you can hit all of one group and none of the other.

Often, some members of one group will surround some members of the other group, or they will otherwise not be nicely placed in a straight line. Which means that most of the time, a spellcaster will have to choose whether to cast a spell such that it only hits a few enemies, or cast it such that some of his/her allies are also affected.