Does Concealment protect against spells?

[Net-Soul]

Concealment miss chance basically reads that every attack should have a 20% miss chance because of low visibility or spell/spell-like/supernatural effect. So should targeted spells have that chance to miss too because of their need to either touch or see and specifically choose the target?

I am not talking about Rays, or mass version of spells, or AoE spells, as those have all been clearly ruled as either being effected or ignoring concealment. I am rather talking about spells like "Chain Lightning" or "Command" as they both need a line of sight and a single target (single to begin the spell in the case of Chain Lightning).

Such spells seem like they should roll the concealment as you might not be able to make out the person in the 6 sec time of your turn (or even quicker if you move for example) and also the presence of "Magic Missile" that says that it ignores concealment lower than total concealment makes it seem like other spell shouldn't ignore it then, because such thing needs to be called out.

I'd like to have more of official rulings being called rather than "it should be X because of Y and Z would be weird..." if that is possible.

Thank you for listening and hopefully answering.

[Claxon]

If it has an attack roll it's affected, if it doesn't it's not.

Only things that have attack rolls can miss.

If you ignore the wording in Magic Missile there is basically no precedent that would imply spells without attack rolls can miss due to concealment.

And as for why Magic Missile has that wording...well if I recall its had that wording since D&D 3.X and possibly early...things have probably gotten altered in the intervening years.

[Pizza Lord]

Like Claxon says, both command and chain lightning are targeted (and the targets are chosen by you), so as long as you can see them or parts of them, you can direct the spell at them as targets.

Claxon wrote:

And as for why Magic Missile has that wording...well if I recall its had that wording since D&D 3.X and possibly early...things have probably gotten altered in the intervening years.

Magic missile targeting refers to 'total concealment', meaning that you cannot see the target at all (and also 'total cover' not just cover). That's different than concealment, which is what's being discussed in the topic (as evidenced by the 20% miss chance reference).

What that means is that target spells cannot be cast at a target that you cannot see or otherwise target. You can cast magic missile at someone with concealment and it will work fine (and ignore the concealment). You can't do that to an invisible target (unless you can see them obviously). This is further illustrated with the wording for displacement, which otherwise grants you a 50% miss chance, as though you had total concealment, but does not prevent you from being targeted (with magic missile, for instance).