|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Todd
I'm making it up - at least rules wise. I try to sensibly assign Golarion lore. But it seems I did this too quickly. You caught me out on Shelyn - so her holy symbol should work if whole OR destroyed but not inbetween ...
But without rules this is valid an interpretation as any
I think this is why GM's dislike the use of sunder. It causes a lot of guessing as to what the NPC/monster is doing, and why; what they are carrying and how is it presented. Its not that we can't do this, it is just that we want to be fair and sunder wants to break the rhythm of the combat.
|
|
Someone upstream mentioned just use mend or make whole to fix your broken +1 keen scimitar. Maybe not that easy. You need a caster of a certain level to repair that sword. Unless I am mis-remembering you can only buy spell casting at its minimum level. This absolutely gives me worry as a GM when it comes to destroying the PC's gear.
|
I think this is why GM's dislike the use of sunder. It causes a lot of guessing as to what the NPC/monster is doing, and why; what they are carrying and how is it presented. Its not that we can't do this, it is just that we want to be fair and sunder wants to break the rhythm of the combat.
This is exactly the point I try to make - sometimes in more serious way - sometimes in a less serious one. But it seems it is lost on some posters here.
I dislike to be unfair towards a player. At the same time I try to give a sensible description of what happens. But without preparation of such individual items I'm likely only think about it after a sunder specialist has rolled his dice.
And at this stage I can't just come up with rules like above as this would be unfair towards the player.
|
Rhythm of combat is broken by a lot of things. Not just sunder. Deeper Darkness anyone?You're absolutely right, although I don't remember any PC's throwing deeper darkness. If the monsters/NPC's have it I can be prepared & work the scene to its best.
I've seen PCs throw it. I've seen a pair of tiefling PCs both the double fiend sight, throw deeper darkness in battle, shutting down both all the NPCs and the rest of their party. What a fun time let me tell you. All perfectly legal, as well.
It's not a matter of working a scene. It's just mechanics that bog the combat down and it gets worse when the PCs started employing counter measures. For example how *exactly* does a heightened continual flame interact with the deeper darkness? That's a YMMV question, and each GM has to figure it out unless they have a standard way of doing it. And even then, there's radius for each effect.
|
|
There are a myriad of examples. I just strive to not make blatant mistakes and to make sure the players feel they are being treated fairly. If it takes a few minutes to hash out a mechanic, it's worth the disruption to "combat flow" or whatever. It's better than angry players after the fact. Most players accept that weird stuff can happen in combat.
Note that I've had to stop combat for 20 minutes before over lighting effects. But at the end of the 20 minutes, all the players understood how all the FAQs on the topic function and what was still YMMV. A player had cast daylight to counter darkness and I had to explain why the light level was still darkness after his spell. He was not happy at all until I explicitly showed him how the procedure is laid out RAW. I had just plowed over him for sake of "combat flow" then it would have been an issue for the rest of the session.
I'd take False Focus over Eschew Materials. I play a sundering barbarian and yes I keep the 'breaking and entering' portion of the CRB handy for that. I don't think it screws things up. In fact combat ends faster because many enemies don't seem to have backup weapons, not that it would help them much as I would just sunder those too
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
Also, last night I played in a scenario where one set of monsters autosundered any weapon that hit them. So while it is fine for GM's to say "but if I know it is in the module, I can be ready for it" in practice that becomes "It's fine for the NPC to do it, but not for the PCs."
Even more annoyingly, the enemy in question crumbled when killed, taking their masterwork longsword with them, meaning we couldn't even loot the body for backup weapons in case there were more of them.
(To add insult to injury, the scenario had the sunder rules wrong, stating even one point of damage past DR renders a weapon broken.)
|
Honestly, running a sunder focused PC at PFS is pretty bad general gaming ettiquete. It's going to end up wasting the GM and the other players time while the rules are looked up.I'm going to have to disagree here. It takes me less time to sunder an opponents weapon (and tell the GM the resulting damage to the opponent) than it takes for most players to resolve their own attacks. We're talking less than 10 seconds.
So... just no. People who have characters that can perform these things have the ability to resolve it quickly, and to explain the breakdown quickly if needed.
Really? How much informations are asking the GM to divulge you to do that?
