You draw the Wall of Fire from a grid intersection to another grid intersection as a line. It either runs across a grid line, or diagonally through squares.
Shamelessly ripped from myself, here's an example of a 10 ft. corridor with a wall spell inside it.
Let's start the first scenario. A spellcaster puts the Wall of Fire straight down the centre.
Example One is where you draw a line straight down the middle. If you were to put a Wall of Fire in a straight line along the grid line down the exact centre of a 10 ft. wide hallway, nobody takes damage from entering the wall when it's cast because it isn't passing through their square. However, it's blocking their movement to the other side of the hallway. If they moved across the line from column d to column e in Example One, they'd take damage as they crossed the wall's effect. The caster picks which side of the wall radiates heat, so anyone on that side takes the specified damage.
Example Two is where you fill a column with fire. Instead of drawing the wall down the grid line, you could draw the line from one corner of the column d to the opposite, and it therefore passes through all the squares in column d. In that case all creatures in column d when it is cast take damage as if they entered the wall.
In Example Three, the caster has put the Wall of Fire all the way across the hallway. Anyone in column d, rows 1 to 4, are inside the wall. Anyone in column e, rows 5 to 8, are inside the wall. Anyone moving from d5 to e4 takes damage too. The other squares are safe, so long as you don't enter a square containing the Wall of Fire or cross through its line. The wall radiates heat from the corner of the square it occupies up to the distance specified as counted for movement.
Yep, that's correct. It's fairly low base damage since it's unavoidable, but it combos well with other spells. Drop this and a Solid Fog, for example.
My point is the spell should not be more effective just because it running at an angle.
Welcome to the world of grid-based gaming! Please enjoy your stay.
Use the same rules that you use for movement for counting distance. If the player can enter a square crossed by a wall of fire, or actually cross the wall, with 10' of movement, then they are within 10' of the wall. If it takes 15' of movement to do either, they are within 20' of the wall.
At F1, they are within 10' of the wall because movement W, W (or SW, W) takes them to an occupied square.
Does this make the wall more effective because it's at an angle? Yes, if you are on the side where it's angling towards you, but that's how angles work: the wall actually is closer to you there. If you are on the other side, though, it's as or less effective because it's farther away (A1, for instance, is still 15' away). But of course, only the one side matters for this particular spell.
(Edited again and again to fix my wording)
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As I said in the blade barrier thread, I'm not convinced it even has to start at a grid intersection, as it's not an Area spell. That doesn't really affect the rest of the analysis, though, which is excellent.
I would just count 2-4 squares out from the line-occupied squares to determine if someone is within its heat field.
I would just count 2-4 squares out from the line-occupied squares to determine if someone is within its heat field.So you are saying whether the wall in the gridline left of D1 or it crosses D1, H1 is safe from the fire effect 20 feet out. Interesting.
Actually, H1 would be effected too by my interpretation (and it would be the last one to be effected). I could totally see other GMs counting D1 as the first square though, which would also be a reasonable interpretation.
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I'm not convinced it even has to start at a grid intersection, as it's not an Area spell.But it does affect an area. If instead of starting an intersection. Say it starts half way between two intersections. Is the square next to the origin point affected by the fire or not? How about the similar square at the other end of the sheet of flames? If the length of the wall is 160 feet, does the halfway between two grid intersections wall affect 155 feet, 160 feet, or 165 feet of squares by 20 feet of squares to one side of the wall?
Strictly, no, it doesn't affect an area. It creates an effect, the wall, which then deals damage to creatures based on how far away from the hot side of wall they are.
In practice, for ease of play and adjudication, we've always started the wall at a grid intersection. But I don't believe there's anything in the rules that require this - and not doing so doesn't present insurmoutable problems. (In your example, I'd rule that the wall counts as being "in" one of the end squares, but not the other - your choice which.) It's also quite nice to imagine a wizard saying "I want the wall to run from that tree to that rock", without any consideration of where those things are in relation to the grid.
If one character is standing in D1 and another in H1 they are standing 20 feet apart. It should not be possible for both of them to be within the 20 foot range of the heat effect of the wall.
It's a mathematical anomoly of the grid based system. The wall of fire passes through square D1, so square D1 is occupied by the wall. A person standing at D1 is therefore 0 ft from the wall.
It may not be intuitive and it may create small artifacts as a result of the math, but it is internally consistent.
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Remember, the grid is there to help you, not to "trap" you.
If you are fighting in a corridor slanted at 45° on the adventure map, you aren't forced to draw it that way. Most GM would rotate the map when drawing it for play so that it is a straight corridor of full squares, not play with two row of half squares.
In the above situation, with a WoF stating in the center of a square, so that it affect two half squares, you kindly ask the player to place it so that it work with the current situation or shift the map to adapt it to how it was placed.
