A few questions have come up in one of my games regarding targeting of spells.
1) A player (Small size) is at on end of a 10" wide 10' high passage with 2 large allies in front of him followed by a 5' high wall and then 2 large enemies. He wishes to cast a fireball that targets behind the 2nd of the enemies.
Q - Does some sort of roll need to be made to avoid all the potential targets of the Fireball bead before it reaches the desired location?
Quote: You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. An early impact results in an early detonation. If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must "hit" the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely. 2) When targeting burst spells in general you choose a point for the spell to originate from. Do you need to see the spot you which to originate from? Or can you say "I'll cast glitterdust originating from a point inside that house 40' from where I'm standing".
While the early part on choosing a target for spells requires LoS of the target later when it talks about area spells that Burst, Spread or Emanation it says you have to choose a place for the spell to originate but doesn't define what restrictions, if any, there are regarding the spot you choose.
Am I missing a rule somewhere?
Quote: Target or Targets
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.
Quote: Area
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.
Thanks for any help given.
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber
1) Other than the arrow slit rules in the fireball spell itself, there are no such requirements. As a HOUSE RULE a GM might require a roll to hit a specific grid intersection or square a la the rules for splash weapons, but that wouldn't be RAW.
2) You need an LOE to point of origin. You may or may not need an LOS depending on the spell. You can, for example, cast a fireball into a fog cloud to a point you can't see by specifying range and bearing. It's doubtful that you'd have an LOE to "inside that house".
Line of Effect wrote: You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect. You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.
1) There is the issue with the 5' wall, which is higher than the caster in this case. If you draw your line from your square to a grid space you'll hit the wall and that would stop LoS and LoE.
Disregarding the wall, I think it's GM's call if targeting something behind 4 creatures is equivalent to a narrow passage.
2) Line of Effect to the target intersection means it's unlikely you can target something inside a house.
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber
Alderic wrote: 1) There is the issue with the 5' wall, which is higher than the caster in this case. If you draw your line from your square to a grid space you'll hit the wall and that would stop LoS and LoE. Remember that you can target grid intersections that are not on the ground, since you're not relying on the ground to detonate your fireball (although you can't do this with alchemical weapons that DO need the ground to break them). Since you can also specify the "altitude" that the fireball detonates, firing over the wall is no issue as the small caster can specify "range 45, height 10, bearing straight down this passage".
*AABB_CCDD_
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Burst at *
Caster at o
A couple of points -
1) Line of Effect is definitely NOT specified for choosing a point of origin for a spell. LoE is only used for calculating what get s affected by the spell as it bursts from the point of Origin.
So using LoE to say you can target a spot inside a house when you are on the otherside of a blank wall of the house is as much a house rule as saying you need LoS.
Fireball specifies that impacting [b]"a material body or solid barrier"[\b] is enough to cause Fireball bead to detonate.
Would not the body of a creature be a "material body" and there fore if you are firing the bead through occupied space there would be a chance of the fireball detonating prematurely as the spell describes?
While in many situations you can aim for a spot above a melee with out going past "material bodies", in enclosed spaces this is frequently not viable, especially if you are small and there are large allies in front of you.
Quote: Line of Effect: A line of effect is a straight, unblocked path that indicates what a spell can affect. A line of effect is canceled by a solid barrier. It's like line of sight for ranged weapons, except that it's not blocked by fog, darkness, and other factors that limit normal sight.
You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect. You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.
A burst, cone, cylinder, or emanation spell affects only an area, creature, or object to which it has line of effect from its origin (a spherical burst's center point, a cone-shaped burst's starting point, a cylinder's circle, or an emanation's point of origin).
An otherwise solid barrier with a hole of at least 1 square foot through it does not block a spell's line of effect. Such an opening means that the 5-foot length of wall containing the hole is no longer considered a barrier for purposes of a spell's line of effect.
The full line of effect rules.
Thank you. I was reading the Aiming Spells rules, not the Line of Effect rules.
I should know better than to expect all the relevant aiming rules to be in the Aiming Spells section. :-)
That still leaves the Question as to what determines whether a Material Body potentially blocks a Fireball and how to determine whether the bead gets past it or not.
Ask your GM to adjudicate if a creature blocks, there are no rules.
LOL.