Kind of weapon, shield and armor of the target (those you should always get, regardless of sundering or not).Composition of the same )what skills you have to recognize adamantine and darkwoor on sight, while fighting?).
Magical plusses of the item (and that is something awfully biog to give away).
Relevant feats, class abilities and so on.
The target is a magus? He enhance the weapon during the fight? Oops, hardness and hp change.
A inquisitor? He has used bane against your kind of creatures? His weapon hardness and hit point change, knowing that he has targeted your kind but not your dwarf companion before he hit you can change the whole party tactics.
If you get those informations you get a clear advantage during the fight. If you don't get them, the GM need to correct the informations you give to get the right result.
It is not so simple as you make it sound.
Here you goOoh! I should make a reference sheet for sunder, and keep it by scenarios that I'm running. Then when someone sunders something, I go "Ooh, look. I conveniently prepped a sunder reference sheet for this scenario. You know. For no particular reason." and watch the players go back in fear a little.
Very nice and useful work. Considering that a magus or a inquisitor can get the equivalent of a +5 weapon for a few round, you would need to extend it.
BTW: what is the sawing throw of a +2 weapon enhanced to +5 with a magus Arcane pool?
It is based on the crafting level, the enhancement level or the magus level?
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
Yeah, it is one of these where it is not clear if this is a case of "monster has special power that breaks the rules" or "guy writing monster misread the rule." (there is another thread going on right now about a blind monster that "sees" using deathwatch that is similar.)
|
|
For PCs who might be worried about their divine focus being sundered, there is the birthmark trait. I would have to double check, but at my last look through I believe it is PFS legal.Certainly legal. My mind tends to run to the monsters/BBEG as a GM. I haven't seen a BBEG cleric with birthmark yet. So I have to play for other contingencies.
AFAIk, NPC don't get traits. Birthmark is a trait, so you will never see one.
Seem a bit unfair sometime.
|
Very nice and useful work. Considering that a magus or a inquisitor can get the equivalent of a +5 weapon for a few round, you would need to extend it.
It's +2 Hardness and +10 HP for each +1 magical enhancement bonus the weapon/armor has. It's super easy to figure out.
But, then again, if you are built to Sunder, you probably have an Adamantine weapon, which ignores Hardness ratings below 20. No wooden or silver weapon, regardless of enhancement, will ever get that high, and steel would have to have a +5 enhancement to be protected as well.
|
|
Also note, for the spell database, you need to include every legal spell from every legal source, so that you can actually look up any possible spell being used. Don't forget to include spots in your database to list source and page, and maybe even references for older, outmoded versions, so you can tell your players where to get the current version of spell X. For instance, Infernal Healing changed enough between versions that the Cheliax book version is not a good source, anymore.Why I haven't done this yet. Actually, I plan on doing it by writing a perl script to crawl the d20pfsrd spell list, and pull the data from that into an XML, then do whatever I'm going to do with it. New book comes out? Run the perl script again, and update the db. Some one wants to disagree with my cards? point them to the srd, and tell them that if they can find a source that postdates the srd or erratas it, I will consider it. Problem solved. Automation for the win.
1) The srd isn't an official source. It is the same thing as printing a HeroLab list of the know spell: nice, but not a official source. Errors are possible.
2) There isn't a problem with it not being able to use copyrighted names? (like the Dawnflower Dervish that has become the Dervish of Dawn)|
|
just looked, apparently it is not the modules fault, it is the creature description.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/caryatid-colum n
Shatter Weapons (Ex) Whenever a character strikes a caryatid column with a weapon (magical or nonmagical), the weapon takes 3d6 points of damage. Apply the weapon's hardness normally. Weapons that take any amount of damage in excess of their hardness gain the broken quality.
I think it is a special effect of the Shatter Weapons ability.
You weapon is damaged by it, you get the broken condition, regardless of the quantity of damage the weapon has received.|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
Also note, for the spell database, you need to include every legal spell from every legal source, so that you can actually look up any possible spell being used. Don't forget to include spots in your database to list source and page, and maybe even references for older, outmoded versions, so you can tell your players where to get the current version of spell X. For instance, Infernal Healing changed enough between versions that the Cheliax book version is not a good source, anymore.Why I haven't done this yet. Actually, I plan on doing it by writing a perl script to crawl the d20pfsrd spell list, and pull the data from that into an XML, then do whatever I'm going to do with it. New book comes out? Run the perl script again, and update the db. Some one wants to disagree with my cards? point them to the srd, and tell them that if they can find a source that postdates the srd or erratas it, I will consider it. Problem solved. Automation for the win.1) The srd isn't an official source. It is the same thing as printing a HeroLab list of the know spell: nice, but not a official source. Errors are possible.
