Spike Stones and Large creatures

[Krith]

Curious if there's any rulings on how Spike Stones effects creatures larger than medium. From the spell:

"each creature moving through the area takes 1d8 points of piercing damage for each 5 feet of movement through the spiked area."

Pretty much wondering about that "for each 5 feet of movement" clause and how it's interpreted.

Does this mean a large creature would take 4d8 damage per squares moved, as they're moving through four squares every time they move 5 feet?

or

Does it only count "new squares moved into," so that a straight move would do 2d8 damage and a diagonal would do 3d8?

Didn't see any posting on this but wondering if anyone knows of any rulings. Thanks!

[Jayder22]

I don't see why they would be treated any differently because of their size. A large creature with 30ft of movement doesn't use 10ft to move forward 1 square on the battle grid, it uses 5. The spell isn't asking how many new squares are being covered, just how many feet of movement.

If a Large Creature takes a 5 ft step, they used 5 feet of movement and take 1d8. If they have a movement speed of 30 feet and attempt to move out using all of their movement, they will move 15 feet and take 3d8 (assuming they don't get out before, and accounting for the difficult terrain)

edit: that is my interpretation at least.

[Krith]

Jayder,
Interesting. I hadn't looked at it that way. I see more of a need for clarification now on whether the spell references "a creature's movement" or "movement through the area."

I read it as "per 5 foot square" but can see how it could be read the other way.

I think it makes more sense to go by each 5 foot square as it just makes sense to me that a giant slug with much more body surface connecting with the spike stoned-ground would take more damage than a medium creature with less surface area doing the same thing. But again, I can see it being read the other way.