Pathfinder is a collaborative game, not a "I should squeeze every advantage I can get" game.
It's not internally consistent. Internally consistent would have one "half" square affected and then the other "half" square not-affected. Internally consistent would allow area of effect spells to be cast in the center of a square to game the grid in the same way this spell games the grid.
It's internally consistent exactly because it doesn't consider half squares. "Area" and "Effect" based magic generally affects everything in a square if the magic crosses into the square. Your example is consistent with that.
Forseti is right.
Pathfinder is a collaborative game, not a "I should squeeze every advantage I can get" game.
Every game is a "I should squeeze every advantage I can get" game. That's how you train yourself to be successful in life.
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:P
It's not internally consistent. Internally consistent would have one "half" square affected and then the other "half" square not-affected. Internally consistent would allow area of effect spells to be cast in the center of a square to game the grid in the same way this spell games the grid.
Pathfinder doesn't define "half affected" squares. A square is affected or it is not. And remember that AoE spells target square intersections, not the center of squares.
It is internally consistent because it uses the same rules as the rules for movement, and the artifact of the grid that you describe is the same one that exists for movement.
For example: on your turn you may take a 5' step. That step lets you move into any of the 8 squares surrounding your square on the grid. Mathematically, that means you can move anywhere within a 5' radius, which means the area you can move in to is described by a circle with a 10' diameter centered on you. But the eight squares that you are allowed to move in to forms a 3x3 array of squares...which has a diameter of 15', not 10'. And along the diagonal, it's really 20' by the diagonal movement rules. You can try and argue that you're moving from "center to center" of the square, but that is not how PF or 3.5 define squares. As a medium creature, you occupy your whole square. You are either in a square or you are not. There is no such thing as half a square.
That's what I mean by saying "internally consistent". The artifacts of the grid approximations are the same, well understood, and don't require special rules whether you are talking movement or distances to things. For Wall of Fire, just count squares from where you are until you hit an occupied square, or cross the line (if the wall was placed perfectly horizontal or vertical between squares).
Note that these anomalies are probably why spells with an AoE must target a grid intersection instead of a grid square. It eliminates the "origin in the middle of a square" problem, which would effectively add 5' to the diameter of everything. But of course it creates problems elsewhere.
The problem you are having with this is that you are trying to apply precise math to a system that simplifies distances into 5' blocks, using two overlapping coordinates systems (one for the squares, and one for the intersections). Don't try to do that. You won't be able to resolve the discrepancies. Just accept that the grid is there to make it easy to quickly estimate a distance from A to B, and that a consequence of that simplicity is that sometimes you get weird answers.
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Personally, I would rule that a creature in H1 is not "within 20 feet of the wall". The wall is a sheet, and doesn't fill the whole of the squares it passes through.
Personally, I would rule that a creature in H1 is not "within 20 feet of the wall". The wall is a sheet, and doesn't fill the whole of the squares it passes through.
You are welcome to do as you please in your game. You are making it harder on yourself by adding special cases and conditions, but that is your choice.
Pathfinder (and 3.5) defines Line effect spells as occupying the entire square that they are in, per the PRD templates. Wall of Fire is a line effect with a vertical height to it (aka a plane/sheet). By that rule, it really shouldn't be placed vertically or horizontally on the grid intersections between squares like the OP shows in Example 1: it should occupy the squares like line effect spells do as shown in the PRD.
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There isn't any such thing as a "line effect" spell in Pathfinder. There are Area spells that are line-shaped (such as lightning bolt) - for which those templates are intended. Wall of fire is an Effect spell, and as such has no connection to the rules for line-shaped Area spells.
There isn't any such thing as a "line effect" spell in Pathfinder. There are Area spells that are line-shaped (such as lightning bolt) - for which those templates are intended. Wall of fire is an Effect spell, and as such has no connection to the rules for line-shaped Area spells.
You're arguing semantics here. A "line-shaped area" is nonsensical in geometry. A line is a line. But there are rules for what squares are affected by a line such as lightning bolt, which is why you get things like "line-shaped areas".
Rather than create new rules and conditions for Wall of Fire, it's easier to just assume that the wall, which looks like a line when viewed top-down, affects the squares it passes through just like other spells that emit rays/lines (Lightning Bolt, Disintegrate, et. al.), and has a "line-shaped area" of effect for the squares it occupies. Thus dealing the "passing through" damage of 2d6+1/CL to people who are standing "in" the wall-occupied squares.
YMMV. The PRD is ambiguous so there's no right or wrong answer, only more or less work.
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There isn't any such thing as a "line effect" spell in Pathfinder. There are Area spells that are line-shaped (such as lightning bolt) - for which those templates are intended. Wall of fire is an Effect spell, and as such has no connection to the rules for line-shaped Area spells.You're arguing semantics here. A "line-shaped area" is nonsensical in geometry. A line is a line. But there are rules for what squares are affected by a line such as lightning bolt, which is why you get things like "line-shaped areas".