2) There isn't a problem with it not being able to use copyrighted names? (like the Dawnflower Dervish that has become the Dervish of Dawn)
Except that the d20pfsrd text is drawn directly from the books, while the herolab text is paraphrased from them by lonewolf, which is why d20pfsrd is legal for GMs to use as their core assumption (note that the new core assumption is that GMs have access to *either* the core + bestiary *or* pfsrd
in my experience, given the pfsrd has the relevant FAQ and Errata, the pfsrd is more reliable than a core book that does not have the latest errata or a supplement that may have been surplanted by anouther supplement.
Where the psfrd has changed a non-ogl name, it is listed. (and in most cases it also lists the non-ogl name.) So far I have only found that in traits, and in archetypes.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
If people prefer I can use paizo.com/prd
Additionally, a GM should have access to all books
in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game line of hardcover
rulebooks, whether a physical or electronic copy. The
rules content of these books can be found online for free
as part of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference
Document located at paizo.com/prd.
Unless you want to argue that is not a legal source.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
By the way, the point is to have an accurate tool for looking up spell requirements, not a legal reference to give a PC a spell they can't have unless I buy a book. To that point, I care more about whether d20pfsrd is up to date and accurate than whether it is a "legal" resource. In my experience, d20pfsrd is more accurate than an unerratad rule book.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
Taking a single example:
paizo.com/prd does not have hp calculations for Animal Companions.
d20pfsrd does.
In fact paizo.com/prd does not have any of the pfs errata. d20pfsrd usually at least mentions it. Meaning you are more correctly running a table if you are using d20pfsrd than if you are using prd.
In fact paizo.com/prd does not have any of the pfs errata. d20pfsrd usually at least mentions it. Meaning you are more correctly running a table if you are using d20pfsrd than if you are using prd.
Could you provide an example of that?
As far as I know, the PRD has the most current version of the information, even if it does indicate that it has been updated with errata.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
I provided an example.
Animal companions get 1d8 hp per die in prd. PFS erratad this to 4.5 hp (round down ) per die.
d20pfsrd doesn't have the new errata on animals being limited to neck and barding, but prd doesn't even have the info on what slots there are for animals. (for that matter, there is nothing in the prd to indicate that horseshoes of speed are now useless unless your animal has a specific feat.)
prd does not have rules for read lips. d20pfsrd does.
In general, if an errata occured on the PFS forum, prd doesn't seem to have it.
I provided an example.
Animal companions get 1d8 hp per die in prd. PFS erratad this to 4.5 hp (round down ) per die.
d20pfsrd doesn't have the new errata on animals being limited to neck and barding, but prd doesn't even have the info on what slots there are for animals. (for that matter, there is nothing in the prd to indicate that horseshoes of speed are now useless unless your animal has a specific feat.)
prd does not have rules for read lips. d20pfsrd does.
In general, if an errata occured on the PFS forum, prd doesn't seem to have it.
Things are clearer now.
PRD is for Pathfinder in general, not the subset that is PFS.
As Caderyn mentions above, the modifications to Pathfinder that make up PFS are in the additional resources pages and in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play (version 5.0 will be in effect on August 15th).
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
I don't care why they are doing it. My point is that the result is that the d20pfsrd is more accurate and useful for looking stuff up, therefore when I webcrawl to look stuff up, I would rather use the d20pfsrd that prd, and I believe the result of looking stuff up in d20pfsrd will be more accurate than looking stuff up in prd, and then trying to figure out if there is an errata.
I don't care why they are doing it. My point is that the result is that the d20pfsrd is more accurate and useful for looking stuff up, therefore when I webcrawl to look stuff up, I would rather use the d20pfsrd that prd, and I believe the result of looking stuff up in d20pfsrd will be more accurate than looking stuff up in prd, and then trying to figure out if there is an errata.