I am the GM and one of my players in particular has gotten quite insistent that I have it wrong and that nothing less than wall's etcetera can block it.
So I said I would see if there was a rule that people here knew about that I was missing.
I'll give you some friendly advice, from some who has GM multiple hundreds of PFS scenarios and decades of weekly non-PFS material.
Tell that player in a polite way the matter is settled, your job as GM is to adjudicate the rules, you have done so and here is the result, we shall not bring this subject up again.
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber
Stephen Ede wrote: 1) Line of Effect is definitely NOT specified for choosing a point of origin for a spell. LoE is only used for calculating what get s affected by the spell as it bursts from the point of Origin. You are mistaken.
Line of Effect wrote: You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.
Yes. James Risner found the reference for me. 1st. :-)
I made the mistake of just reading the rules on Aiming Spells. Not on Line of Effect.
Silly me for thinking the Aiming Spells section would mention if Line of Effect was needed for aiming spells. (Blush) :P
While we're here: Is there a rule saying you can target intersections above ground or it is just implied or actually an house rule we've all been using ?
While I found out it's prohibited for most Conjuration spells (which is good to know for stuff like glitterdust since you have to create any such effect on a surface) Everything else is an unknown (at least for me)
@Stephen: The fireball spell itself says you have to "hit" a narrow opening to avoid the obstacle, so it's definitely not just a solid wall that can stop it. Unfortunately, there is no AC for this narrow opening, so it's basically GM's call, you could go for the standard AC of an object and modify it for it's size.
Re: Glitterdust -
Quote: A cloud of golden particles covers everyone and everything in the area, causing creatures to become blinded and visibly outlining invisible things for the duration of the spell. All within the area are covered by the dust, which cannot be removed and continues to sparkle until it fades. Each round at the end of their turn blinded creatures may attempt new saving throws to end the blindness effect. while the Conjuration rules say
Quote: A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it. As Glitterdust is neither a "Creature" or an "Object" but rather a cloud of glittering dust (essentially a vast number of objects" would that rule requiring a surface still apply? Or would a flying creature count as a "surface" for the purpose of casting the spell?
Those conjugation rules are intended to block:
No you can't conjure a cow 500 ft above the dragon to do 20d6 cow falling damage to the Dragon you jerk!
Dude, no you can conjure a walk of iron lean on the cliff so it falls and crashes your enrmies.
It's not designed to block making your flying sorcerer enemies glittery.
In other words, it's designed to block non combat spells from being used as Combat spells.
You don't conjure Cows above dragons anyway, there is a unwritten rule that says you can only do it with Whales of flowers.
Whatever the RAI might have been, that's what ended up written on the book, so that's what we have to work with.
I'm still not convinced that sentence alone prevents you from using teleportation magic to end up flying above your enemies, since you're not creating anything nor trasporting it to your location, you're going somewhere else, taking something with you might be a problem...
But we digress. Has anything been found about targeting grid intersection not on the ground ?
StephenEde wrote: 1) A player (Small size) is at on end of a 10" wide 10' high passage with 2 large allies in front of him followed by a 5' high wall and then 2 large enemies. He wishes to cast a fireball that targets behind the 2nd of the enemies. Shooting or Throwing into a Melee wrote: If your target (or the part of your target you're aiming at, if it's a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest friendly character, you can avoid the –4 penalty, even if the creature you're aiming at is engaged in melee with a friendly character. If the target intersection of the Fireball is right behind the second large Enemie, there should be no problem.(more than 10'from a friendly character)
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber
Fireball specifically states "You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst." so can definitely burst at an intersection not on the ground.
Dr Styx wrote:
Shooting or Throwing into a Melee wrote: If your target (or the part of your target you're aiming at, if it's a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest friendly character, you can avoid the –4 penalty, even if the creature you're aiming at is engaged in melee with a friendly character. That refers to the penalty for shooting at someone in combat.
It's not the penalty for shooting at someone with Cover.
Different penalties.
Although it is a good point that I will need to remember regarding shooting a fireball at a target engaged in combat.
I had forgotten that penalty would apply. The Archer in the party has the feat that ignores that penalty.
And that's how we've been throwing fireballs for almost 30 years. Trying to figure out who was in range of a fireball 5' up, or 10' up.
Is fireball an exception ? A relic from the past (for requiring an attack roll in a specific case) ?
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