Rather than create new rules and conditions for Wall of Fire, it's easier to just assume that the wall, which looks like a line when viewed top-down, affects the squares it passes through just like other spells that emit rays/lines (Lightning Bolt, Disintegrate, et. al.), and has a "line-shaped area" of effect for the squares it occupies. Thus dealing the "passing through" damage of 2d6+1/CL to people who are standing "in" the wall-occupied squares.
YMMV. The PRD is ambiguous so there's no right or wrong answer, only more or less work.
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.
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Cone, Cylinder, Line, or Sphere: Most spells that affect an area have a particular shape.
But Wall of fire don't have an area, it has an effect.
Effect opaque sheet of flame up to 20 ft. long/level or a ring of fire with a radius of up to 5 ft./two levels; either form 20 ft. highWhat you are doing is trying to apply unrelated rules. It is akin to say "tree leaves are green and able to do photosynthesis, so green toad are able to photosynthesize."
But Wall of fire don't have an area, it has an effect.
What you are doing is trying to apply unrelated rules.
You're splitting hairs. At the end of the day, you just need a consistent system to figure out which squares are affected by the spell.
If you want to use a system where lines are represented by two sets of rules: one for spells with "line-shaped areas of effect", and another for lines representing Wall of Fire spells, then knock yourself out. Me? I prefer simplicity.
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You're arguing semantics here.
I'm not arguing semantics. In the rules for Casting Spells, "Area" and "Effect" are specific game terms, and getting them confused leads to all sorts of issues.
These rules are presented working through the spell description format, category by category: Name, School, Level, Components, Casting Time, and Range. The next section is titled "Aiming a Spell" and states:
You must make choices about whom a spell is to affect or where an effect is to originate, depending on a spell's type. The next entry in a spell description defines the spell's target (or targets), its effect, or its area, as appropriate.
We're now on to the next entry in the spell description, which is one of three types: Target, Effect, or Area. We have three separate sections of rules, covering the rules for each of those types of spell. So, from the construction of this whole part of the rules, it seems clear that you should only apply the rules from the appropriate section to any given spell; the other sections are talking about different types of spell. Furthermore, the rules in the different sections don't make sense if applied to other types of spell (for example, the Area section says "you select the point where the spell originates, but otherwise you don't control which creatures or objects the spell affects", which wouldn't make sense if you tried to apply that to a Target spell). A Line spell is a subtype of an Area spell. Trying to apply the rules for this to an Effect spell is erroneous and confusing. Pointing out that error is neither arguing semantics nor splitting hairs, it's drawing the readers' attention to a significant aspect of the rules for spells.
Furthermore, your absolute assertion that "Wall of Fire is a line effect" is simply untrue.
You are attempting to apply the rules for Line spells to wall of fire - ignoring the distinctions put in place by the game's designers - claiming that this somehow makes things easier. In fact, as shown in this thread, it makes things more confusing and illogical. No new "rules and conditions" are required to adjudicate the effect of wall of fire without pretending it's some sort of Line spell. You simply need to read the spell's text and apply it. Are creatures within 20 feet of the wall's hot side? If so, then they are damaged by it.
Wall of Fire is an Effect and not an Area:Line. You can designate the specifics of this "opaque" sheet of flame as you see fit.
Effect: Some spells create or summon things rather than affecting things that are already present.
You must designate the location where these things are to appear, either by seeing it or defining it.
It doesn't follow the Area: Line rules. The spellcaster creates the effect as they see fit (under the rules). GM counts squares away as if the person is moving. If a target is within the right movement distance to any part of the wall, then they are affected.
If the Paizo Team answers this FAQ Request then the answer could very well shed light on this same (and often asked) question.
That bigger area is the result of the granularity of distances, and that's just fine because it's the way all ranges and distances are calculated.
Here's where it results from: everything within a single square is at a zero distance from everything else in the square. Everything in a square is at 5' distance from everything in an adjacent square.
The weird distance thing works both ways: two things on the far edges of their respective adjacent squares would be, in reality, almost 10' apart. For the purpose of calculating in-game distances, they're 5' apart. Two things close to the dividing edge of their respective adjacent squares might in the real world practically touch each other. For the purpose of range calculations in the game, they're 5' apart.
The thing is, you shouldn't overthink it, and just count squares. Stopping to consider one anomaly of the grid system is pointless. There are countless such anomalies.
You could look at that diagram, then rule that squares with less than 50% coverage are unaffected. If you did that, wouldn't that make it about right in terms of proper spacing effected?
You're not counting squares, you're doing maths that disregard how the game works.
When you count squares, you start where the effect originates. This is the zero distance point. You count 4 squares away from there. Just like you count every distance in the game.