You certainly are entitled to look up information where you want to. However, it is not an official source for "additional resources" that players need to bring when they are using spells, items, feats, etc.. from outside of the core assumption.
Also, the GM is likely to rely more on the Paizo information than 3rd party information.
|
|
All I can do is repeat that d20pfsrd is a third party resource. It is no more legal than Herolab, or any other third party resource.
Is it more convenient to search for things than on the Paizo site? Absolutely. Does it contain more material? Absolutely. Can you use it as a source for this list that you wish to create? Absolutely not.
The biggest flaw I can see with wanting to use d20pfsrd is that all the random, rarely used spells that were published in handbooks and APs, and other non-OGL material, will have different names and/or different wording. I used to rely on d20pfsrd exclusively, before I became a PFS GM. Since that time I have used it less and less, and today rarely use it at all. I suggest you do the same.
Is it an excellent resource for home games and GMs? Absolutely. But there are other options for PFS.
(by the way, the "pfs" in "d20pfsrd" is often miscontstrued to mean "Pathfinder Society", but it actually stands for "d20 Pathfinder Source Reference Document". It is not a site dedicated to PFS.)
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
*knocks head against desk*
This entire conversation has nothing to do with players bringing what they need.
This entire conversation is about rules lookups that slow down play. It devolved into a discussion of useful GM resources for fast rule lookup.
People brought up numerous *third party* charts, flowcharts, and reference sheets for grappling and for item damage, because it was pointed out that referencing these rules from paizo sources required massive cross referencing.
The topic of spell-casters / clerics being disarmed / shattered of their holy symbol / spell components kept coming up.
I commented that *before I start GMING* I want a deck of all the spells that are likely to show up in a scenario (Which means all the ones from the hardcover *and* softcovers) so that if a PC / NPC is silenced, robbed, or otherwise hindered from spell casting, I can quickly look up what they can and cannot cast. (I haven't decide if it will be a physical deck, an electric deck, or both)
THE ENTIRE CONTEXT of this conversation has become "What third party resources are there out there to make life easier for a GM"
If you are just coming in to say "well thats not a legal resource so your player character can't use it to justify their spell" you have COMPLETELY missed the point.
I am sorry I am upset, and I am trying to be polite, but this went from a thread full of useful information and discussion of game and table philosophy to an endless stream of "you can't use that GM aid, it's not written by paizo." Can we please get back on topic now?
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
The biggest flaw I can see with wanting to use d20pfsrd is that all the random, rarely used spells that were published in handbooks and APs, and other non-OGL material, will have different names and/or different wording. I used to rely on d20pfsrd exclusively, before I became a PFS GM. Since that time I have used it less and less, and today rarely use it at all. I suggest you do the same.
Except that the alternative is to have *no access to those spells at all.* And while thats fine when I am a player, it is a non option as a GM. Even if I had the capital to buy every pdf that had spells players and NPCs might use, I don't have a useful way to extract that into a quick reference document.
To take a counter example, the posters further up the thread mentioned and linked to item hardness tables and grapple flow charts. Those aren't paizo published materials, and also don't have every twist and turn from every pfs legal adventure path, but what they are is quick ways to look up information that is scattered across a whole bunch of books and pages. And thats all I'm looking at for spells. and as far as I can tell, d20pfsrd does that better and faster and wider than the prd. Thats all I'm saying.
|
|
I can go over this with you more on Tuesday in person, but no, I haven't missed the point. Never did I mention PCs, I was addressing you as a GM. If you wish to use third party source material, just be aware that there is a higher likelihood that you will quote something wrong. And when/if that happens, the problems it will cause will cancel out the time you think you're saving by doing this.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
Speaking of disrupting combat, what about npc's that open with Confusion? Does not make for a fun encounter.
Sorry, I missed your post in the "omg you can't use d20pfsrd it's not licensed" avalanche. Thankfully I haven't seen confusion in action yet. I've played in two scenarios with it, and both times everyone made their save. I believe at least one of those was a mass confusion effect the first round of combat, which could easily have ended badly for the 2nd level bard standing next to the 5th level barbarian and 6th level magus... (that would be me)
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
I can go over this with you more on Tuesday in person, but no, I haven't missed the point. Never did I mention PCs, I was addressing you as a GM. If you wish to use third party source material, just be aware that there is a higher likelihood that you will quote something wrong. And when/if that happens, the problems it will cause will cancel out the time you think you're saving by doing this.
Actually, the reason I quoted you in that last post is that I think you were the only person in that stream who was raising a useful point. If you have found inaccuracies in the d20pfsrd, that is useful information. Then when I write the script, I can have it pull all the spells from both sites, diff the output, and then throw up any discrepencies so that I can check them. (I may acutually, now that I think about it, also want to throw a spider across to Netheys guide to pull the "book source" and "pfs legal" fields. Even if I do have to caveat them, at least I will have some info.)
In my limited experience thus far with pfs, GM's having information they can't find, or information it takes them to long to find so they wing it has ruined more stuff than gm's having misworded information from third party sites.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
Here you goOoh! I should make a reference sheet for sunder, and keep it by scenarios that I'm running. Then when someone sunders something, I go "Ooh, look. I conveniently prepped a sunder reference sheet for this scenario. You know. For no particular reason." and watch the players go back in fear a little.
Finally got around to looking at this. I think I need to build a calculator. I was looking at all the stuff I have on my character sheet that is not on here. (Darkwood, Darkleaf, etc. ) If I put all those things on, the chart will be to large. Also, why do you have hardness and hit points for a mithral wooden shield?
|
|
Sorry, I missed your post in the "omg you can't use d20pfsrd it's not licensed" avalanche. Thankfully I haven't seen confusion in action yet. I've played in two scenarios with it, and both times everyone made their save. I believe at least one of those was a mass confusion effect the first round of combat, which could easily have ended badlydesign the 2nd level bard standing next to the 5th level barbarian and 6th level magus... (that would be me)
One of the more recent scenarios has a npc that has this on her list. I don't know if it's listed as her opening spell in the tactics entry on her stat block (I have not GMed it yet), but it really slowed down the encounter and made it potentially deadly to the fragile characters by forcing PvP (I know mind control PvP is allowed, but it's a dick move IMO to design that as the crux of the encounter). There are so many better ways to write a challenging encounter than to bog things down like that.
|
|
Finally got around to looking at this. I think I need to build a calculator. I was looking at all the stuff I have on my character sheet that is not on here. (Darkwood, Darkleaf, etc. ) If I put all those things on, the chart will be to large. Also, why do you have hardness and hit points for a mithral wooden shield?Here you goOoh! I should make a reference sheet for sunder, and keep it by scenarios that I'm running. Then when someone sunders something, I go "Ooh, look. I conveniently prepped a sunder reference sheet for this scenario. You know. For no particular reason." and watch the players go back in fear a little.
Because I'm lazy, and making a list of all the weapons and applying any changes from the more common special materials is a lot faster than going through each individual weapon.
It's a shared resource; feel free to make any changes or additions.
|
|
@FLite: Given how PFS scenarios work, you should not need anything besides the material from Paizo's PRD and the Core assumption to GM any scenario.
The problem with the D20PFsrd is that the names have been changed, it includes third party material, and it can lead to player confusion. "Is such-and-so" legal for PFS questions, with no easy way to answer, since they are using the D20 name instead of the Paizo name. Bleh.
@Xuttah: Confusion is bad, but I will rate it higher than getting clotheslined to death in the first round of combat.
Note: My PC was NOT at the front of the party, despite being a melee-focused build. Without the crit, my PC would still have been dead dead. My PC was being played at tier. My PC, while not uber-optimized, was by no means badly built.
Fun? Not my definition of fun. Especially when there was nothing, other than making a totally different PC build, could have prevented it.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
For me to GM up to *my* standards, I would need:
the material from the PRD,
the Core Assumptions,
The latest Errata,
The whole FAQ,
Any rulings that have been posted to the board,
the Animal Archive, which is not in the PRD,
the ability to quickly lookup any spell the PC is using, which mean not having to ask them for their book to page through, so that I can see if they are in range, etc
the ability to quickly look up any object's hardness & hipoints. (and before you tell me I don't need that I was just in a game last week where the NPCs were using gear destruction.)
All the grapple rules in one place. (the grapple flowchart someone posted is a good start)
All the wildshape rules in one place (I think it was Nefreet who was showing me that last tuesday) if there are going to be druids.
I'm sure I'll find more things to want.
I can GM without all that. (I once GMed with a single monster manual, 5d6, and no internet or electronics in a moving car.) But I GM better with all that.
As far as name changes, for me, as a GM, looking stuff up, that really is just going to mean I can't find it and have to fall back on the book. As far as is this PFS legal, I am more likely to look it up on Nethys. As far as third party stuff, d20pfsrd is pretty good at marking it.
I understand why people get annoyed at using d20pfsrd to build characters, but I feel that as a GM data aggragator, it has a role, and if that role has to be cross-checked against Nethys and prd, thats fine, but Nethys doesn't have the FAQ, PRD doesn't have the PFS changes, and the books don't have the errata and are not quick lookup. So each has it's role, and the reason I want to have a web tool is that it lets me minimize the weaknesses of each of these, and maxamise their strengths.
For example, your NPC just hit the PC with a silence. The PC wants to cast blood money. Does that have a verbal component? If I exclude d20pfs from my data, I can't look it up without stopping game to leaf through the players book. (Nethys has it but they have the 3.0 version which costs XP to use.)
For example, the PC is a deaf oracle, he wants to know if he can get better at reading lips. If I search the prd / Nethys for "read lips", I (wrongly) tell him that the only option is to make a DC 20 linguistics check each time. If I search d20pfsrd I get the answer that he can take "Read Lips" as a language and need not even check unless he is over 10 feet away or in dim light, and I can give him a link to the entry in the FAQ.
I'm not saying use only d20pfsrd, I'm not saying build your character out of it. I'm saying use it as a complement to the dataset.
|
As a GM I actually appreciate a player who uses their head. If they had the foresight to prepare for enemies using powerful magical equipment by setting themselves up a reasonable ability to sunder? More power to them. Sunder all ya want. On the same hand, if I am given control of an enemy NPC and I notice they have improved sunder as a feat? Protip: Somebody's equipment is probably getting broken unless the assigned tactics for that adversary do not allow enough flexibility to fit that in.
|
|
The correct answer to your Blood Money example is, "The player must have a printout or the book it comes from, or they can't use it".
In our area, since most everyone knows everyone, players are given more freedom than they are really supposed to have. The times you've encountered the game slowing down, and thusly the scramble to find the text online, is because the player did not possess the source they were supposed to.
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
Not so much at your table Nefreet, but I've watched a lot of GMs scrambling through physical books looking for things that I could find faster electronically.
And my point with blood money, is that while the player has to have the book, just having the book means that now I have to look through the book for a single spell, slowing play.
I've also watched GMs and players (players are worse by the way) slow combat to a stand still looking through their spell list saying "can I cast that? *flips through book* nope? Okay, what about that? *flips through book*
Friday I was 40 feet from a caster and got hit by color spray (15' cone) followed by a (no to hit roll needed) acid ray (range 30') because the GM didn't have a quick way to look up the details of the spell and didn't want to slow down game. (I called the color spray, and called the to hit roll on the acid spray because I didn't want to set precedents, I ate the range on the acid spray because by this point the turn was taking forever and I didn't want to go through any more. Also because it meant the GM having to calculate vertical range as well as horizontal, and I didn't have that range calculator readily to hand to prove it.)
|
|
Not so much at your table Nefreet, but I've watched a lot of GMs scrambling through physical books looking for things that I could find faster electronically.
And my point with blood money, is that while the player has to have the book, just having the book means that now I have to look through the book for a single spell, slowing play.
I've also watched GMs and players (players are worse by the way) slow combat to a stand still looking through their spell list saying "can I cast that? *flips through book* nope? Okay, what about that? *flips through book*
Friday I was 40 feet from a caster and got hit by color spray (15' cone) followed by a (no to hit roll needed) acid ray (range 30') because the GM didn't have a quick way to look up the details of the spell and didn't want to slow down game. (I called the color spray, and called the to hit roll on the acid spray because I didn't want to set precedents, I ate the range on the acid spray because by this point the turn was taking forever and I didn't want to go through any more. Also because it meant the GM having to calculate vertical range as well as horizontal, and I didn't have that range calculator readily to hand to prove it.)
I'm not sure I'd be playing with that GM again (unless they were new), because that was basically cheating. Almost anyone who has GMed a decent number of games should know the range on color spray by now. The range of color spray is clearly not open to GM interpretation.